Welcome — especially if we’ve never met

If you’re reading this and you’ve never met us, come on in.

We’re a group of women who get together every week with our Bibles, our coffee, and our real lives.

Some of us are carrying a diagnosis. Some of us go home to a house nobody else lives in. Some of us have been in church since we were little girls in patent leather shoes, and we still catch ourselves flinching when we think about God.

You don’t have to be any particular kind of woman to read this.

You just have to have wondered, at least once, lying in the dark: What did I do to deserve this?

Three kinds of people are reading this post:

• You were with us this week. Read it again, slower. The second pass is where it sinks in.
• You missed it. You didn’t miss it. It’s all here.
• Somebody forwarded this to you, and you don’t know a soul in our group. Pull up a chair. This one’s for you too.

First, a skillet

There was a woman named Miss Verna who, when her mother passed, inherited exactly one thing worth having: a black cast-iron skillet.

It wasn’t pretty. It was heavy. It was scarred. The handle had a nick in it where somebody dropped it in 1963.

Her daughter looked at it and said, “Mama, why do you keep that old beat-up thing? I’ll buy you a brand-new set.”

Miss Verna said, “Baby, you don’t understand what you’re looking at.”

That skillet had been in the fire more times than anybody could count.

Every time it got dull or rusted, her mother didn’t throw it out. She rubbed it down with oil and put it back in the fire. Fire, oil, fire, oil.

And each time it came out darker, smoother, stronger. Nothing sticks to a well-seasoned skillet. Nothing burns in it. You can hand it down four generations and it’ll still be feeding people.

Here’s the part we need you to hear

The fire was never a punishment for the pan.

The pan didn’t do anything wrong.

The fire is how the pan became valuable. That skillet outlasted every shiny nonstick pan that ever came through that kitchen, and those pans never saw a day of fire in their lives.

Some of you have been in the fire.

And somewhere along the way, somebody let you believe the fire showed up because you did something wrong.

This week we took that belief apart, piece by piece.

The one word that changes everything

Open to Matthew chapter 3, at the very end.

(Quick note for anyone new: Matthew is the first book of the New Testament — the section of the Bible that tells the story of Jesus. Chapter 3 is right before He begins His public ministry.)

Here’s the scene. Jesus goes down to the Jordan River to be baptized — a public ceremony marking the start of everything He came to do.

And three things happen at once:

1. The heavens open. Not close. Open.
2. The Spirit of God comes down and rests on Him like a dove.
3. The Father speaks out loud, in front of everybody.

And here’s what He says:

“This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” — Matthew 3:17

Now stop and notice something most people read right past.

Jesus hadn’t preached a sermon yet. Hadn’t healed anybody. Hadn’t gone to a cross.

The approval came before the performance. The Father said beloved first.

That’s the mountaintop. That’s the best day of anybody’s life.

Now read the very next verse

“Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” — Matthew 4:1

Circle that first word. Then.

• Right after the open heaven — the wilderness.
• Right after “beloved” — the desert.
• Right after the dove — the devil.

And look at who took Him there.

It doesn’t say He wandered off. It doesn’t say He backslid. It doesn’t say He fell out of fellowship with God.

It says He was led up of the Spirit. Mark, another Gospel writer, uses an even stronger word — the Spirit drove Him out into it.

The same Spirit that came down on Him at His best moment walked Him into His hardest one.

Read that twice.

If the Holy Spirit personally escorted Jesus into a wilderness, then being in a wilderness is not automatic proof that you’ve stepped out of the will of God.

Sometimes the wilderness is the will of God for a season.

The rule that broke

Here’s how we said it in the room. Here’s how we’d say it to you.

Think back to when you were a girl in school.

Suppose somebody told you the rule was: “Only bad children get sent to the principal’s office.”

You believed it. Everybody believed it. If you got sent up there, everybody in that hallway knew exactly what you must have done.

But one day you look up.

And the best child in that whole school walks down that hall. The one who never talked back. Never got a check by her name. Never missed a homework paper in her life.

When that child walks down that hall, the rule breaks.

Not bends. Breaks.

Because now you know the rule was never true. Going to the office was never proof of being bad. It only looked that way because nobody had ever seen it happen to a good child before.

Sisters, that is exactly what happened in the wilderness.

Somebody taught you the rule: hard times only come to people who did something wrong.

You believed it. Your mother may have believed it. Your grandmother may have believed it. It got preached at you — maybe from a pulpit, maybe from a kitchen table.

And then the sinless Son of God walked into a desert.

Not a movie desert with sand dunes and palm trees. The Judean wilderness is a brutal stretch of limestone hills between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. Jagged rock. Ravines. Blistering by day, freezing at night.

Here’s what those forty days looked like:

• No food. Not one bite, for forty days.
• No bed. No roof.
• Wild animals out there with Him (Mark 1:13 says so plainly).
• Nobody to talk to. Nobody to check on Him. Nobody bringing a plate.
• And the devil came at Him on day forty — when His body was empty, and He was too weak to stand up straight.

