Well · Faith

I Wear My Cross to Remember I Belong to God. I Still Felt Far From Him, Even Though I Read the Bible and Pray Every Day.

I'm 52 and I've worn a cross every day since my divorce. Our pastor's wife read me one verse in Numbers, and I finally understood why I could love my cross and still feel so far from Him.

By Diane K.

Reader contributor, Texas

Published November 4, 2026

Listen to this article · 12 min

That's me in my bathroom mirror last week. My daughter wanted a picture of the cross, so I sent her that one. I'm 52, and I've worn a cross every day for nine years. Most of those nights I'd catch it in this same mirror and feel two things at once. It reminded me I belong to God, and I felt so far from Him I could have cried.

I don't feel that at the mirror anymore. Most nights now I hear His words there, read out loud. If you wear a cross and pray every day and still feel far from Jesus, I want you to know it was never a lack of faith, and there's nothing wrong with your cross. It took our pastor's wife one verse in Numbers to show me what I'd been missing. Then I still thought about it for a week, and that was seven more nights at the mirror.

Mama put it on me the Easter after my divorce

It's a little silver cross on a thin chain. Mama bought it in Waco and said, Diane, you wear this and you remember whose you are. I was 43, I'd just come through the hardest divorce I could have imagined, and I didn't take it off for nine years.

And it works, I want to say that first. At night when I'm brushing my teeth I catch it in the mirror, and it reminds me I belong to God and what Jesus went through for me. Other people say it almost word for word, "I wear I cross to remember that I belong to God", and that's always been me.

But in the same second it reminded me I belonged to Him, I'd feel so far away from Him. I read my Bible every morning and I pray in the car, and I'd still stand at that mirror feeling like Jesus was a long way off and it was my fault. Lord, forgive me for not trusting You enough, I'd pray, and then I'd lie in bed with my anxiety going and feel worse.

So I did more, like everybody tells you. I set my alarm for 5:15 to read longer. I put a Bible app on my phone, and ten minutes after I opened it I'd be on Facebook looking at my cousin's lake house. I bought a second cross with Philippians 4:13 engraved on the back, where you can't read it while you're wearing it. I joined the Tuesday and Thursday women's study. Read more, pray more, serve more. Somebody online said it better than I can, "It’s always ‘do more of this’." I did more of all of it, and I still felt far from Him.

The night I couldn't find one verse

Then in March, Daddy had his heart attack. I sat outside the cath lab in Temple in my house shoes with my cross in my fist so tight it left a mark on my palm. I knew God was there. My cross was doing its job. But I couldn't think of one verse, and thirty years of church were gone under the anxiety and the machines beeping down the hall. I kept saying Lord, please hear me, and I couldn't find one thing He'd ever said to hold on to. My Bible was at home by my bed. I went in the ladies' room and cried.

Daddy came through. He's back to mowing. I don't think I came through that night.

When I got home I typed into my phone, why do I feel far from God when I pray every day. There were dozens of people under the prayer videos saying my exact thing.

Under the prayer videos that came up, people wrote:

• I feel far from God, even though I read the bible and pray every day.
• I was just asking why I feel disconnected with God but I do devotionals daily and seek and pray daily.
• I’ve been feeling disconnected lately and need to seek God wholeheartedly

The first one was me exactly. Whoever wrote it put one more line at the end, and I read it three times. "I do not depend on my feeling, but his words." I had the reminder around my neck. I didn't have His words with me in that hallway when it mattered, and I didn't understand yet why that felt so right.

What our pastor's wife read me over coffee

That Sunday after church I went to Ruth's for coffee. Ruth is our pastor's wife, she's 71, and she's been at our church longer than the carpet. I told her about the hallway and the mirror, and I braced for her to tell me to read more.

She didn't. She turned to Numbers 15, where God tells His people to put tassels on the corners of their clothes, and she read me the verse that says what the tassels were for.

She tapped the page and said, "They wore it so they'd remember what He said." Then she drank her coffee and let me sit.

I worked it out at her table. My cross does the first part. It reminds me I belong to Jesus, and that's good and right, and I'm never going to stop wearing one. But in nine years it had never once told me anything He said, and what calms me down has always been what He said. Later I found somebody under an anxiety podcast who'd put it plainly, and hundreds of people had liked it.

"it’s amazing how no amount of doctors, medication, drugs or alcohol, or any temporary fix ever calmed me down the way that the word of God calms me down."

Mama's picture, and Mama's voice

The only way I know to explain it is my refrigerator. I've got a picture of Mama on it from her 75th birthday, and every time I get the milk out it reminds me she loves me. But the night Daddy went in, I didn't go stand in front of the refrigerator. I called her. I needed to hear her voice.

My cross was the picture. I'd been standing in front of the picture for nine years, wondering why I couldn't hear her.

Everything I tried was either more picture, or the voice kept somewhere I wasn't. My Bible was on the nightstand, the app was next to Facebook, and the engraved verse was on the back where I couldn't see it. Nothing I owned put His words on me, where my cross was, when the bad moment came. None of that was my faith.

