“I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33, ESV

I had walked with the Lord from the time I was a young girl. In the back of a Florida church, wearing a blue dress with fruit on it, I stepped into a pool and was baptized, saying out loud what had been in my heart as long as I’d known: I loved the Lord and wanted to walk with Him forever.

The hardships in life came in short bursts—those small moments of refining. I truly felt my faith was rooted.

And then, my world shifted. 

I wandered my own wilderness for over two years of hit after hit. Each time the Lord could have stepped in and didn’t… cut deeply.

I recall the countless nights lying on my bathroom floor, weeping, wondering why. Why God, why? Begging that, if I had to walk that path, could the Lord just speak to me—send me a gentle reminder of His love. A whisper. Anything would’ve done it.

Each request was met with silence and a deep knowing that, for whatever reason, God was not releasing me to flee. I had to stay put in my wilderness.

The wilderness season came to an end—it wasn’t victorious. In fact, it was the thing I dreaded most. I remember my dad asking, all those months before it ended, “Tessa, if the Lord doesn’t end this how you want, will you still trust Him?” In that moment, looking at an endless valley, I had answered honestly.

“No.”

If the Lord wasn’t going to step in and do what seemed just, could I really trust Him? No.

And then it happened. The situation ended, and there I was, face-to-face with the God I felt ignored by.

He didn’t answer my prayers with my preference. He didn’t ride in on a white horse to redeem the situation in a way I saw as just. He didn’t comfort me with platitudes.

We stared together at the destruction.

He didn’t end it how I wanted. The Psalms I read in comfort of the Lord responding to evil didn’t come to life. Instead, I laid in the laments of the psalmist, wondering why.

 Did I still trust Him?

That season of Hard Fought Faith brought me to the end of my young faith and asked me: Will you root yourself in a God who will not always do what you want?

Could I truly trust Him?

The shift wasn’t a moment of heavenly light breaking over me.

It wasn’t sudden relief that at least I was out of the fire.

It was months. Months of learning to breathe again. Months of grieving.

And then, it was gentle.

It wasn’t God answering me to let me know why He’d done what He’d done.

It was God standing beside all of my hurt and anger.

I still don’t have all the answers.

But I understand now—this world has troubles. Troubles that left me breathless and broken.

Instead, when the ache comes, the Lord’s shoulder brushes mine, and I can take the next step.

And that gives me peace.

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