Silence and solitude: How I discovered God’s gift in the silence

In the middle of my peanut butter and banana sandwich, I choked. A sudden surge was blocking my throat.

It was Day Seven of a self-imposed silence at a spiritual retreat, the culmination of working through lots of fear with lots of tears.

I had signed up for the silent retreat with no agenda other than to get away from busyness and spend time with God alone.

But God had other plans.

Through the daily devotionals and the Bible, He was going to take me through the Gospel – from slavery in Egypt to the wilderness to Nazareth and all the way to the cross once again.

Silence and solitude: What is it?

Silence and solitude is the spiritual discipline of withdrawing from distractions – noise, people, tasks – to draw near to God.

A simple concept but not one that is easy to practise, especially for someone who thinks out loud and whose days are often packed with to-do and must-meet lists. It is, as theologian Robert Mulholland describes it, “the radical reversal of our cultural tendencies.”

Yet our Lord Jesus often retreated into solitude to pray (Luke 5:16), to prepare for ministry (Matthew 4), to seek God before major decisions and to rest (Matthew 14:23).

It could be tarrying with God for one hour, or an extended retreat for a day, a week, or however long one chooses.

I jumped into my first one for eight days with the Listening Inn.

Armed with books, podcasts, downloaded playlists on Spotify and my trusty iPad holding my Bible and random thoughts, I made my way to Seven Fountains Retreat Centre, a humble Jesuit retreat house in Chiang Mai, with simple rooms, simple food and a sacred spirit.

On that first retreat, our spiritual directors encouraged us to give ourselves space by turning off the phone and other electronic distractions, to give each other space by avoiding eye contact, and to slow down.

Chewing daily on the word through Lectio Divina – Latin for divine reading – brought new layers of intimacy with God.

“Chew slowly, walk slowly,” our spiritual director Simon Tan advised. “Be ready to sit with God in the silence. Be patient. Be open. Be present.”

Being someone crowded by noise inside and outside, I had no clue how that would translate.

I was to find out soon enough.  

Withdrawal, renewal

After the first evening devotion, the brisk chatter of the day slid abruptly into silence. I turned off my cell phone and shut my mouth.

Apart from the daily sessions with my spiritual director, I hardly spoke for the next eight days.

The withdrawal from noise was real.

In the silence and the inactivity, I writhed often with restlessness. My thoughts ran in a hundred directions. I had not realised how fiercely the noise would fight back when I tried to shut it down. By Day One, my head was raging. 

My spiritual director Rinda advised me to step back: “Don’t try to ask anything of God. Just sit with Him.” 

Huh? It turns out the way I approach God is the same way I approach people – uncomfortable with silence.

By lunchtime on the first day, I was ready to run. I left the compound for a walk around the neighbourhood to pass time and combat cabin fever.

On Day Two, I shut down and took a long nap after lunch to escape the withdrawal.

By Day Three, however, my mind and body stopped fighting and a new routine emerged.

Wandering around the gardens of the retreat centre with God stilled my raging heart.

I rose with the sun and went for morning runs by the reservoir nearby. I prepared my breakfast – peanut butter and mashed banana on sliced bread every morning  – and ate in silence. I found unexpected freedom in not having to meet anyone’s eyes and not having to talk.

After breakfast, I breathed deep and silent in the chapel during morning devotionals. Then I took long, slow walks around the garden. I read the Bible on benches, on swings, in pavilions, in the dining room, in my room, in the chapel, in the prayer room – wherever my feet and my heart took me. 

One of the practices used at the retreat was Lectio Divina — Latin for “divine reading” – a slow contemplation of Scripture that focuses on what God is saying rather than what one can extract from Scripture. Kind of like rolling around one’s favourite candy in the mouth and letting the tongue discover new layers of flavour.  

As I fasted from noise, my inner man quietened and God’s voice echoed through the silent chambers of my head.     

Come away with Me

On my second retreat, I settled into the stillness much faster. Before the silence even began, I heard God: Fall back. Retreat. Regroup. Reset.

I was not even asking.

His revelation dawned during the first morning devotional. I started to sob without knowing why – the kind of heaving sobs impossible to quell into silence.

“Grieve for your loss,” I felt God say.  

What did I lose, God?

A dream I had surrendered. Although I had willingly let go of the dream in exchange for another assignment God had invited me to, it was a loss nonetheless.

And a deeper loss: The slow fading – through illness – of my mother into a frail woman struggling with walking, talking and swallowing.

I crumbled under the weight of the grief surfaced in the silence and spent the days processing it in silence with God and with my spiritual director.

I wandered a lot around the garden in the retreat centre just being with God. I learnt to hold space for Him to show me what He wanted to show me, or just be quiet. I stopped asking questions. I started to enjoy the fullness of joy in His presence.

I thought that must be how Adam and Eve felt – walking with God in the cool of the evening with no agenda, no deadlines, no fear of the phone heralding emergencies. Just the joy of tracing and retracing their steps with God.

One of the most striking takeaway during those walks in the garden was how effortlessly the flowers around the compound bloomed – just by staying in the soil and looking to the sun. 

The sum total of my effort to blossom is to abide and look to the Son – just as the flowers bloomed simply by staying in the soil and turning to the sun.

In the busyness of ministry and caregiving for my parents, I had forgotten to look to the Son. Instead, I had been lulled into a false comfort that I was in God because I was doing God’s work with God’s people. I had the word every day but had somehow managed to lose sight of the Word Himself.

I was withering inside because I was not abiding. Instead of bearing fruit, I was striving to get fruit. 

But fruit is a grace of God. Only the Divine Gardener knows how to shear off the extra bits for fruit to emerge. The sum total of my effort is to abide and look to the Son.

From my abiding, God will bring a garden; from that garden, trees; and from those trees, fruit. That will take time.

“Trust the slow work of God in you,” my spiritual director said.  

But I have allowed the not-yet to bring me consternation and panic.

Joy

Through the days of contending with God, I ended with a prize far greater than the answers I had sought.

It was joy – joy in the person of Jesus Christ. It was joy in my Saviour who remembers me and re-members me when I am in pieces, the same Christ who gave me life by spilling his very own. 

“Look to the joy set before you,” I heard God say. I looked and I saw that the work was finished on the cross. There was nothing more I could add to make it more complete and nothing less I could do to make it less so.

Although that joy looked like a bloodbath of grief, the mangled mess on the cruel cross holds the perfection of God’s love for me.

This was the joy that choked me mid-sandwich.

And this was the perfect love that silenced my heart. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: The author attended the silent retreat at Seven Fountains with Listening Inn at her own expense. This article does not signal an affiliation with nor an endorsement of Listening Inn. Check out their calendar here. 

Several other organisations holds silent retreats in Singapore and overseas.  Here is a list of them.

RELATED STORIES 

Salt&Light Word in Season: How does God reveal Himself in silence, solitude and meditation?

Breaking the silence of a writer’s anxiety and secret shame

Not ready to travel yet? Try going for a silent retreat “staycay” in Singapore

From secret society gangster to policeman, he now leads silent retreats

The post Silence and solitude: How I discovered God’s gift in the silence appeared first on Salt&Light.