The Loneliest Pew

I remember sitting on the edge of my bed one grey Sunday morning, the sort of morning that feels heavy before you’ve even opened the curtains. My Bible lay on the duvet beside me, unopened, and I stared at it with something close to resentment. I used to wake up hungry for God’s word, eager to pray, but lately, it felt like I was trying to warm myself with the memory of a fire that had long since gone out.

If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d ever feel this way, distant, dry, almost numb, I think I would have been embarrassed to admit it. I had always been the dependable one, the first to arrive at church, the last to leave, the girl with her hands raised high and her faith apparently unshakeable. But faith, I’ve learned, is not an accessory you pin to your lapel to show everyone you’re okay. It’s a living thing, and like anything living, it sometimes wilts in drought.

I think there’s a quiet shame that comes when you don’t feel like praying. You start to believe it must be your fault, that if you just tried harder or believed deeper, God would feel close again. I’d sit there in the silence, my thoughts noisy with self-reproach, convinced that maybe I wasn’t as faithful as I thought. That perhaps I’d somehow disqualified myself from God’s nearness. But even as I wrestled with these feelings, there was a stubborn little spark in me that refused to give up on Him. Even when my emotions were a flat line, I knew, somewhere deeper than feeling, that He hadn’t moved.

And if that wasn’t enough, there was the added complication of the people who were supposed to walk alongside me. The ones who spoke of love but sometimes practised judgement. The ones who promised confidentiality but couldn’t keep it. I’ve sat in church pews feeling more alone than I ever felt in the world, convinced that everyone around me was thriving in their faith while I was barely treading water. I’ve watched friends slip away from church altogether, burned by gossip or betrayal, and I’ve understood why. There is no pain quite like the pain of being hurt in the place you thought was safest.

I remember confiding in someone once about how exhausted I felt, how I was starting to dread Sundays rather than look forward to them. I’d poured my heart out, raw and hopeful, and they looked at me with a kind of pity I still haven’t quite forgotten. “You just need to have more faith,” they said, as though faith was a commodity I’d carelessly spent. I left that conversation feeling smaller, ashamed that I’d admitted weakness at all. And for a while, I decided it would be easier to keep my struggles to myself.

But in the quiet, when the performance fell away, I realised that God wasn’t looking for my polished self. He was waiting for the real version, the one with ragged edges and weary questions. So I started telling Him the truth. “I don’t feel You. I don’t even know if I want to pray today. I’m tired.” And somehow, in those unvarnished admissions, I began to sense His presence again, not because I had earned it back, but because He had never left.

I think sometimes we imagine that our faith must always look like victory: bright, bold, and unwavering. But the older I get, the more I see that real faith is often quiet and unglamorous. It’s staying when you want to run. It’s whispering a single, hesitant prayer when your heart feels hollow. It’s deciding that God’s character does not depend on your circumstances or your feelings. He is who He says He is, even when you feel nothing at all.

And if you, like me, have been bruised by people within the Church, if you’ve felt overlooked, misunderstood, or judged, you need to know this: their actions, however hurtful, do not define God’s love for you. Humans are flawed. Even those of us who love Jesus deeply still fail each other in spectacular ways. But God’s love is not diluted by our shortcomings. His affection for you is not conditional upon your performance or your ability to always feel close to Him.

Some days, faith will feel like a song in your chest, effortless and bright. Other days, it will feel like the tiniest flicker, all but extinguished. Both are faith. Both are real. If you find yourself in a season where you don’t feel like praying, where you’re sitting in the pew with your arms folded and your heart wary, I want you to know this does not make you faithless. It makes you human. And God honours the smallest effort, the briefest glance in His direction.

I can’t pretend I have all the answers. There are still mornings when I look at my Bible and sigh, still Sundays when I wonder why it feels so hard. But I’ve learned to trust that this, too, is part of the journey. That maybe the valleys teach us something the mountaintops never could. That the God who met me in my brightest moments will not abandon me in my dimmest ones.

So if all you can offer today is your honesty, your tired, uncertain, wary heart, that is enough. If all you can pray is a quiet “Help,” He hears you. He has not forgotten you. And in time, perhaps sooner than you think, you will feel the warmth of His presence again.

You are loved, right now, exactly as you are. You don’t have to pretend. You don’t have to perform. He is still with you, even here.