On a whim…

There are silences that wound. The silence between two people who no longer know how to speak to one another. The silence after a loss so great that words cannot carry its weight. The silence of God, or what feels like God’s absence, when prayer becomes little more than breath.

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I have lived with such silence. I thought it safer than speech, thought it might protect others from the depth of my sorrow. But silence has its own cost. It isolates. It hardens. It makes a person a stranger even to those who love them most.

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And yet, in Romans Paul dares to say that even silence can be prayer. “The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words.” Which means that what I cannot say, God still hears. What I withhold, God still knows. What weighs me down with unspeakable grief, God lifts up and carries into the very heart of heaven.

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This is a mystery. That the silence which feels like absence may, in truth, be full of God’s presence. That the groan we never utter may already be on the Spirit’s lips. That even when our mouths are closed, intimacy remains possible.

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And perhaps this is our calling as servants of Christ—

not always to speak, not always to fix,

but sometimes simply to sit in the quiet with those who cannot speak.

To believe on their behalf.

To let silence be enough.

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Because in the silence, God is already there.

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