When Closeness to God Feels Out of Reach

My relationship with God has never been perfect. For a long time, it felt as though I had placed Him in the backseat of my life—aware that He was there, yet unable to let Him sit beside me. I didn’t feel abandoned by God; I felt guilty, as though closeness to Him required something I hadn’t yet earned.

I think about my younger siblings and how they fight over who gets to ride in the front seat of the car. Someone always ends up upset because someone has to sit in the back. That is where the guilt comes from. I know God wants to be sitting beside me as I drive through life—at least, that’s how I imagine it. I’ve always believed that my relationship with God has to be perfect in order for Him to be proud of me.

For a long time, I felt like closeness to God required constant effort: praying rosaries and more rosaries, going to Mass every day, spending time in adoration, confessing every last thing, being the perfect daughter. And that is where the guilt would return—because no matter how much I tried, it never felt like enough.

It wasn’t until a mentor once told me that God loves us regardless. We do not have to do all of these things in order to be perfect sons or daughters. His love and mercy are bountiful. He loves us as we are.

As I write this now, I realize something important: this constant striving for perfection did not come from God’s expectations—it came from my own. From how I was raised. From how society tells us a relationship with God should look. From what we see on social media. But how would we feel if someone came up to us and told us exactly how we needed to love our parents, our siblings, our partners, or our children? Wouldn’t we feel uncomfortable—or even upset?

So why do we place that same pressure on our relationship with God, when He already accepts us and loves us for who we are?

This is not to say that we can live without intention or disregard His teachings. God has given us beautiful guidance to follow in His footsteps. But He also knows we are not perfect. We are flawed human beings. He knows us better than we know ourselves.

Through this reflection, I’ve come to realize that I am the one who gets to decide what my relationship with God looks like—what draws me closer to Him, what helps me feel connected. I only felt far from God because I was the one who placed Him in the backseat, not because He asked to be there, but because I didn’t feel worthy of sitting beside Him. All along, He simply wanted to be with me—in both the good and the hard moments. He is a loving Father whose love does not need to be earned.

When I first started at the Catholic Therapy Center, I felt an intense pressure to be a “perfect daughter.” Everyone seemed so deeply rooted in their faith while I was still trying to understand my own relationship with God. I felt like I needed some dramatic spiritual experience to prove that I belonged—to be a “good” or “credible” Catholic therapist.

But now, I see things differently. God is not absent from my life—He is present in it. He woke me up today. I am healthy. I have a roof over my head. He is in my husband’s smile, in the warmth of sunlight pouring through my window, in the quiet moments I once overlooked while searching for something more.

I wasn’t abandoned in the darkness. I was the one retreating into it. God’s light was always there—steady, patient, and unmoving—waiting not for my perfection, but for my willingness to sit beside Him and let Him stay.

Reflection Questions for Readers

• Where in my life do I feel pressure to be “perfect” in my relationship with God, and where might that pressure be coming from? (Family expectations, comparison, past experiences, social media, or my own internal standards.)
• In what ways have I placed conditions on God’s love—believing I must earn closeness through performance, behavior, or spiritual effort?
• What moments in my everyday life might God already be present in, even if I have overlooked them while searching for something more dramatic?
• If I believed, even briefly, that God delights in sitting beside me exactly as I am, how might my relationship with Him begin to change?

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Author: Nora Rosales