The Silence of God

When I was a child I was fed with milk and honey, but now that I am an adult, I am fed with bread and wine.

It will be 10 years ago this Easter since I came into the Catholic Church; since I came home, since I began my journey. Three years prior to receiving communion as a Catholic I began my journey with the Lord, and the Lord met me where I was at and took the little I gave Him. I sometimes joke that if you give the Lord an inch, He will take a mile. Indeed this is what happened to me, but I would have it no other way. When the Lord takes more of me, it is I who win (and the Lord as well).

The first year of my "real" life began almost ten years ago, and in the beginning it was filled with milk and honey. I was full of joy and peace. I could not imagine life as ever being miserable or difficult because of the joy I experienced. The scriptures came alive to me and I saw the hand of God everywhere. The Lord spoke to my heart often, but not always perfectly clear. I knew the general direction that I should go and that Lord made it easy for me to go there. It was a special season in my life with the Lord.

After a year, the Lord brought me a bit closer to reality. I began to experience the suffering of the Lord. I began to see my sins and shortcomings a little clearer day by day. Slowly the Lord led me to a deeper relationship with Himself. Then things got really hard. After some time I experienced a desert of faith. My prayer life went dry, and my experience of the Lord was less often and less clear. I was often confused and lost. It was not until I was in studying and living in Rome at the death and funeral for Pope John Paul II that the desert phase passed in my spiritual life. For 8 years I walked in my faith desert, often off track and backwards, but always moving. It was a time of great growth; I learned more about myself in those eight years than I could have ever imagined. I learned some my strengths, fault lines, weaknesses, blessings, sorrows. But not all of them, only what the Lord knew I could handle - for I was still yet a child in my faith.

Praise be to Him, that season ended and I was brought to a new depth, but it was merely a respite - a little consolation from the lover of my soul. During this break the Lord gave me the gift of looking back and seeing His plan for my life up to that point. He showed me His glory, His greatness, His generosity, His love for me. I was, and still am, overwhelmed by all this. When it comes to love and mercy, the Lord knows no bounds. I am humbled and ashamed by my lack of response.

One of the greatest gifts of this time has been a wisdom and understanding of "why," the question that always seems to evade me. Why the silence? Here is what He so generously revealed to me... (refer to my previous post about not being able to properly communicate the fullness of this experience)

Children need milk and honey because they learn through cause and effect and trial and error. The Lord gave me rewards when I was younger in my faith in order to encourage me to move forward. He made it easy for me to choose the good, to choose Him. There were emotional and spiritual rewards for doing what was right. But when a child gets older he needs to learn to choose the good for the sake of the good, not because there are rewards. My time in the desert was not a curse or anything else of that sort. The Lord was calling me from adolescence to adulthood. He was giving me the opportunity to choose Him without rewards. I failed as many times as I succeeded, but after a time (8 years) the Lord knew it was time for the next phase. So I have had my rest and now I have entered a new stage of my relationship with Him. I am not quite an adult yet in the faith, but I have emerged from childhood to my young adult years. I hope soon that I can act as an adult in faith, but just like in this world, an adult is made by responsibility and perseverance. Adults know that sometimes you have to do things that you would not choose, things that do not come easy, things that require sacrifice and death to self, things that require giving and not receiving. Hard choices between multiple good things, hard choices between things we want and things we need.

If the Lord is silent, will I stop and cry our for help like a child, or will I choose to move toward the light without knowing where the next step will bring me? Do I need Him to hold my hand like a child who can easily get lost, or can I walk of my own accord trusting in the wisdom and knowledge the Lord has given me? I admit, I am blind when it comes to the path I must walk, but I can hear His voice in the stillness. He speaks in depths of my heart and I need to trust that I am not being led astray. Can I trust Him that much? He apparently thinks so, or I would not be where I am today. I should be, and I am, honored to know that the Lord believes in me enough to trust me with acting like an adult in my faith. The Lord is finally treating me like an adult! No more hand holding for me! Each day of my life is a grand adventure, full of surprises and opportunities. How will I respond?

To whom much has been given, much is expected. The Lord has given me much and I do not want to disappoint Him. I must press on day by day following the Voice that speaks in the silence.