This is the story of the worst year of my life and how it became one of the most important years of my spiritual growth. My prayer for you as you read is that you’ll see His faithfulness in your own story and find courage to trust Him with your emotions, your circumstances, and your calling.

When Faith Feels Impossible

This is the foundation God used to carry me through the year:

“But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must (of necessity) believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him out.” Hebrews 11:6 (AMPC)

Note: Impossible doesn’t mean that pleasing God without faith is hard or difficult—it means it is completely IMPOSSIBLE.

Seeking Him isn’t nonchalant; it is practical, daily, real-life searching. It is choosing to go to God first when emotions are raging. It is bringing financial fears to Him instead of hiding them. It is running to His presence when you feel like a failure as a wife, mom, or believer—a place we all find ourselves in at some point—but not a place we need to stay.

In Hebrews 11, you will find that the heroes of faith listed are just regular people like you and me. Some of them could be described today as a hot mess. They made serious mistakes, yet God highlights them not because they were flawless, but because, in their mess, they chose to believe Him. Their faith pleased God. He was never after their perfection, but He wanted their trust—just like me.

In the Middle of Real Life

Most of us can quote the following verses, but living them out can be another story.

“Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind… and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.” Proverbs 3:5–6 (Amplified)

It means trusting with your will, emotions, thoughts, senses, and laying it all at His feet. As women, our emotions can be loud. We have a lot to manage and care for, and it’s easy to start living horizontally—only looking at circumstances, needs, crises—instead of vertically, keeping our hearts connected to the Lord.

At one point, I tried all the “right” spiritual routines to stay connected “properly.” I remember an era with teaching that proposed “one solid hour of prayer every morning.” So I tried to make it work.

• 5:00 a.m. prayer. A child woke up.  
• 4:00 a.m. prayer. Another child woke up.  
• 3:00 a.m. prayer. Yet again, a child woke up.

I finally said, “Lord, this isn’t working. What do I do?” He whispered this phrase into my heart, and I have held onto it ever since. Maximize the moments. He was not boxed into a single holy hour. He is present and available in all the ordinary moments—folding laundry late at night, driving alone in the car, standing at the sink, or any of dozens of snatched moments throughout the day.

Laundry time became “the Lord and me” time. He started meeting me in those quiet pockets, where I could grow and mature, where He could correct and comfort me, and I could get to know Him better.

The Year Every Light at the End of the Tunnel Was a Train

Enter the year 1991. We were young in ministry, our church was in a high-poverty area, and finances were tight. That wasn’t new—we had walked through tight seasons before. We knew how to adjust and stretch, but this time was different.

By April, we had not received a paycheck since December (4 months).  

The bills and the church staff were getting paid, but there was nothing left for us. And then came the point where even paying the staff was becoming impossible. We were desperate.

In the middle of this financial strain, we decided the 3 children we had—a 9-year-old, an almost 7-year-old, and a 2-year-old—were a good place to stop growing our family. We wanted to focus on raising them in the Lord, giving them our time and attention. We would need to wait for the finances to change before a permanent solution could be arranged, but I became pregnant before that happened.

Being broke compounded the unplanned, emotionally jarring, and financially terrifying situation of this pregnancy. I was already overwhelmed. I knew the weight of motherhood, ministry, and the expectations that come with being a pastor’s wife. Now we had no paycheck, three young children, and a fourth on the way.

The emotions of fear, guilt, anxiety, and confusion were intense. For a couple of weeks, I didn’t even tell anyone. I didn’t have long—the fourth pregnancy “shows” fast—but I was still wrestling inside. Then came the phone call that would shake everything even more.

A Broken Arm… or Something Worse

I was working late at the church when someone ran up and said, “Your son fell off the swing. He’s hurt pretty bad.” I ran outside and saw my boy on the ground, in obvious pain, his arm beginning to swell. We loaded him up and took him to a clinic for X-rays. By this point, I had to start telling people I was pregnant—I couldn’t be around X-rays. The secret was out.

My husband arrived just in time and was about to straighten our son’s arm and pray over it—something he had done several times before—when the Lord spoke very clearly to him: “Do NOT touch it.” That was a first for us.  

We had seen and experienced healing many times. Broken bones set, prayed for, and healed. But this time, we were told not to touch it.

The clinic staff told us they couldn’t treat our son. His arm needed a specialist. We needed to take him to Texas. We didn’t know yet how serious it was. But God did.

A Miracle in Texas

In Texas, we had to push hard to get a specialist to see him. It took persistence and God’s intervention to get the right doctor involved. We eventually learned the full picture. Our son had completely ruptured a main artery; he was bleeding internally, and the blood flow was moving toward his heart.  

If my husband had straightened his arm, as he initially intended, it would likely have killed him instantly. If the doctors had not operated when they did, he would have died within an hour or so. God’s Word “Do NOT Touch” had literally spared our son’s life. We walked out of that situation with a profound awareness that God knows and sees what we can’t, and He cared more for our son than even we did.

Spiritually, I was encouraged, but emotionally, I was raw. This unplanned pregnancy, nearly losing my son, and our finances being stretched to the breaking point—it was A LOT. But the worst year of my life was only half over.

