As you keep silence, you may wish to meditate on one or more of the following Scripture texts:
Lamentations 3:17-26
Psalm 130
Matthew 27:57-61
Mark 16:1-4
2 Corinthians 4:7-11
May you know the presence of the crucified and risen One as you keep watch today.
Hannah
Hannah had hoped when she arrived at the retreat Saturday morning that the prayer stations would still be assembled in the chapel. Instead, everything had been stripped bare. Even the cross on the center platform, which had been draped in white for their wedding and black during Holy Week, was unadorned.
After distributing handouts with Scripture verses for meditation, Katherine stood beneath the cross to give a word of welcome and brief overview of the day. “The silence may feel awkward and unsettling,” she said, “especially when practiced in community. But perhaps you’ll discover a different kind of fellowship with others today, wordless communion and solidarity with those who are longing to hear God’s still, small voice.”
Mara, who had already warned Hannah that she felt like a geyser ready to erupt at the slightest provocation, spent the first half hour beside a window with a box of Kleenex and her Bible on her lap. Hannah, meanwhile, spent the first half hour trying to quiet the distractions and clamor in her soul. But pushing down the loud and racing thoughts about Nathan and Laura and Jake and Mara and Charissa and Becca and Westminster and all the rest was like trying to keep a beach ball under water. Though she had hoped to begin the day in wordless, unperturbed communion with God, she was going to need to use her words. She opened her journal and wrote her prayer.
Saturday, April 11
10:00 a.m.
Lord, I release all that clamors within me, all the racing thoughts, the worries, the cares and concerns, the wondering about Nathan’s time with Laura, the bitterness that still grumbles within me. I don’t have the power to silence the noise, Lord. So, please. With the same authority you used to silence the raging sea and the storm, silence the turmoil within me and bring me to a place where I can be still and know that you are God.
Peace, be still! you commanded. Lord, I want to obey.
There, Hannah thought, as she closed her journal and leaned her head back. Something right in that moment had shifted in her spirit, from striving to rest, from clamor to quiet. Jesus had just spoken with authority, and her soul had responded. Peace, be still.
She breathed deeply once. And again. And again.
Peace, be still.
She was. Quite remarkably, she was. With gratitude, she offered her hushed response: Speak, Lord. I’m listening.
Mara
Mara wished she had a wider radius of solitude surrounding her. Between her sniffling and her growling stomach, the others near the chapel windows were probably not experiencing the gift of silence. Too bad it was raining. The courtyard would be a more private place for her to disintegrate. Or erupt.
She glanced again at the verses from Lamentations. My soul is bereft of peace. Yep. Katherine had told them they would likely notice the noise of their thoughts and feelings once they tried to be quiet, and it was true. Maybe she would try the palms down, palms up prayer that Katherine led for their opening exercise: Palms down, cast all your cares on him. Palms up, receive God’s care for you. They had done that exercise in the sacred journey group, and she had completely forgotten about it. She was always forgetting everything she learned.
She turned her palms over again on her lap. Lord, I release my worries about Jeremy. My regrets about Charissa. My guilt and shame and—what does Dawn call it? She thought a moment. Self-loathing. That was it. I release my self-loathing. And my despair. And my fears about Jeremy and Abby and Maddie moving away. And my broken relationship with Brian. Jesus, I release it all to you.
She turned her palms up to receive God’s gifts: peace, presence, hope, faith, forgiveness, mercy, grace, and the steadfast love and faithfulness God promised was new every morning. By faith, Lord, I receive. I receive. Help me receive.
The problem was, she so quickly returned to thoughts about her cares and concerns. Like Lamentations said: her soul continually thought of her affliction and was bowed down within her. She frequently rehearsed her trials and disappointments and needed to frequently rehearse God’s faithfulness and provision. It needed to be more than standing in front of a mirror and declaring her belovedness. She needed to continually call to mind God’s care and concern for her and for those she loved. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end. If she could keep calling that to mind, then maybe she would be able to wait quietly for the Lord to act instead of fretting her prayers all the time. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him.
Portion.
That was an interesting word. She used to ask Nana for an extra portion of chicken and dumplings because that was one of her all-time favorites, and Nana would always dish out a large, generous portion. But there were many nights at home when the portions weren’t large, when Mother hadn’t gotten her paycheck yet and they had to scrimp by. Mother would take a very tiny portion of Spam and baked beans for herself and say she wasn’t very hungry and that Mara should eat her portion. Mara believed her and ate. Double portion.
Her stomach rumbled again, and she cleared her throat to cover the noise.
What did it mean to say that God was her portion? God was a pretty huge portion, wasn’t he? Not just a scraping-to-get-by sort of portion but something that filled, that satisfied, that was enough. God was enough. More than enough. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. Mara leaned her head against the window and closed her eyes, the gentle patter of the rain soothing her soul.
