Have you been trying to figure out how to trust God completely? We are currently living through a season of a global COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to a health crisis, as a nation, we are going through a lasting racial conflict with thousands of protests taking over our country. In Atlanta, we had four consecutive nights of curfew at 9 pm as of the time of publishing this article. Is God taking a nap right now? Here are my 20 tips for how to trust God during difficult times.

Introduction

In my life, I’ve seen a lot. I experienced hunger as a child, rape and teen pregnancy, political brainwashing, poverty, homelessness, domestic violence, narcissistic abuse, suicidal depression, and so much more adversity.

I was born in Russia in 1983 and grew up during the crush of USSR. Every year, as I came back to school on September first, there was a new history in our history books. Yes, we had a new history taught to us every year, no joke. God did not exist in Soviet Russia. I became a Christian as an adult in 2014 when I had already lived in America for almost six years.

READ: My Testimony

I grew up in a factory city called Kursk. Factories were failing and closing. My mom lost her job and, after that, she worked as a janitor until retirement. My grandma always worked as a janitor.

We often had nothing to eat.

Even if we did have anything, it was given to us based on food tickets. We survived mainly eating what the earth generously gave us, thanks to the good soil in Kursk called “chernozem.”

My family had small farms where we all worked tirelessly, including me as a child. I loved our homegrown potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, cabbage, herbs, apples, pears, plums, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. I loved our onions, garlic, squash, eggplant, pumpkins, and beets. Eating vegetables wasn’t optional. Only now as a plant-based vegan can I appreciate the value of growing up harvesting what we ourselves planted every year.

READ: Plant-Based Diet

I remember life in USSR on food tickets. I recall empty shelves in the stores nationwide. My memories of waiting in line at 6 am in the winter, in the dark, outside of the food store, for hours, in the snow, just to get one skinny chicken, all are still vivid even today, three decades later. I’m 37 now.

I had to wear clothes and shoes that were not my size. I remember using cotton in the toe-area to make the large shoes work at least somewhat for me. The same was with my first bra. Yes, I only had one bra growing up.

I endured violence inside and outside my home.

I was raped twice.

I experienced teen pregnancy and miscarriage.

Yet, I persevered.

At 11 and 12, I attempted suicide.

READ: My Suicide Story

Since I was 12, I had a conviction that there was some kind of God. I knew He had me suffer for a reason. Yet, year after year, there was more and more adversity in my life. Though I pushed through with fortitude, I suffered.

In 2008, I got married and emigrated to America after graduating from a college and two universities with high honors. I was 25. My first husband beat the life out of me.

I ended up homeless in a shelter for battered women in a foreign country without speaking any English. Still, I had a feeling that there was some sort of God and there was a purpose for my suffering.

READ: My Story of Domestic Violence

In 2014, I had a personal encounter with Jesus. I invited Him to be my lord and savior. I became a Christian. It was six years ago. In the last six years, I got married and divorced two more times and I endured severe narcissistic relationship abuse in my third marriage.

He manipulated me into a suicidal depression. I became drained and disoriented, gained a lot of weight, and, through that suffering, learned how to lean on God.

During that time, I studied what God says about me and who I am in Christ. The journey I described in just a few sentences took a long time. It’s been tough and I endured a lot of emotional, mental, and physical pain.

Yet, during the last six years, I have learned how to trust God during difficult times. I want to share with you what God revealed to me throughout my journey of discipleship and a follower of Jesus Christ.

Below are my six tips.

How To Trust God During Difficult Times

Difficult times are unavoidable in life. The Bible says we will have troubles in this world. During our many trials, we are instructed to trust in the Lord and let God make our path straight.

I’ve lived here on earth for 37 years.

Many times, I’ve tried to walk in my own power.

It worked for a while but abiding in Christ is a better way of living my life – that is what I discovered about three years ago when I was suicidal from hopelessness. My hope was misplaced for a minute. I recommend examining the source of your hope and make sure your hope comes from the Lord.

So, here are my tips.

6 Tips for How To Trust God During Difficult Times

1. Remember who God is in the Bible
2. Dwell on who you are in Christ
3. Leverage your faith to conquer your fear
4. Do all things in Christ and not in your own power
5. Look back to witness that God never failed you
6. Trust that God is good and He uses all things together for good

In the video below, I share in tears how I walked through pain and suffering with Christ, practicing how to trust God during difficult times. The video below is intense. It was filmed as I was going through my third divorce. I had just moved into my new home and was going through narcissistic abuse recovery.

How to Trust God And Not Worry

If you watched the video above, you know now that learning how to trust God and not worry has not been easy for me at all. Through suffering, perseverance, and honest conversations with God, I had to lean on the Lord.

