Apart from a malfunctioning toilet — which one writer joked “wasn’t their No. 1 problem, but it was a problem for going number one” — the crew of Artemis II had a pretty flawless nine days in space. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for astronaut Butch Wilmore, who was supposed to spend a little over a week on the International Space Station and ended up trapped for 10 months. The “Type A mishap,” a designation that’s used for NASA’s most serious or deadly failures, wasn’t fatal, but it did mean that Wilmore had to call home and explain that he didn’t know when he’d be back.

He thinks back on that July in 2024 when he told his wife Deanna and their two daughters, Daryn and Logan, that he was probably going to miss his youngest daughter’s senior year of high school, remembering how incredibly hard the conversation was. To help get him through, Butch would try to focus on the two times a day when he’d get a glimpse of home — those moments when he flew over South Texas. In his memoir, “Stuck in Space: An Astronaut’s Hope through the Unexpected,” Butch had written, “I often follow the threads of light spread across the darkened globe to find our neighborhood and the university that Daryn attends. Although I see my family almost daily over video calls, being able to spot their location from above is a blessing I cherish.” 

Missing family, the stress on his body, and dealing with space’s inconveniences weren’t easy. Then, of course, there are the little things that people on earth take for granted — our favorite restaurants, our own beds, the sun. Artemis’s Mission Specialist Christiana Koch talked about how much she longed for blue sky. “Because when you go to space, you actually don’t see a blue sky,” she told Kylie Kelce. “This thing that just feels like it’s the background of everything — like this inevitable something you look up and see. I mean, on my long mission, I didn’t see a blue sky for almost 11 months. And that is something beautiful.”

Just how dark is it, Kylie asked? “It’s 1,000% dark,” Christina emphasized. “It is so dark. In fact, well, on the space station, you go around the earth every hour and a half. So you have 17 sunrises and sunsets every single day. On our mission, we were just flying through blackness the entire time. And the way that they had to point our spaceship … our altitude was such that the sun was always on the tail end of the spacecraft. … So we very rarely actually saw the sun. …. Everything feels like it happened at night to me. Because out the window was complete darkness.”

The reality, Butch agreed, is that “space travel is hard.” On the “Crossmap” podcast with Chris Carpenter, he stressed that after doing it for 25 years, nothing NASA does is easy. In fact, “human spaceflight is very, very hard.” It means doing “new things” and “challenging ourselves, learning, pushing the envelope further and further out. And we make it look like it’s simple — and it’s not. It’s just passionate people working together as groups, as teams, putting their all into this, endeavoring to know everything and perform it well. That’s the goal. And you can do pretty amazing things with the Lord’s help and the abilities that He has given us, and in incorporating them into what we’re doing.”

Even then, he knows from experience, things can go horribly wrong. On June 6, 2024, when Wilmore and fellow astronaut Suni Williams approached the International Space Station, four of the eight aft firing thrusters failed. “We lost the ability to control [the capsule] because of losing these thrusters,” he explained to Carpenter, “And so this is when we’re in the final phases of rendezvous, 260 meters in front of the space station, I’m manually on the controls trying to maintain control of this.” Butch has said in other interviews that he “cannot even begin to convey the feeling of dread that momentarily overwhelms my emotions. It’s simply unbelievable. … Fear is not your ally,” he warned. “It’s your enemy in those scenarios.”

The thought at the time was that the duo had to dock, “because we don’t know what’s happening to these thrusters. Why are we losing thrusters? Are we going to lose more? We’re always looking to the next worst failure. If we don’t, dock, I don’t think we have many options. I don’t think we can … return to earth. So we have to, dock. And then the next thought was: if we’re able to successfully dock somehow, I don’t see us coming home in this spacecraft.”

He was right. And that mechanical disaster set in motion almost a year of contingency plans and global attention, as the world’s smartest people scrambled to get the two stranded astronauts home. Wilmore learned a lot of lessons in those long months, and he came home determined to share them with people facing challenges of their own. Here’s what he would tell them.

