Silence and Stillness Are Not the Same

This Christmas season has been different from every other. Every previous December, I have focused largely on the hope that comes with the birth of Christ. I get excited that the Savior is here and we are headed on an incredible journey toward Easter, when we get to celebrate a victory chant because of the resurrection. Christmas has always been a “look forward” sort of holiday rather than a “look back.” However, the events of the past two years have changed the way I will experience the season forever.

Last Christmas, I sat in our living room staring at a tree that I knew would not be in the same place the following year. Not long before that, my husband was informed that he would not be rehired in his position as a head football coach. No scandal, no drama, just a casualty of the sport culture that befalls many a coach over the course of a career. It meant we had a paycheck for a few months from his teaching salary, but we would be moving, I was sure of it. And so, as with any other challenging time in our lives. we got to praying. But strangely, we heard nothing. Not even “Wait.” There was just—nothing. I have never experienced anything like it.

Thus began the first in a series of silences where we heard nothing. Where do we move, God? Nothing. Who would you have us serve, Lord? Nothing. We drove to schools around the state and prayed about colleges as far away as Maine. You know this paycheck is going to end right, Lord? Nothing. We put our house on the market. Nothing.

In a moment of great relief, my husband finally got a new job. But strangely, the trend of silence continued. Our home did not sell, and we struggled to figure out where we would live in our new town. I drove down every street in our new town in tears, asking out loud, “What are you doing here God?” But God remained silent.

I want to be clear about the difference between silence and waiting. I have waited with the Lord before—many times. Tragedies and difficulty have befallen us just like every other family. In 2015 we almost lost our daughter days after she was born. The looks on the faces of the people in the hospital made it clear. We were in dangerous waters with the infection she had contracted. However, those hours sitting in a hospital chair never felt void of God’s presence. I felt his love during every step of those difficult days despite not knowing my daughter’s fate. He was not distant.

It is a very different thing to wait with the Lord than to wait on him in silence.

Mercifully, in just the past few months, the silence has ended. We have a job, a home, resolutions beyond our expectations. Moreover, we are flat-on-our-faces grateful to sense his presence again. For the first time in my life I am experiencing Christmas after God’s silence, and it has forever changed how I understand Jesus’ birth.

I know that my measly months of waiting are nothing compared to the months, years, and even decades that some of my sweet brothers and sisters in Christ have been waiting on a particular prayer. If you are one of them, more than one Christmas has come and gone as you have wondered where God is and what he is up to. Trees have gone up and come down year after year, and you still are not sure what God is doing with your marriage, your health, or your loved one. You have persevered in faith, but the agony of not knowing what will come or not seeing a situation resolved is painful. And you are all too aware that yet another Christmas may pass without that silence ending.

If this describes your situation, I want you to know that you are in the company of countless saints who agonized through God’s longest awaited answer to prayer. Between the final pages of the Old Testament and the birth of Christ in the New Testament were four hundred years of silence. Hundreds of thousands of people lived during a time where there was not a fresh word from God for generations. As someone who felt like she barely made it through several months of silence, this seems like an intolerable existence. For four hundred years people prayed on faith alone for their daily needs as well as joining in the cry of generations of God’s people who had been praying for a Savior for thousands of years.

 

Those years between the final pages of Malachi and first chapter of Matthew are the longest recorded example of God’s silence. I don’t believe it is an accident that this particular silence was broken just before Christ was born. God may have been silent during those years, but he certainly was not still. Silence does not equal stillness. Sometimes it just means he is busy working on something important, like setting the stage for a miracle.

I think it is absolutely significant that the most glorious thing God ever did, the greatest gift he ever gave his people, came after an extended period of silence.

A silence broken by Jesus.

 

If you are facing this Christmas with unanswered prayer and God’s silence, please know that you do not journey alone. Any silence you may be living in is not without purpose, not is it without his presence, no matter how empty it may seem. I hope your worship of Christ’s birth can bring you fresh hope. Hope that you are heard. Hope that God is working. Hope that rises every time you hear “Silent Night” or “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and are reminded that God does hear and answer the cries of his people.

In his time.

In ways we may never expect.

In his perfect love.

Blessings on you this Christmas season as you wait.

Anne Rulo is an author, speaker, professional counselor, marriage and family therapist and veteran coaches wife. She and her husband Tim have two children and are passionate about reaching people for Christ and sharing information on coaching, marriage, family, and mental health. Read more from Anne at www.annerulo.com.

Photograph © Patrick Fore, used with permission