“When God Doesn’t Remove the Hard Thing — But Meets You in It” With Sarah Freymuth, Meredith Brock, and Kaley Olson

Sometimes prayer feels natural, and sometimes it feels like the first thing to slip when life gets heavy. Not because you don't love God, but because your thoughts are racing, your heart is overwhelmed, and you don't even know where to begin. But the beautiful thing about Jesus is that He doesn't ask us to have the perfect words. He just invites us to come close. That's why we're so excited to share Come Close to Jesus, a brand new prayer book from Lisa Turkhurst, created to help you pray when you feel anxious, distracted, or unsure of what to say. And when you give a gift of any amount to Proverbs 31 Ministries, you'll help more women receive biblical encouragement right when they need it most. And as a special thank you, we'll send you a copy of Come Close to Jesus. You can find more information using the link in the show notes below. Now, on to today's episode. Well, hi, friends. Thanks for tuning in to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast, where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Meredith Brock, and I am here today with my co-host, Kaylee Olson. Hey, Meredith. Well, friends, today we are going to get to hear from a new friend. Her name is Sarah Freemuth, and she is going to both challenge us and encourage us for the struggles we're facing. And here's the context that I want to give you as to why I feel like the timing of this episode is so anointed. And I don't use that word very lightly. So, you know, I mean something whenever I say that word. But we were just talking before we pressed record on the mics that February can be such a depressing, dark month. Because for those of you who really went through some stuff in 2025, you probably started 2026 and thought, this is going to be the year that I trust God in this. This is going to be the year that I release control. This is going to be the year that fill in the blank, whatever it is. But January has gone and February is here. And you're kind of in the same spot that you were in December. And you're going, I'm still struggling and I'm still the same. and I don't feel different. I don't feel changed. I don't feel like God is even here in this. And Sarah, I think is gonna, like I said, lovingly challenge you to reconsider where and how God might be moving in the midst of your struggle. So that's all I'm gonna say. It's a really great teaching and I can't wait for you guys to hear it. It's a good one, Kaylee, for sure. But before we let you go listen to that teaching, I wanted to share a really incredible story with our listeners from one of our Therapy and Theology podcast listeners. She wrote in and let us know that after 50 years of marriage, guys, she found herself single because of her husband's affair. And she couldn't afford counseling and her church didn't offer those resources or services. So the Lord so kindly led her to Proverbs 31 Ministries where she found our Therapy and Theology podcast. And she let us know that God carried her through one of the darkest seasons with those resources. And I wanted to share that with you guys today because not only does God show how kind he is to reach each one of us exactly where we need him in the way that we need him on time, but it also shows that goodness, when you invest here at Proverbs 31, you're really making a real impact into real people's lives. This woman did not have the resources or the place to go to get counseling and biblically sound counseling, but she was able to find it here at Proverbs 31. And so I just wanted to say thank you to all of our friends who give. You make stories like this possible. And we are just really, really grateful for your faithful partnership in ministry here at Proverbs 31. So such a gift. All right, that's enough. I'm not going to say anything else. Let's get into today's episode. Well, we are so excited to welcome Sarah Framuth to the show today. Welcome, Sarah. How are you? Hi, I'm good. It's so glad to be here. So good to be here with you. Yeah, here virtually. You are joining us from the great state of Wisconsin. So from us Southern gals, welcome to our Midwestern friend. We're so glad that you're here. Our audience has never heard from you before. So let me set you up first by introducing you to our audience. And so everyone, Sarah, like we already said, is from the Midwest. But what you really should know about her first is that she is a contributing writer for our encouragement for today devotions. And so if you subscribe to those free devotions, chances are you've seen Sarah's picture at the top of your devotion and maybe read something really encouraging from her. And so I hope that that is true for at least some of you. But if not, I'll just say a small plug here. You should subscribe to those devotions for free because they're awesome and you get to hear from people like Sarah. But outside of that, Sarah is also the content and storytelling manager for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which is really awesome, Sarah. Can you, like, before we dive into your