When words fail

Have you ever found yourself without words?

Whenever there is a death, my words come out as a stutter. I have a strong desire to comfort, but nothing ever seems to flow.

What can be said when nothing comes?

It isn’t only in mourning. Sometimes my lips feel sewn shut. I can be walking down a busy city street, surrounded by people, and feel as empty and isolated as my words.

When my words fail, I seek the words of another, God’s. It often starts in silence and then I recall a verse that has spoken to my soul in the past. Oddly enough, this opens the dialogue that I once found impossible, and I begin to talk to God. Sometimes it simply starts with, “Lord, I don’t know where to begin”

Let these words take the place of your own.

Psalm 131 (ESV)

¹ O Lord, my heart is not lifted up;
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.

² But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

³ O Israel, hope in the Lord
from this time forth and forevermore.

Has anything been revealed in your silence?

By René Boecking | explorewithrene.com