The Loving Silence of God
Holding You While You Weep: God's Compassionate Silence
Tragedy does something funny to us. It makes us uncomfortable and makes us think we have to find a solution or something to say to make everything better. When there is a national tragedy, everyone rushes to social media to offer their thoughts and prayers or, worse, their opinions on how to fix everything. As someone who has been on both sides of the table, I know how terrible it feels when you want to say something to take away all the pain. But some problems can't be fixed with a quick joke, or a shallow insight disguised in platitudes. I have been on the receiving end of these as well, and often, while those sharing them are well-meaning, it makes things worse.
The first five years of Erin's and my marriage were filled with heartbreak as we struggled to conceive a child. We had three miscarriages during that time. The unspeakable pain of hearing only silence where there should have been a heartbeat during an ultrasound was devastating. One of the most shocking things for me was how insensitive people can be when they are well-meaning. We had people say things like, "It was probably for the best; your child would have probably been disabled or had something wrong with them." Others said, "It wasn't a baby yet," or "At least you know you can get pregnant," or the more spiritual, "Everything happens for a reason." Each one of these felt like a knife to the heart. What we needed was not a platitude but rather just someone to listen and weep with us.
Lamentations is one of the most horrifying books of Scripture in that it is a poetic expression of grief by those who suffer. In the opening chapter, the speaker is the city of God, depicted as a woman who is abandoned, abused, and without hope. She cries out and screams. Yet, while reading it, there may be something that goes unnoticed: not what it says but what it doesn’t say. In these five chapters, not once does God speak.
As Kathleen O’Connor puts it in her commentary on the book:
“The silence of God in Lamentations is inspired. By this, I mean it shows brilliant restraint that breathes power into the book. If God were to speak, what could God say? ... God’s speechlessness in Lamentations must be a calculated choice, a conscious theological decision, an inspired control by the book’s composers. ... Any words from God would endanger human voices. ... Divine speaking would trump all speech. Lamentations’ haunting power lies in its brutal honesty about the Missing Voice; its brilliance is that it does not speak for God. ... It prevents us from sliding prematurely over suffering towards happy endings.”
Lament is a pure and good emotion that God has placed within us to enable us to grapple with the horrors of this world in a way that leads us to faith. God allows us to vent without interruption and explanations. While there is a time and place for searching for answers, there is also a time to sit in the grief. We need a friend who will hear our cries. We need someone who will "weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15). There is a false stoic philosophy that says we should put on a brave face and suppress our emotions. This does not truly enable us to process and find the answers; rather, it gives both God and man the silent treatment. Instead, God wants to listen and hear you and will speak when the time is right.
So, take comfort: the silence of God is not Him ignoring you or being unaware or apathetic towards your situation, but instead, it is a loving Father willing to hold you while you weep. There are times when my children are so overwhelmed with pain, grief, or exhaustion that they are not ready to hear what they need to hear from me, and so, as a good father, I shut my mouth and let them cry, scream, and yell. In the same way, our Father in heaven will listen to your grief and complaint and then ultimately dry your eyes and speak the truth you need to hear through His word.
This lamentation was looking forward to 500 years later when the Son of God himself would stand looking over the city of Jerusalem, weeping: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 13:34-35). When God saw and heard the pain of those in Jerusalem, and when He sees your pain, He listens and then lets you know He wept with you as He went to the cross to take this pain for you so that one day, as it says at the end of the book, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). Thus, in recognizing and embracing our suffering, we prepare our hearts to truly proclaim, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord," acknowledging the deep comfort and salvation found in Christ.