When God Became Silent

 About eight years ago—perhaps a little longer—something changed.

The way I experienced God disappeared.

The signs that had once brought me so much comfort were suddenly gone.

The nearness I had depended upon became silence.

In the middle of that silence, I sensed something unexpected.

A quiet message arose within me.

“Don’t look outside yourself anymore. Everything you need is within.”

I wish I could say I welcomed those words.

I didn’t.

I had come to rely on experiencing God both around me and within me.

Losing that familiar sense of His presence felt like losing a dear friend.

To this day, I still miss the way I once knew Him.

There have been seasons when that silence has been painful.

Seasons when I have been afraid.

Seasons when I have longed for the comfort that once filled my heart so effortlessly.

Yet I continue to wonder if the silence was never meant to be abandonment.

Perhaps it was an invitation.

An invitation to stop searching for God somewhere outside of me and begin discovering that His presence had taken root within me.

That has not been an easy journey.

Some days I still long for the old way.

But little by little, I am learning to trust that faith can change without disappearing.

Perhaps God never left.

Perhaps only the way I experienced Him changed.

And perhaps this season is teaching me a deeper kind of trust—one that doesn’t depend on signs, feelings, or certainty, but quietly whispers, even in the silence,

“I am still here.”