what i learned         in the pit

You can buy the book here.

This is a book about surviving deep or long-lasting suffering, pain, or affliction with the help of Christ who never leaves us or forsakes us. If you are in the battle of your life, you'll want to read this book. If you're at a point where there's no one to talk to about what you're going through, this will speak to your heart. 

Here are two sample chapters.

CHAPTER ONE
What Is to Come

"And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you." (1 Peter 5:10)

When hardships come, your first thought won't be whether you'll pass the test with flying colors. In the depths of suffering, survival is your primary concern. You're just trying to make it to the other side.

Scripture tells us that the goal is to emerge restored, confirmed, strengthened, and established by the Lord. But getting from brokenness to restoration isn't always easy. We can fight our way through, or we can step into the vessel of suffering that God provides, trusting Him to navigate the unknown waters. It is a journey that our flesh resists, but if we surrender, it will lead us to new ground—a place of wisdom and authority where we can guide others through their trials.

No one teaches us how to suffer, yet we all do. Everyone has faced loss, grief, physical pain, depression, anxiety, or seasons of darkness. It might be the loss of a job or a loved one, a personal tragedy, a sudden disability, or the breakdown of a marriage. Suffering is universal.

And no one teaches us how to endure. You've likely had times when you thought you wouldn't make it through because the burden was too great. You keep hoping things will change, but they don't—sometimes for months or years. I understand this intimately. I endured an extended period of intense physical and emotional pain, preceded by years of sickness. For days, weeks, and months on end, I felt trapped with no escape.

What I didn't realize at the time was that God was doing deep work within me, cultivating fruit that only grows in the crucible of suffering. He was shaping Christ's image in me, using my pain so that when I emerged, I could help others find their way through. Suffering was the tool He used to refine my character and transform my heart, a work that can only happen under extreme pressure.

The pit I was in felt endless—deep, dark, and inescapable. Yours may be different, but when you're in it, it always seems insurmountable. There is no one at the top with a rope. No one hears your cries for help. You are trapped, and your only hope is God. And so, you wait. That is all you can do.

In my suffering, I found Jesus in a way I never had before. His Word became my lifeline, encouraging me to press on. I found solace in biblical figures who had suffered far worse and remained faithful, emerging like gold refined by fire. They cried out for help, clung to God's integrity, and discovered that He does not let go.

I learned that the answer to every problem is not only seeking the Lord's comfort while He works out solutions but renewing my mind with His Word and believing with unwavering faith that His promises are true.

God sets apart those who belong to Him, and suffering is one way He does this. It draws us closer, stripping away our reliance on self and deepening our dependence on Him. It is a painful process, but in hindsight, it can become one of the most transformative times in our spiritual lives.

I want to share what I have learned—about suffering, endurance, and God's faithfulness. I invite you to come with me on this journey, to navigate the river of affliction in a way that leads to deeper trust in Him.

"Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." (2 Corinthians 1:4)

CHAPTER TWO

My affliction

"When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." (Isaiah 43:2}

I am going to tell you my story. But I don't want you to focus on me or what I suffered, but on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. I tell you this because you need to know that I understand what Corrie Ten Boom meant when she said, "There is no hole so deep that God is not deeper yet."

My affliction began slowly and escalated for several years and then lingered on as I sought God for healing and relief.

It started with cancer. A grueling surgery resolved that, and after I recovered, no further treatment was necessary. It was unsettling and scary and I thought I'd seen the worst that life could bring. So I celebrated when it ended, thinking I was home free.

Not long after that, I woke up and wasn't able to walk without tremendous pain in the front of my legs, which was eventually diagnosed as Poly Myalgia Rheumatica. My doctor didn't know what was wrong with me. Eventually, he put me on prednisone, which alleviated the pain.

Then my marriage fell apart (after years of struggle) and my husband and I separated. Then one of my daughters decided she didn't much like me anymore. She never really explained why, but she was angry at me and yelled at me when we talked on the phone.

Right after that, I got very ill and was in bed for almost two months. During that time, I had a drug reaction to a prescription that the doctor gave me for that illness. An allergic reaction to that landed me in the hospital. The doctors had to restart my heart because it was beating at over 200 beats per minute and they were afraid I'd stroke out. I left the hospital the next day learning that I now had atrial fibrillation to add to my list of problems.

