Silence

I won't talk about the dozens of posts that have been started and left over the past, what is it now, months? They're not really worth mentioning. Some of them may be refined and finished one day, but for now, they can stay forgotten, silent.

Today I want to thank God for the community we find in people, in believers, in those who choose to walk beside.

I have been silent lately. My brain has been unable to finish posts. There have been few facebook messages, even fewer emails. Texting has been bare minimum, phone calls still rarer. I converse with people as I see them, but not deeply, not vulnerably. I haven't spoken about things on my mind; there have been vague answers to questions such as: how are you doing? what are you planning?

I'm struggling at investing into people beyond my own family, the only people that I know without a shadow of a doubt will be in my life forever, tied together with the same breath and blood.

My time with God has also been silent. Quiet. Still. Not the good kind of still, but the kind of still that just ends in silence, an old couple in the room with air thick with all the words never spoken, things never forgiven, acts never praised.

For me, this is odd. I who love communication, have been able to find no way to truly communicate on any level.

Yesterday evening, the dam began to burst. I cried. I went to sleep. I woke up. Went to church. Had an awesome time with my family. Left for home. Ran out of gas on the side of the road. Got home. Cried some. Let the silence settle over me again.

Believe me when I say, I had no intention of lifting the silence. The silence is comfortable. It's not hard. It's an endless, mindless, nothing has to hurt, or be processed, or be ugly or even beautiful. In the silence, I don't have to figure anything out; I don't have to try; I can just exist--float, even.

But it's not really beneficial, or healthy, and God knows this.

So, I stomped over to a friend's place this evening. Someone I feel free to laugh with, cry with, yell with; someone who's as close to being in the same shoes as I'm in at this stage in my life.

And she let me rant. And I let her rant. And we were honest.

We talked about where we're really at with God, and how we're really frustrated, and how, life can be disappointing, both of us planning on being overseas, and both of us here, a place where we never thought we'd live again, and both of us just unsure, and going through various phases of reverse culture shock.

And God moved. Somehow, unknown to us, and the silence that's been hanging for weeks, lifted. We laughed, we cried, we laughed, we talked, we cried, we prayed. We laughed, we talked, we committed to holding each other accountable.

I walked home. She went to bed. Tomorrow might be equally as hard. Tomorrow might be a failure. Tomorrow might be brushing off everything that happens, and just existing, mindlessly. But tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll message her, she'll message me, and then we'll try again the next tomorrow.

Because the silence has been broken. The secret's out. The devil has no more power over the assumption of words left unspoken, and in our honesty, there is freedom, there is liberty, there is room for God to act.

He will act. He will grow us. He will send us out, again, to places never reached, to people who've never heard. He will deepen our relationships to Him; He will never stop drawing us to Himself.

The silence doesn't have to be. The cloud doesn't have to always hang.

God put us in community for a reason. If you're struggling reach out today, pray with someone. Be brave. Break the silence and walk forward in freedom.