God,

I never prepared my heart for something like this, and so I never realized how deeply it would hurt. No one really braces you for this kind of heartbreak, no one really sits you down and talks to you about how losing a friend can feel just as heavy as any other kind of loss you’ll experience in your life. How the absence of someone who once knew you so well can feel like a missing limb. I keep reaching for my phone thinking that I can send them a text, but I can’t, and it’s so disorienting, it’s so confusing.

I keep replaying conversations between us in my head, God. I keep sifting through our memories like I’m trying to find some kind of explanation for this ache, something that will help to crack some understanding into this goodbye. Were there signs I missed? Were there words I shouldn’t have said? Were there moments I could have handled things differently? It’s exhausting trying to rewrite the past in my mind when I know I can’t actually change it, it’s exhausting to be the last one left alone in a friendship.

And the hardest part, God? I don’t know where to put this grief. When people go through breakups, they get sympathy, they are afforded permission to grieve because it’s such a normal experience. But when a friendship ends, it’s less measurable, less relatable, and it feels like I’m just supposed to move on. Like it shouldn’t hurt this much. Like I shouldn’t miss them. But I do. I do.

So, God, I need you. I need you to sit with me in this ache. I need you to hold the pieces of my heart that feel broken in places I didn’t even know could fracture. I need you to remind me that this loss doesn’t mean I am unworthy of love, that I am not too much, that I am not impossible to be around or to show up for — because right now, my mind is tempted to believe otherwise.

If I have things to learn from this lost friendship, teach me gently, God. If I have patterns to let go of, help me to loosen my grip. If there is room for healing, for closure, for peace — show me how to move towards it. And if reconciliation isn’t meant to be, help me to trust that you are still writing something good for me, even in this ending, even in this pain.

God, I place this friendship in your hands. The good parts, the hard parts, the parts that still make me cry. Thank you for what it was. Thank you for the love that existed there, even if it couldn’t last forever. And thank you for the reminder that, even when relationships shift, you remain constant. You remain my safe place.

Hold me through this, God. Fill the empty spaces with your peace. And when I’m ready, help me to open my heart again — to new friendships, to new seasons, to the kind of companionship that stays. 

I trust you with this healing, and I always will, God. 

Amen.