You’ve prayed…
You've asked for guidance.
You've tried to listen. Maybe you've waited patiently. Maybe you've begged. Maybe you've gotten angry. Maybe you've tried changing the way you pray, listening harder, trusting more, letting go—or doing all the things people have told you you're supposed to do.
And still... nothing.
Or maybe you're not even sure what you're listening for. People say things like “God told me” or “I heard God say...” and you find yourself wondering:
Does God actually speak to people? Am I supposed to hear words? How would I know if something was God—or just my own thoughts?
Maybe you've become so desperate for an answer that you find yourself looking for signs or setting up little tests. If this happens, it means yes. If that happens, it means no. Maybe you've asked God to send a particular sign. Maybe you've opened a book or the Bible hoping your eyes would land on the answer. Maybe you've even thought, If I wake up on my right side tomorrow, I'll take that as a yes. Left side means no.
And instead of becoming clearer, you become more confused.
You question yourself. You second-guess what you noticed. You wonder whether you're missing something everyone else seems to understand.
Or perhaps approaching God feels difficult for an entirely different reason.
Maybe you don't feel holy enough. Good enough. Faithful enough. Maybe your problem seems too small when other people are suffering so much more. Maybe you wonder why God would care about your relationship, your job decision, your loneliness, or the thing keeping you awake at three in the morning.
Maybe you're wondering whether God is listening at all. Maybe you're beginning to question things you once felt certain about. Or maybe you're simply tired of pretending that God's silence doesn't hurt.
You don't have to explain it away here.
You don't have to call it a lesson, find the silver lining, be more faithful, pray harder, or hurry toward an answer. And you don't have to already know how God speaks in order to wonder whether God might be speaking to you.
Sometimes the most honest place to begin is simply: “God, where are you?”
…or maybe you haven’t prayed…
What does it mean to “hear” God?
For some people, prayer has always felt natural. For others, the whole idea of communicating with their Higher Power can feel mysterious, confusing, or even frustrating.
What are we listening for? A voice? A feeling? An idea that suddenly appears? A sense of peace? Something we read? A conversation that happens at just the right time? A door that opens—or one that closes?
And how do we know whether any of those things mean anything at all?
I believe we are deeply known and deeply loved by the Divine, and that our Higher Power is always present and available to us—always patiently waiting for us to notice, to commune with us, but many of us were never taught how and we don’t know how to recognize it.
But that communication, that relationship, doesn't look or sound the same for everyone. For one person, communication with God may come through a quiet inner voice. For another, through nature. It may come through another person, through prayer or meditation, through music, through a spiritual text that suddenly seems to come alive, or through something so subtle that you only recognize its significance later.
Your relationship with the Divine is uniquely yours. Part of spiritual direction is learning to listen—to slow down enough to notice what is happening within you and around you, without immediately dismissing it or forcing it to mean something. And we can practice that kind of listening together.
When you're wondering, Was that God? Was that just me? Am I hearing what I want to hear?, I can also help you discern what you're experiencing. That doesn't mean I get to pronounce something is a message from God.
Instead, we can become curious together. Does what you're hearing seem consistent with the nature of the God or Higher Power you are coming to know? What does it produce in you? Does it move you toward love, freedom, compassion, honesty, connection, or greater wholeness—or toward fear, shame, diminishment, or harm? What might be your own hope or fear speaking? What keeps returning when we listen more deeply?
Discernment isn't always about finding absolute certainty. Sometimes it's about learning how to recognize the voice of a relationship. And that takes time. You don't have to be particularly good at prayer. You don’t even have to be a good person. You don't need the right language. You don't need to know how to listen yet.
And you certainly don't have to be “holy enough.” You can begin exactly where you are.
… or you did pray and the answer didn't come?
Sometimes the question isn't How do I approach God? Sometimes you knew exactly what you were asking for. You prayed for the relationship to heal. For the diagnosis to be different. For someone you loved to live. For the job to work out. For your child to be okay. For the pain to stop. For some unmistakable sign that you weren't alone.
And what you hoped for didn't happen. Or nothing happened at all.
That kind of silence can change our feelings and ideas about who we thought God was.
You may feel disappointed. Angry. Betrayed. Abandoned. Confused. You may wonder why other people seem to receive answers while you don't. You may even feel guilty for being angry with God in the first place.
Sometimes well-meaning people try to make the silence easier by explaining it. Everything happens for a reason. God has a plan. You just have to trust. Maybe those words comfort you. And maybe they don't.
In spiritual direction, you don't have to protect God from your questions. You can bring your anger. Your disappointment. Your doubt. Your grief. You can say the things you've been afraid you're not supposed to say.
I don't need to explain God's silence to you or find a lesson hidden inside your suffering, but maybe over time we can figure some things out together. We can simply begin with what is true:
You asked. You hoped. You listened. And this is where you find yourself now.
And we can sit there together long enough to become curious about what is happening in your relationship with the Divine—not the relationship you think you're supposed to have, but the one you actually have.
You don't have to figure this out alone.
Maybe you're trying to hear God more clearly. Maybe you're wondering whether God speaks to you at all. Maybe you're trying to discern what you're hearing. Or maybe you're carrying anger, grief, disappointment, or questions after prayers that seem to have gone unanswered.
You don't need to resolve any of that before coming to spiritual direction.
Bring the questions. Bring the doubt. Bring the hope that maybe there is still something here worth listening for. And if you can’t hope right now, that’s ok, I’ll hold hope for you. We can make room for all of it—and listen together.
If your relationship with God or your Higher Power has become confusing, complicated, distant, or simply different than it once was, you are welcome here.