hope in the silence

God’s Silence— Then What?

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Oct

11

2011

When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was —John 11:6

Has God trusted you with His silence— a silence that has great meaning? God’s silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible— with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him— He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God’s sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, “I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead” (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the “bread of life” (John 6:35).

A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that His stillness is contagious— it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, “I know that God has heard me.” His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy— silence.

I read this a few days ago, and it struck me a deep and meaningful way, though I hadn't the slightest idea as to why. It just kind of stayed with me. Today I went to the doctors to discuss the recent blood work I had done, and this little devotional finally made some sense.
Since I was in eighth grade or so I've been aware of the fact that my body less than "normal". I remember running on a treadmill in eleventh grade, reading a health book and finding the article on Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome, being shocked and scared when I recognized that I had every symptom mentioned- but, of course, refusing to go get treatment for it since there is not cure and limited side-effects other than infertility. I accepted early on that I would not be able to have my own children, and to be honest it was not at all difficult for me to deal with... I was never mentally committed to bearing my own children, and did not see PCOS as much more than a convenient excuse to go without a period for months at a time.
When Brian and I got married, though, my heart started to change. All of a sudden, having our own children just felt like the most natural and loving next step. I've grown to have a deep desire for building a family, and have become convinced of it's role in our future ministry. We prayed for a while last winter about when to start trying to have children, and decided based on a sense of confirmation we had received from the Holy Spirit (as well as some practical time-lining so that we can have children here before leaving for the mission field) that we should start in the spring. After 6 months of trying, my doctor sent me for blood tests, suspecting as I did that I was likely unable to have children at all. So, when the blood tests came back today indicating that I have PCOS, no one was really surprised.
The only thing that caught me off guard in all of this was when, alone in my car, I cried the whole way home. I guess that after all of our praying and hoping I had really begun to get excited about something I always knew I couldn't have.  
Lots of women can't get pregnant. It's all throughout the scriptures. And over and over again the Lord does a miraculous work in their bodies and creates life where there is nothing but barrenness. I know that it is possible for Him to do this in us, too- and for this I rejoice!
Right now we are waiting, hoping, and praying with a sense of expectancy. We know that He is the God of the impossible, but I want to make sure that when he answers (whether that is through pregnancy or barrenness) I am able to look back on the waiting and see His glory. Already, amidst the deep sadness that comes with the news of confirmed infertility, I am so very thankful for His nearness and comfort. I already see such a clear glimpse of His glory in being the God of the impossible, the only Rock upon whom we can fall.


Lord, I have hope in this silence: for I am confident that Your grace is enough for us and that You are the giver of good gifts. I pray above all else that we would be to your glory- baby or no baby. For the first time, I'm beginning to understand what a marvelous work you did in miraculously causing Hannah, Rachel, Leah, Elizabeth, and Sarah to be pregnant. It is something that we are so unable to control- something that makes us so obviously dependent on you for. I am confident that you are able to do the same miracle in my body, but I ask that above all else your will be done.