Stories of Finding God in the Unexpected

“I sat on the end of the emergency room bed, feet dangling, feeling like a wrung out washcloth. Before me, a doctor asked questions and took notes. I told him the truth, but I tried to avoid his eyes. How did this happen?

I never expected to be at Georgetown Hospital—the same place I’d delivered my daughter only weeks before—answering questions about whether I had thoughts of harming myself or my baby. It was the last place I wanted to be on that autumn night, especially as my husband held our beautiful daughter. But I knew this visit was necessary.”

Continue reading Shay’s story.

“Several days into my honeymoon, I found myself alone in bed while typing the words “How to get a divorce in Washington state” into my phone. It was the summer of 2013, a few short days after our wedding. We were in Italy, but my husband was nowhere to be found.

During dinner that night, I had walked away from an impossible fight. My husband’s words were cruel and cutting, which made me scared and confused. Trudging a mile uphill in the dark, I prayed for safety. Surrounded by the festive sounds of outdoor music and the rhythmic crashing of waves on the beach below, I had never felt more hopeless.”

Continue reading Katelyn’s story.

“We received amazing news in an early morning message: my dad had a kidney transplant match.”

“A few hours later things took another sudden turn. For reasons unknown at the time, the surgery went from a success in progress to a mission to save Dad’s life…. Why would God give us such hope and elation just a few hours prior only to yank it away?”

Continue reading Gena’s story.

“My best friend, home with us, was all I’d wanted. When the whole world shut down, we found abundance in a pandemic: an abundance of time together as a family.

The Lord met us where I least expected it: in the walls of our own home, under the same roof, all four of us living life together, inseparable.”

Continue reading Peyton’s story.

“Sam was about five months old when I began to admit Motherhood was not the bliss I’d been promised in the shiny magazines adorning my doctor’s office during pregnancy. I found myself sleep-deprived and angry, nearly all the time. One day I worried I was becoming someone who might uncontrollably shake her baby and end up hurting it, so I called my best friend and asked for help. She told me she’d been seeing a lady in our church for counseling and thought maybe I should try meeting with her as well.

This is one of the best decisions I’ve made as a mom, but twenty years later, I can also see how it’s a way that God met me in the middle of some difficult circumstances.”

Continue reading Janna’s story.

“Mustering up courage for life’s pivots isn’t pretty. It’s not built in the circumstances of comfort or smooth trajectories of what we once imagined life to be. No. Mustering up courage is a holy reordering and unraveling of what we think we are made of and God’s re-shaping of who we were made for.”

As life unraveled, Monet found God to be faithful to hold her family’s questions, resistance, grief, and even doubt.

Continue reading Monet’s story.