In the Silence

My friend Muriella asked me to write a guest blog for her, reflecting on Lent. Here it is. You can also check it out on her blog at www.mewspace.wordpress.com 

If you were to ask me, at the end of most days,  if I felt God at work,  felt His goodness,  felt His presence, or saw His work on behalf of the poor and the oppressed, I would say, “no.”

In the course of a day, I hear a seemingly endless litany of needs, short-coming, and crisis. Financial pressure, relational instability, abusive relationships, addiction, sickness, the deep, unanswered longing for a child. The signs of our broken world are all around. The emotional (and sometimes physical) scars from betrayal and abuse make their presence known.  The inability to trust, destructive competition, unhealthy co-dependence, addiction.

Most days, what I see, feel, hear, and observe is the perceived absence of God.

Most days, it feels like I am praying against a closed sky.

Most days it seems like redemption will never come to fruition.

Most days it feels like we cling to hope like a tiny thread.

Most days there is a cosmic silence.

And I think of the betrayal, and suffering of Jesus.

I think if Jesus calling out to Father God, “have you forsaken me?!”

The heartfelt cry, “where are you?!”

I understand the question.

I have asked it countless times, in countless forms over the course of the past 4 years.

Won’t you ever show up?

Where are you?

Why can’t it ever be easy?

More suffering?

We have to walk through more loss?

Why have you forsaken us?

I don’t believe it though.

I know that we have not been forsaken.

I know the sky is not closed.

In the midst of this reality, I choose to acknowledge the presence of a loving God in the silence.

He is here in the chaos.

His heart is breaking more than mine.

He longs for redemption and restoration more than I do.

His heart rejoices at the clear signs of growth (no matter how small)

He is at work.

Slowly.

Faithfully.

Making all things new.