I Didn't See This Coming
I want to tell you something about the morning that changed my week — and I believe, if you'll stay with me, it might change something in yours too.
It was five in the morning. I arrived for what was supposed to be a routine dialysis treatment — the kind of appointment that has become a regular part of my life, the kind you show up to almost on autopilot because it's just what you do. The nurses went to connect me. And then something shifted.
No blood flow from the graft.
They checked again. Confirmed it. The graft had completely clotted.
Within minutes I was being moved, prepared, rushed to emergency surgery. And the surgeon — as skilled as he was — couldn't declot it. Which meant the plan had to change entirely. I would need what's called a perm cath — a catheter placed on the left side of my neck, going directly into my heart — so that dialysis could continue while we wait for a new graft to be created in my lower arm.
I didn't plan any of that.
I didn't schedule that. I didn't see it coming when I went to bed the night before. I woke up expecting a regular Monday and got something entirely different.
And I want to be honest with you, because honesty is the only kind of teaching that actually helps people: it was a lot to take in. Lying on that table, processing the information, feeling the weight of what was happening in my body — that was real. I'm not going to dress it up in spiritual language and skip past the humanness of that moment.
But here is what I also want to tell you, because this is the part that matters most:
I was not shaken.
Not because I'm superhuman. Not because I have some elevated level of faith that most people can't access. But because somewhere in the years of walking with God through hard things, I had developed something that could hold me when circumstances couldn't.
And today I want to give you what held me. Because I don't believe you're reading this by accident, and I don't believe your life is free from moments that arrive without warning and require more of you than you planned to give.
The Thing About Unexpected Storms
There is a particular kind of difficulty that I think is harder than the suffering we see coming.
When you know something hard is ahead — when you've had time to prepare, to pray, to build your faith for what's coming — there is a certain kind of readiness available to you. You are not exactly okay, but you are braced. You have had time to find your footing.
But the unexpected storm is different.
The unexpected storm is the phone call that interrupts a normal Tuesday. The medical report that arrives without warning. The loss that shows up in your life without sending a message first. The closed door, the sudden shift, the 5 a.m. complication that turns your whole week sideways before the sun is even up.
And in that moment — before you've had time to prepare, before you've had time to gather your thoughts and build your theological framework for what is happening — you find out what your faith is actually made of.
Not the faith you display on Sunday morning. The faith that holds you on a Monday when nothing is going as planned.
"They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord."
— Psalm 112:7
Not they will never receive bad news. Not bad news will never come.
Their hearts are steadfast when it arrives.
Steadfast. That word means fixed. Settled. Anchored. Not moved by the force of the information. Not controlled by the weight of the circumstance. Not defined by what the report says.
I want to talk to you today about how you build that kind of steadfastness — not as a personality trait, not as spiritual stoicism, but as the genuine, lived fruit of a real relationship with a God who is never caught off guard.
Nothing You Are Going Through Caught God by Surprise
I need to establish this as the foundation of everything we're going to talk about, because if you miss this, you will miss everything.
This did not catch God by surprise.
Whatever you are facing right now — the diagnosis, the financial pressure, the relationship in crisis, the door that just closed, the situation that showed up without warning — God was not sitting in heaven, distracted by something else, and suddenly jolted: Oh no. Did you see what just happened to them?
That is not how God works.
"All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be."
— Psalm 139:16
Before one day of your life arrived. Before the complication. Before the crisis. Before the morning that changed everything. Before the moment the news came that rearranged your plans. God had already written it. Already seen it. Already — and I need you to receive this — already made provision for you within it.
This is not God being cruel. This is not God assigning suffering to you as punishment. This is a God who is so sovereign, so omniscient, so completely outside of the limitations of time that He is already in your future, already in the outcome, already working in the situation that you are just now finding out about.
"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."
— Romans 8:28
All things. Not the good things. Not the convenient things. Not the things that fit neatly into your plans. All things. Including the clotted graft. Including the emergency surgery. Including the 5 a.m. complication. Including whatever is sitting on your plate right now that you did not order and would send back if you could.
