Sometimes you just need someone to ask the question, “When you look back on where you were a year or so ago—physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, where are you now? How are you now compared to then?” This was my son’s therapist. (Yes, she’s amazing!)

The difficult season for me extended beyond twelve months, but when look back at only the past year, it held the deepest trials and the greatest wins. I had plummeted into the deepest, most desperate, hopeless place. Just so mentally and emotionally and spiritually deep in despair. Having physical difficulty to even carry on daily. I felt so intensely the verse that Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 1:8-10, “For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.”

Where was I a year ago? If you’ve followed my blogs, you probably already know.

3 fresh years from losing my dad, a greatly struggling marriage, a struggling child with autism which affects the whole family (and getting no real help with his current support staff), feeling God’s leading to leave our church and begin another, financially stressed, many unanswered and unrelieved significant health issues and, most importantly, spiritually flailing around. The very definition of “utterly burdened beyond our strength.”

Never has a verse described so accurately a season of my life. I despaired of life itself. I was not suicidal (although thoughts had crossed my mind of whether God should take me??), but I struggled to believe there was an end or even could be an end in sight. Hope seemed just out of reach.

You can read blog after blog of my desperate cries. You can read as I tried to balance it with truth from God’s Word. All the while, struggling to believe He was still in control, struggling to believe His purpose was steadfast in my anguish but beginning to feel very hopeless. I pleaded with God all the main questions. Why? What? How? Where? When? Only to hear silence. No relief. No change. Begging for God to answer, “Is this what my life is supposed to be like?”

Frantically, I clung to Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

It’s in those times that you find out what you’re really made of. Do you go down with the ship when sea gets fierce? Or do you scoop out the water, bucket by bucket, even if there seems to be no end to the storm, even if the water coming in is greater than the water you are bucketing? God wants you to surrender your heart, all the while fighting the good fight, even if it makes no sense at the time. Even if you are not exactly sure what you are fighting for or what the purpose is for His exposing and snipping at parts of your heart and mind.

God wants you.

The entire past year one word has stayed in my mind—hope.

During this past year, I’ve seen God work through the most difficult situations, conquering the impossibles. He’s brought about change I never thought possible. He’s worked in my heart as I humbly surrendered myself and reconciled my past, meeting on the other side with a rest and peace I’ve never felt. He’s given confidence despite my weaknesses, the tools I need to help my son and our family, strength I don’t possess and hope I nearly lost. Worry was fading as I grew in my faith. Through God’s grace and love, a group of believers have come alongside us in compassionate support just when it was needed most. He’s possibly cancelled a difficult diagnosis of mine and replaced it with a treatable alternative. He met needs I didn’t know we had, provided in ways I couldn’t imagine and given comfort that can only come from Him.

Because it was huge for me, I ask you the same question. “When you look back on where you were a year (or two or five) ago—physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, where are you now? How are you now compared to then?”

Sometimes you need someone to force you to reflect. Not to reflect in a self-wallowing way but to rejoice in what God’s done. To see that He has been working all along. When you do so, you see God’s mercy, goodness and faithfulness.

Perhaps you’re still in that season. The one where you are barely holding on. You’re bucketing that water out of the boat but the waves just keep crashing relentlessly. It seems pointless to fight. “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up (Galatians 6:9).” When you think He’s silent, maybe has forgotten about you, perhaps He’s waiting not only for the timing to be right for you but also to ready those who will come alongside you and walk through the difficult season with you. And to prepare them to be used to show you the truth about God that you’re struggling to see.

Read the second part of that passage again.

“But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again.”

If our deliverance isn’t an earthly one, rest assured and remain in hope that it’s surely an eternal one.