Finding God in the Middle of Leadership and Loss

There are moments in life when you think you’ll have time to recover before you’re needed again.

You think you’ll have a chance to catch your breath.

A chance to process what happened.

A chance to heal.

But life doesn’t always work that way.

Sometimes the people who depend on you still need you.

The church still gathers.

The family still calls.

The responsibilities still show up.

And somehow, you’re expected to keep moving while carrying a wound nobody can see.

I’ve learned that leadership and healing often happen at the same time.

Not because we want them to.

But because life rarely waits until we’re ready.

David Came Home to Ashes

One of the most painful leadership moments in Scripture is found in 1 Samuel 30.

David and his men returned to Ziklag expecting to find home.

Instead, they found smoke.

The city had been burned.

Their wives were gone.

Their children were gone.

Everything they loved had been taken.

The Bible says the men wept until they had no strength left to weep.

I’ve always found that phrase powerful.

They cried until there was nothing left.

No more words.

No more tears.

Just exhaustion.

And David wasn’t standing apart from their pain.

He was standing in it.

His family was gone too.

His heart was broken too.

His questions were just as real as theirs.

Yet somehow, he was still expected to lead.

The Weight Leaders Carry

What makes this story so relatable is that David wasn’t helping people through a crisis he couldn’t understand.

He was living through the same crisis.

Sometimes leadership feels like that.

You’re comforting others while trying to comfort yourself.

You’re praying for others while searching for answers of your own.

You’re helping people carry their burdens while quietly carrying your own.

The truth is, some of the heaviest moments in leadership happen when nobody realizes the leader is hurting too.

People often see the strength.

They rarely see the cost.

When Nobody Else Had Answers

The situation became so painful that David’s own men began talking about stoning him.

The people he had fought beside.

The people he had protected.

The people he had led.

Grief has a way of making people look for someone to blame.

Suddenly David found himself carrying loss, heartbreak, responsibility, and rejection all at the same time.

And then Scripture gives us one of the most important leadership lessons in the Bible.

“But David found strength in the Lord his God.” (1 Samuel 30:6, CSB)

Notice what the verse doesn’t say.

It doesn’t say David found strength in his title.

It doesn’t say he found strength in his experience.

It doesn’t say he found strength in the crowd.

The crowd was against him.

His circumstances hadn’t changed.

Nothing had been restored yet.

But he found strength in God.

Sometimes that’s all we have.

And sometimes that’s enough.

Healing Doesn’t Always Mean Stopping

For a long time, I assumed healing meant stepping away from every responsibility until everything felt normal again.

Life taught me differently.

Some healing happens while you’re still showing up.

Some healing happens while you’re still serving.

Some healing happens while you’re still leading.

God often restores us while we’re walking, not while we’re standing still.

That doesn’t mean we ignore our pain.

It doesn’t mean we pretend everything is fine.

It means we bring our wounds to God and keep taking the next step He places in front of us.

What I’ve Learned

I’ve learned that strong people hurt too.

I’ve learned that faith doesn’t remove grief.

I’ve learned that leadership can feel lonely.

I’ve learned that healing is rarely as quick as we’d like.

But I’ve also learned that God is faithful in every season.

Faithful when we’re strong.

Faithful when we’re tired.

Faithful when we’re leading.

Faithful when we’re healing.

And faithful when we’re doing both at the same time.

Final Thoughts

If you’re in a season where you’re leading while you’re still healing, take heart.

You don’t have to have all the answers.

You don’t have to pretend everything is perfect.

You don’t have to hide every scar.

Just keep bringing your heart to God.

David’s story reminds us that some of the strongest leaders in Scripture weren’t leading from places of victory.

They were leading from places of dependence.

And perhaps that’s where true leadership begins—not when we’ve healed from everything, but when we’ve learned where to find our strength while healing.

Sometimes the bravest thing a leader can do is simply keep walking with God one more day.

Scripture: 1 Samuel 30:1–8 (CSB)