Faithfulness in a Lean Season. 5 Powerful Truths

This year I am stepping out of my comfort zone.

That sentence feels so good to say that I want to say it again.

This year I am stepping out of my comfort zone. I am trying new things. I am genuinely excited about this new chapter in a way that I do not take for granted for a single moment because I know what it cost to get here.

The turkey fryer. The tomato sauce. The crystal pickles. The dehydrating herbs in a low oven. The applesauce through the food mill. All of it new this summer. All of it tried for the first time with willing hands and an open heart and the quiet knowledge that faithfulness in a lean season is what made this chapter possible.

You do not get to excited without first getting through hard.

And if you have been through your own version of hard — the season when the harvest gave less than you hoped, when the plans did not work out the way you imagined, when you were just showing up one day at a time and trusting God with the outcome — then you already know something about faithfulness that a full pantry shelf cannot teach you.

The lean season taught it. And it taught it well.

“For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.”
Philippians 4:11 KJV

Learned. Not arrived at naturally. Not felt automatically. Learned. Through the seasons that required it. Through the years that had no other option but contentment and trust.

Paul learned it. And so did we. 🙏

1. This Year I Am Stepping Out

Let me tell you what faithfulness in a lean season produces in a woman who lets God work in it.

It produces courage.

Not the loud dramatic kind. The quiet steady kind. The kind that says — I have been through hard before and I came out the other side and I am not afraid to try something new because I have already survived something much harder than a first batch of tomato sauce or a turkey fryer I have never used before.

This year I am stepping out of my comfort zone in the farmstead kitchen in ways I have never done before. Canning tomato sauce for the first time. Making Gram’s crystal pickles for the first time. Dehydrating herbs in my oven for the first time. Water bath canning outside on market tables with a turkey fryer that has been waiting in the shed all summer for exactly this moment.

All of it new. All of it a little uncertain. All of it completely exciting.

That excitement — that genuine joy about a new chapter and new skills and new possibilities — is one of the fruits of faithfulness in a lean season. You come out of the hard years not smaller but larger. Not more fearful but more willing. Not closed down but wide open to whatever God has next.

That is what faithfulness does. In any season. 🌿

2. What a Lean Season Really Is

A lean season is not always about the garden.

Sometimes it is about the garden — a summer that gives less than you hoped, a harvest that falls short of the plan, a pantry that does not fill the way you imagined it would. Those seasons are real and they require their own kind of faithfulness in a lean season that shows up and does the work anyway even when the results are modest.

But sometimes a lean season looks completely different. Sometimes it is a season of uncertainty. Of waiting. Of faithfulness in a lean season showing up to an ordinary life while something hard is happening underneath the surface that nobody else can see.

The faithfulness in a lean season that matters most is not the kind that produces a full pantry shelf. It is the kind that keeps showing up when the shelf is mostly empty and the outcome is uncertain and the only thing you have to hold onto is the God who promised He would never leave.

That faithfulness. The quiet daily kind. The kind nobody photographs or applauds. That is the faithfulness that changes you from the inside out and produces a woman who can stand at the beginning of a new chapter and say — I am stepping out. I am trying new things. I am genuinely excited about what comes next.

She got there through the lean season. Not in spite of it. Through it.

3. Five Powerful Truths That Carry You Through

Truth 1 — The Lean Season Is Not the End of the Story

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.”
Romans 8:28 KJV

All things. The lean seasons included. Working together. For good.

The lean season is not the end of the story. It is a chapter in it. And the woman who keeps faithfulness in a lean season showing up through that chapter — who tends what she has, who gives from what little she has, who trusts God with the outcome even when she cannot see it — she is writing a story that does not end in lack.

It ends in a new chapter. Every single time. 🙏

Truth 2 — Faithfulness Is Not Measured by the Harvest Size

The Proverbs 31 woman is not praised because her harvest was always abundant. She is praised because she was faithful. Because she showed up. Because she looked well to the ways of her household in every season — not just the good ones.

Faithfulness in a lean season looks like showing up anyway. Putting up what you have even if it is less than you planned. Giving from the modest pantry even when giving feels like a stretch. Doing the faithful work of the season you are actually in rather than waiting for the season you wished you had.

That faithfulness counts. Every jar of it. 🌿

Truth 3 — The Lean Season Teaches What the Full Season Cannot

There are some things you only learn when the shelf is mostly empty.

You learn what you actually need versus what you thought you needed. You learn who shows up when things are hard. You learn what God can do when you have exhausted everything you can do yourself.

Those lessons do not come from a full pantry. They come from faithfulness in a lean season — the kind that strips away everything extra and leaves you with what actually matters.

And what actually matters turns out to be enough. It always does. 💛

Truth 4 — Stepping Out Requires Having Been Through Something

Here is the thing about courage that nobody talks about.

It is not the absence of fear. It is the presence of something stronger — the memory of having been through hard before and having come out the other side with God still faithful and your hands still willing and your heart still open.

The woman who steps out of her comfort zone this summer and tries the tomato sauce and the crystal pickles and the turkey fryer and the dehydrating and all the other new things — she is not brave because she was never afraid. She is brave because she has already been through something that required more courage than any of this does.

Faithfulness in a lean season builds the courage that the new chapter requires. 🌿

Truth 5 — The New Chapter Is Worth Every Hard Year That Came Before It

“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.”
Isaiah 40:31 KJV

They shall renew their strength. Not lose it. Renew it.

