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Encountering God... in Silence
42 Plays2 months ago
Imagine being struck dumb for almost nine months. If you were unable to speak, or prohibited from talking, what would that be like?
What would happen to the rest of your body if your mouth could not run and your tongue could not wag and your jaw could not flap, just for a season? Would you clamor for alternative means of communication?
But what if other means of communication were shut down as well?
At what point, if any, would you pause to ponder what God might be doing, or saying, or showing you, in the midst of an imposed silence?
In this pre-Advent episode, Wendy reflects on the story of Zechariah's silence during his bride Elizabeth's pregnancy with the child who would become John the Baptist (Luke 1). Tune in to ponder what it might look like to, as poet and artist Christine Valters Paintner suggests, cultivate our capacity to listen deeply for God with the whole of our lives.
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Transcript
Opening Thoughts on Hope and Easter Saturday
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Welcome to Surviving Saturday, a podcast about holding on to hope in the midst of life's difficulties, disappointments, and dark seasons. Times like that remind us of the agony and despair the followers of Jesus felt on the Saturday of Easter weekend, in between the Friday on which he was crucified and the Sunday on which he rose from the dead.
00:00:23
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That someday forever changed the way that humans can relate to God. But what does it look like to be honest about the very real pain we experience in the in-between? To fervently cling to hope in the God who promised us his peace and his presence at times when he feels distant or even cruel.
Meet the Hosts: Wendy and Chris
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I'm Wendy Osborne, a licensed counselor in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm her husband, Chris, a marriage mediator, conflict resolution coach, and trauma-informed story work coach.
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Join us each episode for authentic conversations about how life not turning out as we'd expected has created the contextual soil for the growth of a tenacious hope in the resurrection and in a God who is still making all things new. Hello. So I am back again. Chris is actually out of town and so it is just me today.
Wendy's Reflections on Silence and Self-Reflection
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And I spent a few hours this morning with some friends preparing our hearts for Advent. And a friend, one of the friends led us through the reading of Zachariah being made mute after Elizabeth was told that she was pregnant with John the Baptist.
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This is a reading in Luke 1, 67 is the beginning. And it begins with the first words that Zacharias spoke after he was allowed to talk again. And it made me start thinking What I would do if I were rendered mute for nearly nine months. Now there's been a couple of times in my life where I was rendered mute and unable to speak of the needs that I had.
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um In both cases, there was a kind other waiting for me to let them know. They could tell something was happening by the way that my body was frozen, but I was unable to find words and speak for at least several minutes. But nine months is a whole other story. So,
00:02:56
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I was thinking about Zachariah and how his first words were, praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. And I wondered if I would begin speaking after all this time with words of praise for God on my tongue, or if my initial words would be mutterings of discontent about the cost he had created with this prolonged silence, this sentence he had given me. And I started thinking, would I wonder with annoyance, how exactly had the world carried on without my wit and my wisdom for so long? Obviously they were just fine. But it led me to wonder past that,
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how I would have used those days of silence, how I would have lived when I couldn't respond, refute, rehearse all that was in my head so that others could be privy to my thoughts.
Navigating Unexpected Life Paths with Faith
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I wonder if I would have engaged my consequence in a way that led me to self-reflect and potentially be transformed Would I have recorded my words of hope and love toward others so I could speak them at the end of it all? Or would my mind be more consumed with defenses around the fact that I couldn't wait to speak? And I knew what I would say as soon as I could. I wonder if I would have taken the time to write down my mutterings so that I could speak them at the end.
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I wonder if rather than praise be to God, my words might have been first. Well, that sucked. It reminds me of the times and the places where I have felt a very powerless position with God. And I've cried out, don't you understand why I find it hard to trust you? I mean, look at the things that have happened in my life.
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In this passage for Zechariah, the shock was over being told that he would father a prophet in his old age. He would give birth to one who would make a way for the savior of the world. For me, it's two things. If God had told me years ago that I, a daughter of misogyny,
00:05:52
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would have a voice with or be a mouthpiece to care for men whose hearts have also been shattered by patriarchal institutions, I would have fallen down in a scalding laugh. Don't even joke about it, God, I would have screamed. It would have seemed like way too much to envision, more than my imagination could hold.
00:06:17
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If I had been told that one day I would feel at home in this body I'm in, and even more than that, fall in love with her, I would have thought the claim sounded so preposterous that I would have hung my head in shame, vowing to never again look into another person's eyes, for fear that I was nothing more than the brunt of a cruel joke.
00:06:43
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If I imagine that God had told me that Jesus was, is, and always will be big enough to hold all the parts of me and my family that don't fit into boxes, I would have trembled as my most innocent and tender desires made their way through my body, shaking my entire physical foundation as fear,
00:07:12
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screamed at me that his love has limits. Hot tears would have erupted, but shame would have swallowed them with immediate protective aggression. So if these responses were corralled inside of me, what would I say when the clock ran down and I had voice again? Well,
00:07:41
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I think it would depend on whether and to what extent I'd heard God speak while I couldn't.
