Tuesday's Trust
The Silent Treatment
~by Tommy Prince
with C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be -- or so it feels -- welcomed with open arms.
But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find?
A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.
You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean?
Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?
I tried to put some of these thoughts to C. this afternoon. He reminded me that the same thing seems to have happened to Christ: "Why hast Thou forsaken Me?"
I know. Does that make it easier to understand?
Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God.
The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him.
The conclusion I dread is not "So there's no God after all," but "So this is what God is really like. Deceive yourself no longer."
~C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
*****
In last week's "Friday's Faith" post, I called the seeming silence and even the seeming disregard of God for my urgent prayers for my baby girl a "Sense of Betrayal."
And like Lewis, I didn't cease to believe in God. But what I believed about God resulted in a feeling of being traumatized by Him and being afraid to approach Him anymore, for anything.
Has anyone else felt this?
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