This last week has been really heavy. The world feels really dark, life feels exceptionally complex, and my assurance that most people are kind and decent feels a little shakier. Motherhood already isn’t for the faint of heart, but when you layer national tragedy over the daily frenzy, everything just seems a little more unbearable.
And it leaves me wondering:
Where is God when the world feels extra evil?
Where is His faithfulness when the shadows stretch on forever?
David writes in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For You are with me.”
That promise sounds comforting, but when we are stumbling along in the valleys — seeing death and suffering around every shrouded corner, even as we are wiping noses, trying to decode tears and angry wails, packing or unpacking hospital bags, and carrying the weight of parenthood on very tired shoulders — what does it practically look like to live as though God is with us?
How do we stay confident that He is near? Where do we actually see His faithfulness?
For me, I see it in quiet, ordinary moments. I see God in the small wins — Dot playing more and more on her tummy, rolling across the room, and her continued efforts to figure out how to sit up and look around on her own. I see the Lord’s faithfulness in the beauty of the changing seasons. I feel it in the fullness and warmth that settles in my bones when Dot buries her little face deeper into the crook of my neck and snores softly. I hear it in the contagious nature of spontaneous baby giggles.
These things feel like beacons of light in the darkness. As I look around my very small world, I see the way Dot defies expectations left and right. I see the ways I have grown, the ways that Loren has grown — both as individuals and as a couple — and I know these things are truly by the grace of God. I see God work every day in our lives.
Jesus tells us that if God cares enough to feed the birds and dress the flowers, how much more must He care for us? So when the world feels like it’s falling apart, I take comfort in knowing that the same God who is present in my small, ordinary moments is also present in the big, global ones — even if I can’t see how He is moving.
God’s faithfulness isn’t just a distant theological truth; it’s something we get to witness and cling to every single day. And in the middle of motherhood’s frenzy, that truth becomes a lifeline.
So I’ll leave you with a few thoughts that have been running through my head in all this. Find your “Ebenezers.” In the Old Testament, God’s people would set up stones of remembrance — physical markers of the times He had moved powerfully on their behalf. Those reminders helped them hold fast to His character when the next storm came.
Your “Ebenezers” might be journal entries, photos, or just a memory of one of those moments when God was so clearly moving. Whatever form they take, hang on to them. Make them a lifeline. Carve them into your brain so that when things get hard, you can hang on to those anchors of who God is and what He has done for you. Because if we remember who God is and what He has done, we can be confident that — based on His character and previous faithfulness — He will continue to be faithful.
One of the songs that has been on repeat for me lately is “Famous For” by Tauren Wells. It’s a reminder that the God who made a way through the waters, stood in the fire, shut the mouths of lions, and brought dry bones to life is the same God who is working here, now, in my life — and in yours. And that is enough to help me keep walking through the valley, one day at a time.
God is famous for doing impossible, miraculous things. Won’t He do it again?