When I Thought God Didn’t Protect Me
There was a moment in my life when everything I believed about God’s protection was shaken.
At sixteen, I found myself in a situation I never expected — one that left me questioning not only my circumstances, but God Himself.
I had trusted Him.
I believed He would keep me safe.
But in the middle of that moment, I didn’t feel Him there.
And that led me to a question so many of us quietly ask:
“God… where were You?”
In this very first episode of the Grace in the Journey Podcast, I’m sharing a deeply personal part of my story — not from a place of pain, but from a place of healing.
We talk about:
✨ What it feels like when your faith is shaken
✨ The lies we begin to believe in hard seasons
✨ Feeling disqualified, forgotten, or abandoned
✨ And how God can remain present even when He feels silent
This episode is for the woman who has ever questioned God’s protection…
who has felt unseen…
or who wonders if her story has disqualified her from purpose.
Because what I’ve learned is this:
God’s silence is not His absence.
And your story is not over.
🎧 Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
💛 Join us daily inside Grace in the Journey for encouragement and devotionals.
When I Thought God Didn’t Protect Me
From Survival Mode to Surrender
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The Grace in the Journey Podcast is a place for the woman who is rebuilding.
Rebuilding her faith.
Rebuilding her heart.
Rebuilding her life after seasons she never expected to walk through.
Hosted by Misti Appleby, this podcast is rooted in real-life experiences, honest conversations, and the kind of faith that meets you in the middle of broken places.
Because sometimes life doesn’t go the way we planned.
Sometimes we find ourselves:
Questioning God
Carrying pain we don’t know how to explain
Or simply trying to survive one day at a time
But even in those moments… God is still present.
Each episode is designed to bring encouragement, healing, and truth — reminding you that:
You are not alone
You are not forgotten
And your story is not over
From personal testimony to practical insight, Grace in the Journey is where broken stories begin to find purpose.
🎙 New episodes every Monday
Welcome back to Grace in the Journey Podcast. I'm Misty Appleby. So if you've listened to the first two messages, you know that I have the significant honor of being able to tell the story that God has given me for my life. And right now, I want to ask you something. Have you ever felt like you were just surviving life, not thriving, not fully living, just getting through the day, showing up, holding it all together, carrying more than anyone else can see. If that's you, you're not alone. And today we're going to talk about what it looks like to move from survival mode into surrender. Because you see, survival mode doesn't always look obvious. Sometimes it looks like strength. It looks like you're holding everything. You being the one everyone leans on. It looks like you pushing through no matter what. But internally, well, it feels something altogether different. It feels like constant overthinking, bracing for what might go wrong next, struggling to relax even in the calm moments, and then carrying that tension that you just cannot quite explain. See, I remember the season where I didn't even realize I was in survival mode. Pregnant. Didn't know which way to go. People making fun of me because I was young. People mocking me, calling me horrible names. I shut it all out and pushed it aside because I thought that's what I had to do to be strong, to hold it all together. But looking back, even now, I can see that I was always just bracing. Bracing for disappointment, bracing for hurt, bracing for something else to fall apart. You know, when that becomes your normal, you don't even realize just how heavy that is. Survival mode, it feels safe. You know, because when you've been through those hard things, control feels like protection. You start thinking, if I stayed strong, I'll be okay. If I stay prepared, I won't get hurt again. If I keep everything together, nothing will fall apart. I remember feeling like I had to carry everything. All of my emotions and everybody else's emotions around me. Because everybody had their own way of thinking just what I was supposed to be doing with this teenage pregnancy that I had on my hands. So I didn't just carry my own emotions, but literally the weight of everything around me. Even on the calm days where nobody bothered me and I could just sit in peace. I couldn't rest. Because part of me, well, it was always waiting. Waiting for something else to go wrong. That kind of living, it's exhausting. I'm not gonna lie. It's horrible, and at some point, something has to shift. Because survival mode, it'll keep you going, absolutely, but it won't give you peace. And that is where surrender comes in. But let's be honest about it. Surrender can feel scary. At 16, it was complete and utter nightmare. I didn't know how to surrender, I didn't know how to give it all and how to say, God, you take all this, you do all of this because I can't do this anymore. And I don't want to be that way. Surrender feels like it's letting go of control. But surrender is not giving up, it's trusting God with what you were never ever meant to carry alone. There came a moment where I realized I can't keep living like this. I can't keep carrying everything. I can't keep trying to control everything. I can't keep bracing for what might happen next. And this is where it got super hard for me. Where I did something I don't even know why I did it. But it was the voice of my little baby woke up from a nap crying, that sweet small voice. That made me realize what I had just done was so not the right answer. I immediately called for help. And when help arrived, the journey truly started. And slowly I began to trust God differently. Not just in the big picture, but in the everyday moments. I began to remind myself if I trust him with my life, I can trust him with today. And at that moment, I knew that it was him that had saved my life by giving my baby a voice to cry in the midst of it, as a gentle reminder. I'm still here. This isn't the answer. So you see, surrender doesn't happen all at once. It happens in small daily choices. It looks like releasing the need to control outcomes, letting go of constant overthinking, choosing peace even when things feel uncertain, trusting God in moments you used to fear. For me, it didn't look like everything suddenly being perfect. It really didn't, because nothing that was going on looked perfect, but it looked like small moments, moments of me being with my baby, watching him watch me, smiling, talking, cooing, just making all sorts of noise that babies do. You know, and it was the moments where I wasn't overthinking, moments where I felt peace, and moments where I finally realized I don't have to carry this anymore. And those moments they began to grow. If you feel like you've been stuck in survival mode, I want you to hear this today. You don't have to stay there. You are allowed to rest, to breathe, to let your guard down. You're allowed to trust again. God is not asking you to carry everything. He's asking you to surrender it. Let me close by praying for you. Father, for the one who feels tired, for the one who's been strong for too long. Help her to release what she's been carrying. Father, remind her that she is safe in you. That she doesn't have to brace against things anymore. Father, I ask that you lead her from survival into surrender. And in your precious grace and mercy in Jesus' name. Amen. Join me next week as we continue to walk this journey together because there is grace in the journey and hope, healing, and restoration.