My husband was diagnosed with cancer in early October just before the weather cooled. He began intense chemotherapy treatments as frost began to make intricate designs on car windows in the dark hours of early mornings. Cold days were a perfect backdrop for the chemo days. Internally things felt cool, slow, and painful, just as they did outdoors.

During the first few weeks of treatment, as my partner’s body struggled to process all the chemicals being imported into his veins, I struggled to find words. I struggled to find words in my own head, I struggled to find words with friends, and I struggled to find words for God. After awhile, I was able to surrender the notion that I needed to say things to God and I found a quiet comfort in silence.

But after days of silence, maybe even weeks, I started to wonder why God was being so incredibly silent. I knew why I was being silent, but I expected that He could find words. I’ve been taught over the years “The number one reason that we can’t hear God is that we aren’t listening.” But there was plenty of silence, plenty of listening, plenty of wanting to hear God speak. Of all the seasons in my life that I thought I needed to hear from God, this was paramount.

Yet God remained so incredibly quiet: Present, but quiet.

One day, when I found a few words, I asked God, “Why are you being so quiet?”

And an answer came. “I’m here, I’m just being silent with you. You don’t need any more noise, so I’m sitting in quiet with you. You know who I am and what I am capable of – I don’t need to remind you – so I’ll just sit here with you, instead.”

God with me, Immanuel: This revelation left me speechless in a totally different sort of wordlessness.

This winter was rather severe for the south. We had cold, ice, and snow that rivaled records. Southerners are good at hibernating in the winter but this year, we were all especially reclusive. Our bustling town was shut down for several weeks for unsavory road conditions, and all was quiet.

A quiet city was a good backdrop for my quieted prayer life. As God sat with me in mostly silence, there was a deepening trust, a deepening strength, and a deepening peace. Good things were happening deep in the soil of my soul in quiet and waiting.

“The snow-time is full of quiet secrets, too, for we are carefully keeping secrets with God about the growing things under the snow… There is no dancing with the daffodils. That comes afterwards. But there is trust.”– Amy Carmichael, Gold by Moonlight

I don’t suspect the breaking of silence had anything to do with the breaking of winter. But the timing is serendipitous. Somewhere in the ICU in the dark of night, I found my words again. Just as the daffodils are breaking through the callous soil and birds are finding their songs again, I have words for my thoughts and feels and longings and I am quite enjoying conversing with God again. Perhaps the conversations wouldn’t be so sweet had it not been for the long and quiet winter.

“Sometimes there are beautiful things that would not have been if there had not been snow.” – A.C., Gold by Moonlight

“O Thou beloved child of my desire,

Whether I lead thee through green valleys,

By still waters,

Or though fire,

Or lay thee down in silence under snow,

Though ay weather, and whatever

Cloud may gather

Wind may blow –

Wilt thou love Me? trust me? praise me?”

A.C., Gold by Moonlight

For most of the childhood years I can remember, I lived in a little white cape cod parsonage that bordered the property of the church my dad pastored. There were loads of windows in that home and bright light streamed into almost every room – except for the basement. I know that most basements are scary, but believe me when I say that this one was especially eery. Perhaps it was the dark wood paneling that accentuated the lack of natural light, or the damp basement smell that permeated the space, or the narrow poorly-lit hall that led to a haunted-house-esque closet, or perhaps it was just all the centipedes (shudder).

I don’t think I ever knew exactly what I was afraid of in that basement, I’m not sure I even let my mind wander to all of the possibilities that I was worried actually existed there. But I was, undoubtedly, afraid of that place.

As much as possible, I avoided descending into the basement by my lonesome, but avoidance was inescapable on Saturday mornings. Saturday mornings were cleaning day at the Shuey Shack and vacuuming stairs happened to be on my chore list. I have incredibly distinct memories of getting out the trusty dust-buster and trudging to the top of the basement stairs. I remember my heart rate increasing as I inched further and further down the stairs, further into the darkness, further in to the scary possibilities that I couldn’t hear sneaking up behind me because I was using a noisy vacuum.

I’m not sure when it started, but at some point during the Fear-Fest-Vacuum-Sessions, I started singing a Scripture song my mom had taught me (to the tune of row, row, row your boat so you can get the full picture) “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee, Psa-a-a-alm 56:3“.  I wore that song out on those stairs.

You know, I’m not sure that I ever got less scared to go in the basement. I don’t think the song made the dark any less scary. The song/Scripture was a reminder that God is trustworthy even when the dark is scary.

Through basement avoidance, cancer wards, and other hard places in-between, I have learned that trusting God doesn’t automatically turn dark places into light places.

As Adam heads into his 5th surgery this morning, I find myself again in the juxtaposition of faith and fear. Some Christians might argue that there is no fear in faith, and maybe that’s true. It’s not true for me. I trust God and I am afraid.

Nearly every day in February, I read Psalm 34 and as the words became more and more familiar, different themes emerged. One of those themes was that there are 2 kinds of fear:

I sought the Lord, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
This poor man called, and the Lord heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.

(Psalm 34:4-7)

I am afraid of cancer and surgical complications and scans and future unknowns. And I’m also afraid at times of a God whose ways are higher than mine, Who doesn’t always answer prayers the way I wish, Who isn’t a puppet manipulated by my directions, Who allows cancer and healing and death and life.

I trust God, and I fear God.

I have (what I think are) healthy fears and I have (what I know are) unhealthy fears. I entertain worst-case-scenarios and I battle anxiety and I fight panic – not just about, but definitely including, cancer.

