When the Silence Gets Too Loud

Give all your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall. - Psalms 55:22

I can’t help but feel as though a shift has occurred inside of me. I can’t explain it. I don’t know when it happened. I’m not completely sure as to what caused it. I can guess…but that’s all it would be – a guess. Outside of a few family members and a close friend staying with me for brief periods of time, I have lived on my own for the majority of my adult life. And I have been comfortable with what comes with that – more moments of silence than noise. No one else occupying the space.

 But a shift has occurred.

 After roughly 12 years of living on my own, I’ve become uncomfortable with the silence. Turning on the tv or listening to music is no longer an effective way of drowning out the silence. The silence has become too loud. Now there’s an oxymoron for you.

 Now suddenly, I’m battling with denying the notion that I might be succumbing to a spirit of loneliness or depression. Ha! Me, the one whose resting face is a smile. The one whose laugh fills a room. The one who loves encouraging others. Who talks about how amazing our God is and how comforting his Word is. How could I possibly be depressed? How could I possibly be lonely? Then there’s the guilt of these thoughts and emotions, which led me to ask God, “Why aren’t you enough? Lord, I just want you to be enough, again. Lord, I know you’re always with me but I still feel alone. Why? I was fine before. What’s changed now?”

 Even now, while typing this, I want to have the answers to these questions. I want to turn this “journal entry” into a blog, in which I build anticipation by bringing up a problem and all the questions filling my mind, and then end with some marvelous revelation that I received from the Lord, with tips on how you can apply it to your own situation.

But the revelation hasn’t been revealed to me.

And all of this is just an outlet…not an answer.

So, no tips. No tricks. No advice. All I have is a prayer.

Lord, I pray that you come against any feelings of loneliness or depression. I pray that the Holy Spirit takes dominion over my thoughts and over my emotions. I pray you fill every void that I didn’t even know existed. I pray that you overwhelm me with your presence in my loneliest moments. I pray that you comfort me when I’m uncomfortable in my own home. I pray that you are enough. I want you to be enough. I love you. Amen.

Should this reflection ever leave the privacy of my desktop and I actually have the courage to share something so vulnerable, there’s one thing I want you to know. As I sit here, fighting back tears (and losing!)…In just an hour, I will be meeting up with my family for Father’s Day. I will have erased the tracks from my tears. My smile will have returned. And nobody will know that I was ever in a battle to begin with…because I’m the “strong one.” I pray you check on the people in your life that you don’t typically think need to be “checked on.” And to the “strong one” in every family and every friend group…Our struggles don’t make us weak. They make us human.