Nine years went by like that

Somebody in those comments wrote, "I would look back every night, knowing I'm disconnected, but I'd say, 'I'll connect later.'" That was me at the mirror for nine years, anxious and far away. And my daughter is 26, and she's watching her mama wear a cross and feel far from God, and I don't want her thinking that's what faith feels like.

I'd been standing in front of the picture for nine years, wondering why I couldn't hear her.

The picture and the voice in one place

So I didn't need a different cross, and I didn't need to do more. I needed the picture and the voice together, a reminder that carries what He said, on me, wherever I am. And I needed it out loud, because that night in Temple I couldn't have read a thing. I needed somebody to read to me.

That's how the tassel worked too. You looked at it, and it got you to His words.

When I said that to Ruth, she laughed and lifted the thing on the black cord around her neck. It was a flat little piece of dark wood with a cross carved into the front. It hung on her every Sunday for months. I'd figured it was from the church craft fair.

Ruth's, at her kitchen table after church.

Every cross I ever bought was made to be looked at, and the Word was always somewhere else. Under that same anxiety podcast, somebody had written what they did while the man read Matthew 6 out loud, "I dropped everything and just grabbed my cross necklace and closed my eyes and listened and prayed."

Then she took my phone out of my hand

She held my phone against the wood, and the verse for that day opened on my screen, written out, and it read it aloud at her kitchen table. Psalm 46:1. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. I thought about that hallway, and I had to put my coffee down.

Close-up of the tag with a phone held to it.

There's no app. Ruth said everybody who has one gets the same verse that day, so her sister up in Waco had heard the same one that morning. It's called The Promise Cross.

I looked it up when I got home. They carve every one by hand, so no two grains are alike, and they pray over every one before it ships. Every order comes with a 60-Day Promise, and more than 7,000 believers wear one.

"Wouldn't Mama call that an idol?" Ruth asked me straight back if I'd worship it, and I said no. A woman on a Christian forum put it the way I would now, "As long as you recognize that the object has no power whatever." I know it has none. It's carved wood that opens a verse, and Jesus is who I pray to.

"Won't everybody at church ask about it?" Nobody asked Ruth in months. I tuck mine in my blouse most days.

"So do I quit reading my Bible?" No. It reads me the verse, and I still pray it and open my Bible in the morning.

"What about Mama's cross?" I took it off the week the new one came. It's in the dish by my sink, and I wear it on Sundays.

It wasn't instant either. The first two weeks I forgot to use it half the nights. Then one night my hand went to the wood at the mirror before I thought about it, and after that I didn't forget.

See what it costs →

Three people who wear one

Patrice, Jonathan and Mark

What my mirror is like now

It's about 10:40 at night. I'm brushing my teeth, and I catch the little piece of wood in the mirror. My hand goes to it. It's warm from being against me all day, and I can feel the grain under my thumb. I hold my phone against it, and the day's verse comes up and it reads it aloud while the water's still running. Some nights Mama's still on speaker from our goodnight call, and she'll say, what was that, and I'll say, that's my cross, Mama.

Before

Now

It's what I do at the mirror now, like taking my earrings out

I go to bed with something Jesus said in my head instead of my own anxious thoughts, and some nights I have a peace I can't even explain. It's what I do at the mirror now, like taking my earrings out, and that can be your mirror the week yours comes.

What I paid, and why

A person carves each one, and somebody prays over it, and that takes time. I'd rather pay for that than for one more thing that lives in my phone. Every order ships as a pair right now, Buy One, Gift One Free, and the second one is for the woman you already thought of while you were reading.

This run is the one shipping now. Every cross is hand-carved and prayed over before it leaves, so a run only goes so far. When it sells out, Buy One, Gift One Free pauses until the next run on Monday, November 9 at 9:00 AM Eastern.

Don't put it next to a cross at the mall. Put it next to what you already have.

	On you	Carries His words	New verse daily	Read aloud
The cross I'd worn nine years	Yes	No	No	No
A verse engraved on the back	Yes	One, forever	No	No
A Bible app	No	Yes	Yes	Some
The Promise Cross	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

It isn't for you if you want something people notice, or if you won't pick up your phone at night. If that's you, there's one more thing about the second cross, and I'll tell you under the price.

Mama gave me my first cross, so I gave her the second one. She's 78 and she doesn't do phones much, but when I come by on Saturdays she has me touch hers to her phone, and she listens with her eyes closed.

Or you could close this, catch your cross in the mirror tonight, feel far from Him, and tell yourself you'll do better tomorrow. I did that for nine years, and in that version the second one never gets given. You know who she is, and she's wearing a cross right now thinking she's let Jesus down.

I gave it nine years. I'm only asking you for sixty days, and I'll be praying for His peace over you either way.

Get The Promise Cross, Buy One Gift One Free →

The questions I had

If you're at your mirror tonight feeling far from Him, I'll be praying for you. God is good.Diane K., Texas

GET YOURS, AND ONE FOR HER → BUY ONE, GIFT ONE FREE