When God Feels Silent and Loneliness is Loud

 Can I be honest? These last 22 months have been really hard. I’ve shared bits and pieces here and there about the struggles I’ve faced since moving away from San Diego, but I think it’s time to give more context—and maybe make some sense of it all. I have this tendency to keep things bottled up or to only share a fraction of what I’m really going through with the people closest to me; I never want to feel like I’m dumping all my mess on someone. But I’ve reached a point where holding it in is no longer helping me. If I don’t let it out, it’s going to keep devouring me from the inside—messing with my mental and emotional health in ways I can’t afford to ignore anymore.

As I’ve shared in previous posts, I’ve been in a season of “restructuring” my faith—really trying to figure out what I believe, what I’m looking for in a church community, and what red flags to watch for when stepping into a new space. But more than anything, I’ve been trying to understand why I’ve struggled the way I have. What’s at the root of it? What do I need to confront in order to course-correct and get my feet back on solid ground?

One of the hardest things to admit is how disconnected I’ve felt from God. I know He’s with me. I know He cares for me. I even know He wants good things for me. But I haven’t felt loved by Him—not in this season. If I’m being honest, I’ve felt completely abandoned. I’ve struggled to see His goodness in the middle of all this, and every time I try to pray, it just feels like my words fall flat.

I’ve felt like a toy in one of those claw machines—picked up, moved around, maybe even lifted for a moment—but then dropped again. Over and over. Never quite making it to that small opening where freedom lives. Never actually getting out. Just stuck behind the glass, waiting for something to change.

I try to dialogue with God, to ask why I’m here, what the purpose is, what I’m supposed to be learning—but every question goes unanswered. I’m left in silence, with tears streaming down my face, wondering if He hears me at all. While I know silence doesn’t mean absence, it sure feels like it sometimes.

And yet, even in this silence, I’m starting to realize that maybe God’s love isn’t always about feeling warmth or hearing answers. Maybe it’s about presence—quiet, steady, unshaken—even when everything inside me feels broken. Maybe this season is less about understanding and more about learning to be in the mystery, trusting that even when I can’t see the way forward, I’m not truly alone.

Alongside the spiritual stuff, there’s been this deep, aching loneliness I haven’t quite known what to do with. I’m an introvert who loves my alone time. I don’t mind being by myself. I don’t care about missing every social event, and I’m completely comfortable saying no to invitations when I’d rather stay home. But in this season, I hit my limit with “alone time” over a year ago. It turned into something I’ve never experienced before—a loneliness so deep that I feel forgotten and unseen.

I have a couple of friends back home in San Diego who have intentionally made time for our friendship—no matter how far apart we are—they’ve been my only lifeline through the darkest season of loneliness I’ve ever walked through, and I'm so thankful for them. Even so, the lack of face-to-face connection has taken its toll. Not having a friend to grab coffee with, have a movie night on the couch, or just someone to give you a hug—there’s this void in my life that’s having a profound impact on my emotional health.

I struggled with depression after I first moved to Ohio, and while I haven’t slid back into that space, I’ve come close. The loneliness has caused me to question my faith at times, and I’ve definitely wrestled with feeling purposeless and disconnected in this season. I’m not even sure what the solution is—I just know that if something doesn’t change, the loneliness will win.

Even though this loneliness feels heavy and endless, I’m starting to learn that it doesn’t have to define me. It’s teaching me how deeply I need connection—not just with others, but with myself and with God in new ways. I’m learning to hold space for the ache without letting it consume me, to reach out even when it feels hard, and to remind myself that seasons change, even when it feels like they won’t.

What I’ve come to realize is that these two struggles—feeling disconnected from God and overwhelmed by loneliness—aren’t entirely separate. They’ve fed off each other in ways I didn’t expect. The more isolated I’ve felt, the harder it’s been to connect with God. And the more distant He has felt, the more alone I’ve become. It’s been a cycle I haven’t known how to break, no matter how hard I’ve tried. But recently, something shifted. After watching two very different podcasts, I didn’t walk away with all the answers—but I did walk away with language. Language for what I’ve been feeling. Language for why it’s been so heavy. And maybe even a small spark of hope that I’m not as alone—or as far gone—as I thought.

I watched a podcast with Francis Chan that left me in tears—but in the best way. It helped me realize that part of my struggle has been this: I don’t truly believe—or maybe I don’t fully trust—that God loves me. Like, really loves me. In the podcast, he gives this analogy about being a parent. When your child is born, this overwhelming love hits you out of nowhere, and there’s absolutely nothing they could ever do to make you love them less. And if that child ever questioned your love, it would wreck you—because the last thing you’d ever want is for them to doubt how deeply you care.

