When There Are No Words … Try Silence

Description

As I sit with this tender theme of grief, I feel the weight of those moments when words vanish and the heart stands exposed, and I sense how the Lord moves gently in that space. I watch how silence gathers around us like a soft cloak and how it carries a quiet mercy that spoken advice rarely reaches. I remember Swedenborg’s insight that the Lord flows most deeply into what is still and open, the “peace of the inmost” that rises when we stop trying to fill everything with noise (Secrets of Heaven 8455). In that stillness something holy stirs. I see the ministry of presence forming almost on its own as we resist the urge to fix anything and simply say, with honesty, “That sounds really hard. I’m here with you.” I repeat the phrase that stays with me from long ago: “He had no silence in his words,” a reminder that compassion breathes through pauses. Silence becomes a doorway. Grief breathes there. And the Lord’s voice, steady and patient, finds room to be heard.