All of it is working together.
Not separately. Not randomly. Together. Cooperating. Moving toward a conclusion that you cannot yet see but that God has already determined will be good.
That is not a platitude. That is a promise from the God who keeps every word He has ever spoken.
The question is not whether God can work in what you are going through.
The question is whether you will trust Him while He does.
This Is Not Punishment. This Is Positioning.
I want to say something that I believe the Holy Spirit wants someone reading this to hear directly.
What you are going through is not punishment.
I know that when suffering comes — especially sudden, unexpected, unwelcome suffering — the human mind goes to explanation. We look for reasons. We audit our lives. We try to figure out what we did to cause this, whether God is angry with us, whether this is the consequence of something we should have done differently.
And sometimes — not always, but sometimes — there are consequences to choices. That is real.
But more often than we acknowledge, the suffering we experience has nothing to do with punishment and everything to do with positioning.
Joseph's brothers threw him into a pit. That was not God punishing Joseph. That was God positioning Joseph for Egypt.
Paul was shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten, and left for dead on multiple occasions. That was not God punishing Paul. That was God using every one of those experiences to build in Paul a testimony and a depth of revelation that would sustain the church for generations.
The storm that comes against you right when you are stepping into purpose is not necessarily evidence that you are doing something wrong. Sometimes it is evidence that you are doing something right.
And this brings me to something I need to share with you personally.
The morning I ended up in emergency surgery was the morning after I had publicly announced the Kidney Connection Support Group — a ministry I felt God had placed on my heart to start, born directly from my own experience with kidney disease and dialysis. I had stepped out publicly, declared that God was going to use my story to bring hope and healing to others, and committed to building something that would serve people walking a road I know intimately.
That was Sunday.
By Monday morning at 5 a.m., I was being told there was no blood flow. No dialysis. Emergency surgery.
I am not someone who sees an attack behind every inconvenience. But I know spiritual warfare when I'm in it. And I know the pattern — because I've seen it too many times to dismiss it — of the enemy responding to purpose with pressure.
When you make a bold move for God, you can expect resistance. Not because God has abandoned you, but because the enemy has noticed what you are doing and is trying to distract the vessel before the mission gets momentum.
But here is what the enemy consistently fails to understand: he cannot stop what God has ordained. He can only try to slow it down. And even his interference gets picked up by the God who works all things together — and gets woven into the testimony.
The attack didn't stop the ministry. The attack became part of the message.
This is not defeat. This is development.
This is not punishment. This is positioning.
Spiritual Retaliation Is a Sign You're on the Right Track
Can I teach you something that I believe will reframe a lot of what you are going through?
When the enemy attacks with particular intensity, with unusual timing, with a strike that seems designed to hit you at your most vulnerable moment — that is often a sign that you are doing something that matters to the Kingdom of God.
Think about it: the enemy does not deploy resources against things that are not threatening. He does not send warfare toward purposes that are not going anywhere. He does not try to distract vessels that are empty.
He attacks what is full. He resists what is moving. He comes against what has potential to change things.
"No weapon formed against you shall prosper."
— Isaiah 54:17
I was standing on that verse from a hospital table.
The weapon formed. I won't pretend it didn't. The surgery was real. The complication was real. The disruption to my plans and my body was real.
But the weapon does not get to prosper.
It does not get to accomplish what it was sent to accomplish. Whatever the enemy sent that weapon to do — shut me down, shut the ministry down, shake my faith, derail the purpose — it will not succeed.
And the same is true for the weapon that has been formed against your life.
Whatever has come at you — the diagnosis, the loss, the setback, the attack — it gets to form. It does not get to finish. The formation of a weapon is not evidence that the weapon will prosper. God's promise is not that weapons don't come. His promise is that they don't win.
You are covered by the blood of Jesus. And there is no weapon powerful enough to penetrate that covering when you are standing in faith under the finished work of Christ.