I had many fears. Today, we all have many reasons to have fears. The Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic makes us fear for our health and lives since it took so many lives. We fear hugging people or shaking hands. Our entire culture is changing forever.

We fear to leave our homes and go anywhere because of nationwide racial protests. They already took many lives since Saturday last week when this crisis had began. The Red Cross reports short blood supplies. Our already overwhelmed healthcare systems are pressured to the limits right now.

How can we trust God?

I don’t have all the answers. All I know is this: throughout my life, I had trusted God and He never failed me. So, here are my five tips for how to trust God and not worry. What do I mean “do not worry?” I mean this: you care about the pandemic, you care about racial equality, but you still need to go to bed every night, you must eat meals, you must do your laundry and take showers still. Life is a long-term commitment, and you’re in for a marathon here, not a sprint. How can you go to sleep when people are dying from viruses and racial violence left and right?

Do not fear, I will help you

Isaiah 41:13

Lean on God and trust His promises.

I remember the weekend of my wedding with Michel on May 14th, 2016. It was my third marriage and my first marriage as a Christian. My hopes were high. My commitment was for life. We were vowing to love and honor one another no matter what and to focus our life together on serving each other and Jesus.

When Michel was courting me for marriage, we saw each almost every day. We spent weekends together. However, the weekend of our wedding was the last weekend Michel ever spent with me. After we said “I do!” Michel abandoned the marriage saying he changed his mind and all he really wanted was to be an IronMan and compete in Kona.

READ: IronMan vs Marriage

I married Michel for the rest of my life because I loved him. Now Michel was calling his bicycle “My Other Wife I Cheat On You With…” Frankly speaking, not only was I worried, but actually I was depressed and suicidal. I was abandoned, rejected, and mentally manipulated by Michel every day.

I was so worried in my adversity because I was so focused on my adversity.

I forgot all about God’s Promises in the Bible. I didn’t want to live anymore. In my despair, I started searching the Bible for something to hold on to. I found 3573 promises of God.

Isaiah 41:13 says: “Do not fear; I will help you.” I was thinking: “Well, God, you’re not helping me. I want my husband to want to be my husband. I want him to be the wise Christian leader whom I married and not an insecure little boy who was now chasing bicycles and medals.” That was what I wanted.

But God wanted me to trust Him.

That was what God wanted to help me with.

He wanted to comfort me in my situation and teach me to lean on Him. He wanted to reveal His strength to me in my weakness. He wanted to equip me with wisdom and understanding so I could share the Gospel with others.

I wanted God to save my marriage so much that I forgot to be grateful for what I already had. My mind was constantly obsessing about what I didn’t have. And then, through prayer, journaling, and Christian guided meditation, I learned to calm my worry and focus on God’s promises instead. So, here are my 5 tips for how to trust God and not worry. These are from my personal experience with God, enduring a lot of adversity, uncertainty, emotional pain, divorce, unemployment, betrayal by friends, and financial struggles.

5 Tips for How to Trust God and Not Worry

1. Learn what God promises in the Bible.
2. Choose a few verses that relate the most to your situation.
3. Examine your worry through journaling, make a list of worries.
4. Confront each worry you have with applicable promises of God.
5. Focus your mind on God’s promises and your eternity whenever your mind wants to let your worry take over.

How to Trust God When Everything Is Going Wrong

I already shared with you about the current situation right here in Atlanta, GA where I live. You personally know first-hand about the pandemic. (If you don’t know about the COVID-19 global epidemic, I can’t image where on earth you must live to be s isolated, at leas you’re reading this 100 years from today.)

In addition to the violent racial protests, our city has huge unemployment rates. People lose their jobs, homes, and sanity. As if that weren’t too much already, our hospitals don’t have enough blood and other essential medical supplies to provide critical care to all the sufferers of the pandemic and the victims of the current racial conflict.

And what about our presidential election that’s on its way as we are getting distracted left and right? It seems as if everything is going wrong right now. How do we continue living life? How can we manage our headspace effectively to be productive every day? How can we maintain our sanity? How can we persevere and be strong when everything is going wrong all around us?

I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand

Isaiah 41:10

Can we really trust this promise? It can be a struggle. Have you ever struggled to trust God when things don’t work out in life? I have, for sure. Even today, as I look around, a lot of faith is required to simply leave my home to go grocery shopping! Violence and viruses are killing people all over Atlanta. I have to be courageous enough to do what I need to do every day. I’ve learned the skill of conquering my fears with faith from some tragic life experiences.

When right after our wedding in 2016, Michel started rejecting me, stopped talking to me, was spending my paycheck on his bicycle obsession, and calling his bicycle “My other wife I cheat on you with,” I had a hard time standing on God’s promises.

