Embracing God's Silence When the Storm Rages: A Journey of Trust
Photo by Beatrice Cloake @bcloake via Unsplash
Guest post by Selene Lau.
“You have a fractured bone in your wrist. It will need to be in a cast for about 6 weeks.”
I took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. I was not sure I was ready for one more thing. I had slipped and fallen clumsily on a wooden bridge at an outdoor family camp. Now I had to think about functioning without the use of my dominant hand.
It had been a particularly overwhelming summer with one of my children struggling intensely with anxiety, my husband undergoing a work transition, and close friends tragically losing their son. It was now mid-August, and I was feeling the pressure of getting my three boys ready for the start of the school year. This broken wrist felt like someone threw a giant boulder into my already sinking ship.
Bubbling under my weariness was a deep disappointment with God.
A few months earlier, I was reading the story of Jesus calming the storm in Matthew 8:23-27. The passage begins with the disciples being overcome by a furious storm while Jesus is asleep in the boat. Sitting with these verses, I was incredibly frustrated by the image of Jesus slumbering while the disciples were frantically navigating rough wind and waters.
My family was in the thick of a storm, and I felt like Jesus was asleep.
Many mornings, I poured my heart before God, asking Him to intervene and pleading for Him to bring me to a safe shore. Often, I was met with silence.
The silence was deafening and disorienting.
However, with time, I began noticing how intimacy with Him is fostered in silence. Akin to sitting in a long car ride with my husband where the absence of speech unveils trust and familiarity, my Father’s silence created space for me to relate with Him in new and deepening ways.
I am learning to lean on the muscle memory of His faithfulness, believing His goodness even when uncertainty remains. I am discovering how to embrace His grace for the present despite forecasts of worsening weather. I am relying on the promise of His presence, particularly in moments when I feel alone in my struggles.
My cast came off several few months ago (hurray!), yet the storm rages on. Challenging circumstances have not let up. However, a subtle shift has occurred in me. In the mornings, instead of pleading with God to fix every situation, I’m asking Him to calm my soul. I rarely hear His answer, but I see evidence of His Spirit’s movement as I experience growing peace and rest.
I’m learning to embrace the silence.
Maybe I’m beginning to see that the healing that occurred beneath my cast mirrors God’s work in me: hidden and mysterious. From my vantage point, when my wrist was injured, all I could observe was a large bandage covering my injury as I experienced the limitations of my immobilized limb. I couldn’t write, draw, chop, cut, type, or play piano with my right hand.
However, under the long white fiberglass accessory that covered my arm, my muscles were resting, and my bones were being re-formed. In a mysterious, God-ordered way, the cells, blood, and minerals in my body were working hard to repair what was broken. In the same way, under all the difficult situations and emotional stresses, He is doing a hidden and mysterious work in me.
I don’t know if I’ll ever understand why Jesus was asleep in the boat. What I do know is that these turbulent seas are shaping my trust in Him and growing the longing in me for a deeper friendship with Him. He is in the boat with me, and for now, that is enough.