teaching, what does that mean for you? Like, what does your day-to-day look like in that job? Yes, I get the honor of telling the stories of what God is doing around the world through coaches and athletes and our staff. So it would be interviewing a coach in Kenya or a huddle leader, which is our small group in a high school in California and being able to share the heart of what God's doing in their lives to encourage and inspire other people in the realm of sports and faith. That's awesome. I feel like, Meredith, isn't it so cool that people's day-to-day jobs outside of what they do for Proverbs 31, like people who write for our devotions are also in their own sphere of ministry. And sometimes I'm just reminded that things like P31 are a part of such a greater global impact. That the Lord is using P31, but he's also using Sarah in her role through FCA. And that's awesome. I just listened to a podcast recently from a guy who is a part of FCA. And I thought, oh, I forget about that organization and how big of an impact it's making. Yeah, it's huge. I was unaware that FCA even existed. I grew up in the Northwest in Idaho, if anybody was wondering. And when I moved to the South, it was the first time I had ever seen or heard of FCA. And I was shocked when I started hearing the stories of what a huge impact they had. It's a lot of people's very first way to actually hear about the Lord because people are part of sports teams. And like, who knows? Like God is using high school students to like talk about their faith. And it's really awesome. And Sarah, I know that you also released a book titled All the Hard Things, 50 Days Through the Valley, which I mean, what an incredible title, first of all. But I think this is going to be a message today from the book that you just wrote. And I know that listeners are all in different seasons right now facing their own hard things. And so I'm excited for this podcast episode to come out at the exact time it's coming out. I think it's going to be appointed. And so I want to turn the mic over to you now to share the message that God has laid on your heart. Thank you. What if the very thing you're asking God to take away is the place He's trying to grow you? That's a hard question to ask, especially if you're in the middle of pain and suffering. No one likes to live in the valley, yet this is often the place we find ourselves when faced with darkness, like illness, fractured relationships, infertility, grieving loss, and disbanded dreams. James 1, 2 through 4 tells us to consider it pure joy whenever we face trials. Pure joy? Does he know what we're going through? The loneliness, the confusion, the absolute dead end? How can we consider the underside of our life joy especially when the God we held on to for so long seems to be hidden and unresponsive What then When we cry out into the night for relief and get no response We take a breath and then another. We place one shaky foot in front of us and then another. And we look for the trail markers along the way that give us a guiding that goes toward the light we have to believe is there. Sometimes the only way toward dawn is through the dark, and upside down as it seems, it can be in this dark where treasures are revealed by the God who still sees us. I am no stranger to struggle. Neither are you. No one comes out of this life unscathed. For me, these last six years have shaken my foundation and left me desperately trying to tape things back together. Whether it was major health issues like my stroke and heart procedure at age 33, an emergency appendectomy for my husband on our honeymoon, my husband's hospital stays, yes, stays, plural. During COVID, for pneumonia and heart arrhythmia, my own battle with long COVID and crippling anxiety and depression for years, it felt like out of the frying pan and into the fire. I couldn't muster up the faith in a heart grown so utterly exhausted and scared, and I couldn't wrap my rattling head around how a good God could indeed see me in this state and leave me there. What could I do but throw my heart out to God in desperation with very little capacity for a deep dive into the theological ideas of suffering? I was just wanting and trying to survive. So I stuck to scripture like a lifeline. Even when I could only hold to one characteristic of God that week, I wrote it out and placed it on repeat in my heart. I began to pull out truths from what I knew when feelings fought to tell me otherwise. It went like this. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12, 9 and 10. Truth, our weakness becomes the stage for God's strength. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8, 28. Truth, even our hardest seasons are held in divine purpose. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Psalm 23, 4. Truth. God's presence walks with us through, not around, the valley. He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust. Psalm 91, 1 through 3. Truth. God shelters us and is our fortress, a refuge and place of safety. