I live with chronic illness. And God hasn’t healed me.
Admittedly, non-healing doesn’t seem to be much of a testimony. Yet God has brought some interesting things out of this illness experience, and perhaps they are worth sharing with you. In particular, I have had to get good at doing nothing whatsoever.
My illness has a tendency of creating noise in my brain, my body and my calendar. It seems there is always something going on. So it’s hard for me to get my rather perfectionistic brain to shut down. It’s even harder for me to rest completely. But I do crave it: rest, stillness, silence.
I crave it: rest, stillness, silence.
I started feeling the pull toward a new silence practise in December 2021. After every chore was done for the day, I laid down, closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. I felt the movement of breath as it passed gently in and out of my lungs, noticing how it felt to be simply breathing. ‘Stillness,’ I said softly. ‘Stillness.’
Almost immediately, my mind began making noise. ‘What about that thing that happened today?’ ‘Don’t forget to speak to her tomorrow!’ It was almost impossible to be truly silent. I also felt the urge to pray, to prove to God I hadn’t forgotten about him. Remarkably, he seemed content for me to be silent for a change. He gently prompted me to stop talking.
Wow. Stop talking. Stop thinking. Sure.
Because I struggled so much with silence, I picked something to focus on, something besides my breathing, that would help ground me. I started focusing on the nighttime sounds I could hear: cicadas, the wind, the air conditioner, the sound of quiet itself (if that’s not too weird to say). Every time my mind wandered, I gently drew it back to the sounds I could hear.
I noticed something. The more I practised simply listening, simply being, simply attending to the silence, the easier it became.
The more I practised simply listening, simply being, simply attending to the silence, the easier it became.
And I enjoyed it. I mean, I really enjoyed it. Perhaps it sounds crazy to describe something as boring as silence as thoroughly enjoyable, but it was honestly such a relief to switch off. I didn’t have to say or do anything. I could just exist. I was happy.
I did it every night. It quickly became my ideal way of falling asleep.
In 2022, four months into this silent venture, I got really sick. I couldn’t breathe. It lasted for months. Singing was out of the question (always bad news for a singer) and talking was a lot of effort. Which altered my prayer life somewhat. Prayer became difficult; in fact, I reached the point where I no longer wanted to pray. I was out of breath, defeated, exhausted.
During that trying time, silence became a survival tool. I began practising silence not just at night but during the day too: after eating, before doing a task, while waiting in the doctor’s surgery. Silence was everywhere. I was grateful for the preexisting silent practise; it meant that silence came quite naturally when I needed it most.
Silence became a survival tool.
My initial instinctive urge toward silence, designed for respite from the constant buzzing in my head, also came to my rescue when I was too sick to talk. It is still helping me today: creating space and breath in my life, reminding me to pause, reassuring me God is still there.
More than two years later, I am still engaging in the art of being silent. It has transformed my prayer life; I am learning to be with God without praying or doing anything performative, accepting his love whether I think I deserve it or not. God seems to be encouraging me in this radical endeavour.
And God has met me in the silence again and again, welcoming me just the way I am.
Do you have a practise or routine around silence? Do you find it helpful? What things help you to be still when life gets busy? Share your story. Let’s have a countercultural conversation.