Friday 5th June - When the Spirit Speaks for Us

DAILY BYTE

The scriptures tell us that God does not leave us living in the land of silence alone. Instead, God has given us ears to hear one another’s cries, eyes to see one another’s pain, and places in which to sit in silent solidarity with our fellow humanity, recognizing the pain and allowing the Spirit to work to bring healing and hope.

The Book of Job reminds me of a time when I sat in the silence of pain. I was visiting families with a care worker in Cato Manor squatter camp. The group journeyed through the dirt paths to a shack holding four young women, about my age, two babies, and a grandmother. They graciously let us in, and we sat there staring at each other quietly, as they answered the care worker’s questions. With each answer to a question, I could feel a sob rising up because the faces of these women were often smiling, but their story was one of deep pain.

The grandmother’s daughter had died, leaving one of the babies behind. Home Affairs was behind in its paperwork, so they had no death certificate for the mother and no birth certificate for the baby, which meant they could not receive aide for the baby, who had a swollen belly and skin problems. They had been living in Cato Manor for over ten years in a small tin scrap and cardboard shack.

In this story you hear that the great need for lament. The care worker kept asking us if we had questions, so we tried to ask some, but it seemed that silence spoke louder than any questions or comments of concern.

And so finally it was time to leave, and all 12 of us crammed in this shack settled into a silent moment of prayer. Gradually, out of the silence rose the hum of prayer in isiZulu, in Afrikaans, in English – and as we prayed in these tongues, it was as if the wind of God was moaning and groaning for these women.

I curse the day we were born it cried, as it floated past the motherless baby. And yet, this is the day the Lord has made – this moment where God is present in God’s own creation. So let us rejoice and be glad in it, as we continue to breathe with one another in and out the breath of YAHWEH, the God who gives life, through every moment of pain and joy.

It seemed the prayer would last an eternity. And the miracle is, that it does.

As we continue to seek the face of the suffering God, the God who died on the cross, the God who took the form of vulnerable humanity, born in a shack –

As we continue to live in the silence of pain, fulfilling our great commission as people of God – the church – to be present with one another, leading one another through pain and into hope –

Through the Spirit of this God, we will remember God’s promises, we will be given the strength to hear the pain, go to places of pain, truly see the pain, and we will be able to sit in the perfect silence of the pain, without the perfect words but with the perfect mystery and hope of Christ, the rock on whom our humanity is thankfully, joyfully shipwrecked.

GUIDING SCRIPTURE

Romans 8:26

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

PRAY AS YOU GO

Holy Spirit, when I cannot pray in the face of suffering, allow me to hear your groans. Intercede for me. Intercede for the world. Amen.