Today I want to ask a tough question. What happens when life throws us a curved ball and we find we can’t cope anymore? How do we find God, how do we connect with him, when life is desperate?

Firstly, if you are in this place my heart goes out to you. I truly believe that our heavenly Father responds directly to the distress of his children, so in an instant God is with you. He will understand by his Holy Spirit that your distress has frozen your responses, he does not need you to pray, but if you find the strength to cry out to him, he longs to listen. It breaks his heart to see you in such trauma, so much so that he has already covered and restored that very hurt, through the death and resurrection of his son Jesus. Always try to remember that God is outside our time frame, he sees the beginning and the end, he sees your future and inheritance in Christ and your place in eternity.

I can think of a few times in my life when I believe God has literally carried me through moments of extreme brokenness and suffering. He has, I believe, at these times held me together and taken all my weight upon himself to carry me. You may ask “how do I know Jesus carried me”?  because I am here writing this today. The Holy Spirit is at work in us, around us and ahead of us so no matter how dark life feels. The Lord of love, truth and hope is with us. I’m going to share with you three times in my life when I know this to have been true.

• The first was a time of trauma suffered as a child. I did not pray, no one else knew to pray, so I just reacted and responded in a disjointed frozen way which became embedded in my soul.  Yet I can testify that the Holy Spirit led me through many dark times and placed so many people ahead of me that I eventually engaged in counselling and found freedom in my thirties. God uses us all to lead others through such darkness into light. I am so thankful for the faithfulness of those who helped me through this journey.
• The second time was at the birth of my first child. Things were not going well for me or the baby during the labour and my husband and I were too distressed to pray. The Holy Spirit woke an old friend of mine at that precise time who did not know I was in labour and told her to pray. She prayed that I would have the strength to deliver the baby. I did, and he was OK, much to the surprise of the doctors and nurses.
• Lastly, I had suffered a complication after childbirth that meant many years of pain, three procedures and one operation. I was anticipating a second operation hoping for healing, when I was prayed for by a gentle elderly lady at a church meeting and was healed instantly. I have had no pain for many years. I give this testimony tentatively as for six years I was prayed for but wasn’t healed. I know many of you will find yourselves in a similar place, but I can see the ways in which God saw me through that dark time. He will carry you, and we are told we should never stop asking for healing, and I trust you will know this hope.

By the grace of God, I pray that all those in a desperate place can feel loved and cared for by God, by friends and family and by their brothers and sisters in Christ. If you do feel alone in your suffering do seek out someone to speak with. Don’t suffer alone, the church is the very hands and feet of Jesus. Seek out the help you need. I thought I would share the following film “Tomorrow came”. It is my song of testimony that I wrote with my husband. There are times when we feel that tomorrow won’t come for us, but as you watch and draw near to God, as you seek out his people, there is new life and everlasting hope for you. I promise.

Thanks for connecting with us today at Prayerscapes. Do you have any encouraging stories of finding God in dark times? If so, please do write them down below. We’d love to hear them. And until next time, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.