Still In The Storm

I am so grateful for this conversation with my dear friend Alberta Jones. What she shared stopped me in my tracks, not because it was frightening — though it absolutely was — but because of the profound peace and faith woven through every single moment of her story. If you're walking through something hard right now, I believe God brought you to this episode for a reason.

In this episode:

• How supernatural calm showed up in the most terrifying moment

• The string of miracles hiding inside one chaotic morning

• Why forgiveness can be a gift rather than a discipline

• How to appraise your trials through God's eyes

• What it means when God says "because I trust you"

Alberta comes from a large family where faith was never an afterthought — it was the foundation. She grew up knowing God loved her, served a mission, graduated from college, and built a beautiful life alongside her husband of 40 years. Together they have five grown children and nearly nine grandchildren (number nine arriving July 3rd — we're so excited for her!).

But in 2003, Alberta and her family experienced something most of us will never face: a violent home invasion. Three men — driven by drug addiction and desperate for cash — entered their home, tied up her husband at gunpoint, put a gun to Alberta's head, threatened her life, and held the family captive. The police later told them that surviving this kind of encounter was the equivalent of winning the lottery. It was that rare. That dangerous.

And yet — Alberta calls it a morning of miracles.

When a gun was pressed to her head and she was told she was going to be killed, Alberta didn't panic. She didn't scream. She was calm.

I had to ask her about this directly, because honestly — most of us have imagined something like that in a nightmare and woken up in a cold sweat. So where did that calm come from?

Alberta believes her parents, who had both passed away just a few years before, were allowed to return and offer her comfort in that moment. She also believes the Spirit of God was with her in a very real, tangible way. Looking back, she sees it clearly: "I know that God's hand was in this entire morning."

This peace wasn't something she conjured up. It was a gift — and recognizing it as such has been one of the greatest anchors of her faith.

Takeaway: In our most terrifying moments, God doesn't abandon us. He often shows up in ways we only fully recognize in hindsight. That unexplained calm you've felt in crisis? That may be exactly what it felt like for Alberta, too.

Alberta walked us through miracle after miracle from that morning, and I want you to hear them because they are stunning:

The garage door was left open. Her husband had stepped out to take their daughter to early morning seminary and left it open planning to return quickly — unknowingly leaving an entry point for the intruders. But this also meant he came home sooner, shifting the entire sequence of events.

Her 13-year-old daughter wasn't harmed. When the men first entered, they opened her daughter's bedroom door. She assumed it was her sister and pulled the blanket over her head. They left. Alberta later learned how brutally this group had treated children in other homes they'd robbed.

The children stayed asleep. All three younger boys, who normally woke at the slightest sound, never stirred throughout the entire ordeal.

Alberta got free. She was tied loosely enough to free her hands, had a charged cell phone within reach, and found scissors nearby to free her feet. Each of these small details felt orchestrated.

The robbers were caught within hours, removing the lingering fear of violation that so many victims carry for years.

Takeaway: When we look back at hard seasons through God's eyes, we often find that what felt random was anything but. The details matter to Him.

This one moved me deeply. Alberta's husband struggled to forgive — understandably so. But Alberta found that forgiveness came more naturally to her, and she reflected on why.

Because her children weren't harmed, because one of the men showed her a small kindness (getting her a pillow and blanket, tying her loosely, assuring her the children would not be hurt), and because she felt genuine compassion for men who had clearly lost their way, Alberta found herself feeling sorrow for them rather than anger toward them.

She said it plainly: "God gave me that gift." She wasn't dismissing the trauma or pretending it didn't happen. She was recognizing that her capacity to forgive quickly was not her own doing — it was grace.

Takeaway: Forgiveness isn't always something we muscle through with sheer willpower. Sometimes God gives it to us as a gift when we stay open to His perspective. We don't have to manufacture it on our own.

Alberta shared a concept her son, a clinical psychologist, taught her called appraisal — the way we interpret an event as we're experiencing it. Whether we see something as controllable or uncontrollable, temporary or permanent, startling or terrifying shapes our emotional and physical response in a profound way.

As people of faith, Alberta explained, we are in a uniquely powerful position. We can choose — even in the middle of something awful — to appraise our circumstances not as permanent catastrophes but as temporary events that God can and will use for our good. That doesn't mean minimizing what we're going through. It means trusting in who holds the outcome.

She was also careful to say this isn't about judging someone else's pain. We all process differently. But choosing to revisit our hard moments through God's perspective — to relive them as He sees them rather than through fear — can make the difference between healing and harm.

"I have relived that moment thousands of times in my mind," she said. "And I choose to go back and look at it through God's eyes. It's so easy to see so many miracles He gave us."

Takeaway: We can't always control what happens to us, but we can choose the lens through which we revisit it. Reliving trauma through fear causes damage. Reliving it with God leads to healing.

Near the end of our conversation, Alberta shared something her daughter said recently after going through a painful season of her own. Her daughter had been crying out, "Why me, God? Why is this happening?" and heard a distinct, quiet voice respond: Because I trust you.

I love that!

We spend so much energy trying to trust God in hard times — and that is right and good. But sometimes the hard things come because He trusts us. He trusts that we can grow through this. That we can become more empathetic, more faith-filled, more equipped to help someone else down the road.

Alberta also made a beautiful point that connected directly to the Israelites wandering in the wilderness — so quick to forget the miracles they'd already seen. She's committed to keeping a journal of the moments where she has seen God's hand in her life. Not just for posterity, but so that on the hard days, she can look back and remember: He has always come through.

Takeaway: Your trials may not be a sign that God has forgotten you. They may be a sign that He believes in who you are becoming.

If there is one thing I hope you take from Alberta's story, it's this: God is not absent in your worst moments. He is in the details. He is in the loose knot, the charged phone, the sleeping children, the unexplained calm. He knows exactly what you need and exactly how to provide it — often in ways you won't recognize until later.

And when later comes, write it down. Remember it. Carry it with you into the next hard thing.

If this episode spoke to you, I'd love to hear from you. Share it with a friend who needs it today. And if you'd like to be a guest on Becoming the Oak Rooted in Christ, reach out to me at kendra@becomingtheoak.com.

Until next time — be still, believe, become.