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By Hayley Louisa Mark
There’s a particular kind of tiredness that doesn’t come from one bad day. It comes from waking up, remembering, and finding the same weight sitting on you that was there yesterday and the day before — not sharp anymore, just heavy. Your shoulders have learned to round forward without being told. Your mind has gone restless and braced, the way it does when part of you is always waiting for the next blow — thoughts looping before you’re even fully awake. And somewhere along the way the thing you’re going through stopped feeling like an event that happened to your life and quietly became the air you breathe. You can’t remember what your jaw felt like unclenched. You’ve half-forgotten the version of you that existed before — the one who wasn’t always managing, coping, holding.
That’s the middle of a trial. Not the shock at the start, when everyone was calling and you were running on adrenaline. Not the end, when you’ll finally have a story to tell. The long grey middle, where it has simply become your life, and the worst part isn’t the pain — it’s that you’ve started to suspect this is just how things are now.
I want to say two things to you, gently, before anything else. First: the fact that this has become ordinary to you doesn’t mean it isn’t still hard. Your body knows it’s still hard. That’s why it won’t relax. And second: there is a way to walk through a trial — not around it, not out of it on a timeline you can control, but through it, one day at a time — that does not require you to know when it ends. Scripture is full of people in the middle of it. None of them got a date. They got a portion.
This article is a how-to, not a list. Five steps, each anchored to one verse, for living inside a trial that hasn’t finished yet.
Quick answer: When you’re going through an ongoing trial with no end in sight, don’t try to leap to the testimony — live the day in front of you. The best Bible verses on going through trials (James 1:2-4, 1 Peter 4:12-13, Psalm 66:10-12, Daniel 3:25, Isaiah 43:2) don’t promise a date of release; they promise company in the fire and a slow, real work being done in you while you wait. Walk it in five steps: name where you are, take the day’s portion, let it do its slow work, mark one mercy, and hand tomorrow back.
What “going through” actually means for Bible verses on trials
Look at the phrase the search itself uses: going through. It’s present tense and continuous — the -ing of a thing still happening. Not “got through.” Not “will get through.” Going. You are mid-river, and you can’t see the far bank.
Most scripture lists for hard times are written for the bank — for after, when you can look back and assemble it into meaning. But you’re not on the bank. You’re in the water, and what you need isn’t a summary of the lesson. You need to know how to take the next step without going under, today, and then to do it again tomorrow.
So here’s what the middle requires that the beginning and the end do not: a way of staying. Not heroics. Not breakthrough. Just faithful staying, with God, one portion at a time. Let me walk you through it.
Step One — Name where you are in it (James 1:2-4)
The first thing a long trial does is blur. The days run together, the edges go soft, and you lose the ability to say where you even are in it. That vagueness is part of what exhausts you, because the mind cannot rest on something it can’t locate.
So begin by naming it, out loud or on paper, with no spin: I am in the middle of this. It is not over. I do not know when it will be. That honesty is not faithlessness. It’s the ground you stand on.
James 1:2-4 (KJV) — “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be entire and wanting nothing.”
Notice that James does not say feel joy. He says count it joy — a reckoning, a decision of the ledger, made in full view of how hard it is. And notice the word worketh. Patience isn’t a mood that descends on you; it’s something being worked — slowly, like a smith working metal, like dough being worked by hand. “Let patience have her perfect work” is permission to let the process take the time it takes. You are not behind. You are being worked.
So say it plainly today, with no spin: I am in the middle of this, it is not over, and I do not know when it will be. Naming it that honestly isn’t giving up — it’s the solid ground you stand on while the patience is being worked in you.
A short prayer: Lord, I am in the middle and I cannot see the end. I will not call it joy by pretending it doesn’t hurt. But I count it joy that You are working something in me even here. Let the patience finish its work. Amen.
Step Two — Take the day’s portion, not the whole trial (1 Peter 4:12-13)
The crushing thing about the middle is that you try to carry the whole of it at once — all the unknown weeks ahead, stacked on top of today. No one could lift that. You were never asked to.
In the wilderness, the manna came one day at a time, and it could not be hoarded; gather extra and it bred worms by morning. There’s a mercy hidden in that. You are given enough for the day in front of you, and the next day’s grace is not in your hands yet because you don’t need it yet.