READ: Standing on God’s Promises

That’s me being completely honest. I did not trust God. However, I was genuinely wondering every day how to trust god when everything is going wrong… My life was a nightmare of Narcissistic Abuse which triggered anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

Through my struggle, by searching for God’s truth, presence, love, and wisdom, I discovered some things that really helped me persevere, heal, and thrive again. That is why I want to share with you my lessons learned.

I remember my wedding day. Pure happiness and joy.

I was marrying a man who was a strong Christian leader, very wise, solid in his faith, he attended a seminary here in Atlanta, he was officiating weddings and writing about marriage, as well as leading Christian couples in premarital counseling. That was the Michel I married.

I married him for the rest of my life because I loved him and because he painted a picture of how together we could serve God in a big way with our Christian marriage. After the wedding, the Michel I ended up being married to had no interest in God whatsoever, he had no interest in our marriage, and he had no interest in me. He abandoned our marriage.

I felt so confused. I felt devastated. I felt betrayed not only by Michel but also by God. How could He allow this? I became depressed and suicidal. I was abandoned, rejected, and mentally manipulated by Michel every day.

I was so focused on my suffering that I couldn’t even see how I could glorify God in my suffering. Then, Michel got really sick. One month after he filed for his second divorce in our first year of marriage, I was now facing a dilemma: should I stay in my self-pity because of all the abuse I endured from Michel or should I take care of the sick Michel, practicing forgiveness and love as Jesus asked me to do?

Making that decision required strong faith. True faith, not habitual make-believe pretend-like faith. I had to search my heart, mind, and soul to really dig deep and see what I believed. Our faith helps us discern how to act in difficult situations. Faith or fear? This is our everyday choice.

READ: What Is Faith?

I took care of Michel every day. Doing so taught me a lot about Jesus. That experience grew my faith so much. I was invited to speak to a group of students at GA State University on February 14th, 2017, one month after Michel filed for his second divorce in our first eight months of marriage. There, at the university, I got to share my faith in Christ while talking about leadership.

The students asked me many difficult questions, such as “Where’s that good God and why would He allow you to go through this devastating adversity?” I was able to speak from my personal experience of struggle and faith growth. Isaiah 41:10 says: “I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” The truth is this: Michel chose with his free will to destroy our marriage but God never left me for even one day.

Michel is a worldly man. God wanted me to focus on my spiritual eternity with Jesus, not on Michel. God wanted me to glorify Him no matter Michel’s worldly drama. God wanted to show up for me in the midst of that adversity, and He did. He never failed me. He delivered me, redeemed me, and healed me. And He gave me a Christian discipleship ministry. Here I am today sharing this with you through my ministry because God strengthen me and helped me; because He upheld me with His righteous right hand.

What about you?

If you’re going through tough times right now, how can you remember eternity with Jesus and focus on your spiritual life instead of the worldly drama? I hope that my four tips on how to trust God when everything is going wrong will help you, no matter your adversity right now.

God is faithful.

Trust in the Lord, not in the world.

4 Tips for How to Trust God when Everything Is Going Wrong

1. Understand who God is and what His purpose is for you – to grow and mature and to give you wisdom.
2. Accept the fact that to grow and mature us God often allows us to experience suffering.
3. Focus on studying the 3573 promises of God for your life to remind yourself about His goodness during hard times.
4. Pay attention to how God is giving you opportunities to share your faith while you’re going through a season of suffering. God wants you to share hope with others.

Are you trusting God’s Promises in your adversity?

Have you been sharing your faith and hope with others?

Let me know in the comments below.

How to Trust God In Everything

During this season, I personally am at a crossroads. My marketing clients were impacted by the pandemic so my business is slow. Should I get a job? Should I aggressively seek new marketing clients? What must I do? Will this pandemic last for weeks or months? Will I be able to work on the marketing projects planned before COVID-19? Ever? Can I trust God with this?

Do you ever struggle to figure out how to trust God in everything? Today, I can easily answer this question: yes, God is trustworthy. God can be trusted with everything. In any situation, God is faithful. Yet, that was a challenge for me just a few years ago…

Since we got married in 2016 and Michel abandoned our marriage, he filed for divorce twice. So, after tens of thousands of dollars in attorney fees I paid to my own attorney, Michel demanded that I pay $50K to his attorney.

Are you raising your eyebrows yet?

Listen to this! We had a court hearing in November of 2017, and in January of 2018, I still had not even heard anything about the judge’s decision. Many of my friends asked me almost daily: “What did the judge decide about the 50K?” I didn’t know for a long time.

Here’s what I did know tough.

