“Christians don’t have anxiety,” is what was being taught around me at the church I was attending at the time. Therefore, I didn’t feel like a real Christian. It produced shame which led to minimum prayers and reading my Bible less frequently. All I kept thinking was, “I can’t be a Christian and have anxiety.”

Some people find their calling through success. I found mine in chaos. I am a wife of 35 years, a mother to four adult children, and a grandmother to two beautiful little girls. But the titles don’t tell the whole story. They don’t speak to the sleepless nights, the crises, the moments I sat in a dark room wondering what in the world God was up to, or if He had even forgotten me. The chaos didn’t come all at once.

Vivian was surrounded by people who loved and adored her, but no one knew she was suffering from childhood trauma, or that she barely slept—sometimes going days without any sleep at all. Even her closest friends had no idea she was suffering in silence. Tragically, when the darkness pressed in and became too much she took her own precious life, and we lost her forever.

I never got the father I longed for. And it made my heart sick for a very long time. I didn’t know I needed to process it. I didn’t even realize it was grief. After all, how can you grieve something you never had? But I’ve since learned - that’s not only possible, it’s necessary. For a long time, I pushed that grief down.

How can we have faith in difficult times? With patient endurance as we trust God to see us through our trials in life.