How I Get Back Into the Word When Life Has Pulled Me Away From It
Okay, I need to tell you something I don’t usually say out loud.
There have been times… weeks, and once a stretch that crept into months, where I didn’t open my Bible for myself. Not once. I opened it for the kids’ lessons. I opened it to find a verse for something I was making. I literally sat down and built Bible resources to sell to other mums so they could get into the Word with their families.
And the whole time, I wasn’t reading it for me.
Not even a little bit.
And here’s the part that still gets me when I think about it… at some point I stopped noticing. Life just… filled the gap. The noise, the needs, the pile of things that had to happen before I could sit down. The quiet I used to protect had completely disappeared and I hadn’t even realised it was gone.
You always notice eventually though. For me it’s usually some random moment, standing at the kitchen sink, or awake at 2am when everyone else is finally sleeping, or right in the middle of trying to say something wise to one of my teenagers and feeling completely hollow. Like I’m reaching for something that isn’t there anymore. And it hits me: I haven’t been feeding myself. I’ve been running on empty and telling myself it was fine.
Sound familiar? Yeah. Me too. That’s why I wanted to write this.
Nobody Really Talks About How Normal This Is
We talk about falling away from the Word like it’s something that only happens to women with weak faith. Like the mums who stay consistent must have some secret we don’t… more self-discipline, or a quieter house, or kids who don’t need breakfast at the exact moment you sit down with your Bible.
But I’ve talked to enough women to know that’s just not true. Almost every one of us loses the thread at some point. Most of us lose it more than once. And nearly all of us feel deeply ashamed of it, way more ashamed than the situation actually calls for.
What actually happened? You’re human. You’re a mum. You are carrying so much, more than one person was ever meant to carry alone.. and somewhere under the weight of all of it, the one thing that was supposed to hold you up got quietly pushed to the side because everything and everyone else needed you first.
That’s not a faith crisis. That’s just a Wednesday.
It’s never dramatic either. It’s not like there’s one big moment where you decide to walk away from God. It’s more like a hundred tiny moments. You hit snooze because you were up three times in the night. The school run ate your morning. You sat down with your Bible and the toddler materialised out of thin air with a need that genuinely could not wait. And by the time that was sorted, the moment was gone. And then it happened again the next day. And the next.
And then one day you do the maths and it’s been three weeks. Or six. Or you’d rather not count.
I Used to Think I Had to Earn My Way Back
This is the part I really want to talk about because I think it’s where a lot of us get stuck.
For years I had this belief I’d never really examined, that I needed to get myself into a certain state before I could come back to the Word. Like I had to have a good reason for being away. Or do a few solid spiritual things first so it didn’t feel so awkward to show up. Like I had to earn back my seat at the table before I could sit down.
So I’d tell myself I’d start on Monday. Or the first of the month. Or once things settle down a bit. And realistically things never settle down, you know that, I know that, we all know that… but we keep telling ourselves that lie because it’s easier than admitting we’re just scared to walk back through the door.
And when I did eventually go back, I’d pick up the biggest reading plan I could find. Sixty days of deep study. The whole Bible in a year. Something that matched how guilty I felt. I was trying to make up for lost time all at once, and I’d fall behind by day four and feel even worse than when I started.
Because I wasn’t going back hungry. I was going back with a debt I was trying to pay off. And that is an absolutely exhausting way to read Scripture. I don’t do that anymore.
What I Actually Do Now — Honestly
First thing — I just open up.
Not a well-constructed prayer. Not the right words in the right order. Just whatever is actually true in that moment. Sometimes that’s: God, I’ve been away and I’m not even totally sure why. Sometimes it’s just: I’m here. I’m tired. I don’t have much to bring today. Sometimes, in the really hard seasons, it’s just been me crying over my Bible and just letting God hear my heart.
I just close my eyes and say what I need to say or sit in silence and let God hear my unspoken words. Because pretending… showing up with a tidy explanation and a fresh plan like nothing happened, takes energy I don’t have. And He already knows anyway. Psalm 139 makes it pretty clear He knows exactly where I’ve been. So I skip the performance and just lay everything out in the open.
I go somewhere I already know.
When I’ve been away for a while, I don’t start somewhere new. I go back to the passages that have already held me. Psalm 23. Isaiah 40. Romans 8. John 1. Places in the Bible that feel like home, where I don’t have to work hard to find my footing.
