Five Minute Friday: Quiet (or is it Silence?)

I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday over at my friend Kate Motaung's blog, Heading Home. No, I didn't do this in five minutes, but that's because I learned that five minutes is just not enough for me. So I do Five Minute Fridays my own way. 

Today's prompt is QUIET and I thought I knew what to write, but it just didn't come exactly. This post is something I wrote but didn't publish a few months back. The prompt word is in the post, although it was initially written using a different prompt word which has the same meaning. Confused? Yeah, I know. Me too, friend. Me too. Want to join the FMF party and link up a post of your own? Check out the links in this paragraph for more info, write your post, publish it, and then go to this week's linkup and add your link! Easy peasy!

So without further ado, my post for this week...

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I didn't do the Write 31 Days challenge as I had planned this year, but this post was written using the one of the prompts that my friend Kate Motaung had on her list of prompts for her series 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes. I didn't write this in five minutes, but the prompt spoke to me and reminded me of a memory which I've recalled below.

2009

There is a hushed quiet here. Not even the fluorescent lights hum. The night outside is long since dark and getting darker as the wee hours approach. I am sitting once again in the perpetual adoration chapel of one of the local parishes in our diocese. It is a 30 minute or so drive from our home, but the distance is worth it.

It is here in this absolute silence that I am finding the strength to stay alive.

I come here to the chapel at this hour -- 10:00pm on Sunday night -- to adore Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, to pray, to pour out my heart to Him, and to drink in the silence of this place which is such a 180 degree difference from the chaotic noise of family life. Over these past several months I have been coming here to renew and re-anchor my spirit so that I can fight through another week. I am a committed adorer. That is to say that I have signed up with this parish and committed to come each week at this time and spend an hour with Jesus. There is a married couple who share my hour, but they too enjoy the silence and while we wave to one another or say a brief, "hello" our words are few and the silence is plenty.

It is here in this place that I come to kneel at His feet and adore Him alone. It is here in this place that He meets me and through the silence speaks peace and love back to me. Each week I drink in this quiet and His voice and His face.

Until tonight. Tonight I come as normal and after the adorer before me leaves, find myself totally alone. The couple who shares my hour are out of town, so it is just me and Jesus. The silence is made complete and in it, despite His Presence before me in the Blessed Sacrament, I am struggling to hear Him or see Him. This week has been more than a fight and I have come to this place with fresh cuts on my skin, my emotions raw and ragged, and a head full of darkness. I have come to ask His forgiveness for what I am about to do. But the words don't come and all that comes out is me kneeling and crying aloud, my sobs and wails breaking the silence. There are no words for all that I feel and all I know to say to Him is, "Please Jesus... please... please... please..." Over and over again, my prayer goes up, begging His mercy on me.

As the hour slowly comes to a close, I dry my tears and gaze upon Him in silence as I wait for AB's godfather to come and relieve me. He is a committed adorer too and has the hour after mine. When he enters, I say hello quietly and instead of answering when he asks how I am, I gaze one final time upon His face as I genuflect and make the sign of the cross and then leave in silence.

The car is quiet but for the thoughts racing through my head. The tears that fell so swiftly during the last hour threaten to come again, but don't. The numbness has set in and I am driving away from the chapel and trying to think of where to go and what I need to accomplish the task of ending my life. I drive down the street, my hands and feet going through the motions independent of my brain. Just two blocks from the church, I approach a red stop light and my foot makes the car stop. As the car stops, I am suddenly thunderstruck by what I can only describe as a powerful gut punch in my spirit.

"Come back."

What? My brain stops racing and my heart begins pounding. I look up and the light is still red.

"Come back to Me."

I swallow hard and suddenly feel as though I can hardly breathe. What??

"Come back to Me."

Lord? No, this is madness. I look up at the light again. Why is it still red? There's no traffic coming the other way.

"Come back. Come back to Me."

I can't, Lord. I can't do this anymore. Please don't make me do this anymore... I gaze at the light in a panic. Still red.

"Come back to My Presence." 

Gulp. I am shaking all over, my heart racing and breaths shallow and quick. I am surely losing my mind completely. I'm at a red light, for crying out loud! But the powerful gut punches to my spirit keep coming. The light turns green, but I can't move. I sit there frozen and overwhelmed, my brain's former path toward destruction now derailed and confused.

"Come back to Me."

Okay, Lord...help me Jesus...please... My hands fumble with the steering wheel, but I eventually manage to turn off on a side street and turn around to go back.

When I enter the chapel, I drop to my knees on the closest kneeler and sob aloud, not caring that AB's godfather is trying to pray or that I am meant to be silent. I am so caught up in this moment of pouring my heart out to Him, that I don't even hear AB's godfather get up and come to kneel beside me until I feel his hand on my shoulder. I look up and see that he is praying. He says quietly, "I've been praying for you since you left..." and that unleashes another torrent of tears. He hands me a box of tissues and when I've finished cleaning my face, we pray together in silence and somewhere amidst those prayers, the idea of ending my life fades to a more manageable distance.

After his relief arrives for the next hour, we stand outside the chapel under the silence of the darkened sky and talk about what has been going on with me. He asks if I am going home and I say yes. Then we hug goodbye and he says he'll keep praying for me and for Gray too.

I drive the 30 minutes back to our house, turning over the events of the last couple of hours in my mind. The car is quiet and I find that I am grateful for gut punches that come amidst the silence.