Voices In The Night

 

I’ve had a lot of trouble praying lately. I may have mentioned that I’ve been calling Him The God I’m Not Talking To. Kind of self-explanatory. Maybe it sounds like I’m a petty child who didn’t get what she wanted for Christmas. Maybe it seems blasphemous and disrespectful, or even ungrateful after all He’s done for me. It could be that it seems logical. I have just felt so betrayed, to be perfectly honest, that it seemed pointless to ask Him for anything else.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. Several of us are struggling with the same feelings. But asking “why?” hasn’t resulted in any Heavenly explanations. Reminds me of a scene in the movie, Mary Poppins, when the children’s father demands to know why she does the things she does. She clenches her lips together, clicks her black heels into a first position ballet stance, and replies firmly, “I never explain anything.”

Oh, people have asked me to pray when needs come up, and I don’t want to disappoint them, so I do what I can. Last week, someone told me about a weather worry headed their way and texted me about it. I sighed deeply, promised to “pray”, and launched this Heavenward:

“So, God, my friend wants me to tell you she’s worried about the weather and wants you to do something about it. Amen.”

It was the best I could do. I figured He reads text messages anyway and knew the details before she finished writing. And, to His credit, no terrible weather appeared in her neck of the woods. I wasn’t sure why He cared more about weather than He did about healing Rob, but I let that go. I didn’t question Him about it because . . . I haven’t been talking to Him.

Not exactly. I told my son that, while I haven’t been praying, I have been lobbing comments at God. It’s not very friendly, what I’ve been saying to Him. My volume has been too high more than once. My language isn’t flattering even though it’s been honest. 

“Mom,” Lee said, “prayer is talking to God.” True. But it hasn’t sounded very spiritual around here lately. And because of that, I assumed God was not only offended, He had decided not to talk to me, either. Because I haven’t been able to hear Him say anything. And I used to. Often. It only added to my feelings of betrayal. Now I felt abandoned, too. I understood, though. I wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me, either—not after the way I’d been treating Him for the last five weeks, four days, and twelve hours. Since Rob died.

Until I began to hear voices in the night.

The first time it happened was right after Rob passed and I was trying desperately to remember the name of a song he’d told me years earlier that he wanted played at his funeral—a subject I wasn’t interested in discussing at the time. I didn’t know who sang it, the name of it, or even what genre it was. I kind of remembered the gist of its meaning and that it made me cry when he played it for me, but that was it. We were stuck. So, I may have mentioned to The God I’m Not Speaking To that I was sure He knew the name of it and would He please help me find it. For Rob.

A few days later, sometime in the dark of night, I was awakened by a voice that said only, “When it’s all been said and done.” That was it. It startled me out of a deep sleep, but it wasn’t a dream. There were no weird colors or strange animals or odd settings. It was just a man’s voice and that’s all he said. I wrote it down and went back to sleep.

The next day I told Katy and Dan about it, thinking, if I was lucky, it might be a line from the song. Google revealed it was the title, and when Katy found it on Spotify and played it, one stanza in I began to cry. “That’s the song,” I told her.

The voice in the night got every word of the title perfect.

Last week, the nighttime communication happened again, this time after I’d gone to bed crying that I needed to hear God. I missed His voice. “Talk to me but don’t talk to me since I’m not talking to you,” must have been what that sounded like to Him. I was awaked by a man’s voice again, asking an odd question.

“Why is it called Christ – mas?” he asked. But he didn’t wait around for an answer. I didn’t have one anyway, so that worked out. It did make me curious, though, so I looked up the word “mas.” It turns out mas means “sending—that which sends us towards God,” and at the same time it dismisses the enmities which were once between us and God.

There’s been a lot of enmity on my end lately toward God. But that night I began to reach a point where I needed Him again, and since then the need has only gotten stronger. I think that’s because my grief has gotten deeper and harder and I’ve reached a point of exhaustion where I know I can’t get through this trauma without God’s love in my face, in my mind, in my consciousness. I knew He’d never left me, and it’s impossible to leave Him, but it was as though I’d been walking around all day long with my fingers in my ears refusing to listen.

At night, though—well, that’s a different reality.

There have been other interventions that can only be explained as me being sent toward God. Two mornings later a woman’s voice woke me up. “Hey,” she said. I gotta admit, that one still has me scratching my head, but she did get my attention, whoever she was. I got up and got going. You can ignore that one if you want to. But a couple of days later something else happened that spoke louder than any of the three voices.

I was in my truck, headed to a drive-thru when, out of the blue, I decided to try to make our radio work. I accidently unsynced my phone from the Tahoe’s Bluetooth weeks ago and can’t pick up Spotify or podcasts or phone calls. And our replacement radio from a couple of years ago was installed and explained to me by a kid so young he didn’t have any facial hair yet, so I have no idea how to operate the crazy thing. Still, I started pushing presets, looking for a country western station since I’ve decided to reinvent myself, go back to my roots, and become a Dixie Chick.

Suddenly, the song, “Fires,” began to play, right at the beginning. “The truck must have synced after all and picked up my phone’s playlist,” I muttered, tears beginning to fill my eyes. The song has been so significant to my daughter and me since Rob got sick, especially since he was a firefighter.

I know this is getting long now, but hang in here with me. These lyrics. I had to slow down in the drive-thru so I could soak in every note and word.

I remember how You told me
I can trust You completely
So why am I doubting
When You proved that You'd fight for me

You've walked me through fires
Pulled me from flames
If You're in this with me
I won't be afraid
When the smoke billows higher, oh and higher
And it feels like I can barely breathe
I'll walk through thesе fires
'Cause You're walking with mе

The song ended and the DJ’s began talking to each other. It wasn’t my Spotify playlist. It was the dysfunctional radio, and the one song that has encapsulated our entire nightmare while pouring peace  into my soul began playing from the very beginning on a random radio station I accidently connected with.

I don’t know why Rob died. I don’t understand. But God keeps holding me and, when I can’t hear Him because the pain screams so loudly inside me, He puts my name on the hearts of others and they pray for me. For us. I need Him. Even more than I need Rob. I need that kind of love that doesn’t give up on wounded hearts who don’t understand. Perhaps can’t understand.

I just want you to know, if you’re one of the people who has been haunted by my name and can’t stop yourself from praying for me in this, the worst thing I’ve ever gone through, you are a hero to me.

Thank you. From the bottom of my shattered heart.