November 16, 2025
Making Room for Hard Days
Psalm 42
Today’s sermon is a little different. I want us to learn from the Psalmist today and go home with some tools for living through hard days. There is even a handout with some fill-in-the-blanks, in case you want to write something down to remember.
A hard day can start in many ways. You sleep wrong and wake up with your neck kinked. You bomb a test. You get an email from your boss. The morning news makes your stomach churn and your blood boil. The car won’t start. A text message cancels plans. Hard days come to all of us by surprise.
And then there are hard seasons. Long stretches of hard days. They come despite how faithful we are, how good we try to be, how much we pray, how loving we are to others. They come to everyone because we are human, and we never know how long they will last.
When I think back on my own hard seasons, they often began with phone calls. A call from my dad when I was in college, telling me he and Mom were getting divorced. A call from a mentor fifteen years later telling me I wasn’t getting a job I’d thought was perfect for me, that I’d put all my hope into. A call from my mother a few years ago, in the middle of the night, to tell me my brother had died.
However they begin, going through hard seasons is part of being human in a world. The question isn’t if we go through hard seasons, but how?
In the days after of Hurricane Helene, we learned something about the importance of preparing for the worst. Some of you were already prepared. The rest of us learned the hard way. We needed gas, we needed food, we needed water, we needed cash, we needed a plan.
Today many of us prepare differently. We’ve learned to make room in our lives, literally, for the worst that can happen. In our house, we’ve made room on shelves in the garage for the supplies we will need next time.
There is wisdom in being prepared. Jesus teaches us to be prepared. “Keep watch,” he said. “Be ready.” How do we prepare spiritually for hard seasons? Psalm 42 shows us how.
The psalmist is drowning. Tears are his food. Enemies mock him. He feels forgotten by God. But he doesn’t collapse. He practices certain things that are revealed in the psalm. These practices became so important that they were written down, handed down, sung by God’s people for three thousand years. They’ve helped countless people survive their hard seasons.
And this morning, we’re going to learn from them, and modern research into the psychology of resilience, as we develop a spiritual preparedness checklist.
The first tool in our spiritual preparedness kit is honest naming—telling the truth about how hard things actually are. Listen to the psalmist: “My tears have been my food day and night.” “My soul is cast down within me.” The psalmist doesn’t minimize his situation.
Research on resilience confirms that people who handle adversity well aren’t those who pretend everything’s fine. Instead, they name reality honestly. Sometimes we pick up the message that people of faith are supposed to always thing positively and be hopeful. Sometimes, we pick that message up in our culture or in work life. Stay positive, focus on solutions, be optimistic, look at the windshield not the rearview mirror.
Ironically, that can make hard seasons harder, because you’re not just carrying the weight of your circumstances, you’re carrying shame about how you feel about your circumstances.
It is a good practice to name it honestly. Write it down. Tell God what you’re actually feeling. “I’m exhausted and I don’t know how much longer I can do this.” “I’m angry that you let this happen.” “I feel completely alone.” “I’m scared this will never get better.” “My soul is cast down within me.” God can handle your honesty.
It’s also good to tell one person. Not social media. Not everyone. But someone safe. Someone who won’t try to fix you. Someone who can just hear it and sit with you in it. Who is that one person for you?
The second practice might be the most important one on this list: talking to your own soul.
The Psalmist addresses himself: “Why are you cast down, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?” And then he answers himself: “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” He argues with his despair. His faith reasons with his fears. It’s as if he’s two people—one drowning, one throwing a lifeline. This refrain appears three times in the psalm. It’s not a pep talk. It’s a practice. Something he has to keep doing.
When your feelings say “It will always be this way,” you talk back: “I don’t know the future, but I know God is faithful.” When anxiety says “I can’t handle this,” you respond: “I don’t have to handle tomorrow—just today.” When despair says “Nobody cares,” you answer: “God’s love will not let me go.”
Psychologists call this “self-talk” or “cognitive reframing,” and it’s one of the most effective tools for handling adversity. But we’ve been doing it for 3,000 years. I call it preaching to yourself.
So here’s your assignment: Develop your refrain. What’s one truth you can return to when everything else feels uncertain? On your handout, there’s space to write: “My refrain is…”
It might be a verse of Scripture. It might be a line from a hymn. It might be a simple statement:
- “God’s love will not let me go.”
- “This season will not last forever.”
- “I am not alone in this.”
- “God is faithful even when I cannot feel it.”
Write it down. Put it on a card in your wallet. Make it your phone lock screen. Tape it to your bathroom mirror. And when hard days come—and they will—preach this to your soul. Even when you don’t feel it. What’s your refrain? Fill in the blank. What’s the truth you need to speak to yourself on hard days?
The third practice is remembering. The psalmist remembers: “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise.”
His memory is a spiritual resource.
The past doesn’t erase our pain. But it reminds us of important things:
- Hard seasons do have endings. (You have survived 100% of your worst days so far.)
- God has been faithful before.
- We are stronger than we think.
My mother was in Al-Anon for the last ten years of her life, and it was a gift to her in many ways. One of the practices of the recovery community is giving anniversary coins—physical tokens that mark progress. One month sober. Six months. A year. Five years.
