I found that I couldn’t pray after the doctor told us that our daughter had Down syndrome. I didn’t have the words, the answers, or even the faith to know what to say. Yet there was tremendous comfort in realizing, “Okay, some other people are going to have to do the praying for me right now because I can’t.” Rather than feeling guilt or fear that I couldn’t experience God personally in those early days, I began to see it as a beautiful invitation to trust other people to carry me in prayer when I couldn’t carry myself.
Poet Christian Wiman and theologian Miroslav Volf first became friends while teaching at Yale Divinity School, where regular walks together turned into years of theological conversation. When illness prevented those walks, they began exchanging letters that eventually became their book Glimmerings, a collection of reflections on friendship, faith, doubt, suffering, and hope. Christian shared some of their insights with me:
1. Faith grows through honest friendship.
Deep trust allows people to disagree honestly, ask difficult questions, and strengthen one another’s faith, not by eliminating their differences, but by remaining committed to seeking God together.
2. Suffering reveals our longing for God.
“I have experienced both a clarifying element in suffering… and I have experienced the opposite, the pulverizing effect of suffering… It’s a great difficulty for me. I experience God’s absence more than God’s presence. I have a continual hunger for God, and it doesn’t ever go away.”
3. God is often encountered through other people.
Whether in friendship, caregiving, or shared vulnerability, God’s presence is frequently experienced as Christ reflected back to us through the love, faith, and companionship of others.
4. Slowing down creates space for deeper faith.
Chris and Miroslav’s 18-month letter correspondence demonstrates how thoughtful, unhurried communication can foster greater trust and spiritual depth than rapid conversations or social media commentary often allow.
“As Jürgen Moltmann said, ‘Hope is what faith ripens into.’ I can’t claim to be great at this, but I have experienced it.”
_
When God Feels Absent: How Faith Makes Room for Doubt and Hope with Christian Wiman 🎙️Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker • S10 E10
SUBSCRIBE to my Substack newsletter: amyjuliabecker.substack.com
JOIN the conversation on Instagram: @amyjuliabecker
LISTEN to my podcasts: amyjuliabecker.com/shows/
CONNECT on YouTube: Amy Julia Becker on YouTube
Amy Julia Becker desires to challenge assumptions about the good life, proclaim the inherent belovedness of every human being, and help us envision and build a world of belonging where everyone matters. Amy Julia invites people to reimagine the good life through her writing and speaking on disability, faith, and culture. She is the author of several books, including To Be Made Well, White Picket Fences, Small Talk, and A Good and Perfect Gift. She is a guest opinion writer for national publications and hosts two podcasts: Take the Next Step and Reimagining the Good Life. Becker is a graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary (MDiv). She is a member of the Disability Ministry Network and the Alliance for Disability Justice and Ethics in Reproductive Genetics. She lives with her husband and their three children in western Connecticut.
