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What to Do When You've Been Ghosted by a Friend · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Track 1: Diana and Lindsay met at UCLA and within a year they
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  were inseparable. They roomed together and traveled together.
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  Lindsay was the friend who knew Diana's moods before Diana said
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  a word, the one she called first with news. For years that
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  friendship was one of the surest things in her life.
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  in San Francisco and moved away. At first the distance seemed
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  like nothing. Friends drifted a little when the miles stack up
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  and Diana figured they'd close that gap the way they always had.
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  Soon the calls start going unanswered. One unanswered
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  message became several and the several became a long stretch of
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  nothing. Diana told herself Lindsay was busy, that the new
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  job was swallowing her whole. We'll come back to what Diana
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  finally realized, but first,
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. I've
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  lost a friend this with a man I talked to almost every week. The
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  kind of friend you tell the things you don't tell anyone
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  else. Then, one of us moved for work and the calls got shorter
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  and further apart and one day they just stopped. There was no
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  falling out that I know of. No goodbye. To this day, I couldn't
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  tell you exactly what happened and every so often his name
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  crosses my mind and I still wonder. So I know a little bit
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  about what this hurt does to a person. Maybe you do too. One of
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  the more disorienting hurts in life is when someone who was
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  close to you disappears. No explanation. No conversation.
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  They just stopped responding and now weeks or months have gone by.
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  supply one. You run back through your own memory looking for the
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  thing you said. The moment it turned, sometimes you don't find
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  anything. A lot of the time, you never find the answer at all.
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  And that not knowing becomes its own kind of ache. What makes it
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  worse is that hardly anyone treats it as a loss. When
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  someone dies, people bring meals and gather around. When a friend
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  quietly walks out of your life, you're expected to shrug and
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  move on as if a person you love didn't vanish. So you grieve it
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  alone and part of you wonders if you're even allowed to be hurt
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  over a friendship. You are. And the Bible has words for exactly
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  this. From a man who lived it. Listen to King David in Psalm 55,
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  verses 12-14.
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  Hear what David is saying. He could have handled an enemy, an
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  attack from someone who hated him. He could brace for. What
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  cut him down was that this came from a friend. A man he had
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  talked with, prayed with, walked into worship beside. The
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  closeness is what made the wound so deep. You don't ache like
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  this over a stranger. You ache like this because you love them
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  and they were woven into your life. Notice what David does
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  with that pain. He doesn't bury it and he doesn't pretend he's
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  fine. He says it to God while the hurt's still raw. And I
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  think that's permission for you. You can take this exact grief,
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  the confusion and the missing, them all mixed together, and
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  bring it straight to God the way David did. There's no need to
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  have it resolved first or even understand why they left. You
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  just have to tell the truth to the one who's listening. He
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  understands. The God you bring this to knows the sting of it
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  from experience. One night he was betrayed. One of Jesus' own
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  friends hand him over and the rest scattered. He has been
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  abandoned by people he loved. So when you tell him about the
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  friend who ghosted you, you're bringing it to the person who
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  understands completely and who will never do that to you.
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  People may disappear without a word. God doesn't. He will not
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  stop responding and he won't move on to newer friends. He
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  stays with you. It didn't pass. One day, Diana said the words to
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  herself. She'd been dumped and no one was ever going to explain
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  it. She suspected Lindsay had just moved on to newer friends,
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  though she never got the confirmation or even a goodbye.
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  Months later, across from a therapist, Diana finally heard a
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  name for what she'd been feeling. Disenfranchised grief, the
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  therapist called it. The kind of loss the world never thinks to
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  mourn with you. Once it had a name, Diana let herself grieve
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  it as the loss it was. Diana never got an explanation and she
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  stopped waiting for one. What helped her was giving the loss
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  its name and letting herself grieve it. You can do that today.
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  Call it what it was. A friendship you valued ended and
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  it hurt and the grief is allowed. Here's today's challenge. Take a
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  few minutes today and tell God about the friend you lost. Skip
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  the tiny prayer and say it openly that it confused you and
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  that you still missed them. Then name the loss for what it is. A
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  friendship that mattered and ended. Give yourself permission
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  to grieve it the same way you'd grieve any other loss that
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  counted. Father, you know what it is to be left by people you
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  loved. So you know this ache personally. Thank you that we
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  can bring to you the friendships that ended without a word, the
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  ones we're still confused about. We don't understand why they
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  walked away and we may never know. Help us grieve what we
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  lost instead of burying it. And thank you that you will never
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  ghost us and never move on. You will stay with us. In Jesus'
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  name, amen. If you need prayer today, I'd love to hear from you.
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  You can leave me a voicemail at dailydevotionsforbusylives.com
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  slash voicemail. I listen to every single one, and it would
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  be an honor to bring your name before the Lord. Thanks for
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  joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. Remember, when a
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  friend disappears without a word, that grief counts, and you can
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  bring it to the God who has abandoned himself and who will
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  never do it to you. Come back next time for more encouragement
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  to help you live grounded in God's truth. Until then, God
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  bless and have a great day.