The Lord Is Sovereign

Would Butch have chosen the situation he was in? Absolutely not. “I had no desire to do another long-duration space flight,” he made clear. But at the end of the day, Wilmore told Carpenter, “He put us there according to His plan and His purposes, for His glory and ultimately our good, if we will believe. I mean, that’s the true story. Were we stuck?” he asked. “Yeah. We [fell] into some of those definitions. [And in a] sense, we were. But God put us there. And wherever we are — not just this situation, but so many situations in life — [the reality is], if you believe and you know Him, it draws you even closer to Him. Because we rely on Him, right? We rely on the strength and power that He gives within us, because He indwells us.”

If we’re true believers, he stresses, that should be “empowering and strengthening. And that’s why it’s ultimately for our good, because we are strengthened by it and it makes us better — more Christlike [and] closer to Him in those moments.” He paused. “I mean, some of my most amazing prayers were during this whole process and just closeness with God in that environment.”

God Is Working Out His Plan

Not everyone is an astronaut trapped in orbit, but we’ve all had struggles in life. “Have you ever had things look bleak and not [go] the way that you would hope they would go or expected they would go — or maybe even the way they should go?” But looking at things through the eyes of faith, is there a positive outcome that you can envision from the situation you’re in? “[That’s what] this book is about. I think it’s about hope in the now. Jesus, our Lord, is sovereign. He’s in control. He’s working out his plan.”

That understanding, that knowing, is what should give us all peace, Wilmore insists. Ultimately, what matters isn’t earthly hope, but “eternal hope that comes in the forgiveness of our sins. It comes only through the shed blood of Jesus Christ our Lord, where He incurred the wrath of Almighty God [and] became a man … for my infinite sin, and paid the price for that so I wouldn’t have to. And if I will repent and believe … that’s the gospel.” God is “working providentially,” he encouraged, “regardless of the situation that’s going on.”

Look to the Past and Remember Ways He Was Faithful

Wilmore could have died, but he didn’t. And his story from space, he says now, is one example after another when God “reigned supreme.” Looking back, “He was there.” We all have a choice to trust in what the Lord has already done for us and the ways He’s answered prayers. “Am I going to be like the Israelites that leave Egypt and look back [and grumble about the leaders and the food] and forget all these miracles that are taking place? Am I going to be like that?” he wondered. “Or I’m going to see the Lord’s work throughout the past and say, ‘Hey, the Lord’s got this one too. He’s got this. And that’s honestly, that’s where I came to say — even in the [scary] moments — Lord, I am content. And I feel confident that we’re going to be able to get docked. But if we don’t, I am content in that as well, because you’re my Savior. I have eternal hope — and no one, no entity, no situation, nothing can ever take that away.”

So many times, the now-retired astronaut commented, we say God is working — but do we believe it? “Are you going to handle it like you believe it? What are you going to do?” Like the father of a demon-possessed son who asked Jesus to heal him, tough times can bring us all to a place where we have to admit, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24).

When people asked how they could pray for Wilmore during those months, he replied, “Pray that I am the man that I say that I am. And here’s an example of the Lord saying, ‘Okay, here we go. Show me that what you say is true and live it out.’”

Be Thankful, Regardless of the Circumstances

The mission didn’t go as planned, but Butch still felt grateful. “It gave me a longer time to serve my nation,” he said. “I think my daughters and my wife, all of us, grew from it, grew spiritually, grew an appreciation and understanding that our Lord is in control.”

In a Christmas letter last December, he reflected that through those 10 months in space, God “kept drawing me back to 4:11-13: ‘I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. … I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ Those verses anchored me,” he acknowledges. “Contentment doesn’t come from perfect circumstances. It comes from Christ, whether you’re floating miles above the earth or sitting at the table with the people you love. He is steady and near, and He is all sufficient.” This year, back home, “I’m grateful. Grateful for home, for worship, for community, and for the Savior who holds every unexpected moment in His hands.”