I’m not a parent, but I am a child. And even though my mom and I haven’t spoken in years, I know without question that she still loves me. Nothing will ever change that. So why is it so hard to believe that the One who created me—the One who knit me together—loves me unconditionally and just wants me to trust in that love?

I’ve heard my whole life that God loves me. I’ve read the verses, sung the songs, even told other people the same truth I can’t seem to fully grasp for myself. But when life keeps unraveling, when prayers go unanswered, and when I feel completely alone—it’s hard not to wonder if that love is real for me. I don’t doubt that God loves people, I just sometimes question whether He really loves me—personally, intimately, unconditionally. And I think that’s what this season has been exposing. Not just my pain, but my unbelief. Not just my distance from God, but my struggle to receive the very thing He’s been offering me all along.

I guess the question I keep circling back to now is: How do I move from here? How do I go from realizing I don’t fully trust God’s love for me… to actually beginning to live like I do?

I don’t have a neat answer. I’m still figuring it out. But I think it starts with small steps. With letting myself sit in that truth a little longer without trying to fix or force it. With noticing the lies I’ve believed—like I have to earn love, or be stronger, or get it all right first—and replacing them, gently, with truth. With reminding myself, every day if I have to, that God’s love doesn’t rise or fall based on how I feel. It just is.

Maybe moving forward doesn’t mean rushing ahead—it just means not shutting down. Staying open. Staying honest. Choosing to keep showing up with my questions, my pain, and my unbelief. Because maybe that, too, is an act of trust.

A few days after watching that Francis Chan podcast, I came across another podcast—completely unrelated—but somehow, it felt like the follow-up conversation I didn’t know I needed. This one wasn’t about the love of God directly, but it spoke right to the ache of loneliness I’ve been carrying. It put words to something I’ve felt but couldn’t quite articulate, and in doing so, it made me feel just a little less alone.

The podcast, titled “When Christianity gets Hard” spoke to me on so many levels. It wasn’t just about faith in theory—it was about holding onto faith when everything around you feels heavy. They talked about perseverance in the middle of real struggle, but what hit me the most was their focus on the importance of community—on friendship, accountability, and having a faith-based circle that surrounds and strengthens you. Because the truth is, when we’re in the middle of a difficult season, it’s not just the enemy who lies to us and kicks us while we’re already down—we start telling ourselves lies, too. Lies that isolate us further, that make us question our worth, our purpose, and even God’s goodness. And without community, those lies echo louder. They pull us deeper into the struggle and keep us from seeing the joy that can come from the struggle.

I know that part of my struggle—the reason I’ve felt so isolated and discouraged—is my lack of community and connection. But this has been one of the hardest battles to fight, because of the baggage I carry from my last season. I walked through spiritual abuse. I experienced the trauma of being deeply mistreated by someone who was supposed to be a shepherd, a leader, a safe place. And when the people meant to guide you spiritually become the source of your deepest wounds, it’s hard to trust again. It’s hard to open up, to try again, to believe that community can be healing instead of harmful.

I’ve made two cross-country moves in the past two years, leaving behind the amazing community I was a part of for over five years. In both places I landed, I knew a few people, but the deep, life-giving community I’ve been longing for still hasn’t been found. Part of that is because I’m still wrestling with what “church” even means to me now—and all the baggage that comes with it. Instead of committing to a local church, although I have attempted to do so many times, I’ve been filling my cup with online sermons and podcasts, trying to fill the void that the absence of a pastor and spiritual community has left behind. But the truth is, my unraveling has left me questioning almost everything about my faith—what I believe, what the church is supposed to be, and how it’s meant to move in the world. I have so many questions. And without a trusted community around me, I haven’t had the space to process those questions out loud. I haven’t had the conversations I need to start putting the pieces back together.

I don’t have all the answers right now. I don’t really know where to go from here, and the path forward feels uncertain and, honestly, a little scary. I don’t want to stay stuck in this place of doubt, loneliness, and questioning—but I also can’t pretend I have it all figured out. What I do know is that I’m still here, still searching, still willing to show up to the hard work of healing and faith—even when it feels messy and slow. Maybe that’s enough for now: to hold space for the struggle without rushing the healing, to lean into the questions without needing immediate answers, and to trust that in time, something new will begin to take shape. I’m hopeful that this season isn’t the end of the story—it’s just part of the journey.