The phone call comes on a Saturday, or a Tuesday after a staff meeting, or in a closed session that started as “prayer.” The storylines differ, but the impact is strangely consistent. A beloved role ends. A keycard stops working. And the family that built its life around a church must figure out where to sleep, how to pay for groceries, and what to tell the kids. We tell ourselves this is organizational housekeeping. To the ones living it, it feels like an earthquake.

There is a quiet panic that settles in when a role ends. It doesn’t announce itself with sirens. It creeps in at bedtime, when the house is still and your phone has finally stopped buzzing. You stare at the ceiling and wonder, “Who am I if I’m not the person with that title, that mic, that inbox?” You remember the faces you baptized, the decisions you helped make, the plans you carried. You also remember the emails, the metrics, and the expectations that made you feel indispensable and, at times, invisible.

One of Scripture’s recurring themes is the wilderness. From Israel’s desert wanderings to Jesus’ forty days of fasting, the wilderness is a place of stripping away, where false securities are revealed. For many leaders, choosing integrity leads directly into wilderness seasons. The pulpit is gone. The paycheck is gone. The friendships and networks you once trusted feel fractured. And yet, it is in the wilderness that God does His deepest work.