The woman who waited faithfully through the lean season — who kept showing up and kept trusting and kept doing the small daily faithful things even when nothing felt significant — she does not come out of it depleted. She comes out renewed.

Ready for the new chapter. Excited about it. Stepping out of her comfort zone with genuine joy and a turkey fryer and Gram’s crystal pickle recipe and a heart that is wide open to whatever God has next.

That is the promise. And He keeps it. Every single time. 🙏

4. What the New Chapter Looks Like From Here

I want to tell you what this new chapter actually looks like from where I am standing right now.

It looks like a turkey fryer outside on market tables making tomato sauce for the first time. It looks like Gram’s crystal pickle recipe recovered from a worn card that Uncle Stu and Aunt Marge kept safe for me. It looks like herbs drying in a low oven and applesauce going through a food mill and green beans snapped at the kitchen table at night while we talk about the day.

It looks like learning. Constantly learning. At an age when some people think the learning years are behind them.

They are not behind me. They are ahead of me. Every single one of them.

And the most exciting part of faithfulness in a lean season is what it produces in the seasons that come after. It produces a woman who is not afraid to try new things. Who is not discouraged by the first batch that does not turn out right. Who knows from experience that God is faithful in the uncertain seasons and so she steps into new ones without the fear that used to hold her back.

That is the new chapter. And I would not trade a single hard year that brought me here. 💛

The Faithful in the Little Things Personalized Christian Journal from our Quiet Nook is for the woman who recognizes God in the small daily acts of faithfulness — the ones that happen in lean seasons and full ones alike and add up to a life that looks like trust. Personalized with your name and designed for daily prayer and reflection. 🌿

5. What Faithfulness Produced in the Faithfulness in the Lean Season Years

I want to close this section with something honest.

The faithfulness in a lean season years were not wasted. Not one day of them.

God was working in the waiting. He was teaching in the hard. He was preparing in the quiet ordinary faithful days when nothing seemed to be happening and everything felt uncertain and the only thing available was to keep showing up.

And now I am here. In a new chapter. Genuinely excited. Stepping out of my comfort zone. Trying new things. Loving this farmstead life and this husband and this grandblessing and this community of women who are figuring it out right alongside us.

Faithfulness in a lean season produced all of it. Every bit of it.

He does not waste a single season. Not ever. 🙏

“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.”
Isaiah 43:19 KJV

A new thing. A way in the wilderness. Rivers in the desert. That is what comes after the lean season for the woman who stayed faithful through it.

That is what is coming for you too. 💛

6. Your Table Challenge This Week

This week your Table Challenge is to try one new thing.

Just one. Something you have been wanting to try in your farmstead kitchen but have been putting off because it felt like too much or too complicated or just beyond where you are right now.

Try it anyway. With whatever you have available. With whatever help shows up. With the full knowledge that the first batch might not be perfect and that is completely fine because perfect was never the point.

The point is showing up. Trying. Being willing.

That is faithfulness in a lean season and in every other season too.

“Commit thy works unto the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established.”
Proverbs 16:3 KJV

Commit the new thing to Him. Let Him establish it. Then try it anyway. 🙏

7. Follow the Laid Up in Store Series

This is Part 3 of our four-part Laid Up in Store series on Farmstead Chronicles. Here is where we have been and where we are going:

• ✅ Laid Up in Store. 5 Powerful Lessons a Full Pantry Taught Me. Part 1 of 4
• ✅ Proverbs 31 Farmstead Woman. 5 Beautiful Ways to Live. Part 2 of 4
• ⬅️ Faithfulness in a Lean Season. Part 3 of 4 — you are here
• 🌾 Part 4 — Feeding His People. How the Farmstead Kitchen Becomes Ministry — August 28

Follow the full Farmstead Chronicles series here — we publish every Tuesday and Friday all summer long. 🌾

8. Coming Up Next Week Around the Farmstead

📖 Tuesday August 25
How to Make Homemade Pepper Jelly From Scratch. Sweet Heat in a Jar
Pepper jelly sounds fancy until you make it. Then it just sounds like something you are going to make every single summer from here on out. Sweet, spicy, beautiful in the jar, and absolutely perfect on a cheese board or straight from a spoon.

🌾 Friday August 28
Feeding His People. How the Farmstead Kitchen Becomes Ministry. Part 4 of 4 Series Finale
The Laid Up in Store series ends where it was always going to end. Not at the pantry shelf. At the table. And at the heart of a woman who finally understands that everything she has been putting up all summer was never just for her.

Follow Farmstead Chronicles here so you never miss a post. 🌿

9. Find Your Quiet Nook

If this faithfulness in a lean season of stepping out and trying new things has you longing for a quiet place to process it all with Him — a simple devotional and companion journal to sit with before the day gets going and the new things feel overwhelming — you can find it in the Quiet Nook. 💛

10. Join Grace Notes Every Sunday

Every Sunday at 2pm a personal letter goes out from Promised Land Ranch straight to your inbox — real stories, deep scripture, farmstead wisdom, and the kind of encouragement that meets you in whatever season you are actually in.

It is free. It is faithful. And it goes out every single Sunday without fail.

Sign up for Grace Notes right here — we would love to have you at our table. 💛

🛒 Amazon Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you. We only recommend products we genuinely use and love right here in our own farmstead kitchen.