Restarting my heart caused my body to go into some weird autoimmune reaction, which made me quite sick. After that, I went on heart medication that made me suicidal. I would wake up in the morning thinking of ways to kill myself, which scared me to death. I battled that day after day, not knowing when I might give in, but after two months, I figured out that I wasn't suicidal—it was the drugs that were telling me to kill myself. I was relieved to know that I hadn't lost my mind.

Right around that time, I took a fall outside my office and landed on my knees, doing some nerve damage to my left leg and dislocating my big toe. That kept me off my feet for three weeks and it was months before the feeling came back into my leg. Soon after that, I became extremely fatigued and was sleeping a lot during the day—I was even shutting and locking my office door at work and taking naps because I could not stay awake. I just didn't feel good and nothing seemed to make my fatigue any better. My doctor didn't know what was wrong with me. She thought maybe I was depressed, but I begged to differ.

I did my best during that time to call out to God. Some days I screamed out, especially when I was riding in my car. "Do you see me, God? Do you hear me? Will you help me?" But most times the echoes came back empty, and I felt no relief.

As an act of my will, I chose to believe that God was with me. All I had was my faith — the sweet presence of God was gone and so was the freedom you feel when things are going well. When I prayed, I hit a steel wall.

But I had the Word of God, which I began scouring like a rat dog digging up a rat hole in the backyard. I dug and every verse that spoke to me I put down in my log of verses. In the end, I had four files representing four years of scriptures, maybe three hundred in total, that spoke to me while I was in the fire. To this day, I often go through them to see what God was speaking to me.

But God was not absent. One day, when things were so messed up, I was sitting and weeping in my chair and the presence of God filled the room. For almost six hours, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, comforted me, and wiped away my tears. Then He left and I was jolted back to my earthly life. But I was more depressed than I was before He arrived. But those six hours were in some ways life-changing for me because they affirmed that, yes, God was with me and He could show up in the darkest times.

My husband and I were still separated, and I saw no hope for my marriage. We were at the stage of contempt and I didn't know how to fix it. We tried a Christian counselor, but she didn't include God in her counseling, so we left her. We decided that all that was left was prayer, so we dedicated ourselves to praying on the phone three times a week and asking God to do a miracle and save our marriage.

Then I developed severe pain in both knees and learned that I needed two knee replacements. Walking up stairs was impossible and walking down was even worse. I bought a lift chair so I could even get out of a chair without crying out in pain. I had been taking prednisone for my leg pain and it helped the knees a little, but not much really.

Soon after, my situation with my daughter became more difficult. I didn't know what I'd done to enrage her, and she wouldn't tell me. After counseling from a pastor, I pulled away and cut off contact as gently as I could because I could not bear the pain of this dysfunctional relationship any longer. I didn't know if I'd ever see her again and it was looking quite possible that I wouldn't.

I decided that it was time to retire, which was devastating because I loved working. But I could barely get dressed or even walk from my car into my office. I had no choice.

By this time, I'd been on prednisone for two and a half years for the leg pain. After being on it for so long, I was advised to wean off it, which took almost six months. When I was done, two things happened. First, I was in more severe knee pain and I could hardly get out of a chair, and walking at all was sometimes near impossible. Second, I could not stay awake and I was sleeping about 20 hours a day. My body went into a deep sleep.

And then a wonderful, unexpected, miraculous thing happened! God healed my marriage and my husband returned home. Our relationship was better than when we first married and, to top it off, God made peace between my daughter and me. So while living in this dark pit, splendid victory came, and while it soothed my heart, it didn't make the physical suffering any less.

By now, a minor case of psoriasis had become a very large case that covered about 65% of my body, causing me great distress. It made it impossible to get knee replacements as they would not do surgery on me if I had psoriasis on my leg and I could not take a biologic as I have a severe reaction to many drugs and I didn't dare chance it.

