When you feel like someone dropped you in the middle of an endless desert and you’re not sure which direction to go or if you’ll ever reach a water source, look up, maintain hope, and keep stepping because God won’t abandon you now, or ever.
Thanks to my guest today for this powerful reminder.
Trusting God Through the Wilderness Seasons
A Guest Post by Cassandra Armstrong
In many seasons, my faith has felt less like a refuge and more like a path I was lost on.
I loved God and grew up with faith in Christ. I prayed, read Scripture, and went to church. From the outside, my life looked steady. But underneath that fragile faith, quiet anxiety lingered. Fears of the unknown and my lack of control whispered that grief and stress might never improve. Sometimes I wondered if God was silent because I had missed something, or if the heaviness I felt was simply the world revealing itself as it truly was.
Doubt rarely arrives loudly. It settles in quietly, disguising itself as exhaustion while prayers feel unanswered. Seasons like that feel like a wilderness—places where it becomes difficult to see where God is leading and every step forward requires trust.
Recently, my family and I stepped into one of those wilderness seasons.
During the winter storms sweeping across much of the United States, we felt a little overconfident in the snowy mountains of Maine. My husband, children, and I spent the weekend traveling between Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine for a hockey tournament, a gymnastics meet, and the long drive home. The roads were treacherous, a reminder of how little control we truly have.
When we finally arrived home, we stepped into a freezing house.
We had run out of oil. Pipes had frozen, and one had burst in the laundry room. The washer was damaged from frozen hoses. The bathroom pipes were frozen, and a switch in the dining room had stopped working.
As Mainers, we usually prepare for these kinds of problems. But facing them all at once felt overwhelming.
My husband worked through the list while the oil was delivered, but the boiler refused to start. The filter needed replacing. In the process, oil spilled across the cellar floor. The next day our son told us the toilet had overflowed, and water backed up through the shower and sink drains.
Financially, we were already stretched thin between travel, winter heating costs, and a slow season for contracts in our business.
That night my husband and I lay awake until nearly five in the morning, staring at the ceiling and wondering how we were going to manage it all.
Eventually he reached for my hand and began to pray.
He thanked the Lord for our blessings and asked for guidance through this season of strain and uncertainty.
As we prayed, I was reminded that we’ve walked through wilderness seasons before. Together we’ve lost a child. We lost my mother. We’ve been fired from jobs. We watched our daughter battle leukemia and helped our son through difficult seasons of his own.
Those experiences taught us something important: God doesn’t promise that we’ll avoid the wilderness. But He does promise to meet us there.
In Exodus 16, the Israelites found themselves in a wilderness with no clear way forward. After their rescue from slavery, fear took hold when food ran out and the future felt uncertain. Yet God met them there with manna—daily bread that taught them to trust Him one day at a time.
Our wilderness seasons may look different. They may come through grief, financial strain, uncertainty, or the accumulation of everyday hardships. But the lesson remains the same.
God often meets us in the wilderness by teaching us to trust Him for today.
The morning after we prayed together, we woke with a little more clarity. Instead of trying to solve everything at once, we began addressing each problem one step at a time.
The toilet still isn’t fixed. But we have heat and hot water.
For now, that’s enough.
Jesus reminds us in Matthew 6:34:
“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (NLT).
When we trust God with today, we discover that His presence and provision are enough to carry us through any wilderness season.
If this resonated with you, you might also enjoy this podcast episode titled, “How God Brings Good Through Wilderness Seasons.”
Get to Know Cassandra Armstrong:
Cassandra is the author of Growth in the Grief and The Grit and Grace Column. She is also published in Arise Daily, Snark and Sensibility, and Heart of Hospitality Magazine. She is a wife, mother, writer, U.S. Navy veteran, cybersecurity business-owner, podcaster, and doctoral student with degrees in English and business, and majors in strategic leadership and technology management. Her current research focuses on servant leadership and leader-member exchange within strategic leadership. She is the mother of four children and lives on her homestead in the mountains of Maine with her family, dogs, highland cow, pigs, and chickens.
Check Out Her Book, Growth in the Grief:
“Whether it is grief from guilt, grief from the finality of a relationship, or finality of life, the physical impacts and untamed thoughts are not without excruciating wisdom and need for God’s arms around us to guide each of us through the human condition of inevitable loss and guilt from sin.”
– Growth in the Grief
In this powerful memoir and devotional, Cassandra Armstrong details her voyage through some of life’s most painful battles. With raw honesty, she recounts unforgettable pain amidst death, illness, sexual assault, loss, regret, and self-blame. Through overstimulated anxiety and depression, she juggles life as a parent, spouse, daughter, sailor, student, caretaker, co-worker, and business owner-all while facing grief and tragedy. Readers are invited to journal through her personal life lessons, revealing the glory of God highlighted via navigation through spiritual gifts, grace, and the unveiling of His plan through spiritual maturity, wisdom, and unwavering faith amid suffering.
Buy it HERE.
