Editor's note: Enjoy today's devotion written for Devotionals Daily by Dr. Alison Cook, author of The Secure Soul.
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You've spent your life showing up for everyone else. So why do you still feel so alone, unseen, or empty inside?
For years, as a therapist, I've sat across from people who had, by every measure, done the "right" things. They showed up for others. They studied the Bible, served their families and contributed within their communities. And still, they felt empty inside.
Here's what I've come to believe:
you can have your outer life together and still never experience deep, soul-level belonging.
Think of a church with stained glass windows. From the outside, they look dull and unremarkable—you almost wonder why they're there. But inside, as the sunlight pours through, they're transformed. Every fragment of colored glass glimmers and shines, dancing with the others to fill the room with light—a sanctuary that is warm, whole, welcoming.
So often our souls are the opposite.
That was my story. For years, I worked hard to keep a calm, capable, helpful exterior. But inside, I battled chronic loneliness, anxiety, and self-doubt, often feeling sidelined in my own life. I looked put-together on the outside but felt empty and fragmented within.
It was as if I lived as two people: the capable Christian woman the world could see, and the inner me, where the painful emotions were walled off and pushed down.
I had good tactics for keeping the two apart. I'd rationalize my way out of hard feelings:
You have Jesus.
Just focus on others.
You shouldn't feel this way!
When that stopped working, I numbed or distracted. I binge-watched television, disappeared into other people's problems, or reached for food. But one day those strategies failed, and the untended fragments of my soul broke to the surface—in the form of a series of panic attacks.
I was a therapist and a doctoral student studying psychology and theology. I genuinely wanted to follow Jesus and help others. And yet I had no idea how to tend to the fragments of my own soul.
I've since seen this pattern in countless people, stemming, often, from a neglected inner life. We're taught to focus on outer relationships—as parents, partners, and friends—but rarely how to build a secure connection within. We care for others, but do not know how to tend to our own souls, our own wounds, our own pain.
David said,
But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. — Psalm 131:2
Our souls feel anything but calm, quiet, or content.
How is it with your soul today?
Part of you might feel lonely, even though you're surrounded by people.
Part of you might feel anxious, running a mental list of everything that could go wrong.
Part of you might be harboring anger or resentment, and you don't know how to change it.
And somewhere beneath it all, there is a tender, young part of you that got hurt somewhere and never fully recovered.
If a friend came to you hurting in any of these ways, you’d show up, offering encouragement or care. But when your own inner world reaches out, you do the opposite. Maybe you shame yourself. Or criticize yourself into change. Or pray whatever you’re feeling away, pushing it down into the basement where—you hope—it won’t surface again.
But here's what I've learned, as a therapist and in my own life: exiling a part of yourself never makes it go away. It only makes you lonelier. The parts we banish don't leave. They just come out sideways.
There is another way. And Scripture showed it to us long before psychology ever gave it a name.
Listen to the psalmist in a moment of real anguish. Instead of scolding himself or pretending he's fine, he turns toward his own hurting soul and speaks to it:
Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? — Psalm 42:5
He doesn't shove the ache down. He turns toward it—gently, with curiosity, the way you might show care for a frightened child. Only after connecting in this way does he speak the truth his soul most needs to hear: Put your hope in God.
That single move is woven all through Scripture. Again and again, we are invited to bring the whole of who we are—even the parts we're ashamed of—into the presence of a God who sees our inner selves and does not look away.
Consider David in Psalm 139. He asks God to do the very thing most of us are terrified of:
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. — Psalm 139:23
He is throwing open the exact rooms of his soul he most wants to keep locked. And he can do that because he already knows what he'll find when God walks in. Not contempt or disappointment but loving presence.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. —Psalm 34:18
This is the God who runs down the road toward the son who squandered everything, before he can finish his apology (Luke 15). The God who calls you by name and says, you are Mine (Isaiah 43:1).
God does not stand at a cool, aloof distance, waiting for you to fix the frightened, wounded parts of yourself. God moves toward those very parts of you.
In my new book, The Secure Soul, I call this internal attachment—learning to recognize the wounded parts of yourself and returning to God’s love right there. Not to fix yourself, nor to exile what you don’t like. But to bring compassion into the places that have felt most alone.
Because here is the tender truth underneath all of this: the part of you that you keep trying to silence is not your enemy. It almost always reflects a tender, young place inside that has carried something heavy for a very long time—waiting, sometimes for decades, for someone to finally draw near.
God is already drawing near to this place… and inviting you to do the same.
You don't have to be at war with yourself anymore. You can stop managing your soul and start meeting it with compassion, in the presence and kindness of God. You can come home—to Love, and to the soul that Love so carefully made.
Recognize: I’m disconnected.
Return: I am loved even here.
Watch the Video
Written for Devotionals Daily by Dr. Alison Cook, author of The Secure Soul.
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Your Turn
How is it with your soul today? Exiling a part of yourself never makes it go away. The parts we banish don't leave. They just come out sideways. Love incarnate is waiting for you today with compassion and kindness. ~ Devotionals Daily