What to Do When You Didn't See It Coming
Let me get practical, because I think this is where the teaching needs to land. What do you actually do in the moment when the unexpected storm arrives?
First: Let yourself be human.
This is something I think the church has not always given people enough permission to do. You are allowed to feel the weight of a hard moment. You are allowed to need a few minutes to process information that is genuinely difficult. Faith does not require you to perform emotionlessness. Jesus wept at Lazarus's tomb — knowing He was about to raise him from the dead. The grief was real and the miracle was coming. Both were true simultaneously.
Second: Anchor yourself in what you know, not just what you feel.
Feelings are real. They are valid. But they are not always accurate reporters of reality. In a moment of unexpected crisis, your feelings will tell you that this is the end, that nothing will be okay, that God is not present. These are the feelings of a moment, not the truth of your situation.
What do you know? You know Romans 8:28. You know Psalm 112:7. You know that God has been faithful before and that His character does not change based on your circumstances. You know that the same God who walked people through the Red Sea, through the lion's den, through the belly of the whale, through death and resurrection — that God is with you in this.
Third: Look for what the storm is revealing, not just what it is costing.
Every hard season has a surface cost and a deeper work. The surface cost is what you can see — the disruption, the pain, the loss, the change of plans. The deeper work is what God is doing underneath the surface that you will only be able to identify in retrospect.
Joseph didn't understand the pit until he saw the palace. He couldn't have. But you can hold the question even when you can't yet see the answer: God, what are You developing in me through this? What are You positioning me for?
Fourth: Praise through it.
This is the hardest one. And it is the most powerful one. Praise is not denial. Praise is not pretending the hard thing isn't hard. Praise is the declaration that God is greater than the hard thing — made in the middle of the hard thing, before you can see the outcome.
Paul and Silas sang at midnight in a prison, and the chains fell off. They didn't wait until they were free to worship. They worshiped themselves free.
There is something that shifts in the spiritual atmosphere when a person who is genuinely in pain chooses to open their mouth and declare the goodness of God anyway. It is an act of spiritual warfare. It is an act of faith that confuses and disrupts the enemy's strategy.
Praise through the pain. Worship through the warfare. Trust through the test.
For Everyone Walking Through Their Own Unexpected Storm
I want to step out of my story for a moment and speak directly into yours.
I don't know what kind of morning changed your week. I don't know what kind of report arrived without warning. I don't know what the 5 a.m. complication looks like in your life — whether it's a medical crisis, a financial collapse, a relationship that fractured overnight, a job loss, a grief that blindsided you, a door that closed with no explanation.
But I know that you are not reading this by accident.
And I know that what I want to say to you is the same thing that held me on that hospital table:
This did not catch God by surprise.
You are not outside of His care. You are not beyond His reach. You are not in a situation so complicated or so dark or so far off the rails that God cannot work in it. The same God who raised Jesus from the dead — not from inconvenience, not from minor setback, but from death — is the same God who is standing in your situation right now.
"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good — to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives."
— Genesis 50:20
What the enemy meant for evil, God is turning for good.
Not eventually. Not as a distant consolation. As an active, present, ongoing work that is happening right now even when you can't see it.
You are not defeated. You are not disqualified. You are not abandoned.
You are in a storm. Storms end.
And the God who commanded the wind and the waves to be still on a lake in Galilee has not lost His voice.
What I Know From the Table
Let me close by telling you what I know.
I know that I will heal. I know that I will recover. I know that the ministry God placed on my heart will not be shut down by a medical complication — because God did not call me to launch something He plans to abandon. I know that the people who need the Kidney Connection Support Group will find it. I know that the story of what I have walked through with kidney disease and dialysis will become a source of hope for people who are walking that same road and feeling alone.
I know all of this not because I can prove it yet. But because I know the character of the God who called me to it.
And I know that the enemy does not get the final word on my story.
He doesn't get the final word on yours either.
