2025: The Year of Yearning

It was something quieter.

You saw it everywhere—in the music you streamed, the reels you scrolled past, the characters you binged late into the night.

A deep, aching yearning for something just out of reach.

And if you’re honest—you’ve felt it too.

Yearning isn’t just sadness.

It’s the almost physical ache you feel when a certain song comes on late at night.
It’s watching a character who doesn’t just hurt—but longs. And you feel it in your chest.
It’s a hunger for emotion that never quite finds fulfillment.

We’re nostalgic for moments we never lived.
Homes we never had.
Pining for a sense of belonging.

Even our playlists tell the same story.

We keep returning to songs about fleeting love, lost futures, and relationships that almost happened—but didn’t. They resonate because they give language to an ache we’re already carrying.

And the data confirms what we already feel.

Over half of people under 30 are single with no romantic prospects. Without exaggeration, we’re being described as the most single and lonely generation in modern history.

Here’s where things get complicated.

Much of our yearning isn’t just felt.
It’s performed.

Gen Z doesn’t just feel sad, nostalgic, or heartbroken—we curate it.

So instead of writing in a private diary, we make a TikTok video—
with a perfect filter, a sad song, and a quote about “almost love.”

We’ve learned how to turn real emotion into a vibe—an aesthetic, a scroll-worthy post for likes and shares.

As one 21-year-old put it in a recent article:

The ache is real.
But the algorithm amplifies it, reshapes it, and feeds it back to us as content.

And if you’re honest—you haven’t escaped it either.

You know the look: rain on the window, piano music, someone crying in perfect lighting. Pinterest boards titled “us in another life.”

2025 wasn’t just the Year of Yearning.
It was the year of performative yearning.

Here’s the contradiction.

Our online performance doesn’t match real life.

Offline, this generation is almost famous for the opposite—ghosting, blocking, and moving on quickly.

The longing lives online.
Safe. Curated. Performative.

It’s like getting the thrill of heartbreak through content—cinematic, beautiful, aesthetic—without the mess of real vulnerability, real commitment, or real cost.

We get the drama without the risk.

That’s the real question.

Maybe this is how we cope now. Sharing a sad post and seeing people comment “same” can make the weight feel lighter. Shared pain feels less lonely.

But there’s a danger too.

When longing becomes aesthetic—when our feeds are saturated with curated sadness—it doesn’t just express emotion. It shapes it.

Yearning becomes contagious.

It affects our mood, our expectations, our sense of reality.

What once belonged in private prayer, honest conversation, or quiet reflection now belongs to the algorithm.

So before you post that moody picture or sink into another sad playlist, it’s worth asking:

Maybe sometimes the most honest thing we can do is let longing remain unseen.
To feel the ache without styling it.
To let it be real.

The world is yearning because we’re trying to fill a God-shaped vacuum with Instagram-shaped content.

The psalmist understood this long before algorithms ever did:

We are restless—until we find our rest in God.

The peace we crave—the peace that passes understanding—is not found on TikTok or Instagram. Not in career success, wealth, or even in a significant other.

In Christ, you know you are God’s child—fearfully and wonderfully made.
In Christ, you have peace with God and can approach Him boldly.
In Christ, you can trust that the God who did not spare His own Son will also graciously give you all things.

And if marriage is something you desire, honor that longing—not with fantasy or desperation, but with faith and action.

The same God who provided Eve for Adam, Rebekah for Isaac, and Ruth for Boaz is not indifferent to your desire to love and be loved.

Or get it by email here.