50 Bible Verses for Every Season of Rebuilding
The bible verses most searched for in hard seasons are Isaiah 41:10, Jeremiah 29:11, Philippians 4:13, Romans 8:28 and Proverbs 3:5-6. All five are below, along with forty-five more, grouped by the season you are actually in rather than the one you hoped to be in by now.
You do not have to read all fifty. Find your season, take one verse, and let that be enough for today.
Bible verses for new beginnings, when you do not know where to start
There is a particular kind of tired that comes from standing in the middle of your own life and not recognizing it. The house is quiet in a way it did not used to be. The plans you made were made by a woman who did not know what you know now.
If that is where you are, you are not behind. You are at the beginning, and the beginning is a real place.
Jeremiah 29:11 — For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
Proverbs 3:5-6 — Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
Isaiah 43:19 — Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
Psalm 32:8 — I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.
Isaiah 30:21 — And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
Psalm 37:23 — The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
Proverbs 16:9 — A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
Psalm 119:105 — Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
A lamp unto your feet is not a floodlight over the whole road. It shows you where to put the next foot down. That is all it was ever meant to do.
If this is your season, you may also want 21 bible verses for new beginnings — the ones for when the old beginning ended badly.
Bible verses for strength, when you have none left
Some seasons do not ask you to be brave. They ask you to keep going when there is nothing left to be brave with.
These are the verses for the mornings you wake up already tired.
Isaiah 41:10 — Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
Philippians 4:13 — I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Psalm 46:1 — God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Isaiah 40:31 — But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
2 Corinthians 12:9 — And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Nehemiah 8:10 — Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.
Psalm 73:26 — My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
Exodus 14:14 — The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
Psalm 28:7 — The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.
Notice the order in that last one. My heart trusted in him, and I am helped. The trusting came first, before there was any evidence. She did not wait to feel helped before she trusted.
More for this season: 25 bible verses for strength when you have none left.
And for the middle of the week, when the tiredness is ordinary rather than acute, there are 40 motivational bible verses.
Bible verses about healing, when you are not healed yet
Healing is not a straight line and it is not a schedule. Some things mend faster than you expected. Some things are still tender years later, and that is not a failure of faith.
These are the verses for the part that has not closed yet
Psalm 147:3 — He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.
Jeremiah 30:17 — For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after.
Psalm 34:18 — The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
Isaiah 61:3 — To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.
Beauty for ashes. Not beauty instead of them, as though the ashes were a mistake to be tidied away. Beauty made out of what was burned.
And the next ones put a limit on how long the night will last.
Psalm 30:5 — For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
Revelation 21:4 — And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Matthew 11:28 — Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
John 16:20 — Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
Turned into. Not replaced, not undone, not forgotten. The same sorrow, turned. There is a difference between being told to stop weeping and being told that the weeping is going somewhere.
More for this season: 25 bible verses about healing for when you are not healed yet.
Bible verses about peace, when your mind will not settle
The body can be still while the mind runs all night. If you have lain awake going over a conversation from three years ago, these are for you.
Philippians 4:6-7 — Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Isaiah 26:3 — Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
John 14:27 — Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
1 Peter 5:7 — Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Psalm 94:19 — In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.
Romans 12:2 — And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Psalm 4:8 — I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.
More for this season: 25 bible verses about peace for when your mind will not settle.
Bible verses for women carrying more than they say
You are the one people call. You are the one who remembers the appointments and notices who has gone quiet at dinner. Nobody asks who carries you.
Scripture asks. These are the verses that put the weight somewhere else.
Psalm 46:5 — God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early.
Psalm 55:22 — Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
Matthew 11:29-30 — Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Galatians 6:9 — And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
Proverbs 31:25 — Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come.
Psalm 68:19 — Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah.
Isaiah 46:4 — And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.
More for this season: 25 bible verses for women carrying more than they say.
Bible verses about forgiveness you have not managed yet
Forgiveness is the one everybody talks about and nobody explains. It is not the same as saying it was fine. It is not the same as letting them back in.
If you have been told to forgive and it has only made you feel like you are failing twice, start here.
Colossians 3:13 — Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
Ephesians 4:31-32 — Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Matthew 6:14 — For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:
Mark 11:25 — And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
Luke 6:37 — Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
Romans 12:19 — Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Give place unto wrath. It is quieter than it sounds. You are not the one who has to settle the account. You are allowed to put it down and walk away from the ledger.
More for this season: 20 bible verses about forgiveness you have not managed yet.
Bible verses for when you feel like giving up
Not the dramatic kind. The ordinary kind, where you think about how much easier it would be to stop trying and let things be however they are going to be.
Scripture has a word for that, and it is not weakness. It is weariness.
Galatians 6:9 — And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
2 Corinthians 4:16-18 — For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Hebrews 12:1 — Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Psalm 121:8 — The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
Romans 8:28 — And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Lamentations 3:22-23 — It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
New every morning. Not new once you have earned them. Not new once you have pulled yourself together. New every morning, including the mornings you did not want to wake up for.
More for this season: 20 bible verses for when you feel like giving up.
Encouraging bible verses, for when something is finally growing again
This season comes quietly. One day you notice you laughed at something, or you made a plan for a Tuesday in March, or you walked past the thing that used to undo you and it did not.
These are the verses for the noticing, not for the arriving.
Isaiah 43:18-19 — Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
2 Corinthians 5:17 — Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Joel 2:25 — And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.
Philippians 1:6 — Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
Psalm 126:5 — They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
John 3:16 — For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
More for this season: 30 encouraging bible verses for a week that is not going well.
How to use these bible verses
Fifty verses is too many to hold at once, and reading them all in one sitting will not do what you hope it will.
Take one. Not one a day, necessarily. One for as long as you need it.
Write it out by hand. Something happens between reading a verse and writing it that does not happen otherwise. Some verses are worth writing out by hand more than others.
Put it where you will see it. The bathroom mirror. The inside of a cupboard door. Your phone screen. Somewhere you will meet it without deciding to.
Say it out loud when you do not believe it. Especially then.
Let it be short. Short bible verses are easier to carry through a day than long ones, and a verse you actually remember is worth more than one you meant to come back to.
Which season are you in?
Most women reading this are not in one season. You are healing in one part of your life and starting over in another, and completely stuck in a third.
If you are not sure where to begin, that is worth knowing rather than guessing at.
I made a short quiz that helps you see which part of your life is asking for attention first. It takes about three minutes, and it gives you a starting point rather than a list of everything you should be doing.
You do not have to become a completely different person to faithfully steward the life God has entrusted to you. You simply need to begin, right here, right now, with what is already in your hands.
I am not standing at the finish line looking back. I am on the trail with you.
One faithful step at a time,
Elizabeth Jane
