14- I Believe in God—So Why Do I Still Feel So Alone?

Have you ever felt like you're the exception to God's grace?

Like you know He loves people — you've seen it, you've read it, you believe it — but somewhere deep down you wonder if that actually includes you?

Like maybe you've made too many mistakes, asked for help too many times, or stayed stuck in the same pattern so long that even God is tired of waiting?

Or maybe it's not that dramatic. Maybe there's just one area of your life — one room — where you've quietly put up a restricted access sign and decided that particular struggle is too small, too embarrassing, or too insignificant for God to actually care about?

What if the distance you feel isn't Him pulling away — but you hiding?

IN THIS EPISODE:

In this episode of Faithful Mama Rising, we're tackling one of the most common but least talked about struggles in Christian motherhood — feeling spiritually alone even when you believe. If you've ever felt like God is on silent mode, wondered if you've worn out your welcome, or convinced yourself that your problems don't qualify for His attention, this one is for you.

We're talking about the invisible prison we build around ourselves — the shame, the patterns, the hiding — and why that silence you're feeling isn't abandonment. It's an invitation waiting to happen.

We dive into Psalm 139, the Prodigal Son, and one of the most unexpected miracles in the Bible — the Wedding at Cana — and what Jesus' very first miracle tells us about the size of problems God is willing to show up for.

Spoiler: He turned water into wine at a party. Your problem qualifies.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL DISCOVER:

• Why feeling alone in your faith doesn't mean God has left — and what's actually creating that distance
• The story we tell ourselves about God that's completely human and completely wrong
• Why you might be totally open with God in some areas of your life but have a restricted access sign on the door in others
• What the Wedding at Cana reveals about the size of problems God actually cares about
• Why God is a gentleman — and what that means for the silence you've been feeling
• How to take one small step out of hiding and make it the invitation that changes everything

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Transcript

EP 14 — I Believe in God—So Why Do I Still Feel So Alone? FULL TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever believed in something with your whole heart and still felt completely alone in it? Like you know God is real, you know He loves people, but somewhere deep down you wonder — does that actually include me?

Like maybe you've made a little too many mistakes. You've asked for help too many times. Or you've stayed stuck in the same pattern so long that God is even tired of waiting. Like… peace. And what if that distance you feel isn't Him actually pulling away — but it's you hiding?

Because here's what I want you to know today. God has not walked away. He is running toward you.

Hey mama! Okay, so if you were with me last week, you got to know a little bit about my cats — Deuce and Delilah. And I'm bringing it back in because we're still touching on some of the things we talked about last week. So I'm going to give you a little more background on Delilah because it's going to relate here.

We got Delilah from a shelter probably about five years ago. You know how it is in a shelter — there you are with all these other little kittens competing for attention. I'm the cutest, love me, right? So we finally rescued her. She came into a loving home. She just didn't know it yet.

When we got her home, she ended up with a respiratory infection and ringworm. So she had to be in isolation for a month, this poor thing. She's sick, almost not going to make it, and we put her in this huge dog crate because she couldn't be running around. And I was the only person in the house touching her. So we bonded.

Once she came out, my girls were a little younger at the time, and I had one daughter in particular who would just grab her any which way — any extremity — carry her around and be so excited. "Look, it's a kitty cat!" Needless to say, this cat has had a little trauma in her life. And she ended up hiding from the very people who love her.

Andrew jokes around and calls her useless. He's like, "You don't even see her. She's a useless cat." But I still know her. I've known her from the beginning. I know her whole story. I know what she went through. We bonded. And she still has those moments where she'll come and lay on my chest — usually she has these very restrictive rules about how you love her — but there are those moments when that little kitty who was at the shelter, so open to life, just lets me love on her. She purrs and purrs. She is so sweet.

And my love for her has never wavered. I've joked about giving her away — but I'm not giving her away. She's staying with me. She doesn't know what I know about her though. She can't see what I see. And I am never giving up on her.

So this kind of relates to my story about God.

The other day I was driving, and I don't know why — maybe because we had just watched the movie Hoppers and there's this scene where the animals are talking through emojis — but for some reason I just started thinking, wouldn't it be funny if instead of the Holy Spirit, God talked to us through emojis? Like He just sent us texts with emojis.

And I can just picture it. I'm going through my day, I do my first dumb thing — facepalm emoji. A little bit later, I do the second thing — facepalm emoji. Not even five minutes later — facepalm, facepalm, facepalm, head shaking emoji, hands up… all this woman… facepalm… footprints walking away. I am DONE with you, woman.

And that's the story we tell ourselves, right? That's the God we've invented out of our exhaustion and our shame. But here's the thing — that's not God. That's a human. That's maybe the way we would react to a situation. I'm sure you can think of a time where you've just said, oh my gosh, I am so over this. I am out of here. And so we put that very human limitation onto God. But that is not who He is.