I have my Mom’s coins at home, which she kept on the dresser. They’re a tangible reminder: Look what you have done. Look what God has done.
Here’s the practice: Create a “Remember When” list.
On your handout, there’s space for this. Write down 3-5 times when:
- You thought you couldn’t make it, but you did
- You felt alone, but help came
- You had no idea how things would work out, but they did
- God provided in unexpected ways
- You survived something you thought would destroy you
Mark the anniversaries of hard things you survived. Not to celebrate suffering, but to acknowledge: “I made it through. God was faithful.”
And when your own memory feels insufficient, you can borrow other people’s memories. Read the Psalms—they’re full of Israel’s collective memory of God’s faithfulness. Ask older people in the church to tell you their stories. Let the church’s memory carry you when your personal memory fails.
The fourth practice is perhaps the hardest: staying connected when everything in you wants to withdraw. The psalmist’s pain isn’t just that life is hard. It’s that he’s cut off from community.
Listen to the longing in his voice: “When shall I come and appear before God? …how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise.” He’s not only missing worship. He’s missing connection. He’s missing the people who know him, who pray with him, who remind him he’s not alone.
Every study on resilience confirms this: social connection is one of the strongest predictors of surviving adversity. And it’s not the number of connections. Quality matters more than quantity. But having people – even one or two – who know you’re struggling, who check on you, who sit with you without trying to fix you, that makes the difference.
And yet, when hard seasons hit, our instinct is often to isolate. We don’t want to be a burden. We’re ashamed we’re not handling it better. We don’t have energy for social interaction. We tell ourselves we’ll reach out when we feel better. Isolation intensifies suffering because it’s the very time you most need people.
So here’s the practice: Identify your “stay connected” people now, before crisis hits.
On your handout, there’s space to write down 2-3 names. These are people who:
- You can text when you’re struggling
- Will sit with you without trying to fix you
- Check on you without you having to ask
- You trust with your actual feelings and words, not your performative “I’m fine”
Write those names down. Put their numbers in your phone. Maybe even text them this week and say, “I’m designating you as someone I’ll reach out to when life gets hard. Is that okay?”
Staying connected is a practice. Show up even when you don’t feel like it. Come to church. Attend your small group. Say yes when someone invites you to coffee. Accept help when it’s offered. When someone says, “Let me bring you dinner.” or “Can I watch your kids?” or “Want me to just sit with you?” Say yes. Practice receiving care.
It doesn’t have to be deep conversation. Talk about the weather. Watch a movie together. Walk without talking. Just be in the company of another person.
The fifth and final practice—the one that holds all the others—is resting in God’s steadfast love. Right in the middle of Psalm 42, there’s this incredible line: “By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.”
That word “steadfast love” is the Hebrew word hesed. It’s one of the most important words in the whole Bible. It means steadfast love—loyal, faithful, dependable love that doesn’t depend on our performance or circumstances. Even when the psalmist feels forgotten, even when he’s asking “Why have you forgotten me?”—there is a foundational trust that God’s love is the one thing that cannot fail.
Everything else might, but that remains.
So here’s the practice: Practice distinguishing between what changes and what doesn’t.
Life will bring disruption. Hard seasons will shake a lot of things. Your handout has two columns:
In the left column, write what the hard season has disrupted or might disrupt:
- Your health
- Your job
- Your financial security
- Your plans
- Your feelings
- Your sense of control
In the right column, write what remains true despite the disruption:
- God’s love for you
- Your beloved-ness
- Your identity as God’s child
- God’s ultimate purposes
- The promise that nothing can separate you from God’s love
At the bottom of your handout, there’s a sentence to complete. It’s a Because of God’s Love Statement
“Because of God’s steadfast love, I can face ________ even though ________.”
Fill that in. Make it specific to what you’re facing or what you fear.
Because of God’s love, I can face my grief, even though my tears are my food.
Because of God’s love, I can face this illness, even though I’m scared to death of what might happen.
Because of God’s love, I can face this anxiety, even though my breath is caught in my throat.
Because of God’s love, I can face the brokenness of the world, even though I want to rage and despair.
Take a couple minutes. Fill in those two columns. Write your “Because of God’s love” statement. This might be the most important thing you write today.
Now, here’s the gospel truth underneath all these practices: God’s promise to be with you on hard days doesn’t depend on how well you use these tools.
These practices help us experience and recognize God’s presence. They give us handholds and footholds. But there is nothing we can face and nowhere life can take where God does not meet us there. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 139, even if we have to sleep on the floor of hell, God will lay down beside us; even if we try to run away from everything and hide in the darkest corner of the world, God will find us there.
Even on the days when you can’t name your despair, can’t preach to your soul, can’t remember faithfulness, can’t stay connected, can’t feel God’s love—God is still there.
God’s steadfast love will never change and will never let you go. The steadfast love of God will never fail. Hope in God. Our help, and our God. Amen.
Rev. Patrick W. T. Johnson, Ph.D.
First Presbyterian Church
Asheville, North Carolina