Dear Mom,

The kids are back in school—one in college, one still at home—and already the workload is piling up. They talk about the effort ahead with equal parts dread and determination. Watching them made me think of what you asked me recently:

“I know you don’t believe in the rapture like I do, but what about the tribulation?”

Mom, I want to answer honestly, not to argue, but because I long for us to open the Bible together. I believe God uses these conversations to grow us both.

Jesus didn’t promise His followers escape from tribulation. He promised His presence through it. He said, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Paul and Barnabas strengthened the disciples by saying, “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Tribulation, far from being an exception, is the normal path God’s people walk.

Think about the saints of old. Jonah was swallowed into the deep before God delivered him. Joseph was betrayed, enslaved, and imprisoned before being lifted up to save many lives. The children of Israel wandered forty years in the wilderness, tried and tested before entering the land. Noah endured ridicule and then a year shut up in the ark while judgment fell on the world. Not one of them was spared tribulation. Not one was plucked out before the storm came. Each was preserved through it, refined by fire, and delivered in God’s time.

The same is true in the New Testament. Stephen was stoned. Paul was beaten, imprisoned, and shipwrecked. The apostles all suffered, most unto death. Revelation pictures the saints as those who “conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:11). The church has always overcome by faith in the fire, not by flight from it.

Mom, when I read the Bible, I see a consistent pattern: God’s people endure tribulation, but never alone. He does not promise to take us out of the fire, but to walk with us in it. That is the hope I cling to—the presence of Christ, not an escape hatch.

I don’t share this to win points, but because I want us to keep talking. I love that you want to cling to the Bible, and I do too. Let’s test what we’ve been told against the Word itself, and let Scripture—not fear or tradition—lead us.

With love,
Your son

Passages to read together:

• John 16:33
• Acts 14:22
• Jonah 2
• Genesis 50:20
• Numbers 14:33–34
• Genesis 7–8
• Acts 7:54–60
• Revelation 12:11