(That timing is not an accident. The enemy is not brave. He is strategic. He shows up at the end of the long illness, the end of the money, the end of your rope.)

So answer this honestly:

What did Jesus do wrong to end up there?

Nothing.

There is nothing to find. You could look for a hundred years and not turn up one sin on Him.

The rule was broken for Him. So it’s broken for you. It cannot be used on you anymore.

And Jesus said it out loud Himself

He told us plainly what His Father is like:

“He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” — Matthew 5:45

(“The just and the unjust” is old English for the good people and the bad people.)

So — when it rains, does it only rain on the bad people’s houses?

No. It rains on the whole street. The good woman and the mean woman both get wet.

Getting wet was never proof of anything.

And neither was:

• Being sick.
• Being lonely.
• Having one thing come right after another after another.

Three different things we keep calling the same thing

This is where a lot of us have been stuck for decades. So we slowed way down here.

1. God tests

In Deuteronomy chapter 8, God explains why He led His people through a desert for forty years.

(Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Bible — and here’s why that matters: it was written for people who had just survived a forty-year wilderness. Your survival kit was written by survivors.)

He says He did it to humble them, to prove them, and to see what was in their heart. And He fed them the whole way.

Then He says He did it “as a man chasteneth his son” — old English for the way a father corrects a child.

That’s a Father raising a daughter. Not a judge banging a gavel.

And the stated goal, in verse 16? “To do thee good at thy latter end.”

A test has a purpose and a graduation. A punishment has a sentence. Those are not the same thing.

2. The enemy tempts

Completely different source. Completely different intent.

“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.” — James 1:13

God does not bait His daughters into sin. That is not who He is.

3. Punishment — and here’s where you may want to sit down

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” — Romans 8:1

(“Condemnation” means being found guilty and sentenced. Paul is saying: that verdict does not exist for you anymore.)

The punishment already happened. It happened to Jesus.

“He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him.” — Isaiah 53:5

If Jesus already took your punishment, then God is not billing you twice.

• That diagnosis is not an invoice.
• That loss is not a fine.
• That quiet house is not a jail sentence handed down from heaven.

How to tell the difference in real time

What God does with His children is discipline — Hebrews 12 says He does it because “the Lord loveth.” That is not the same as condemnation, and here’s how you tell them apart:

Discipline (from God)	Condemnation (from the accuser)
Names one specific thing	Names you — “you’re a failure”
Comes with a way forward	Comes with no way out
Leaves you lighter	Leaves you ashamed
Stops when you deal with it	Never stops. Drags up 1978.
Sounds like a Father	Sounds like a prosecutor

If the voice never lets up, never gets specific, and never offers you a way home — that is not God. And you do not owe it an answer.

And sometimes the tower just falls

This is the part that brings the most relief, and the part most of us refuse to accept.

One week in Jesus’ day, there were two disasters in the news.

Pilate, the Roman governor, had killed some Galileans. And a tower in Siloam — a neighborhood in Jerusalem — collapsed and killed eighteen people.

The crowd asked Jesus the exact question your heart asks at three in the morning: What did they do to deserve that?

Here’s His answer:

“Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay.“

“Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell… think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay.” — Luke 13:2–5

(“Nay” is simply the old word for no. He said it twice.)

He didn’t hunt for a hidden sin. He didn’t say, “Well, let me tell you what they had going on behind closed doors.”

He said no. That’s not what happened here.

Sometimes the tower just falls.

Sometimes a hard thing is not a test, not a temptation, and not a punishment.

Sometimes it is a broken world and a body that was always going to wear out.

If Jesus refused to play detective with other people’s suffering, you are allowed to stop playing detective with your own.

“I don’t know why, and I don’t have to know why” is a faithful answer. That’s not weak faith. That’s Job’s answer. That’s the eighteen at the tower.

Six people in the Bible who were sick and were not in sin

If you’re carrying a diagnosis, don’t skim this. Read every line.

1. Elisha — a major prophet who carried a double portion of God’s Spirit — “was fallen sick of his sickness whereof he died” (2 Kings 13:14). He died of an illness. Still prophesying from the bed.

2. Trophimus — a traveling companion of the apostle Paul. “Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick” (2 Timothy 4:20). Paul, through whom God worked miracles, left his friend sick. He didn’t tell him to go check his heart.

3. Epaphroditus — another of Paul’s coworkers, “sick nigh unto death” while doing the work of Christ (Philippians 2:27, 30). Sick because he was serving. Not because he was straying.

4. Timothy — a young pastor with “often infirmities” and stomach trouble. Paul’s advice to him was practical, not spiritual (1 Timothy 5:23). Sometimes the answer is medicine, not repentance.

5. Paul himself — he had what he called “a thorn in the flesh,” some ongoing physical affliction the Bible never names. He begged God three times to remove it. God said no, and said instead, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” God told Paul no. And it wasn’t punishment.