For those unhealthy fears, I am seeking the LORD and waiting to one-day say, “I was delivered from all my fears.” I don’t imagine healing from anxiety will happen like a flashy disappearing magic act, instead, I think it’s happening in small moments, as I choose to trust in the dark places. I imagine healing from fear will feel something like an interaction I just read about in CS Lewis’ Prince Caspian. The interaction occurs between Aslan and Susan, when Susan was feeling afraid:

“You have listened to fears, Child,” said Aslan. “Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?”

“A little, Aslan,” said Susan.

Little by little I am being delivered from fears. Maybe deliverance from fear will turn into Holy fear? For now, deliverance looks like moments of trusting God’s goodness even in the dark, scary places. For now, deliverance from fears looks like God breathing bravery into my weary soul.

I’ve been reading a lot lately; mostly novels. It’s nice to have some fluff in my life. I started re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia a few months ago, and had taken a break, but now seemed a good season to dig back in. So I picked up the Horse and His Boy and trudged through. Some books suck me right in but this one felt like a chore until the end, and then it got real good (and much less fluffy).

At the very end of the book (spoiler alert), Shasta (the main character), encounters Aslan on a rocky, foggy trek (he doesn’t yet know it’s Aslan). And in that encounter, Aslan reveals that He has been the one who caused some of the hardest, most confusing, and seemingly unfair moments of Shasta’s life, and that He has also been the one who caused some of the most redeeming and beautiful moments of Shasta’s life. And Aslan reveals that both the hard and the good had a greater purpose.

And in the middle of Aslan revealing the purposes for both the hard and the redeeming moments, Shasta asks about some painful moments that his friend has experienced.

And Aslan stops Shasta and says, “Child, I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one his story but his own.”

And then Shasta asks, “Who are you?”

And Aslan responds:

“Myself,” said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again, “Myself,” loud and clear and gay: and then the third time, “Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all around you as if the leaves rustled with it.

And after I re-read the page several times, I put the book down and did some good thinking.

We’ve had a lot of friends tell us they’ve been wrestling with why Adam has cancer. It seems as though some of our dear ones are struggling with ‘why bad things happen to good people?’ and others are struggling with ‘why Adam and not someone else?’, and still others wondering ‘who or what is the cause of this?’ They’ve told us they’re wondering, ‘Did Satan cause this to happen?’ or ‘Did God allow this to happen?’

We don’t know why Adam has cancer, but we also aren’t really asking that question. I’m not saying that at some point on or after this journey we won’t wrestle with this question, but to be honest, neither of us are asking God why Adam has cancer. Instead, we are clinging to the knowledge that God has already written our story, that he will reveal that story to us in time, and that God is good.

It doesn’t help to ask why our path has seemed steep, narrow, rocky, and unrelenting in seasons, while others seem to have a wide, flat road to travel. Comparison doesn’t help navigate our path. We trust that God has caused good and bad in our lives for His purposes.

We have lived through hard seasons before. Not this kind of hard, but hard nonetheless, and here’s what we have learned each time:

*  God is faithful

*  God redeems

* God can make all things new

* God is good

I’ve been reading some less fluffy books, too, and the same week that I finished The Horse and His Boy, I read this bit from Hearing Jesus Speak Into Your Sorrow: “God doesn’t sit back as a passive observer and allow circumstances of Satan to hurt us, only to step in afterward and say optimistically, “I can make this into something good.” He has a purpose and design in what is happening to us from the beginning, and even thought what is happening to us might not be good, God intends it all for ultimate good.”

We don’t know why Adam has cancer, and I suspect we will never know. And that’s ok. Instead of pondering questions we’ll never know the answer to, we’re resting in the knowledge that God has a purpose in the story of our lives.

“And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose” – Romans 8:28.

I’ve always had a lot of words.  As a baby, I found my words early.  As an elementary school student, I got frequent notes from teachers telling my parents that I needed to be less chatty.  As a social work student doing lots of introspection, I learned that I was a verbal processor with a side of extrovert.

But lately, I’ve struggled to find words.  Many days, I simply don’t have words to text, to email, to talk on the phone, or even to pray.

There are no words to describe the depths of sadness I feel about Adam’s diagnosis. There are no words to describe the heights of fear I feel about cancer. There are no words to describe the weight of exhaustion I feel to my bones.

Lately, I find myself being silent and craving silence.  I’ve been commuting to work with no music and sitting on the back porch listening to only the wind.  There’s been something so calming and peaceful about silence in the midst of the swirling diagnosis that’s been screaming for so much of my energy.

I worried for a bit that I wasn’t praying enough.  I worried that God might not heal Adam if I weren’t asking for it often enough. Cancer tests all the differing theology you’ve been taught over the years.

But then I was reminded that Adam and I not alone in this.  We have hundreds of people praying around the world for Adam; praying the words we’ve lost. I was reminded that God doesn’t need my words to be who He is. I was reminded that the Holy Spirit is interceding for Adam. I was reminded that silence is sacred.

And so I sit in guiltless silence often now. And in that silence, I know God’s goodness and I feel His sweetness. And I gain strength.

My friend sent me this poem by one of my favorites, Amy Carmichael, and I wept.  This is what I wish I could write:

Wordless Prayer – by Amy Carmichael

O Lord, my heart is all a prayer, 

But it is silent unto Thee;

I am too tired to look for words,

I rest upon Thy sympathy

To understand when I am dumb;

And well I know Thou hearest me.

I know Thou hearest me because

A quiet peace comes down to me,

And fills the places where before

Weak thoughts were wandering wearily;

And deep within me it is calm,

Though waves are tossing outwardly.