When There Are No Words

Sometimes it is a long, long time before the words come.  Sometimes they never come.  The sorrows flood through every crevice.  The pain is too raw.  And ages pass before we can even feel anything.  We are numb.

O God, O God, O God.  We just sit with Him wordless.  And He knows.

One after another, the storms came.  The world was turned upside down.  No one will ever be the same.  We don’t have to say anything.  Because He knows.

Like music that requires no words attached to it right now, it is not just ok, but what we need.  To sit and just listen to the silence and let His Presence embrace us, His refuge from the noise.

In quietness and in trust shall be your strength.  Isaiah 30. 16   We need not conjure it up, or hang on by our fingertips, but let Him hold us tight.

And we can know, even in what we cannot yet see, that we have hope because this brokenness will not last forever.  Tears will be wiped away.  Pain shall be no more.  And nightmares will cease.  In our exhaustion, we cannot even discern whether it is night or day.  It appears the darkest dark.  But all is not lost, even when it feels that way.  Our hope is still in You.  Because the darkness does not win.

Praying is not always about words.  Because sometimes there are no words in those way down deep places of our souls.  Words for these bleeding-out wounds have not even been invented yet.

Sometimes our most gracious response is to hold tight and to be held tight.  That is what tears are for.  Each tear is precious to God.  He keeps them like love letters along with His own.  Because those aching parts inside of us are God weeping with us.

And we come to realize a side of God we have never really understood before.  He knows sorrow.  And He is with us.  Even now.  Even in this.

We need not say a thing, but just abide.  That is about all we have strength to do right now.  Even in the darkness, the Almighty has His arms around us.  He is here with us.  We need not use words right now.  He knows.

And that too is prayer.