My adrenal glands had somehow been damaged by the prednisone and my cortisol levels tanked. I saw a naturopath who treated me with adrenal supplementation and that helped some, but I spent most of my days in a sort of coma, either asleep, half-asleep, or in a foggy haze that was like living in a twilight zone that wasn't connected to life. I could not handle stress. Every minor problem became a reason to sit and weep. Any small amount of stress sent me over the edge, sometimes for days. Then I would have to sleep for several more days to recover.

Soon I could barely hold my balance if I walked, and I was afraid of falling, so I pretty much gave up going anywhere.

Sitting took a toll on my body and both my shoulders froze. Then I got nerve pain in my elbows and muscle pain in my hands. I developed osteoarthritis on my wrists and fingers and all fine motor skills disappeared. I could not open a door or a can or pick up a penny. Taking a shower and trying to dry myself was excruciating. I could not use my hands or wrists at all. Lifting a bath towel, even a very light waffle cotton one, caused severe pain. Typing was also severely painful and I couldn't play the piano. So, I couldn't bend over, use my arms or hands, lift anything, walk, or pretty much move at all. After I did anything, even something very quick like taking a shower, I'd have to take a three to four-hour nap to recover.

Just to make it even more fun, I developed pain in my feet. My toes became hammer toes because my knees were so bad that I became unstable on my feet and my toes hammered to try to stabilize me. My ankle bones kept nudging out of joint, so walking became scary.

I experienced great body weakness. I thought that the weakness was a part of the four autoimmune diseases I had and the inflammation in my knees and joints. I didn't much worry about it because the pain and the fatigue were enough to think about.

If I went anywhere, I would become so weak I could not hold my body up. Or I became dizzy and lightheaded and would have to sit down. I didn't go anywhere because I never knew if I could make it home if I did. I couldn't cook because I couldn't hold up my body long enough to cook a meal. And the icing on the cake was that I developed an ulcer and bloated stomach from all the NSAIDs I took for all the pain I had.

I dreaded the mornings when showering and dressing myself and putting on socks were extremely difficult. Shoes were doable, but not by much. I developed sciatica and lower back pain and it seemed as if my whole body was giving out. And just to make it more interesting, I became severely depressed and developed unbearable moment-by-moment anxiety like I'd never experienced in my life. At one point, I told my husband that he might have to commit me because I might lose my mind. The thought scared me to death.

I prepared for a life that would apparently end in suffering or death and maybe quite quickly. I began cleaning out my closets and drawers in spurts of five minutes at a time, as I could not handle the pain of working longer than that, but I pushed through because I didn't want to leave my husband with this job if I died. Looking back, I have no idea why that was important to me at the time, but preparing for death became my job.

I bought a book called I'm Dead, Now What? and started filling out the many pages of personal information and requests should I die. For much of the information the book wanted, I wrote, "It's on my phone," so my husband would know where my passwords and other information were. What I didn't know at the time and later found out from my doctor (2 years later) was that I was slowly dying and I wasn't going to live much longer if something didn't change.

In 2020, Covid hit. I was still calling out to God and standing on the promises, but I was nearly falling off the cliff.

My world had fallen apart, and I was barely functional other than to get dressed and sit in a chair all day as I watched the world around me fall apart. I prayed on and off most of the day and felt worthless and unable to fend for myself or even get up and run if I needed to. And it seemed to me that the way the world was going at some point, I would need to run!

I watched the world continue its downward spiral on YouTube and lived in acute anxiety, which I later found out was caused by a medical problem, but by then it had been going on for over a year and I was exhausted by it. I was overwhelmed, overcome, and overwrought.

And as Job said:

For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. (Job 3:25)

I had always wondered if one day my life would fall apart, just as my childhood family had fallen apart, and strangely enough, it did.

And then something crazy and miraculous happened.

One day, just out of the blue, Jesus appeared at the top of that great, awful pit I told you about, threw me a rope, and pulled me out.

And mind you, I had nearly given up hope. I was waiting to die, and I was ready to go. My house had been cleaned out, and my book of last wishes had been filled out should I die. My family was now restored and they could live without me. Everything was set up perfectly for my death.

But God had other plans.

He said, "I'm not done with you yet," and He yanked me out of that hole.

Amazon link to WHAT I LEARNED IN THE PIT.