1 Peter 4:12-13 (KJV) — “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”
Think it not strange. I love that Peter has to say this, because the middle of a trial does make you feel like an exception — like everyone else’s life is running normally and yours has been singled out for the fire. Peter says no: this is not a sign that something has gone uniquely wrong with you. The fire is, strangely, fellowship — “partakers of Christ’s sufferings.” You are not outside the ordinary path of faith. You’re on it.
The body micro-practice: name only today’s portion. Out loud: Today I have to do this, and this. Not next week. Today. As you say each task, drop your shoulders a half-inch on the out-breath. Tomorrow’s weight is not yours to hold tonight.
A short prayer: Father, I keep trying to carry the whole road. Give me only the day’s portion, and the strength that comes with it. Let me set tomorrow down. Amen.
A note on the science
When a trial drags on, the body stops distinguishing between the threat in front of you and the imagined weeks ahead — the sympathetic (“fight-or-flight”) branch stays switched on, which is why your shoulders won’t drop and your breath stays high and shallow. A slow, deliberate exhale that’s longer than the inhale is one of the few voluntary levers we have on the parasympathetic branch, by way of the vagus nerve: lengthening the out-breath nudges the heart rate down and signals the body that, for this moment, it can stand down. To be clear, this is physiology, not theology — the slow breath does not cause the comfort of the verse, and the verse does not depend on the breath. They are two separate rooms. I only mean that when you take “the day’s portion,” letting the exhale stretch can help the body actually believe it is allowed to set tomorrow down.
The body-science here reflects established neuroscience of the nervous system. What the science actually says about a settled body → · the research behind these pages
Step Three — Let it do its slow work (Psalm 66:10-12)
This is the step nobody wants, and the one that holds the most. Somewhere in the middle, the question quietly shifts. It stops being when will this end and becomes what is this doing to me while it lasts. And that second question, terrifying as it is, is where the work happens.
Psalm 66:10-12 (KJV) — “For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins. Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.”
Read that whole arc and notice what the psalmist does not do. He does not pretend the trial was nothing. The net. Affliction on the loins. Men riding over our heads. Fire and water. It is an unflinching catalogue of the worst of it. And then, on the far side: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. The word for that place isn’t about money; it’s about room — spaciousness, a broad place, after the narrow press of the trial.
But here is the part for the middle: you are still inside the “we went through” of this verse. The wealthy place is real, and it is not yet. Your job is not to manufacture it early. Your job is to let the silver be tried — to stop fighting the fact of the refining and trust that the One who lit the fire is also watching the temperature.
The body micro-practice: unclench your jaw. Just that. Let your back teeth come apart, let your tongue fall from the roof of your mouth, and exhale long and slow. The slow work doesn’t need you to brace against it. You can let the muscle of resistance go for one breath.
A short prayer: You are proving me like silver, and I confess I keep trying to climb out of the fire before the work is done. Help me stop bracing. Bring me, in Your time, into the wide place. Until then, do what You are doing. Amen.
Step Four — Mark one mercy (Daniel 3:25)
When you’ve been in it a long time, gratitude feels almost offensive — like being asked to admire the wallpaper while the house is still burning. I’m not going to ask you to be grateful for the trial. I’m going to ask you to look, each day, for one mercy inside it. They are different things.
The story behind this verse is three men thrown into a furnace heated seven times hotter than usual, by a king who fully intended them to die. They did not get rescued from the fire. Read it carefully — they get rescued in it.
Daniel 3:25 (KJV) — “He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”
Four men. They went in as three. The mercy was not the absence of the furnace — it was the presence of a fourth figure, walking with them, in the midst. And notice they are described as loose. They went in bound. The fire burned only the ropes.
That’s the kind of mercy to look for in the middle. Not the end of the fire. The fourth man in it. A friend who texted at the right hour. A bird at the window. A meal you actually tasted. One rope, today, that loosened. Mark it — write it down — because the trial will try to convince you there’s been nothing, and that’s a lie the weight tells.
The body micro-practice: at the end of today, name one mercy from inside the fire and, as you say it, press your thumb gently into the centre of your other palm — a small, physical full stop. One mercy. One press. That happened. It counts.
A short prayer: I will not be made to feel grateful for the furnace. But I will look for You in it. Show me the fourth man today — one mercy, one loosened rope. And let me see it. Amen.
Step Five — Hand tomorrow back (Isaiah 43:2)
The last step closes the day. Because the middle of a trial has a cruel evening ritual: the mind, finally still, starts running tomorrow — the 3am rehearsal of everything that could still go wrong. You can’t think your way out of it. But you can hand it back.
