Sitting in that Silent Saturday

Silence. Sometimes it can be just what I need from the frantic world around me. But other times, the silence is deafening. So loud I wonder how something so void of anything can feel so heavy. Especially in the wake of something tragic.

What were the disciples thinking? Those hours after Jesus was laid in the tomb. Talk about silence. Of course there undoubtedly was wailing, whimpering and crying for a time. But when there was nothing left to give in that regard, there was silence. Did they experience their chests move in and out without effort only to feel utterly suffocated? Were their ears ringing with what seemed like an unending and piercing tone? Did they sit in that upper room with the others, watching bodies move about them, yet feel as if they were absent in their own. Perhaps the rollercoaster of emotion was something like this. “I want to run, yet I have nowhere to go. I want comfort, yet the One who could provide it is gone. I thirst, yet I cannot lift my cup. Why. Why move at all. I want to sleep, yet the promise of this relief alludes my pursuit. I want to cry, but there just isn’t anything left.” What was is like?

Can you relate?

I know I sure can. But, at the same time, I also can’t. I can imagine their despair, though I have not physically done life face to face, shoulder to shoulder with Jesus. That part is, in a lot of ways, unfathomable to me.

I’ve walked with my Savior for over 20 years now. In that I have been, in the spiritual realm, been shoulder to shoulder, walking with Him. I have experienced some pretty incredible mountain top moments. Marrying my best friend, giving birth to our miracle child, as well as incomprehensible breakthrough and healing. But each of these, and others, have come on the heels of my most devastating and heartbreaking experiences, amidst incredibly difficult pain.

We weren’t created to experience brokenness. We were created in perfection to live perfectly among perfection. Our heart, mind and soul were meant to live in a world with no brokenness. This disconnect makes total sense to me. When my heart breaks, there’s a physical and visceral response. When my mind can’t fathom the circumstance, I long to know the “why.” My soul yearns to be in oneness with my Savior, complete and whole. This type of silence is lonely. Oh. So. Lonely.

---

Until it turns.

The sun finally dawns on a new day. And the “why?” The why always leads me back to my God.

Sometimes a much slower process than others, taking longer than I’d ever wish it to be. But there is a uniqueness to the silence. It’s then and there where my faith has the opportunity to grow.

---

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.”

1Peter 1:6-9 NKJV

---

I think Peter can relate. After all, he DID walk shoulder to should with Jesus. He looked him in the eyes, and heard him say, “Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail.” (Luke 22:31-32a NKJV)

The trials we face are opportunity. Opportunity is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a favorable juncture of circumstances; a good chance for advancement or progress.“

Seems to me like a crossroads.

Will we allow God to bring purpose from our pain? Or will we go the way of Judas, in pride, to a divorced reality of what God says is good, clinging to the rubbish of this world.

When we grope about for “happiness” to fill our days, we will always come up short. Perhaps a perspective shift?

“If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.”

C.S. Lewis

We will undoubtedly come by happiness in this life. But it’s fleeting. Here today and gone the next. And if not that quickly it will come, most likely when we least expect it. A bottomless pit. It just won’t fill. That is of course when we are searching for the wrong thing…

Joy on the other hand is enduring. Not a finicky thing that flits about with our emotions. No, JOY, is a fruit by which we are gifted through the Spirit. Not of our own manifestation.

---

“If need be.” Did you catch that part? “If need be… you have been grieved by various trials.” In other words, there IS purpose. What is that purpose? Sanctification. Jesus is always calling us deeper still. “If need be.” Clearly in our trial, there is a need that we have that perhaps we simply cannot see.

– – – Will you allow Jesus to reveal the need? – – –

Oh by the way, the last part of what Jesus said to Peter in Luke 22 was, “and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”

Jesus knew Peter would turn his back for a time. Yet He prayed for Peter regardless. He didn’t condemn him, He was professing to Peter that He would still accept him back into the fold when Peter DID return. Do you think Peter lost his salvation in his time of despair, silence and abandonment of what he knew to be true? I don’t think so. But what a miserable existence walking in the ways of man instead of radically surrendered to God. Empty. Void. Insatiable. Dark.

“When you return to me.”

– Jesus

Opportunity is a choice with two options. Yes. No. One path leads to joy, adventure and eternal life. The other does not.

In closing…

Take heart dear friend. Jesus has overcome this broken world. And He’s coming back! The three day silence must have felt like an eternity. But eternity is worth the wait. Is that where you’re headed?

Hang on friend. Sunday IS coming.

xo – Megan

Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?
If not, head over to my resource page for more information on that!