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. Isaiah 43, 2. Truth. We are completely surrounded by the presence of God in our pain. Slowly, tiny glimpses of grace gathered along this lonely path. And I found, over time, that God had given me himself, in the shape of trees, friends and family, a song through the speakers, good therapists, the cuddle of a puppy, and a steaming cup of coffee on a cold winter day. Would I want to remain in the valley, in the fear and pain and unknown? No. But did I find treasures in the dark during these times? Yes, I did. How do we endure the hard? How do we keep going when everything within us wants to turn around? Everything that came for six consecutive years felt like blows to my already broken and bruised body and psyche. My mental health was unbearable. My husband's trips to the ER were unfathomable. I was tired. I was scared. And my heart just plain hurt. Do you remember the last time your heart hurt? It may even be right now. I want to say that I'm sorry you are hurting. And God is sorry for your pain. But do you know what? He is hurting too. Isaiah 53, 3 reads, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Jesus knows your pain. He took pain on in a most powerful and personal way. He suffered so we would know he understands. For the joy set before him, it says in Hebrews 12, 2, Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. For the joy set before him, Jesus endured. Jesus endured the cross, and the cross was pain. There was something on the other side he saw and knew it would be worth it. as inside out as it seems hard things are not signs of god's absence but invitations to deeper trust and a time to experience more of who he is pain often exposes where we've placed our dependence on comfort control circumstance or safety fill in the blank for what it is for you but there is some foundation we've built over jesus that cracks when the storms of life come We try to cover up these fault lines, but God does some of his deepest work in the places we most want to avoid. There is purpose in the pain. Now, I'm not discounting the pain. I'm not blithely sweeping it away. Life is hard, and what you may have experienced is more than you feel like you can handle and has been greatly upsetting. I recognize this, and I honor that pain. but I'm also reminding you that there is more at work in the unseen. Remember that passage in James 1 we read earlier, where we are to consider it all joy when we encounter trials? The second part of the passage is, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. Let's read those three verses together, James 1, 2 through 4. Hey friends, I'm pausing today's episode because I want to ask you a question. Have you ever sat down to pray and just felt stuck? You want to connect with God, you really do, but your mind is spinning, your emotions feel tangled, and the words just won't come. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe scripture steps in and gives us the words we need to pray, especially when life feels overwhelming. Here what one listener shared with us recently I been walking through one of the hardest seasons of my life and this ministry keeps reminding me that God is still near Even when I don know what to pray I feel like I'm being guided back to Him. Friend, that's exactly why we're inviting you to experience Come Close to Jesus, a powerful new prayer book from Lisa Turkhurst filled with scripture-shaped prayers for real life moments. And when you give today, you're helping reach more women who are searching for hope, for truth, and a steady place to land. As our thank you, you'll receive Come Close to Jesus with your gift of any amount. You can find more information using the link in the show notes below. Now, back to today's episode. God's goal is to develop perseverance or steadfastness and maturity in our faith. Spiritual maturity is not escaping pain, but allowing it to shape us into the likeness of Christ. Every struggle has spiritual soil where growth can take root if we choose to stay present to it. And it is a choice. If we let him, God can grow our endurance and refine our faith until we look a little more like his son. Let's ask ourselves, what might God be cultivating in me through this? Patience, compassion, humility, endurance, faith. So there's perseverance in the struggle, and there's also the power of his presence. God never promised a life without valleys, but he promised his presence in them. In this world, you will have trouble, Jesus said in John 16, 33. But then he says, take heart. I have overcome the world. His presence transforms fear into faith and suffering into sacred ground. It might not happen overnight, but nothing of substance usually does. We want out of our circumstances, but sometimes victory isn't deliverance. It's endurance and waiting with trust and peace. And that's a hard one to swallow. but if we can let it marinate within our hearts and hold to the signs of his presence, spiritual muscles build and faith finds its way through the fire. Think of your current valley. What is it? Name it out loud if you can. And then pray, God, show me where you are here. Show me your purpose in this place. it's tiny but did you catch the shift the perspective swap transformation happens when we stop asking why me and start asking what now god when we stop trying to make sense of our circumstances and start looking for him within them our trust becomes testimony and is born from the tension between our struggle and god's faithfulness his peace is big enough to hold us his care has never left in the dead of night he huddles close even if we cannot see or feel how do we endure the hard how do we go on we go into today knowing today is enough and he is near the one who endured so much pain and darkness did so so that we would never have to face our heart alone. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53, 4 and 5. Our good God came as a man bound with limitations, with a heart that felt the sting of rejection, who held the cavern of the world's pain as he prepared for his own to break wide open as he hung on the cross, exposed, straining for breath, in unimaginable torment that could not be quenched. For the joy Jesus endured, bore our grief, and crushed the sin that came for us. With his wounds, our own are healed. Our wounds are met with the sweet salve of his blood shed for us, his heart circled close to ours as we work through those midnight hours that leave tear streaks down our face, when we shudder from the most recent news from an already fractured relationship, when the calendar turns over another month and the heaviness doesn't lift. Dear heart, hear this and remember, your struggle is not your punishment. It's strengthening your spirit. God's strength is most visible when yours runs out. The valley is temporary, but God remains with us within those wild spaces. And what he builds in you there will last forever. Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings forth chariot and horse, army and warrior. They lie down. They cannot rise. They are extinguished, quenched like a wick. Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Isaiah 43, 16 through 19. Do we not perceive it? His way in the wilderness? His streams in dry land? Let us perceive it. Let us remember how he has come through for us before and build on those reminders to face today. I still wrestle with fear, and I know sickness will come again. Relationships will stay strained, and there are some losses grief will never gloss over. But our good God knows, and his heart is comforting ours. He is who he says he is, and he longs to walk you through the hurt if you will let him. And when your legs give out along the way, he is certainly capable to carry you along with your sorrows. Here's a challenge. This week, instead of asking God to remove your hard thing, ask him to reveal himself through it. Posture your heart to receive and expect him to show up. Because he will, he is here where hard becomes holy, making a way. I'd like to pray for us as we close our time together. Lord, we are here in the hard and hurtful things of life. You know our cries, our hopes, and our heartache. Give us your presence and give us eyes to see you in new ways. Help us to experience you in our struggles. Trust you in our valleys. And believe you're working all things, even the hard things, maybe especially the hard things, for our good and your glory. Hold us close, Lord. Give us glimmers of your goodness. And let us remember how faithful you've been in the past and how you will still be faithful now. In Jesus's name, amen. Amen. Amen. Sarah, that was a really good word. A hard word if I being honest because I think so much of what we want to hear and I appreciated this in your teaching that you didn say okay guys here what you going to do to make the pain go away Or here's the next, here's the step that you're going to do to make the struggle stop. But instead, you were honest with the fact that sometimes God allows it to remain. And sometimes he allows it to remain and then more comes. And that the goal is not necessarily the removal of the struggle, but it is that moving from, and I wrote it down because I thought it was really simple but profound. that moving from why me to what now God is a true, it's that alone right there is putting words to a very significant heart and mind shift that we were actually created for. Like we were created to walk in relationship with God as what now God? Yeah. Like what are we doing now? Yeah. You know, not me, why me? It's there's that shift from me, me, me to us, us, us that I think is so profound. I agree, Meredith. I agree. And I think too, if we focus only on the outcome, that ignores the day and we can only do today. Like the outcome might be like, I mean, Sarah, you struggled for six years, you know? And I know you told us about a struggle that was six years ago, but like you said, towards the end of your teaching, sickness is going to come again. I mean, like it's a constant like pattern, but I think the whole identity shift is why me is it is about me to what now? It's like it's a reminder that the bigger picture is we're not our struggles and that gets us so selfish and isolated. So that's a great point, Meredith. And Sarah, I have a question for you that I think we can unpack a little bit more with our listeners. About the middle of your teaching, you