Isaiah 43:2 (KJV) — “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
Read what it promises and what it doesn’t. It does not say if. It says when — when, not whether, you pass through the waters. And it does not say the waters won’t come, or that you’ll skip the fire. It says: I will be with thee, and they shall not overflow thee. The waters rise. They do not close over your head. That is the exact promise for the middle — not exemption, but company and a limit. The flood has a line it will not cross, set by Someone who is in the water with you.
So you hand tomorrow to the One who’s already there. You won’t arrive at tomorrow alone; He’s there before you are.
The body micro-practice: lying down tonight, open both hands at your sides, palms up, on the bed. As you breathe out — long and slow — picture setting tomorrow into those open hands and leaving it. Passest through. With thee. Not overflow. You don’t have to solve the night. You only have to let it go.
A short prayer: I keep rehearsing a tomorrow I haven’t reached. You are already there. I hand it to You — the waters that haven’t risen, the fire that hasn’t come. Be with me when I get there. Let me sleep. Amen.
When you’ve done all five and it’s still not over
You will do this, some days, and wake up to the same weight anyway. That’s not failure. The middle is, by definition, the part that repeats. The point of these five steps is not to end the trial — it’s to give you a way to be in it without it swallowing you whole. Name where you are. Take the day’s portion. Let it work. Mark one mercy. Hand tomorrow back. Then do it again. That repetition is the walking-through.
If you want the verses grouped by the specific trouble you’re in rather than by process, I sorted them that way in When You Can’t See the Next Step. If the question gnawing at you is what is all of this actually for — why patience has to be “worked” this slowly — I went deep on exactly that in What the Suffering Is Actually For. And if the trial has gone on so long that the thing now cracking is your faith itself, that’s its own particular grief, and I wrote to it gently in When Your Faith Is the Thing That’s Cracking.
A free card for the middle of it
I made a one-page printable for exactly this — “The Day’s Portion: A One-Page Card for the Middle of a Trial.” It has the five steps, the five verses, and a single line at the bottom for today’s one mercy, so you can keep it by the kettle or the bed and walk the day without having to remember any of this from scratch. It’s free.
Download “The Day’s Portion” free card → /free-library/?source=library
And if you’d like to walk a full season of mornings this way — a quiet, paced, page-a-day companion built for the long grey middle rather than the highlight reel — that’s what our Stilling Waves reflective journals are for. See the journals → /books/
Frequently asked questions
What are the best Bible verses for going through a trial that won’t end?
The verses written for the middle of a trial don’t promise a date of release — they promise company and a limit. The five I’d start with are James 1:2-4 (patience being “worked”), 1 Peter 4:12-13 (“think it not strange”), Psalm 66:10-12 (“thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place”), Daniel 3:25 (the fourth man in the fire), and Isaiah 43:2 (“when thou passest through the waters… they shall not overflow thee”).
Does the Bible promise my trial will end soon?
Not on your timeline, and Scripture is honest about that. Isaiah 43:2 says when you pass through the waters, not if — it assumes hard things will come. What it promises is that you won’t go through them alone and that the flood “shall not overflow thee.” The promise is company and a boundary, not a quick exit. That’s worth grieving and worth leaning on at the same time.
Is it wrong that I don’t feel joyful in my trial like James says?
James 1:2 says “count it all joy,” not “feel joy.” It’s a reckoning, a decision about how you read the situation, made in full view of how much it hurts — not a feeling you have to fake. You can be honest that it’s painful and still count it joy that God is working something real in you. The two are not in conflict.
How do I stop dreading tomorrow when I’m in a long trial?
Take it one portion at a time. The body keeps the threat-response switched on when you try to carry the unknown weeks ahead all at once. Name only today’s tasks, let your out-breath run longer than your in-breath, and at night picture handing tomorrow into open hands and leaving it there. Isaiah 43:2 says God is already on the far side; you won’t arrive there alone.
What does “thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place” mean in Psalm 66?
The “wealthy place” isn’t about money — the underlying sense is room: a broad, spacious place after the narrow press of the trial. The psalm lists the worst of it honestly (the net, the fire, the water) and then names the spaciousness on the far side. For the middle of a trial, the key word is brought — past tense for the psalmist, future for you. The wide place is real, and it’s not yet.