“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
-Isaiah 41:10
I couldn’t have imagined life taking such a turn. I had worn my nation’s uniform with pride, stood faithfully beside my wife, and tended to my parents with love and respect. But all of that felt distant when I was suddenly plunged into the darkest season I had ever known
What came next felt like wave after wave crashing over me—a three-month stay in a veterans’ mental health facility, the loss of my father, a cancer diagnosis, and the heavy loneliness of a world shut down by a pandemic. My body was weak, my heart was heavy, and my spirit felt drained. I called out to God, yet all I seemed to meet was silence. I didn’t see it at the time, but now, looking back, I can trace His fingerprints through every moment. He wasn’t wasting my suffering—He was using it. My prayer is that these hard-earned lessons and the reflection questions will speak to your valley, and your pain—and point you to the One who walks with us through the fire.
God Is Near to the Brokenhearted
Psalm 34:18 – “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.”
Though I couldn’t always feel Him, I see now that He was closest in the silence. In the valley, I didn’t discover a God who shouted from a distance—I found a Savior who entered the valley with me. His presence is not reserved for the mountaintop. He meets us in the mud. Jesus doesn’t run from brokenness—He runs to it. The scriptures remind us that His very heart is “gentle and lowly”—drawn to the wounded and worn, the crushed and weary.
Lessons Learned
God’s Heart Is Closest in Our Hardest Moments
In our silence, pain, and weakness, He draws near with steady, gentle love—never turning away but meeting us right where we are.
Reflection Question
How does knowing that Jesus is drawn to the broken and weary change the way you view your own weaknesses or moments of deep struggle?
Suffering has a purpose in the life of believers
1 Peter 1:6–7 – “You have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith… may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
God used suffering like a scalpel—cutting away guilt, shame, and besetting sin that had haunted me for years. However, Jesus does not throw His hands in the air when we fall again. His deepest impulse is to move toward us, not away from us. Even the pain was part of His mercy—refining me, not rejecting me. My faith wasn’t destroyed in the fire; it was purified.
Lessons Learned
In His hands, pain refines rather than rejects, heals rather than harms, and builds a deeper faith that can stand in the fire.
Reflection Questions
How has God used a season of suffering to shape your character, deepen your faith, or free you from something that was holding you back?