said pain signals where we have placed our dependence. And I was like, oh, I've never thought about that before. But that's very true. Like God, it's an example, I feel like, of God using the hard thing to shape us and make us more like Him. But can you walk us through your struggles and if you would be so kind to open up a little bit about like what did your pain signal in you as what you were placing some of your dependence on in those years? Yes, I can name. Let's see. Mine are control, safety. um i was one where when i hurt especially during um long covid and my just mental health struggles i like clawed at anything for semblance of like answer why this is happening how this is happening what can i do to get out of it so like you're just saying the externals like moving out of it and really as i i wrestled with it like at the core of it it really just gets to the core of what is going on. It's like, do I trust God? I mean, it always comes down to trust, but do I trust him that even when I feel like I am losing control of myself, my body, my mind, just even walking through a lot of spiritual discontent and unknowns, you know, can I be okay with the mystery of not knowing, not understanding and letting God be who he is, even when that might not be who I've imagined and pictured him to be. Yeah. Oh man, that's so good. I think too, like grasping for information in today's day and age, you can go to Instagram and look up, like doctors are on Instagram all the time, posting all this information. Like it's so easy, even for a Google search, chat GPT and AI will automate a response for you now where you don't even have to look up article. It's just, I think we're so tempted to jump quickly into even identifying what we think the purpose and the pain is more than leaning on the Lord. And I think that that's where we're reminded that our dependence has to be on Him. It's so challenging too. And I've started to ask myself this question, is He really enough? Is He, like, is it Him? And I think that that's what you're getting to here, Sarah. Like at the end of the day, outcomes are awesome and what He can do is awesome. What he can provide is awesome. But what does it truly mean to be dependent on him out of a love for him, not just what he can do for you in this? And I was challenged by your teaching. I saw you should see my Emeritus notes over here. They're just like nuggets. I can tell she's a writer because she's spoken nuggets like that and so many takeaways. But as we wrap up, Sarah, will you read that prompt one more time again? And what do you want listeners to do after today's teaching? Yes. Instead of asking God to remove your hard thing, ask Him to reveal Himself through it. Man. Okay. That is good. That is a challenge for you guys. And as we wrap up today, for those of you who are walking through the valley, I want to encourage you to get Sarah's new devotional book, All the Hard Things, 50 Days Through the Valley. And Sarah, what I appreciate about your resource is that it's 50 days long, which seems like a long time because it is. It should be. The valley is never like five days long. Seasons don't last just a week. And so I appreciate that you took the time to create a resource that can walk with people through their hard season weeks at a time. Friends, this resource can be something you hold closely as you take it one step at a time. And we have linked it for you in the show notes below. Yeah. Yeah. And I also wanted to mention, Kaylee, I realized that this particular subject matter may stir up some things for folks who are facing something really, really hard. And I wanted to point out one other resource that Proverbs 31 offers, which is our other podcast called Therapy and Theology. It is with Lisa Turkhurst, Jim Kress, and Dr. Joel Mutamale, where they, you know, the tagline for it is where they help you work through what you're walking through. And what's really cool about that podcast is that Jim is a licensed professional counselor and they tackle some really hard issues in there. Joel has a PhD in theology. He is there to unpack it from a scriptural standpoint. Jim is there to really unpack some sound therapeutic methods that will help people really work through some stuff. And Lisa likes to make the joke that she just brings all the issues. So she owns it. We'll say it on her behalf. But folks, I'd love for you to go take a listen to that. If you are finding yourself in a season of trying to get some help on some very specific, maybe counseling type things that you haven't been able to find any resources, especially biblical ones. So lastly, we'd like to thank all of you who make this podcast free for our listeners. By partnering with Proverbs 31 Ministries, you're not just supporting us and keeping the lights on. You're actually bringing light into dark moments where women are facing hard things every single time you donate to this ministry. So thank you to all of those who are our financial partners. Yeah, absolutely. Well, friends, that is all for today. At Proverbs 31 Ministries, we believe when you know the truth and live the truth, it changes everything. you