A Pastor's Word: Silence

Silence. 

I think of the servant watching Rebekah intently, waiting to see if his mission is a success. 

I think of the darkness of the ninth plague; I wonder if there was silence.

I think of the Canaanite woman crying for help and Jesus not saying a word. 

I think of the disciples in the storm as they find that Jesus is asleep. Were they speechless?

I think of Jesus in the Garden, his friends all asleep, his prayers rising as his sweat falls. 

Or the three hours of darkness while Jesus hung on the cross. Was there silence then?

I think of the silences I have experienced. 

The brief pause, the in-drawn breathe, that stretches into an imaginary eternity, when I asked the woman I love to marry me and she had yet to answer. 

That moment of silence before our baby cried for the first time. 

The first rays of sun hitting the side of the mountain, when I realized I couldn't hear the highway anymore. The pause in the wind at the peak.

The silence a loved one leaves when they are gone. 

The silence we give every year to the brave fallen. 

It becomes clearer to me why silence is more easily avoided. Why noise is comforting. Silence can be many things but it always seems full. It is easier to rest in the emptiness of noise. 

And right then I remember the still small voice. The soul waiting in silence. And I push in once again, struggling to rest in the silence of God.