Experiencing God's Presence in Everyday Miracles
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If I had opened my senses to receive from Him, had I, as one of my favorite authors, Christine Valtter's painter says, cultivated my capacity to listen deeply for God in the whole of my life.
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If I had let myself feel his touch in the hand of a kind other who pulled my head onto her shoulder as I cried, I might've made some progress in the interim. Or if I experienced the blowing of the wind as his playful touch in my hair, I might've begun to trust him more in the silence than I had before I was made unable to speak. I wonder if I would have taken the time to recognize his scent in the yeastly smell of my bread dough. The fragrance of resurrection or life from dead places is what that smell means to me now.
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I wonder if during the time of my silence, I would have seen his face in the daisy that grew through the cracks in my driveway. Beauty forcing its way into unexpected places. Places that were dark and without life, birthing resplendence.
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I've learned enough about myself to know that when I'm quiet in ways that allow me to notice him, my physical body settles and my mind moves to peace. Words become less necessary as I feel more seen by him and more securely held in him. I'm content to have him hold me and look into my eyes with a long and tender gaze. I sense his hands on my cheeks and his smile communicating delight. In moments like that, there are no worthy words with which to respond. I can only let my shoulders sink, let a smile
00:10:39
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peek out into my cheeks and stare back into those stunningly kind eyes.
The Value of Silence and Trusting God's Goodness
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I realized then that I actually don't need to speak as much as I've always thought that I do. I'm realizing the more that I go and the more that I age, that receiving is such holy work.
00:11:09
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And if I will surround myself with people and places that allow me to catch glimpses of his entire character, I don't need to talk myself or you into believing just how good he is. I can sit and I can receive
00:11:38
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Sometimes I even fall asleep, so aware that I'm being held in trustworthy hands. Now, I, like all of you, hit places where I wonder if he's there, if he's good, and if he cares about me. And I think those are the reasons that I tend to stay away from silence.
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But whenever I'm invited in and I feel his presence in ways that are fresh and are new, often by a friend's questions or my own observations, I sense his spirit surrounding me and leading me and guiding me
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And I don't need to talk myself into believing anything because my body knows what is real and what is authentic and what is trustworthy. And those are places that I try to invite to stay in my imagination and in my memory. So when the times come,
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in which I am not so sure about him and where he is and who he is, I have places to go back to.
Creating Safe Spaces for Peace and Connection
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A lot of times in my playroom, I will invite kids to create a safe habitat for a creature. Maybe it's a little garden fairy that we pick from a box. Maybe it's a rubber duck that's been a favorite lately.
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And I'll invite the child to use things in the room to create a home that would make this creature feel at ease. What kinds of things would they want around them? What kinds of things would they like to see? For a duck, the kids tend to do a pond and some fish. Some children put flowers or trees
00:14:08
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Some put rocks or a nest that the duck can crawl out of the pond onto the soft grass and get into so that they feel held. Maybe they lay their eggs in there. But I find that that is a portal to inviting a child to imagine the things that their senses find safe.
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What are the smells and the touches, the voices and the visuals that allow their bodies to rest? And whenever I do that with a child, I'm reminded that I too have spaces and faces that have invited me to feel peaceful.
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And that's what my senses offer and what gets stored in my memory as an embodied encounter with Jesus.
Reflecting on Advent and Observing God's Presence
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And so as you find yourself waiting on him, not just for Christmas and to celebrate his birth, but for places that you're hurting and your need is touch. I wonder if you can imagine what your own body does
00:15:37
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when it can't speak or it can't do, when it can't create its own safety, but when it is dependent on him showing up or others who bear his image and in whose bodies his spirit resides show up. So I would invite you to join me as we walk into another Advent season.
00:16:07
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And think about the parts of him that you are most in need of coming to you. And what do you do when they are slow in coming? So we'll keep talking a little more over the next few weeks about waiting and about hope and about grief. But I invite you to let him show up in the ways that he chooses to show up for you.
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which may be very different than the ways he shows up for me. Our God is a God who is very specific and particular. He ministers to us in the ways that we specifically need. And so I invite you to see him. Take good care of your bodies as you wait.
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The Surviving Saturday podcast is brought to you by Nurture Counseling PLLC, a counseling teaching and training center based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. We help families flourish one story at a time.
About Nurture Counseling and Their Services
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Nurture Counseling provides counseling, counseling intensive for couples, conflict resolution coaching, story work groups, seminars, workshops, and retreats to provide a safe and welcoming context for exploring the agonizing experiences of pain, brokenness, and evil that disrupt our lives.
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and that God often uses to nurture deeper trust and intimacy with Him and with each other. You can find us online at www.nurturecounseling.net