Strong Tower Mental Health Podcast · Heidi Mortenson, MA, LMFT

222. Faith in the Wilderness: When God Turns Pain into Purpose with Melanie Cox

·40 min·2 clips

Melanie describes doctors saying she would "never carry the baby" before her son was born.

The episode opens with a clear claim that wilderness is not wasted. The host frames mental health through the simple center of the gospel, describing the show as about freedom in Christ, the renewing of the mind, and living with the fruits of the Spirit. Melanie Cox then moves the conversation into personal territory with a story of long suffering and spiritual endurance. She describes a five year wilderness season and treats it as evidence of how God can shape a person under pressure. The tone stays warm, direct, and openly devotional. Her account of pregnancy and the fear of losing her baby becomes one of the episode’s most affecting moments. She remembers the doctors saying the baby was gone. She remembers her husband speaking love and hope over her. She remembers answering with confidence that God would not fail her. That memory becomes a turning point in the episode’s theology of suffering. The conversation insists that God sees what people do not see. It also insists that suffering can produce depth rather than despair. Melanie returns several times to the idea that shallow water is where people can stand on their own, while deep water is where faith has to carry them. The story of Peter casting the net in becomes a clear biblical parallel. Doubt is not brushed aside. It is carried. The episode keeps pairing mental health language with spiritual language in a way that fits the show’s voice. Inner healing, deliverance, counseling, coaching, trauma, and scripture all sit in the same room. The host responds with curiosity and encouragement rather than distance. There is a strong emphasis on freedom, renewal, and looking different from the world through the fruits of the Spirit. By the end, the conversation widens from one testimony into an invitation to trust God in hard places. The closing stretches toward practical encouragement, with the host pointing listeners to Melanie’s work and reinforcing the message of Christ-centered healing. The whole episode rests on the idea that pain can become purpose when it is surrendered to God.

As heard by us

A plainspoken faith conversation about grief, wilderness, and resilience.

Melanie Cox's conversation is built around wilderness, grief, and the hard work of staying spiritually steady after the loss of a baby. The episode treats pain as something lived through rather than explained away, and it keeps coming back to the idea that faith can keep moving…

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you need faith to make sense of hard seasons.

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