Ninety-six hours after my mother’s open-heart surgery, she still hadn’t opened her eyes. The procedure to replace her aortic valve had been successful, but she experienced excessive bleeding and a host of other issues. So the cardiac ICU team opted for sedation to allow her body to stabilize. For four days, my father and I traded shifts in her room, monitoring her vitals for any signs of change. She was surrounded by a sea of machines, IV poles, tubes, and wires that were hard to navigate. So we waited, watching helplessly as a ventilator forced oxygen into her lungs.
Illustration by Jeff Gregory
On the morning of the fifth day, the doctors thought it would be safe to wake her up. She came to gradually and, as you would expect, was very confused and disoriented. Without her glasses, Mom could barely see, but she recognized both Dad’s voice and mine straightaway, turning her head in our direction whenever we spoke. And while we could ask questions, she couldn’t because the ventilator was still in place.
Attempts to use a communication board often ended in frustration. Her body was too weak to point, and she couldn’t concentrate for more than a minute or two at a time. One evening while sleeping in the recliner someone had managed to snag for us, I woke up to find Mom’s eyes open and trained on me.
“Do you want me to get the board?” I asked, yawning. But she only shook her head, knowing that whatever she needed to say wasn’t worth the effort it would take. So we settled for holding hands in silence until we both fell asleep again.
Ten days passed like this.
I couldn’t help but think of Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist. One seemingly unremarkable day while “performing his priestly service before God” in the temple, he was visited by the angel Gabriel—a terrifying experience by any measure. And Gabriel told him a marvelous thing, that his wife, who had been unable to conceive, would bear him a son named John. (See Luke 1:8-19.)
Zacharias, understandably confused since both he and Elizabeth were “advanced in years” (v. 18), expressed his doubts. Gabriel didn’t comfort the man, didn’t smile reassuringly and repeat the message. Instead, he said that Zacharias would play what is likely the longest round of “The Quiet Game” on record. For nine months, he couldn’t utter a word.
It's easy to think of this only as divine punishment for his lack of trust in God’s promise of a child, but my time in that hospital room helped me see it as something more. Silence is an opportunity. Whether it’s intentionally cultivated or foisted on us without our say-so, we can’t forget that God is in it and is creating something good.
I live in Atlanta, a busy city full to bursting with activity and noise. And two teenagers currently live under my roof, so there’s no end to the beeps and boops coming from computer screens, phones, and gaming consoles. Even my heated eye massager talks, telling me to relax before it starts. Pursuing silence and solitude in the cacophony can feel impossible, but I’ve found that doing so is transformational.
I’ve also come to recognize that not all silences are created equal. The stillness of a library, for instance, is one of gently enforced courtesy. Patrons respect the shared space, the pursuit of knowledge happening all around them. They pay attention to their bodies—moving slower, setting things down gently, and speaking with their eyes rather than their mouths. It’s a world of textured calm, a warm blanket of whispered conversations, the hum of the air conditioner, and the quiet turning of pages.
The natural world has its own kind of hush. Remove all the man-made noises and you’re left with the softer sounds of birdsong and scurrying life on the forest floor. You can hear tree branches cracking hundreds of feet away and the calming rhythm of water dancing on stone. Rather than cocooning you as a library does, the forest opens your ears to the vastness of the “invisible attributes” of God that get missed when we’re distracted (Rom. 1:20).
And then there’s the true silence of the heart.
Even when I’m in a calm place—a quiet room, a sunny back porch, a museum—I still have the noise of trivial thoughts cluttering my head. Did I remember to thaw the chicken? I hope I didn’t offend anyone by skipping book club. I should really go to the gym. What was the name of that podcast Tammy told me about? Oooh, I could listen while I work out and …
If every square inch of my heart is full, there’s no room for the Spirit of Truth to dwell. So I must create an internal silence that helps me hear the ineffable speech of God, those untranslatable words He uses to touch, guide, and heal me in the present moment.
When Mom was napping and I could sneak out for a few minutes, I always found myself drawn to a manicured garden on the hospital property. I would sit by the lake or under the grape arbor, listen to the bees buzzing, and watch anoles scampering among the flowers. Eventually, I was calm enough to close my eyes and focus on my breathing—inhale for a count of four, hold, exhale for a count of four—and let it center me.
I had followed Jesus for years. I knew many of the promises of deliverance and protection in Scripture, could recite them from memory and try to find comfort in them. But it wasn’t until I created that place of silence in myself that I heard them. That I believed them.
God was as near to me in that garden as He was to my mother back in the room.
My mother had to go 10 days in silence, far shorter than the nine months Zacharias endured. Luke’s Gospel doesn’t give any details, but I like to imagine that he became more attentive to his loved ones and the beauty of the world surrounding him—and perhaps recognized his words to be less essential than he once thought.
I can only imagine what God taught him through those long months, the things He must have revealed that transformed Zacharias from a man who hesitated at—possibly even argued against—Gabriel’s revelation to one who spoke a glorious prophecy over his infant son. (See Luke 1:68-79.) Sometimes silence is the only way to show us our own limitations and help us make room for God.
On the 11th day after my mother had been sedated, the doctors removed the tube from her throat. Over the coming weeks, she’d need an oxygen mask to breathe, which would keep conversation to a minimum. But in the few moments before it was put on, she spoke to us. Her message was only four words long, said quietly and without hesitation. She’d had time to think about it, after all.
I love you both.