Hannah
1:30 p.m.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced silence in community quite like this before. It’s one thing when you’re scattered into solitary places for prayer, but when you’re sitting together at round tables for lunch, not talking to anyone, it can feel pretty uncomfortable. All you hear is the sound of spoons clinking against the soup bowls or the sound of water being poured into glasses. Or throats clearing. Or you sneeze, and someone mumbles, “God bless you,” and then quickly covers her mouth because she wasn’t supposed to say anything, and you share this smile between you that communicates you’re with one another in both the discomfort and the invitation of it all. It was actually a gift after a while, not having to come up with things to say. I felt myself relax into it and became more aware of the rhythm of my breathing, my chewing, my slow thoughts about God.
I had to fight the temptation as we finished lunch to duck into a secluded corner to check my phone for messages from Nate about his meeting with Laura. I release that clamoring anxiety, Lord, and ask that you help me return to waiting. With peace. With hope. With quiet confidence in you. “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.” That’s the text I was praying with this morning: keeping watch for the dawn in dark places. I want to be like the watchmen scanning the horizon for the first signs of morning. I want to wait in the darkness, confident that God’s light will shine. Not just for me. For all who wait and keep watch.
Now my attention is drawn to the text of the women going to the tomb. It’s their question to one another that shimmers for me and invites me to linger with it: “Who will roll away the stone for us?”
They’re on a mission. They’re going to finish the act of love they had not been able to perform for Jesus after he died. They’re going to anoint his body and say goodbye. But there are obstacles to the mission. They know a stone has been rolled into place—they had watched Joseph of Arimathea roll it into place against the tomb.
But it’s interesting that they didn’t take men with them that morning to help. Maybe they asked and couldn’t find anyone to go with them. Maybe they didn’t think about it until they were already on their way t
here—they had been so single-minded about getting the spices and anointing the body that they hadn’t considered the logistics of it.
And so, in the early light of the morning, they’re saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us?”
That’s what I need, Lord. What we need together. We need you to roll away all the impediments that keep us from seeing resurrection. We return to places of death, expecting to find death, expecting to tenderly embalm the losses. We come prepared to do so. We’ve got our spices and oils, and we’re ready to weep. We think that what we need help with is rolling away the stone so we can grieve. But we need the stones rolled away so that we can rejoice. So that we can see again that death never has the last word.
Speak, Lord. I’m listening.
At five o’clock Katherine broke the silence by offering a prayer to commit them into God’s safekeeping. “And as you carry in your mortal bodies the death of Jesus, may you also carry within you the life of the One who was crucified, who was buried, and who rose again.”
Amen.
On their way to the parking lot, Hannah reached into her bag. “A little something for you.” She handed Mara a piece of paper torn from her journal. “A poem. Well, not really a poem. Just some lines that came to mind today as I prayed for you. For all of us. I was thinking about death and darkness and light and resurrection and your image of the geyser erupting, and this poured out.”
As Hannah listened, Mara read the short lines aloud: “‘Keep watch for geysers of grace, faithful but unpredictable eruptions that refuse to be controlled or tamed. Wait. Watch. Hope. Pray. Delight in being startled and awed by the explosive force of dancing water no depth of darkness can contain.’ Ooh, that’s good.” Mara folded the paper and put it into her purse. “It feels explosive, all right. And it would be great to think that it’s grace erupting, not sorrow. Or despair. Thank you. Thanks for the reminder.” She wrapped Hannah in a bear hug. “And thanks for coming today. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it the whole time, but I’m glad I stayed. It was good.”
“For me too,” Hannah said. “It took me a while to settle in to the quiet, but once I got there, it was a meaningful time with God.” Nathan had told her he usually went away for silent retreats a couple of weekends a year. Maybe she would join him, and they could share the silence and solitude together.
Mara was checking her phone, a frown tugging at her lips.
“Everything okay?” Hannah asked.
“Looks like Charissa tried to call. Hope it wasn’t to chew me out some more.” She pressed the phone to her ear. “Nope, didn’t leave a message. Should I call her?”
Hannah wasn’t sure. “Maybe send a text to say you see she tried to call, and does she want to talk?”
Mara shoved her phone back into her purse and sighed. “I don’t think I can take another round of anger right now. And I’ve already tried to apologize. Unless you think I should—”
“No. I don’t have any advice about it. Just prayers for mending.”
“Yeah.” Mara jingled her keys. “See you tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“For worship. Abby’s getting baptized and—”
“Right! Sorry. Yes, I’ll see you there.” Easter. It was hard to believe it was Easter. After a goodbye hug Hannah headed to her car and checked her messages to find one uninformative text from Nathan: Can you meet me for dinner at Timber Creek at 5:30?
She replied: Be there soon.
When she arrived at the restaurant, Nathan rose to meet her at a corner booth. “Everything okay?” she asked.
He helped her out of her coat, then waited for her to sit down. “Yeah, okay. Do you want something other than water to drink?”
She shook her head.
He slid along the bench across from her.
“So? How’d it go with Laura?” In the few seconds it took for Nathan to answer, Hannah tried not to leap to any conclusions.