I’ll read He restores my soul and honestly something just releases in my chest. Because I need to be reminded that restoration is actually available to me. That I haven’t been away so long that it’s off the table. That the woman sitting there with dark circles and a cold cup of tea is not too far gone.
I read it slowly and I don’t try to do anything with it.
This one is genuinely hard for me because my brain is always in ‘making‘ mode. I read something and immediately open up my journal and start verse mapping the heck out of everything I read, I think about how I could use it, who needs to hear it, what it could become. That’s just how I’m wired and it’s not a bad thing — it’s how I built everything I’ve built.
But that’s not what I need when I’m coming back for myself. When I’m coming back, I try to read it like I’m eating, not cooking. Just taking it in. Not thinking about what I’ll make with it later or try to break down the historical setting of the chapter. Just letting it feed the woman who is sitting there, who has honestly been more depleted than she’s been telling anyone.
No notes. No insights to write down. No next steps. Just read it, let it register, then sit in it for a minute.
I tell someone.
This one’s uncomfortable, which is probably exactly why it works. Saying out loud to another person, “hey, I’ve been really spiritually dry lately and I’m trying to get back…” makes it real in a way that just deciding privately never does. And it makes it a little harder to quietly give up on day three when no one is watching.
I’m not talking about a formal accountability arrangement. Just honest friendship. The text at 9pm that says I haven’t been in the Word in weeks, pray for me. The conversation where you share the actual truth instead of just saying yeah I’m good, bit tired, you know how it is.
We were not made to do this alone. And the women I know who keep finding their way back, they almost always have someone who knows when they’ve lost the thread.
I decide on my window before the day can take it from me.
Once I’m back, this is the thing that keeps me back. Not a long window. Not a perfect window. Just mine. Decided in advance, before the morning kicks off and makes that decision for me.
Right now for me it’s early, before I even jump out of bed, before the toddler finds me, before the teenagers need something, before the eight year old needs breakfast and the five year old needs confirmation that she is still loved and still exists. Before all of that. Just me and God, I pray, read the first few verses of the Word then quickly make a cup of tea (that I actually get to finish while it’s hot for once) and come back to bed to finish my reading.
It doesn’t always go to plan. Some mornings it’s five minutes not twenty. Some mornings the toddler has a sixth sense for the moment I’m up. I don’t spiral about it. I don’t let one lost morning become a lost week.
I just come back the next day. That’s it. That’s the whole secret.
About That Guilt You’re Carrying
I saved this for last because I really wanted you to get here before I said it.
The shame you feel about how long it’s been, the guilt that makes opening your Bible feel like walking into a room where you owe God an apology, that is not from Him.
I really need you to hear that. It is not from God.
The God I know, the one I’ve been reading about my whole life, the one who has watched me find my way back more times than I can count — He doesn’t meet people coming home with disappointment. He doesn’t have a tally of missed mornings. He’s not sitting in the quiet waiting to tell you how long you were gone.
He’s the dad in Luke 15. The one who sees his kid coming back from a long way off and doesn’t wait for them to get close enough to hear the apology. He runs. Before the apology is finished. Before there’s a plan in place. Before anything has been earned back.
He just runs.
That’s who you’re coming back to. Not a disappointed parent with a list of your failures. A Father who has been watching for you and who, the second He sees you turning back toward Him… tired, guilty, six weeks of distance still on you.. He runs toward you.
You don’t need to have it together. You don’t need a new 90 day devotional or a good explanation or a journaling system. You don’t need to wait until Monday.
You just need to come.
So come. Open the Bible. Open up your heart. Go to the page that feels like home.
He’s already there.
If you’re sitting here thinking okay, I’m ready, but I have no idea where to start… I made something for you.
It’s a free 30 Day Bible Study Plan and it covers everything. Who God is. Humanity and sin. Salvation. Living out the Word. God’s mission. Thirty days, one passage at a time, with built-in reflection days so there’s room to breathe when life gets loud… because it will.
It’s not a programme you have to keep up with perfectly. It’s a path you can walk back to whenever you need it. Start on a Monday or start today. Come back to it after a hard week. Use it as many times as you need.
It’s free. It’s yours. And it might be exactly the on-ramp you’ve been looking for.
Download the Free 30 Day Bible Study Plan
And if you’re looking for something to go alongside it — simple, structured resources for your own quiet time that don’t need an hour you don’t have — the For You, Mum section in the shop was made for this exact season.