You've been there with your own kid. You've tried everything. You've had the hands up, the "I just don't know" moment, the frustrated moment, the "if only they would listen to me." And at the same time, you never stopped believing in them. You never stopped loving them. And you would never actually walk away from them.

So if you wouldn't do that to your child… why do you think God would do that to you?

Psalm 139 talks about how He knew you before you were even formed. He sees exactly where you are right now. And there is nowhere — nowhere — that you can go that He isn't already there.

And when I think about those moments where I've shrunk God down to this human-sized version of Himself and compared myself to whether I'm even worthy enough, it reminds me of the Prodigal Son.

If you don't know the story, this son took his inheritance early, went out, and wasted every bit of it on nonsense. Partied it away. Just the spoiled brat we all love to hate. And finally he runs out of money during really hard times. He finds himself feeding pigs better food than he's eating. And he comes to the conclusion — okay. I'm going home. There's no way my dad is going to accept me back into the family, but maybe, just maybe, if I'm lucky, he'll take me on as a servant. Because at least the servants ate decent food.

So he starts walking home, humbled, rehearsing his speech the whole way. He's not even near the gate yet when his father sees him. And his father comes running — full on, boom boom boom boom — has a cape put on him, puts his signet ring on his finger, grabs him, holds him, and says this one is mine. I am covering him. I am protecting him. He is back.

He didn't even wait for his son to get it together and deliver the speech. He was already running.

That is how much our God loves us. He isn't waiting for you to have it all together before He moves toward you. He already knows your whole story. Just like I know my cat's whole story. Just like I know my kids' whole story. He knows yours — and He is already running.

Now here's the challenge. Going back to what we talked about last week — we create these rules, these prisons around ourselves. And we can do the same thing with God. Maybe it doesn't cover every area of your life. There are some areas where you and God are just golden. Totally in sync. You know you can hear from Him there. That area just flows.

But then there's that one room. That one room with the restricted access sign on the door. Employees only. Do not enter. Because you think it's too small. Too embarrassing. Too insignificant.

Like — I can't lose weight, but God has bigger things to deal with. Or — I'm in a first world country, I can't complain. Or — I only have two kids, who am I to complain? We come up with all of these reasons why God wouldn't want to hear from us about this particular thing. We marginalize our own problems before we even give Him the chance.

And nowhere in scripture does it say God only wants the big stuff. Like, if it's big and juicy, bring it to me. But you over there with the stubbed toe — you're good. I don't need to hear about your toe. That is not God. God is like — bring me the toe. I got you.

And if you need an example of this, look at the Wedding at Cana. Jesus' first recorded miracle happened there. And it wasn't a healing. It wasn't a resurrection. It wasn't feeding five thousand people. Someone ran out of wine at a wedding. His mom came up to Him and said — kid, deal with this. And He did. He handled it. More wine. His very first miracle was solving what looks like a social inconvenience.

So if you think what you've got going on is too small or too insignificant, or that God has some kind of minimum requirement for what qualifies — He doesn't. If it matters to you, it matters to Him. Plain and simple.

So those walls we build — the shame, the patterns, the hiding — what happens is we stop inviting Him in. We go to our phones, our vices, ourselves first. And that hole just gets deeper and those walls get thicker.

I used to have like ten-foot invisible walls around me. It was all about protecting myself and not bringing what I actually needed to God. And then you wonder — why does God feel like He's on silent mode? Where did He go? Did He abandon me?

No.

My husband Andrew likes to say — God is a gentleman. He doesn't go where He isn't invited. That silence isn't abandonment. That's Him waiting on you. He is right outside those walls. But it's hard to hear Him when you've got all those thick walls between you. It's hard to feel pursued when you're buried behind rules and shame and hiding.

Because the distance — it isn't His choice. The walls are the ones we put up. And those walls are the same ones we can take down.

So ask yourself — where am I hiding from God right now? What have I decided disqualifies me from His pursuit? Is there a door in my life with a restricted access sign on it? And what would it look like to take one small step out of hiding today?

Just open the door. Stick your head through. Hey God — what's up? Are you there?

The step doesn't have to be big. Look at Delilah. Her transformation is taking years. But she is taking little steps and I see every single one of them. And I have been loving her the whole time.

That step is the invitation. And He is already waiting on the other side of it.

So take it.

It's not that He's gone quiet. It's not that you've worn out your welcome. And it's not that you're the exception to His grace. You are not too far, too broken, too stuck — whatever the story is that you've created in your mind.

He's just a gentleman. And He is waiting on your invitation.

He's not sending you the facepalm emoji.

He is already running toward you.