Chickenpox 2.0

We brought our son home after his surgery, and almost immediately, our kids came down with severe chickenpox. Our worship leader’s two children were also infected. They were expecting their third baby, and their mom had never had chickenpox, so to protect her, I took their children into our home.

So, I had five children with extreme chickenpox—covered head to toe, in their hair, miserable and itchy—and one with a broken arm to boot. I was exhausted. Then came a call; one of our elders’ sons was being rushed to the hospital. His case of chickenpox had gone internal and started closing off his airway. His life was in danger.

At that point, a holy anger rose up in me. I fought with everything I had in prayer. God moved, and the boy recovered, but the emotional weight kept piling up.

You Are the Worst Pastor’s Wife

One Sunday morning during this year, I arrived at church to serve on the worship team. I had dropped my kids off in their classes and was heading to the platform when a man stopped me. “Can you come meet my friends?” he asked.

“I’d love to,” I replied, “but can we do that after the service?” He stepped in close and said, “You are the worst pastor’s wife I have ever known. You don’t even deserve to be one.” Inside, I thought, “That’s exactly how I feel.” It wasn’t just that man speaking to me—it was the enemy speaking to a place of insecurity in me. During worship that morning, I wasn’t focused on leading anyone. I went straight to Jesus’ feet and poured my heart out to Him.

As if all that wasn’t enough, I started being flooded with teaching materials from people saying birth control was a sin, you should have as many children as possible, etc. They quoted testimonies of the 8th child becoming a famous leader, and the 12th child doing something great for God. Even highlighting Joseph as the 11th son of Jacob!

I was thinking, Joseph may have been Jacob’s 11th son, but he was Rachel’s first. Jacob’s 12 sons came from multiple women, and I was not sharing my husband. I just wanted to raise four functional adults who would serve the Lord.

God sorted through all this and more in my heart. He reminded me that children are a blessing, we don’t parent or reproduce out of guilt or pressure, and we follow HIM, not the “trending” teaching of the day.  

Even the Help Needs Help

It was a blessing that my mom could come to help with the kids and the arrival of the new baby. One night, she tripped in the hall and fell, busting her head open, and breaking her arm. By now, I was emotionally up to my eyeballs. Everything in my life felt fragile, but this is where the story turns. God was quietly building something in me I didn’t recognize until much later.

Lessons in the Middle of the Mess

1. Community Matters—But It’s Not a Substitute for God

When the finances became critical, we finally went to our elders and shared honestly where we were. Their first response was how they wished they had known sooner. They gently helped us see something important:  

In “protecting” people from knowing our need, we were actually robbing them of the opportunity to partner with God in faith and generosity.

Our eldership team prayed with us, stood beside us, and to this day, many of them still serve with us. Our community carried us through that time, but only because each of us personally walked with God. We weren’t leaning on people instead of the Lord—we were leaning on Him together.

2. God Loves My Children More Than I Do

When our second son’s life was hanging in the balance, and we saw God’s supernatural protection in the “don’t touch his arm” moment, God began to speak to my fear as a mom. He showed me specific pictures of His care. The Lord whispered to my heart that He is at work in my children. His grace is enough for us as adults and for them as well—He has them.

He reminded me that I am only an instrument in their lives, I am not their Savior. God is forming their hearts, even when I’m overwhelmed. He can work through older siblings, friends, and circumstances that I don’t control.

Later, the Lord spoke to me about the baby I was carrying. He told me she was a gift, and her name was to be Angelica (a gift from heaven). During this time, I learned to give my children to Him daily, trust His grace to fill in the gaps, and to listen for His leadership in how to love, correct, and guide them.

3. My Identity Is in Christ, Not in People’s Expectations

In a vulnerable moment, I poured my heart out to my husband about how inadequate and condemned I felt. He looked me in the eyes and said:

“You’re MY wife. You didn’t marry the church. You didn’t marry the congregation, you married ME.”

At that same moment, I sensed the Lord whisper to my heart: “You’re My wife. You married Me.” Those words went deep, and they began to heal a core identity issue in me. I had been wearing a “pastor’s wife” hat defined by other people’s expectations. God wasn’t asking me to be the ideal of everyone else’s imagination; He was asking me to be His daughter, Duane’s wife, the woman and mother He graced and designed me to be  

As I leaned into Him, an amazing thing happened. God’s light shone through my real life, not my “role.”

God Meets You in Your Ordinary

He wants your life—lived honestly, anchored in Him—to be a light, not because everything is perfect, but because in hardship, you’ve learned to run, again and again, to His throne of grace.

If you’re in a season where your finances feel impossible, your children scare you with the weight of responsibility, you feel misunderstood or attacked, you are exhausted emotionally, or voices around you are making you feel small instead of free, run to Him. Your job is not to have all the answers. Your job is to seek Him. Remember those verses I mentioned at the beginning of this article.

If you’re walking through your own “worst year,” hold on. The same God who met me:

• In unpaid bills  
• In emergency rooms  
• In criticism  
• In a surprise pregnancy
• In broken arms and broken expectations  

…is the same God who is with you right now.

He is not intimidated by your emotions.  

He is not surprised by your circumstances.  

He is not disappointed in your weakness.

He is inviting you closer.

Sue Sheriff has taught about faith, marriage, raising children, and life through Jesus Christ. For related teachings, check out the website for books, video lessons, and resource materials by Duane Sheriff.

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