The Silence is Answer Enough

Most of my blog posts are one shot, write and publish pieces. I write them in my notes app, copy and paste them onto the blog, fix the formatting, and post them. I like my blog to read as an accurate look inside my head as I navigate life. These past few months the stream of thoughts within my brain has been a bit convoluted, even for me, and I've contemplated this post for weeks. 

I know the responses this will get, and I'm not looking forward to any of them. I hear condemnation in my own voice, the voice of a girl who thought she was certain three months ago. But certainty doesn't crumble to nothing in two months. The cracks were always there. 

I was around 14 when people who were supposed to be safe first hurt me. The very ones who will likely be among the most upset now were the first to wield the chisel against the foundation so carefully laid. So young, my parents told me not to view God by how his followers behaved. 

After that it was the institution telling me that I couldn't be one of them because I was young, blatantly ignoring their own teachings to exclude a child who was so serious and so ready. 

They told me that it was the church, not Christ, but the Bible was the next to stop me in my tracks. I thought I could come to terms with submission with certain caveats that I would keep secret inside of me, until the first time I read 1 Corinthians 14:34. I sobbed in my cabin bunk as the illusion that I could be a strong woman with a tendency toward leadership and a submissive, behaved Christian woman crumbled around me. A God who commands women to silence is not a God who loves women. 

Why was a child even considering how she could be a godly wife? I should have been carefree, only worried about making friends, but I was afraid that something was deeply wrong with me because obeying tradition and keeping quiet didn't come naturally to me.

Looking back now, I can't believe I stayed for so long. Everything was splintering before I had the words to explain what was happening to me. 

Instead of backing away, I threw myself head first into it, trying desperately not to be lukewarm, not to be a foreigner, not to be a tare. Praying that I would be one of the elect if that was how it worked. Clinging to moments of clarity and the things that made sense to me. Living year round for one week, and later one month of purpose and certainty. Hating myself for my doubt. Praying "I do believe. Forgive my unbelief." Begging God to break me if that was what it took to bring me near to him.

And yet I was continually pushed back by people who didn't want me as involved as I was. Only Bible camp let me serve to what I believed was my capacity- teaching classes and leading cabins. I lived for the few weeks I could do as much as I wanted to. 

A thread breaks easily when it's one of few that remain, and everything went wrong at the worst time. People I thought were on the same page as me turned against me. The ones who should have had my back let it happen.

Last week Sunday I attended church and care group right after. The young women were asked to make a soup for everyone, and the young men were asked to bring buns. I made soup, prepared toppings, and showed up early to heat my soup and help the host. A young man who is being considered for leadership in the church showed up empty-handed. I thought to myself: how is it that he is not responsible enough to buy a pack of buns for a potluck with plenty of notice, but he will make a better and more responsible leader than me?

The answer is, of course, he won't.

I am enough just as I am, and I don't need a husband to speak for me in church. I can raise my own voice just fine. And I plan to raise it in the open fields and forests, in my workplace, in every place that doesn't have a steeple. I've been silenced in church enough by now. 

There is the thought in my mind that just because I don't like it does not mean it's not true, but outside of the fact that I don't like it, it isn't true. It can't be. It doesn't make any sense. It falls apart one story at a time. Think of Job, a man handed over to Satan as reward for his righteousness. His children, slaughtered to test his love of God. Yes, he had more children when the test ended, but what of the other 10? Didn't God love them too?

Silence is answer enough. If God existed and he loved me, surely he would call for me. If he existed and cared not for me, it would be silent. If he didn't exist, it would be silent. 

Nature and scripture are not answer enough. They are not answer at all. Both have explanations outside of God. 

I hear my own voice in response to all of this: "those who don't believe won't believe. The cross is foolishness to the perishing. So let them go." If God has closed my eyes that I should perish, I won't beg him to open them for me. If it's true that he elects those he will save, I lose nothing by walking away. And if he called me back, then I would come. But the silence is answer enough.

I've been in this church for just over three months. Five people have told me that they should have me over. Only two have. People tell me that this is the most community focused, most loving, caring church they've seen, but two days ago a lady sent a message to my Bible study group chat asking how everyone is and how she can pray for them, and no one has responded yet. And the silence is answer enough.

- Aliya