There Was A Time — A Poem About Faith, Burnout, And When Your Fire Goes Quiet

Some poems don’t come from inspiration.

They come from exhaustion.

[There Was A Time

There was a time

I walked with God

like breath in my lungs—

constant,

unquestioned,

necessary.

Not Sunday faith.

Not verses on a wall.

I mean the kind

that rearranges your world.

I gave Him everything.

Every dream laid down gently.

Every desire surrendered.

Every prayer whispered

like my life depended on it.

Because it did.

Scripture wasn’t ink to me—

it was marrow.

Prayer wasn’t routine—

it was oxygen.

The Spirit felt alive,

sharp,

electric in my chest.

I wasn’t performing belief.

I was living it.

And maybe that’s why

I started noticing

what others couldn’t see.

The cracks.

Faith with no heartbeat.

Worship without weight.

Sin laughed off like a joke.

Love spoken loudly

but never practiced quietly.

Voices that sounded holy

but hollow.

Rehearsed.

Mechanical.

Like robots reading God

from a script.

I kept waiting for fruit.

For softness.

For compassion.

For something human.

But all I saw

was religion

wearing a mask.

And something in me

began to splinter.

Because actions don’t lie.

They never do.

They preach louder than sermons.

And what hurt most

was the cruelest irony—

The careless ones

had everything.

Marriage.

Families.

Arms to fall asleep in.

Tables full of laughter.

Miracles

they stepped over daily

like clutter on the floor.

While I—

who begged heaven for crumbs—

would have traded anything

just to taste that life.

It’s a strange grief,

watching others live your prayers

like they’re nothing special.

Like God didn’t bleed

to give it to them.

That’s when I learned

what love really costs.

It isn’t soft.

It carves pieces out of you.

If you’ve never felt it empty you,

break you open,

leave you trembling—

maybe you’ve never loved that deep at all.

Because Christ-love

isn’t comfortable.

It consumes.

And I let it.

I poured

and poured

and poured

until there was nothing left

but bone.

And one day—

the fire didn’t rage.

It didn’t flicker.

It just…

went quiet.

No anger.

No rebellion.

Just silence.

And for the first time

in my life,

I didn’t care.

And strangely—

it felt like freedom.

Like chains I didn’t know I wore

finally slipped off my wrists.

Liberation.

So now

I choose myself.

My peace.

My future.

My life.

No apology.

No permission.

Just breath.

But sometimes

late at night

the thought still haunts me—

I wasn’t always like this.

I used to burn.

And if someone like me—

someone who gave everything,

who loved until it hurt,

who believed until it broke—

could end up here…

then God help us.

God have mercy on us all.

Jeremy Faivre]

“There Was A Time” wasn’t written as a statement or a sermon.

It was written as a confession.

A remembering.

A grieving.

It’s me looking back at a version of myself.

Because there really was a time when my faith wasn’t casual — it was everything.

When faith was oxygen

The opening lines are intentional:

There was a time

I walked with God

like breath in my lungs—

constant,

unquestioned,

necessary.

I didn’t want to describe belief.

I wanted to describe dependency.

Back then, faith wasn’t a philosophy or a label. It wasn’t church attendance or aesthetics.

It was survival.

Scripture wasn’t just something I read — it shaped how I thought.

Prayer wasn’t a discipline — it was instinct.

Serving others wasn’t optional — it was who I was.

Some people treat faith like an accessory.

I treated it like marrow.

Like oxygen.

Like something I couldn’t live without.

And honestly?

It’s real. Alive. Electric.

That’s what makes the rest of the poem hurt so much.

Because you can’t lose something that was fake.

You only grieve what’s real.

The burden of seeing too clearly

There’s a strange side effect to taking faith seriously.

You start noticing when other people don’t.

The closer I tried to walk with God, the more sensitive I became to hypocrisy.

Not in a self-righteous way.

In a heartbreak way.

I started seeing:

• worship without compassion

• kindness preached but not practiced

• sin minimized when it was convenient

• families treated worse at home than strangers at church

• Hearts diminished and egos heightened

It felt like watching people memorize the language of love without ever actually loving.

That’s where this line comes from:

Faith with no heartbeat.

That image sums it up perfectly.

Something that looks alive

but isn’t.

Religion can imitate life really well.

But imitation isn’t transformation.

And when you’re genuinely trying to live sacrificially, watching others perform it like theater does something to you.

It starts to splinter you from the inside.

The irony that hurt the most

This was the most vulnerable part of the poem for me to write.

The part that quietly wrecked me.

Because it’s not anger.

It’s grief.

The careless ones had everything.

Marriage.

Families.

Community.

Love.

All the things I prayed for.

All the things I would have cherished.

And the people who treated faith the most casually seemed to receive them effortlessly.

Meanwhile, I was over here bleeding myself dry.

It creates a strange, almost shameful question:

Why do the people who value something least seem to get it most?

Not because life is unfair.

But because it exposes something deeper:

Sometimes devotion doesn’t guarantee reward.

Sometimes sacrifice just… costs you.

And that realization shakes you harder than doubt ever could.

The truth about Christ-like love (that no one advertises)

Church culture loves to romanticize self-sacrifice.

“Love like Jesus.”

“Die to yourself.”

“Pour into others.”

It sounds beautiful.

Until you actually do it.

Then you realize:

Real love isn’t poetic.

It’s expensive.

It drains you.

It empties you.

It takes pieces of you that don’t always come back.

That’s what this line is getting at:

It carves pieces out of you.

If loving has never hurt, it probably hasn’t gone very deep.

But here’s the part we don’t talk about enough:

If you only pour and never get poured into…

eventually you run dry.

Even the most faithful heart can burn out.

Especially the most faithful heart.

Not rebellion — just silence

People expect a “falling away” story to be dramatic.

Anger.

Bitterness.

A loud break.

Mine wasn’t like that.

It was quiet.

The fire didn’t rage.

It didn’t flicker.

It just… went quiet.

No explosion.

Just absence.

Like waking up one day and realizing something that used to burn bright is just… gone.

And the scariest part?

It didn’t feel tragic.

It felt peaceful.

Like chains falling off.

Like finally breathing after holding your breath for years.

That’s why the word liberation shows up.

Because sometimes what looks like losing faith…

actually feels like losing pressure.

Losing guilt.

Losing the constant expectation to bleed for everyone.

Choosing myself for the first time

This is probably the most controversial part of the poem:

So now I choose myself.

Christians would burn me at the stake for saying something like that.

And for most of my life, that would’ve sounded selfish too.

But now it sounds like survival.

I’m not talking about becoming cold or uncaring.

I’m talking about boundaries.

About not setting yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.

About realizing you’re allowed to have peace too.

For someone who built their entire identity around self-sacrifice…

choosing yourself feels almost rebellious.

But sometimes it’s just healthy.

Sometimes it’s necessary.

Why this poem ends with a warning

The last lines aren’t aimed at non-believers.

They’re aimed at believers.

At the people who still think faith is just words.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth:

If someone like me —

someone who gave everything,

who believed deeply,

who loved until it hurt —

can end up emotionally empty…

then maybe the system itself needs re-examining.

Maybe the culture is broken.

Maybe we’ve confused performance with transformation.

Because real faith should make us softer.

Kinder.

More human.

Not louder. Not harsher. Not fake.

If we’re not becoming more loving…

what are we actually doing?

Final thoughts

“There Was A Time” isn’t an attack on God.

It’s grief over people.

It’s burnout.

It’s honesty.

It’s me admitting:

I used to burn.

Now I’m tired.

And maybe saying that out loud is the most honest prayer I’ve prayed in years.

– Jeremy