I could trust God with everything.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.

Romans 8:28

How easy is it to believe that God makes all things together work for good? It wasn’t easy for me, at all. Let me give you some context for a realistic perspective on why I had a hard time comprehending how all things work together for good.

In 2015, Michel pursued me on social media and finally met me after 11 months. In 2016, Michel proposed to me, and I said yes. While in premarital counseling, Michel persuaded me to remodel the house he lived in, which was worth $146K in February of 2016, insisting that the house would be our marital residence and we would have our family there.

I did that and paid thousands of dollars for the remodeling. On May 14th, 2016 we were married. After the wedding, Michel abandoned our marriage and begun to insist that we sell the house for a profit. Four months later, Michel served me with divorce summons at a Christian conference Harvest
saying that he didn’t want to be married anymore and, instead, he wanted to be an IronMan and compete in Kona.

Then Michel asked me to reconcile, and I said yes. Five weeks later, he served me with the second divorce summons. We had a divorce jury trial in 2017. In the midst of it all, I lost my job. I was betrayed by my friends, as well.

I endured so much mental cruelty in my narcissistic marriage with Michel that I became depressed and severely suicidal. I was hopeless. I was devalued and discarded regularly. I felt completely devastated.

READ: Who Is Satan?

We were divorced in 2017, and Michel started asking that I pay $50K to his lawyer to cover the cost of his divorce litigation… The house I paid to remodel Michel sold for $245K with a $99K increase since 2016 and a profit of $145K since he had bought it for about $100K.

That’s some context for you, so that you know, if you’re going through tough times and someone completely took advantage of you and abused you, I can relate. I understand your feelings. I know what you’re experiencing.

However, during that incredibly difficult season of life, I focused on Romans 8:28. God works all things for good for those who love the Lord. I saw in my struggles that I was focused on my identity as Michel’s wife so much more than my identity as God’s precious daughter.

READ: I Am Valuable

I realized that my peace was coming from the hope that Michel would come to his senses but I needed my hope to come from the Lord. I noticed that, while I wanted to love Michel in his affliction, I was also casting my cares on him, instead of loving him with grace while casting my cares on God.

So, did I need to grow and mature in my faith? Yes.

Did God use these terrible things for good? Yes.

Just sharing this awareness with you today is a breakthrough but to actually be at peace with this is truly amazing. I know from experience that God is good and He is trustworthy. I believe with all my heart that God makes all things together work for good.

READ: Why Does God Allow Bad Things To Happen?

I may not see immediately the good God makes from my ashes. My perception of life circumstances may even lead me to hopelessness and depression. But I do trust God and stand firmly on His eternal promises.

So, here are my five tips for how to trust God in everything, remembering that all things God together works for good.

5 Tips on How to Trust God In Everything

1. Study God’s promises in the Bible.
2. Choose three to five promises of God that relate the most to your situation.
3. Examine your past and you’ll see how God delivered you through adversity, and make a list of proof.
4. Meditate on your personal case studies of how God always helped you and never failed you.
5. Believe wholeheartedly that all things God works for the good of those who love him, including the adversity you’re going through right now.

Do you trust that God will work all things together for good in your current situation? Let me know in the comments below. I want to cheer you on. You’re not alone. I’m here to pray for you. Tell me what you need, and I will lift you up in prayer.

How to Trust God Completely

In my 37 years of life, given everything I’ve been through, I have discovered how to trust God completely. It all starts with genuine faith. In all honesty, I’ve struggled to abide in Christ because I often tend to be self-reliant and lean more on myself. I try to walk in my own power. My power is limited. God’s power is limitless.

Trusting God completely allowed me to have peace.

In today’s world, we are attacked with bad news every nano-second. It’s up to us what we choose: faith or fear. For me, trusting God is the only way to live. When I did submit to my fears, I became hopeless, depressed, and suicidal.

READ: What Depression Feels Like

That kind of life was no living at all. Today, I choose to trust God completely, with everything, even when everything is going wrong. It takes a lot of work, yes, but doesn’t fear also take a lot of hard work? Whether we choose fear or faith, we have to work at it. I choose faith. I choose God.

I stand on His 3573 promises.

When You Trust God, This Happens

Trusting God taught me what it means to truly surrender. Leaning on the Lord rid me of my anxiety and panic attacks. Standing on the promises of God brought peace into my life. Today, I have the joy I had never experienced when living in my own power conquered by worldly fears.

Here’s a video I filmed while going through trials.

When you trust God, this happens: you stop being your own God, you surrender, you reduce your anxiety, you increase your peace, you feel true joy, you start living the story of God’s glory by allowing Him to lead and guide your every step.

Are you ready to trust God completely?