Home > Marriage > Spirituality > A Piercing Silence
A Piercing Silence
What I learned when I finally got quiet enough to let God speak
By Renny Gehman | posted 9/12/2008
 2 of 4
So for the rest of the semester, I studied being quiet. Some days I wasn't sure if I'd pass or fail. But I was determined to commit to the lesson.
The day after my meltdown, the professor removed five chapters from the required course work. Bob finished the remaining chapters with a day to spare, aced the course, and graduated nine months later with high honors. God taught me my first lesson in communication—be silent and let him work.
Catching the rhythm
Bob and I love to sing. We know that in music the rests are just as important as the notes—miss a rest and your rhythm is off. I've performed accidental solos that way!
Just as it takes both silence and sound to create great music, it takes talking, listening, and just being quiet to develop great communication. God uses that same rhythm with us.
Before the great communication of the Incarnation, there were 400 years of silence. Those years emphasized the importance of what was to come. Sometimes he just wants our silence: "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). Those times of stillness become the moments when God emphasizes who he is and what he can accomplish through us and through our marriage.
I also discovered marital silence comes in many forms.
Cherishing silence.The silence I learned at MIT was a cherishing silence. This is the silence of patience; the kind that gives God time to work on our weaknesses. When I'm stressed, I like to talk; worried, I want to share; afraid and I want immediate reassurance! Fear is poor motivation for communication. Because Bob wasn't living up to my expectations, I was afraid he'd fail—and take me with him. So I resorted to nagging. Nagging kills communication. Praying instead of nagging allowed us to communicate at a deeper level.
When I prayed for Bob, I stopped seeing him as the problem. God worked on me, cleansing my heart of the fear and selfishness that kept me from communicating my love.
In The Power of A Praying Wife, Stormie Omartian writes, "When you pray for your husband, the love of God will grow in your heart for him. Not only that, you'll find love growing in his heart for you, without him even knowing you're praying. That's because prayer is the ultimate love language. It communicates in ways we can't."
When I nagged, Bob's ears had an auto-off switch that activated instantly. I knew I wasn't getting through! When I stopped trying to make Bob work on my timetable, he was free to respond to the Lord's leading and discipline. Giving my expectations to God let me rest. I had to trust that God would get through to Bob. If he didn't, then there was certainly no way I'd be able to.
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