Prayers in the silence

     I have spoken of the silence that often grips me when feelings flood my body and mind leaving my head spinning yet without words.  This silence is so important and much is being said in that silence.  Many times, when I am stuck in the silence with a storm raging in my whole person, I know I need God's help.  I am so aware of my weakness, brokenness, wounds, and helplessness.  I am, in those moments of quiet torment, desperate for relief that I know only God can provide, but I find myself unable to talk to Him.  It's not that I don't want to talk to Him, I do...oh how my heart longs to talk to the One who can provide relief both in the moment and healing for lasting relief.  But I can't.  I can't find words.  I frantically search for words, and as no words are found the search becomes all the more desperate until I crash into nothingness and lose any grip on hope I had at the time.  Everything stops...the storm of feelings inside me, the search for words to speak to my Father, the hope I'll ever find my way out of this darkness...I crash into exhaustion and my feelings go numb again.
     Those crashes, while they bring relief from the feelings that broke me, leave me feeling defeated and hopeless.  I know the relief of numbness is only temporary.  The storm will return at some point though I can't know when.  It's a vicious cycle that drains my already dry reserves.  At times, I wonder if God knows.  I wonder if He cares.  I wonder if He hears the prayers I want to pray but can't find words for.  I do know that God knows.  I do know that God cares.  But sometimes in the exhaustion after the crash, I wonder.  I find myself thinking about Romans 8:26 which says

Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  For we do not know what to pray for

as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

     I wonder if my silent storms, when I want to pray but can't, are heard.  I wonder if the silence of the nothingness I crash into is a prayer God can hear.  Many commentators make mention of these groanings being the emotions so deep that words can't express them.  They say that the Spirit lifts up those deep emotions that leave us writhing inside to the Father in heaven who listens to our silence as we try to speak but find no words.  

     I find hope in that.  I will say, I don't fully understand that.  I don't think I have to though.  That is where I am called to take a step in faith and trust that God can hear the prayers I pray in the silence.  I find myself crashing into exhaustion with only the words "God You said You can hear that."  I am left in the numbness once more telling myself and telling God what He has told me in His Word.  I am clinging to that small hope in the promise He hears when my prayers are crying to Him out of my silent torments.

Help My Unbelief

God I'm calling to You though my voice is quiet

I need Your Spirit to pray for me here while I just sit

There is a cry in my heart but words only fail me

I'm laying here crushed by my silence, can You still see

Can You hear my heart when my mouth cannot speak

When I do not have words and my spirit is weak

When my thoughts spin so fast I can't find where to start

Will You hold me together while I fall apart

When the storm churns inside me will You be my peace

Lord I do believe...please help my unbelief

     I know it often feels like the desperate attempt at prayer that lends no words is a failure to pray at all.  I know that when the winds die down and the waves find peace in the nothingness it feels like defeat.  God gives a ray of hope even in that silent storm of a prayer.  He says He hears.  He says His Spirit brings our cries with no voice, our deepest hurts with no words, directly to His ears.  When the storm is over, when the crash landing leaves you beaten and bruised, tell God He said He heard your quiet, desperate, painful silence and rest on that promise from Him while you recover from the tumults you were thrown from.  All it takes is faith the size of a mustard seed.  Let His promise to hear the prayers in the silence be that mustard seed.  Remind yourself of that promise in the aftermath while you catch your breath and tell Him "You said You hear."  It is enough, my weary sisters.  He says so.