The Deafening Silence

Why my body is currently fighting the very stillness I’ve been praying for.

When you’re in a season of seeking stillness, you want it to feel easy. After being in the wilderness, you just want rest, and you know the answer is surrender.

And yet, in the middle of a church-wide fast this month, I’m gonna be real:

I just want it to be over with.

Not because I miss all my TV shows and audiobooks (though I would be lying to say I don’t miss them at all). But because the silence feels deafening to a body attuned to chaos. I am so uncomfortable in this fast. I chose TV because I knew it would stretch me, and my body was fighting the very thing I’m writing about learning: stillness.

Even when I titled my Substack “The Weight of Stillness,” I knew there was a tension there. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But I didn’t know it would be so hard to surrender the familiar feelings of chaos for something better. We’re over halfway through this fast, and I still feel like I’m wrestling to be still, which is counterintuitive. I just need to cry out to Jesus and “raphah,” letting the hands that want to hold on so tight just hang limp.

The struggle is real, my friends! I’m grateful that God meets me in my struggle, in my wrestling, in my body’s desperate cry for chaos and dissociation. Making a new groove takes time and I’m glad that God showers his grace and mercy upon me. He sees me in this and he patiently waits with me until I have the capacity to lay it down at his feet.