6. Job — of whom God Himself said “a perfect and an upright man” (Job 1:8) — before one single thing went wrong in his life.

If your theology can’t make room for Job, and Paul’s thorn, and Trophimus left sick at Miletum — it isn’t big enough for what you’re carrying.

Three lines to carry with you this week

We said these out loud together in the room, three times through, holding up three fingers.

It felt like too much. It wasn’t. We are writing over fifty years of the opposite message.

One. Jesus never sinned.

Two. Jesus still went to a hard place.

Three. So a hard place does not mean I sinned.

Here’s how to use them.

When that thought comes at you — at two in the morning, in a waiting room, in the quiet of an empty kitchen:

1. Stop. Don’t argue with the thought. Don’t try to out-think it.
2. Hold up three fingers. Your body remembers what your mind forgets.
3. Say the three lines out loud. Not in your head. Out loud.
4. Say them again if the thought comes back. It will. Say them again.

Your ears need to hear your own mouth say it.

A word to you, right where you’re sitting

If you’re the one with the diagnosis: That sickness is not a bill God is making you pay. Jesus already paid it.

If you’re the one who says it’s been one thing after another: That is not God stacking things against you. He is not keeping a list.

If you go home to an empty house: That quiet is not God turning His back on you. He sat in a desert alone for forty days. He knows that quiet, and He is sitting in it with you.

If you have been afraid of God since you were a little girl: The last thing the Father said before that desert was “This is my beloved.”

He said it first. And He has never taken it back.

Four questions to sit with this week

Don’t rush these. Take one a day if you need to.

1. Does it surprise you that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness instead of around it? Why?

2. Think of a hard season in your life. Did you assume it meant God was displeased with you? Where did you first learn to think that way? (Be gentle with the answer. Some of them are fifty years old and belong to people who loved you.)

3. Has a Bible verse ever been used to make you feel condemned instead of loved? Which one?

4. If Romans 8:1 is true — now, today, for you — what would you finally be able to put down?

Next week: we turn the coin over

Here’s our honest promise to you, because this matters.

This week we said: not everything falling apart is your fault. Stop investigating yourself.

That is true. Some of you needed to hear it for forty years.

But it’s only half a truth. And half a truth, left alone, gets dangerous.

So next week we say the other half: sometimes we really are the problem — and that turns out to be the best news in the Bible.

Why good news?

Because that’s the part you can actually do something about.

We’ll look at King David, who spent almost a full year covering something up. Still on the throne. Still worshipping. Still leading God’s people. Still saying nothing.

He wrote down what it cost him:

“When I kept silence, my bones waxed old… my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” — Psalm 32:3–4

(“Waxed old” means worn out. He’s describing a man drying up on the inside.)

That’s the exhaustion of defending a position you can’t hold.

And then one honest sentence set him free.

Repentance is not the bill. Repentance is the relief.

It’s putting down a suitcase you’ve been carrying so long you forgot you picked it up.

Come find out what happened when God sent a friend to tell David the truth, and what to do in the three seconds after somebody tells you your house has a smell.

Let’s pray

Father, we lay down the investigation.

We’ve spent years digging through our own lives looking for the reason, sure that if we could just find the sin, we could stop the suffering.

Lord, we are tired. And You never asked us to do that work.

Quiet the voice of the accuser. Quiet the old voices that told us You were angry with us. Let us hear the voice of the Father who said over His own Son, and says over us, beloved.

For the ones carrying a diagnosis: be her strength when her body is weak. For the ones where it’s been one thing after another: let her stop bracing for the next blow. For the ones who are alone: fill that house with Your presence, and send her people with skin on. For the ones raised to be afraid of You: let her meet You today as her Father.

We are not being punished. We are being carried.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

📖 This week’s verse

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” — Romans 8:1

Before you close this page

We’d love this to be more than something you read. So pick at least one:

• 💬 Leave a comment. Answer just one question: What is one thing this gave you permission to put down? You don’t have to explain it. One sentence is plenty. Somebody else reading it needs to know she’s not the only one.

• 📤 Send this to one woman. You already know who. The one who’s been saying “I don’t know what I did to deserve this.” You don’t have to add a speech — just send it and say, “I thought of you.”

• 📞 Make one phone call. Not to fix anything. Just to say her name and ask how she is. Some of us are one phone call away from a much better week , and some of us are the phone call somebody else is waiting on.

• 🙏 Send us your prayer request. We pray by name, out loud, every single week. Nobody around here has to carry it alone.

• 📬 Come back next week for the other half — “Search Me, O God.” Subscribe and we’ll make sure you don’t miss it.

This week we’re praying by name for health and healing, for a family far from home without water, for daughters starting a new school year, and for strength in the middle of a long wait.

Bible Chicks meets weekly. If you’re reading this from somewhere far away — you’re one of us for as long as you’re reading.

If you haven’t joined us and curious, you can sign up right here Bible Chicks

We’ll see you next week.

Nancy