Silence before the song

Easter has already come and gone, but with it a revelation of a different kind. I'm sure every bereaved person in the world has heard "it was God's will". I have quickly resolved within myself that God REDEEMS our trials and RENEWS our brokenness to fashion something new. God never INFLICTS suffering upon us. However, that is not to say that a path chosen out of free will, or as a knock-on effect from the choices of others does not fit in to the will of God.

Isaiah 53:4 people SAW Jesus' suffering as inflicted upon him by God and then in v10 it says that it was God's will to bruise him, but there was a greater glory ahead (Hebrews 12:2 for the joy set before him he endured the cross).

The great will of God was in action through the suffering of Christ. God's will is in action in each circumstance. He will work it for good.

Meanwhile, there is no way around circumstances. The only possibility is to go THROUGH. And part of the package is the dark night, the Saturday in the tomb, the period of great burden, sorrow and pain.

"...[there is a] vivid contrast between what humanity did to Jesus on the first day and what God did for him on the third… [Yet] between the crucifying and the raising there is interposed a brief, inert void: a nonevent surely—only a time of waiting in which nothing of significance occurs and of which there is little to be said." Jill Carrattini, Ravi Zacharias International

I am in Saturday. It looks like nothing is happening. I am not in resurrection yet. I am going through the valley of death, not stopping there, not living there, but moving through it to the light at the other end. It will come, but not yet. And it is God's will that we grow greater and more fully because of going through the valley. If we avoid it or try to walk around it, we delay the suffering, we postpone the grief. It still must come, but it may come harder than before.

A place of silence, a place of seeming emptiness is actually full.
"The silence is not empty; there is a purpose for your life"

I know that's true, but it's good to hear it again.

Barbara Yoder's book, the Cry God Hears, gives more insight.

... Prolonged crises create in people a desperation for change. Desperation motivates people to cry out to God. When that crying out evolves into a genuine heart cry that God hears, as He heard children of Israel cry out in Moses' time, things begin to change. God moves into action...

First come trials and tests beyond measure. Then comes a time of nothing - just an eerie silence. Although people have been motivated and mobilized to pray and cry out to God and although they have faith, they find themselves in a void or a near-vacuum in the spiritual realm. They feel they have lost their mooring point. They cannot hear God's voice and they cannot communicate well with each other, feeling instead alone in a crowd.

I have become convinced that God is never nearer ... Out of his mercy, He arranges the perfect environment of spiritual and emotional destitution. Why? So that His people will cry out to Him...

When you hear His words for yourself, nothing can steal them from you. Your faith and your determination will increase to such an extent that you will cry out to God for as long as it takes.

"God is the only one who can propel us past the impossibilities and into a new place of strength." Barbara Yoder

I'm at the weakest I've ever been emotionally, mentally and physically. I am vulnerable and possess few internal resources. I am hanging on to the threads of my life that remain.

However, I've also lost huge chunks of my life that can never grow back. The wounds are healing. I'm still so easily triggered, quick to wear out and slow to lean on The Lord or others around me. But God is shaping a new life around the ashes of the old. New shoots will start to come up in new places.

I've cut off some pieces that no longer work for me, and I re-evaluate ways of doing things, to make sure I'm on the right track.

God was as faithful to Jesus on Saturday as He was on Resurrection Day. He turned His face away for just a moment, but the joy was ahead of Jesus the whole time. The throne was waiting in the glorious presence of the Father.