“Better than I expected. It took a while to get there, but in the end we managed to agree about what’s best for Jake right now.”
That was surprising. Astonishing, actually. Even when it was the very thing they had prayed for.
“I know,” he said, replying to her raised eyebrows. “I was shocked. She even said she was willing to take it slow with him, not to try to force her way back into his life. But she wants to start building bridges with him, and I need to encourage that. So we’ll start tomorrow. She’s going to meet him for ice cream tomorrow afternoon.”
Again, surprise. No demand for Easter lunch? Easter dinner? Going out for ice cream seemed about as innocuous a first visit as possible. “I’m stunned,” Hannah said. “Given the way she’s interacted with you the past couple of months, making her demands, coming off as controlling and threatening . . .”
“Yeah. I know.”
So why didn’t he seem elated? “Did something else happen?”
Nathan removed his cutlery from his napkin and slowly set each piece down on the table. “God held up a mirror to my life, and it was pretty humbling.”
Being with Laura again after so many years, Nathan said, had stirred up old memories that he had stuffed away. Being with her—now as a newlywed again—had brought back memories of their early days together as a married couple and how he had expected Laura to fit into his life, his ministry, his schedule. Being with her reminded him of how she had become a casualty of his ego, how his need to be busy in ministry and his drive to be respected and honored and adored and needed by his congregation had impacted her. “Sitting across from her today, Shep, I saw how angry she still was, how much she still resented me. She didn’t admit any of that, she didn’t have to. It seeped out of her as she was ranting and demanding her rights as Jake’s mother.”
Hannah communicated to the approaching server that they needed more time, then turned her attention back to Nate, who was fiddling with his straw wrapper, smoothing it and then folding it methodically into triangles.
“I was about ready to shut her down,” he said, his gaze still fixed on his hands. “I was ready to spit back my own venom and lash out at her for abandoning her son—our son. But then suddenly I realized that I never once apologized to her for the way my sin had wounded her. Not once. So I did. I asked her to forgive me.” His voice broke. “I interrupted her, right in the middle of her accusing me of all sorts of things, and I asked for her forgiveness. She was so stunned, she couldn’t speak. She just looked at me. And then she started to cry. It’s like it all broke loose, right there in the booth. God broke the pattern of blame and resentment. Not only did she forgive me, but she asked me to forgive her.” He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. “It was amazing, an amazing work of God. And we moved forward from there, able to talk about what’s best for Jake.”
Hannah swallowed hard and rearranged her napkin on her lap. “That’s . . .”
The word “incredible” caught in her throat and lodged there, scraping.
She tried again. “I’m . . .”
The words “amazed,” “so happy,” and “so excited about what God did” bumped into “incredible” and stayed put too. She cleared her throat. “Wow,” she said, and shook her head slowly.
“I know.” Nathan put on his glasses, pushed aside the straw wrapper, and picked up his menu. “So much more than I’d hoped for. Why am I always surprised by the Spirit’s work?”
Hannah stared at the flickering candle on the table. Yes. Amazing, the Spirit’s work. Amazing, how Nate had seen with fresh clarity all the ways he had disregarded Laura in their marriage, expecting her to fit into his routine, his life, his schedule. How lucky Laura was to be the recipient of such insight and confession, the fortunate recipient of the Spirit’s work.
Wow.
She straightened her silverware, then took a long sip of water. Amazing, too, how Nate seemed not to recognize that fifteen years later, he was repeating the same pattern of disregarding his wife, of expecting her to fit into his house, his life, his rou
tine.
Wow.
Nathan glanced up from his menu and motioned to hers, still closed on the table. “Do you already know what you want?” he asked.
Oh, yes. She did. But she wasn’t sure she was ready to say it out loud. “Give me a minute.”
“Take your time.”
She opened her menu and made a pretense of studying entrees. Amazing, how, with all of his keen powers of observation and insight, he could be so oblivious to his current wife’s state of agitation. He had obviously not considered the possibility that she could be anything other than overjoyed by the Spirit’s work of enabling him and Laura to move forward together, amicably cooperating for the sake of their son.
Wow.
The words blurred on the page. What did she want?
She took a deep breath. “Nate?”
He glanced up from his menu.
She set hers down. “I’m feeling really upset and angry right now.”
If a restaurant booth could become holy ground, then theirs did, not because the conversation was straightforward or easy but because after speaking candid, difficult words about feeling disregarded, Hannah knew she had been heard.
“You’re right,” Nathan said after she laid it all out before him. “You’re absolutely right. Even after you were brave to say what you wanted and what you needed, I went right on thinking you could blend in to my world if I just cleared enough space for you.” He reached across the table for her hand. “I’m so sorry, Hannah. Will you forgive me?”
Since speaking too quick an answer might belittle his request, she paused. No denying. No minimizing. No disregarding his need for her forgiveness with a dismissive, Oh, it’s okay. No big deal. Offering forgiveness was a way of admitting her hurt, a way of moving forward together in authentic and intimate vulnerability. “Yes, Nathan,” she said, “I forgive you.”
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