Day 123 | The Silence of God

This morning Brett did the laundry for me so that I could have some time to focus on journaling and prayer. I told Brett last night that I know I’m not in a spiritually healthy place and I really need to start processing my questions and griefs. The trouble is, I feel scared and overwhelmed. He encouraged me that I just needed to take that first step.

You see…

Six years ago, my life looked very different than it does now. I was newly engaged and getting ready to move to Mississippi because I had been accepted to train with my dream ballet company. I was coming out of a season of intense darkness after a long battle with anorexia, self-harm and depression. For once, I was happy to be alive and excited about what the future might hold.

I had visions of a fulfilling ballet career, a fruitful ministry and a happy life with my soon-to-be husband and future children. It’s not that I thought life should be easy, but I guess I sort of imagined that I would, for the most part, get to choose the challenges myself. Life would be difficult but only because I was going to give everything to love God and love people. I was going to voluntarily sacrifice my comfort to give my all to what I felt called to. I was going to do my part to heal this broken world little by little.

Just over a year later, my life looked completely different than I ever could have imagined. My dreams turned into a nightmare filled with suffering like I had never known before. Suffering I did not choose and suffering that didn’t seem to be accomplishing anything. I fell severely ill and was left disabled and bed-bound.

Suddenly, here I was… trapped in a deteriorating body unable to even go to the bathroom by myself. I was completely dependent on the help of my husband and family. I wasn’t doing anything great to love God or heal the hurting. I was “the hurting.”

At first, I brought my pain and doubts and questions to God in the form of journaled prayers, just like I always had. But God did not answer. And as my body and brain continued to deteriorate I lost my ability to write or even focus long enough to pray more than a sentence at a time. I felt like I had been cut off from God. Or maybe, the more honest way to say that is… I felt like God had cut me off.

I hated when people said that God “carried” them through their suffering and that He drew closer to them in their darkest times. Christians said that a lot, almost as though seasons of darkness always went hand and hand with an experience of deep intimacy with God.

And I wondered… Why not me? Why don’t I get the comfort of God drawing near in a special way? Why is He not only withholding His presence but also taking away my ability to communicate with Him? I can’t read the Scriptures, I can’t sing, I can’t gather with other believers and I can barely pray a couple words at a time.

My greatest comfort was that God chose to include prayers like these in the Scriptures:

“How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? 
How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?” 
Psalm 13:1-2

“O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless.”
Psalm 88:14-15

I was not the first person to experience what felt like a cold shoulder from my Creator and so I decided to let it go and trust. I had done my part and God knew just how much I wanted to know and be known by Him. I could not control Him or the circumstances that were keeping me from engaging in, what Christians call, the spiritual disciplines. So, I would just have to suffer faithfully even without the special comfort of feeling God near. I would wait patiently for Him to break the silence.

So, I waited and waited and waited… and the distance only seemed to grow.

Now, four years of waiting later, I’ve finally regained my cognitive functioning. I am able to read and pray again but it has only caused me to feel the distance more keenly. The ugly truth is, I don’t remember what it’s like to read the Scriptures because I love them. I don’t remember how to pray from a raw and honest place. It feels foreign and uncomfortable.

In my suffering I have come to know God as sovereign and mysterious and infinite but I have forgotten what it’s like to know him as Father. That became so clear to me this morning as I was journaling and praying. I don’t feel at all comfortable approaching God with my questions and griefs. I’m terrified. I am just so aware of the discrepancy between my helplessness and his power, my smallness and his greatness.

I see the God who says,

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements, surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?”
Job 38:2-6

But I have forgotten the God to who said,

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Matthew 11:28-30

“But Zion said, ‘The LORD has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.’ 
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
 that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? 
Even these may forget, 
yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.”
Isaiah 49: 14-16

Yet, my God is both. He is powerful and gentle. A lion and a lamb. So, if I want to find healing for my soul, I’m going to have learn to be vulnerable again. It’s a risk I have to take. I’m going to have to uncover those ugly wounds and trust that He knows what I need even more than I do.

By the way, Brett and I made a beautiful PDF of my favorite resources for suffering souls. I created the content and he made it look fancy with his superduper graphic design skills. It’s available for free to my email subscribers. Click here to sign up and receive 5 Resources for the Suffering Soul.