Never Forsaken: Finding God’s Faithfulness in Hard Places

One Monday, I read our Bible study assignment of writing down ten ways I knew God loved me. I jotted down a list during a mid-day feeding, checking the box for that part of the homework.

But three days later, I could have crossed off everything on that list. Those blessings had all been removed in some way or another, and the depression that already weighed on me gave way to despair.

Not only was life hard, but now I couldn’t even sense God’s love. The easy baby was fussy. The toddler was hard. My husband was away again. I’d been wrestling with depression’s lie that God was distant, and what kind of hope is a heaven with an absent God? And now it really seemed true.

The night before Bible study, I pulled out my list again, trying to rewrite it. Ten things honestly felt impossible. But I did realize something important: I was measuring God’s love and presence in the wrong way, basing them in changeable things, not the stability of God’s character and the truth of his Word—even when that Word seemed stale and empty.

Looking back, I can see how God was faithful in that season, not just in the “big” ways of long-term promise-keeping and character, but also in “small” ways we were cared for day-to-day.

• We had help from my mom, younger sister, and community.
• I had encouragement from my older sister and close friends.
• I had a husband who let me unload all the dirt and still loved me and saw Christ in me.
• I had acquaintances to help me with my ring sling so I could stop struggling with a carrier I didn’t like, friends who ran errands for us and watched our toddler during church, or asked me how I was really doing.
• I never had mastitis despite oversupply—and was able to turn that oversupply into a gift for an adoptive family.

But what hurt the most amidst my depression was the seeming absence of God’s presence. That piece of how God never forsook me didn’t click until four years later, when I realized that the very desire I had for his presence in the first place was a sign of the Holy Spirit at work in me—the very presence I was doubting.[1]

If you, like I was, are doubting God’s love and presence and wondering how he could ever be faithful in your suffering, try this:

1. Ask yourself these questions: How are you measuring the love God has for you? How are you measuring his presence? Are they based on your feelings and wishes and things that change, or what he has promised and guaranteed?
2. Look back: How has God been faithful in your hard places before? How has he already been faithful in this particular season, especially in ways that were surprising to you?
3. Look forward: How might you measure his love/presence in ways that don’t change?

This may not be an exercise you connect with or that makes a difference for you. It may be something to come back to at another time. But I pray it reveals at least small ways that God has not forsaken you and offers you a glimmer of hope.

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[1] Tim Keller says it well: “If you want to pray, you don’t have to be anxious about whether God will listen. You wouldn’t even be feeling helpless and needy toward God unless he was at your side making you capable of feeling that way, leading you to think of prayer.”Timothy Keller, Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God, First Edition (New York: Viking, 2014), 129.