When God Feels Silent While You’re Breaking
Photo Credit: Yuliia Kaveshnikova via iStockPhoto.com
By: Jamila Gomez
There are moments in life when everything inside you is collapsing, and heaven feels closed for business. You pray, but the words echo back. You beg for answers, but silence fills the space. In those moments, it’s easy to believe you’ve been abandoned. That God’s off somewhere else. That maybe you were wrong to trust Him in the first place.
Silence in suffering can feel like cruelty. You’re bleeding emotionally, spiritually, maybe even physically—and all you get is quiet. No signs. No reassurance. Just stillness while your world is on fire.
But what if the silence isn’t absence? What if it’s presence in a different form?
Think about it. When a teacher is silent during a test, it’s not because they’ve left the room. It’s because the test is designed to reveal what’s already been taught. Maybe this isn’t God ghosting you. Maybe it’s Him trusting what He’s built in you.
That doesn’t mean the pain isn’t real. It doesn’t mean you should pretend it’s fine. You’re allowed to scream, to cry, to not know what to say. Even Jesus, in His final moments, cried out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” If the Son of God could say that and still be in the center of God’s will, so can you.
We often want comfort to come in noise—answers, feelings, a miracle. But God doesn’t always speak the way we want. Sometimes He speaks through the waiting, the wrestling, the long nights of not knowing. And the silence? It can strip away everything we thought was holding us up until all that’s left is raw faith.
Not the polished kind. The gritty, trembling kind. The kind that says, “I don’t understand, but I’m not letting go.”
And that’s the point. Silence doesn’t have to mean distance. In fact, sometimes the quiet is the closest we’ll ever feel to the edge of something holy. Because when all the lights go out and the noise dies down, there’s a chance to hear something deeper—not outside of you, but within.
The silence may not give you answers, but it can give you presence. It can hold space for you to be broken, and still be beloved. God’s silence isn’t the same as His absence. It might just be His way of saying: I’m here. I see you. Keep breathing.
So if you’re breaking right now and God feels silent, know this: the silence doesn’t mean you’re forgotten. It might mean you’re being held in ways words can’t express.
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