When the Quiet is Noisy and Hope for the Dark Nights

I hear the pitter patter of her stockinged feet before I feel the moist warmth of her  breath on my cheek. 

“Mommy? Mommy?”

Her voice is a mix of murmur and moan, and I prop myself up on one elbow to eyeball her through a sleepy slit.  Again.

I avert my eyes from the green glow of my alarm clock, try not to calculate the mere crumbs of sleep I’ve been tossed since 1 A.M.

“Honey, what do you need now?”  Exhaustion laces my words with an edge that sounds neither patient nor compassionate.

My five-year-old sighs, frustrated like her mommy.

It’s not her first visit to my bedside on this restless night.  And we both just want to sleep.

“Mommy,” she whimpers, her cold hand inching along the mattress in search of a place to land. “I can’t keep my eyes closed…I  just can’t.”

I uncurl my fist and offer my insomniac an open palm; then I roll out of bed and pray for an end to the mid-night madness. Maggie laces her slender fingers through mine and wordlessly, we trudge back up the stairs toward her lamp-lit bedroom. For the fourth time since the moon has risen to it’s watchtower in the velvet sky, I pull the poke-a-dot comforter to my daughter’s chin and kiss the top of her tousled crown.

Then I kneel beside the bottom bunk and whisper prayers for peace and for rest.

Dear Jesus,

We know you are here right beside us. Please wrap your arms around Maggie and give her rest. Send your angels to stand guard over this room and sing songs over Maggie while she sleeps.  

Paint Maggie’s dreams with glimpses of your goodness and fill her mind with your truth.  I am praying for me as much as for my girl. 

Give us peace, Jesus, and renew our strength when morning comes…

I can see Maggie’s eyelids droop in the muted glimmer of the night light, and I hope against hope that she will finally surrender to slumber. 

I lift myself off the floor and begin tiptoeing toward the hallway, my mind already fixed on finding my own pillow once more.

And that’s when she says it, her voice sounding so small and ravaged in the blackness of night.

“I wanna sleep, Mommy.  But the quiet is too noisy.” 

 I’m tempted to laugh, but my stomach drops to my toes as the veracity of those incongruent words pierce my soul.

The unexpected burn of tears singe my too-tired eyes, and I shuffle back to the bottom bunk and climb in next to my sleepless one.

We lay there on her princess pillow, my kindergartner nestling her head in the crook of my neck. And her mommy pondering the paradox of earsplitting silence.

I’ve rested in the arms of my Everlasting Savior, and I’ve wrestled in the noisy quiet too many times to count.

Like the five-year-old sighing fitful beside me, my faith has flopped and moaned in those restless nights of the soul.

When God is mute, doubts can croon loud.

And silence can clamor steady.

 I’ve prayed for ears to hear Him and I’ve clung to His Holy writ like it’s the only thing I’ve got, and still there are seasons without words and surprises without explanation.

I’ve been sitting in the screeching silence for a while now, scribbling pleas in my prayer journal and begging my Savior to speak.

And sometimes I crawl out of bed in the five A.M. dark and sit steadfast as the moonlight gives way to dawn. Some days, I’m content just to know that Immanuel is beside me, that His ways are higher than mine. But other times, I fall on my face, right there on the should-have-been-vacuumed-yesterday carpet, and I plead for a Word. 

Just. One. Word. To break the silence.

Just. A. Whisper. Seeping gentle from my Savior’s lips.

 And I scribble frantic in that journal with the flowers on the cover and the coffee-stain on the binding, wrestling with the sometimes Silent Scribe who is penning my tale day by day.

‘Cause Heaven’s hush can fall heavy on dust-made daughters and sons.

And it’s hard to soar with the weight of quiet on our shoulders.

Yesterday, I recalled a moment from junior high church camp and as I prayed, I told Jesus about it in messy scrawl…

Remember how I used to play “follow the leader”  at church camp? We’d go out in the woods at night and turn off our flashlights. And then, our counselor would speak. From somewhere on the trail ahead, she’d say–“Take two steps forward. Turn left. Watch out for the tree root. Just keep walking.”

And we’d follow her voice. Some girls squealing. Others whimpering. But all of us moving forward . One careful step at a time. 

You’re my Mighty Counselor, Jesus. And it feels like I’m walking in the dark. 

Would you PLEASE say something? Anything? I’m straining to hear you, fighting to believe you’re here. But I can’t take another step without your voice to lead me on…

Maggie is kicking me as she twists and turns, her sheets tangling about our legs. I draw invisible circles on her back with my finger, rub her slight shoulders with soft squeezes. She breathes deep and slows her fidgets. “Mommy? Remember that song you used to sing me when I was a baby? The Maggie song.”

“Mmmhmmm…”

“Could you just sing it to me now? ‘Cause then maybe the quiet won’t be so noisy…”

I smile in the dark and begin to sing my littlest girl’s song, the one I made up back in those days of rocking chair marathons and midnight feedings.

“Maggie Hope, you are my gift from God….” I hum in the places I can’t remember the tune and I make up new lyrics as we lie squashed together in the bottom bunk.

My daughter leans into me, the sliver of space between us disappearing.

Her arms go limp in my embrace and her eyelids flutter against my cheek as her breathing slows to a torpid tempo.

I listen to the nighttime chorus beyond the window, the frogs in the woods singing up the sun and the locusts and the owls echoing their chanty.

And I realize this–if  we can’t hear our Savior’s voice, we are wise to listen for His hum. 

Because the quiet doesn’t seem as noisy when we lean into His of songs of love.

Your God is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you...
 he’ll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs.  -Zephaniah 3:16-17