So here is what I want to leave you with, in the form of a declaration. Not just a nice sentence to remember — but a stake in the ground. A spiritual position you are choosing to occupy even in the middle of what you are going through.
I am not moved by what I see. I am moved by what I know.
What I know is this: My Redeemer lives. My God is faithful. My purpose is intact. My future is secure. No weapon formed against me will prosper. And all things — even this — are working together for my good.
Faith always wins.
Not because people of faith never suffer. Not because the complications don't come. Not because the weapons don't form.
But because the God of those who trust Him has never lost a battle, has never broken a promise, and has never abandoned someone who was walking in the purpose He placed on their life.
I'm still standing.
And if you'll stand with me today — in whatever storm you're in — I believe God is going to give you a testimony that will change someone else's life.
That's usually how He works.
A Prayer for the Unexpected Storm
Father,
I come to You on behalf of everyone reading this who is in a season they didn't plan for, carrying a weight they didn't expect, navigating a complication that arrived without warning.
I pray first that You would anchor their hearts. That in the middle of the information, the fear, the shifting of circumstances — they would find the deep, settled place of steadfastness that comes from knowing You. Still their minds. Quiet the noise. Let the truth of Your presence become louder than the report.
Remind them that nothing they are facing caught You by surprise. That every day of their life was written in Your book before one of them came to be. That You are not scrambling to respond to their situation — You have already prepared a way through it.
For the ones who are in physical illness — in hospitals, in treatment rooms, in bodies that are not cooperating with the plans they made — I speak healing. I stand on Isaiah 53:5 and declare that by the stripes of Jesus, healing is their covenant inheritance. Strengthen their bodies. Give wisdom to their doctors. Let Your resurrection power move in every cell, every system, every place that needs Your touch.
For the ones who are under spiritual attack — who made a bold move for Your Kingdom and immediately felt the enemy respond — confirm in them that the resistance is a sign of the assignment's significance. Let them not retreat. Let the warfare deepen their resolve and clarify their calling.
For the ones who are in the middle of the story and can't yet see the end — who are in the Joseph pit, the Esther waiting, the Paul-in-prison season — give them the grace to praise through it. To worship before the outcome is visible. To trust You in the dark with the same confidence they have in the light.
Let faith win today — in their hearts, in their homes, in their bodies, in their situations.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Declarations for the Storm
Say these out loud. Especially if the circumstances are screaming something different.
- This did not catch God by surprise. He was already here before the storm arrived.
- I am not moved by what I see. I am anchored in what I know.
- This is not punishment. This is positioning.
- This is not defeat. This is development.
- No weapon formed against me will prosper — it may form, but it will not finish.
- What the enemy meant for evil, God is turning for good.
- All things — even this — are working together for my good.
- My heart is steadfast. I will not fear bad news. I trust in the Lord.
- I will praise through the pain. I will worship through the warfare. I will trust through the test.
- I am still standing. My purpose is still intact. My God is still faithful.
- Faith always wins.
I'm Still Rooted. I'm Still Ready. God Is Still Faithful.
To everyone who has prayed for me, reached out, and stood with me through this season — thank you. Your prayers are not going unnoticed in heaven or by me.
I am recovering. I am healing. And I am more convinced than ever that the God who called me to this assignment is not finished with what He started.
The Kidney Connection Support Group will launch. Lives will be changed. And every person who finds hope through a story that the enemy tried to shut down will be the evidence that God gets the last word.
If this message found you in the middle of your own unexpected storm, I want you to know: you are not alone, you are not abandoned, and you are not defeated.
You are being developed. You are being positioned. You are being held by a God whose love cannot be shaken, whose promises cannot be broken, and whose purposes cannot be stopped.
Stay in faith. Stand in truth.
Because faith always wins.
— Pastor Nicole Washington
If this testimony gave you something to hold onto today, share it with someone who is walking through their own unexpected storm. And keep praying — for healing, for purpose, for everyone who needs to know that the storm is not the end of the story.