The Silent Power Available in Loss

“I long to dwell in your tent forever

and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.”

~Psalm 61:4 (NIV).

Oh the momentous calamity of loss and the thirsty needs of adjustment!

Strangely enough, it’s when we’re most blindsided by dreadful truths and their resultant anxious moments that we can sense the silent power of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit for life never vacates its office in support of us. We, however, may listen contrarily and heed the lies of the enemy; the one proclaiming spiritual aloneness, and hence creating feelings of isolation and desolation.

The Presence of Such Power

When we’re in our deepest furrow, God’s silently present, actively numbing us from the onslaught; guarding our way. The Holy Spirit is, instantaneously, the shelter of the Lord.

The still Voice intercedes in gentling whispers of unfathomable hope. And the reality is dire. But, we’re somehow reassured. We don’t know how; just we sit in this calming Presence knowing it should, one way or another, be worse than it is.

Such like, the moment is tirelessly bearable. We can see how moments are now connected, one to another. One moment survived in this strange peace beckons the next.

The presence of such power is an everlasting reality. It never changes.

The Issue of Such Power

This is where we, personally, come into frame.

The presence of such power has nothing to do with its issuance. This must come from our volition; agreeing to utilise such holy resource.

In this place, we’re accessed to choice. Will we accede to the drift of the Holy Spirit — coming within the realm of this actual Power — or not? It certainly requires of us focus and discipline; but perhaps more so, surrender.

The issuing of this ever-present Power unique to loss is completed with neither thought nor fanfare; it’s given at existence; accessed for just being there. It’s ever-available; determined at our grasp.

Making All the Difference

Why on earth do we have faith if not to utilise it to get through difficulty?

What makes all the difference, moreover, is this power of God’s to see us through. It powers our faith in making awkward sense of our sadness, clamour, unexplainable anxieties and losses, validating these in the rawness of truth; the road to healing, paved.

By the presence of this silent power, and its issuance — which is granting the Spirit permission to act for us, for God never forces our hand — we gain a hope for tomorrow and power to remain for today.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.