Sometimes I feel like God is asleep. A week ago, Sunday, I was awakened at 2:00 AM with chest pain, like an electric arc zapping my heart—yet intermittently as if my heart had developed a short. Nancy urged me to go with her to St. Michael’s emergency room, but after many trips there in which the doctors found nothing, I unwisely refused to go. Instead, she gave me a couple of hydroxyzine tablets which helped me drift back to sleep. Unfortunately, I awoke later that morning still with intermittent angina and constant pressure. I spent the day resting in my recliner. Around four o’clock in the afternoon, I experienced twenty to twenty-five minutes of continual pain, along with pain in my neck and left arm. Finally, I relented, and Nancy drove me to St. Michael’s emergency room.

After arriving, upon hearing that I had been having chest pain for over fifteen hours, the staff quickly ushered me into a treatment room. A kindly nurse generously lectured me on the importance of coming into the E. R. when first having such severe symptoms—and not waiting for so many hours. Finally, the attending physician admitted me to the hospital and put me on a heparin drip.

A cardiologist administered a chemical stress test the following day, showing no signs of ischemia—the heart not getting enough oxygen. Following the stress test, my vascular surgeon, Dr. Arslan, urged me to try a nitroglycerin patch. I had been reluctant to try the patch when she had encouraged me to try it in late September—after placing a stent in my heart. I haven’t been able to take nitroglycerin pills because they drop my blood pressure so rapidly that I nearly faint. Finally, with fifteen hours of chest pain rattling around in the backroom of my memory, I consented to the patch.

On Tuesday morning, my nurse applied the patch. Within four hours, I had a searing migraine. The hospitalist ordered Fioricet, a pain killer that I had taken for migraine from the age of seven to twenty-three. Once the medication took effect, I had some relief for a couple of hours, but then the migraine returned. I got through the day with another dose of Fioricet—until the nurse removed the patch after twelve hours. The doctor discharged me the next day, but again with a mind-numbing migraine. Since wearing the twelve-hour nitro patch, I have had very little chest pain, yet a severe daily migraine. So, I find myself caught between, on the one hand, having continued chest pain or, on the other hand, having daily, painful migraine. Where is God in such dilemmas? Where is God in our pain? Amid terminal cancer and severe coronary artery disease diagnoses, sometimes I feel like God is asleep.

Nancy and I have been attending a Cancer with Compassion support group moderated by Reverend Cathie Young. When we first began attending, she had recommended a Lectio 365 app, following the Lectio Devina steps to meditating on scripture. So, Nancy and I downloaded the app and started listening to the morning and evening devotionals. This past week’s topic was how Jesus helps us weather the storms of life. The evening devotionals were centered around Mark 4:35-41:

As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon, a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the water, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!” (New Living Translation)

While in the hospital, each evening before leaving to return home, Nancy joined me in listening to the evening devotional. Peter Grieg, the devotionalist, repeats such comforting words:

“Slowing my breath and relinquishing my worries, I open my hands to pray…

Come, Holy Spirit, to my mind.

I receive Your comfort.

Come, Holy Spirit, to my heart,

I receive Your peace.

Come, Holy Spirit, to my soul,

I receive the Father’s love for me.”

After returning home, we listened to the devotional together while lying beside each other in our bed, our hands clutched together amid the storm. While in the hospital and at home in our bed at night, I pondered those verses in Mark. Over fifteen years ago, I preached through the book of Mark, carefully studying the text. Now, the Holy Spirit reminded me of my study of those verses. He reminded me of the text’s three uses of the word “great”—the Greek word “mega.”

First, there is a great (mega) windstorm—through which Jesus sleeps. The disciples have yet come to know just who is this one who sleeps in the stern. They cry in terror, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” “Don’t you care that we are going to die?” Unbeknownst to them is the understanding that the one sleeping in the stern is the one through whom all things were created, the one in whom all things hold together, the wind and waves, their fragile boat, the sun, moon, and planets hung in their circuitous orbits, and their very breath and beating hearts. This God-man is the one who made the stars as the “delicate handiwork of His fingers,” the star-breathing creator who had breathed out the universe, Orion, Cassiopeia, and the Pleiades, the giant stars, Betelgeuse, Mu Cephei, and Canis Majoris. Yet, exhausted from the day, He now sleeps in the stern of a storm-tossed boat.

Upon hearing their cries, Jesus awoke, rebuked the wind, and said, “Silence! Be Still!” “Suddenly, the wind stopped, and there was a great calm.” Into the storm of late-stage cancer and progressive coronary artery disease diagnoses, Nancy and I have long been waiting to hear those words on the lips of Jesus, “Silence! Be Still!” Like the disciples, I have to confess that I am a man of little faith, literally a pet name Jesus had for His disciples, “little-faiths” (all one word in the original language of the New Testament). I forget that even amid this raging emotional storm in which Nancy and I find ourselves, God—even when He seems asleep—is still holding all things together. Where there had been a great windstorm, now a great calm arose at the command of Jesus. We continue to wait on Him, praying for those words, “Silence! Be Still!” While we wait, He remains Emmanuel, God with us. Even while suffering a massive migraine, I know Jesus’ comforting and loving presence. He is always with me; He is always with you! Don’t be afraid to open the door to Him!

After Jesus commanded the wind and waves to be still, He asked His disciples, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?” We are told that “the disciples were absolutely terrified.” Here is the third mega. Literally, the verse reads, “they feared a great fear”—a mega fear. Their fear is not so much the sense of being afraid of someone or something; instead, they are awestruck with great reverence. The disciples had caught sight of the star-breathing God, now clothed in flesh, the one through whom all things were created, the one in whom all things hold together!

A great windstorm arose, the likes of which these seasoned, expert fishermen and sailors had never before seen. Then, crying out to Jesus, asleep in the stern of the boat, He awoke and commanded, “Silence! Be still!” And a great calm arose, resulting in the disciples being awestruck with great reverence.

Many of you may be in the midst of your own raging storms, which can come up so quickly and violently. Maybe—sometimes—God allows these great storms to arise so that, when all hope seems lost, He speaks a great calm into our lives, resulting in our responding with great reverence, resulting in a greater understanding of this star-breathing God who, at times, seems to be sleeping in the stern of our lives.

Today, Nancy and I attended the Cancer with Compassion support group via Zoom. After six days of severe migraine, I fully expected a mega-migraine to arise while we were in the group. Upon hearing of my week, Reverend Cathie and the other ladies in the support group prayed for Nancy and me. While writing this essay this afternoon, it dawned on me that I didn’t have a headache arise today, and Jesus has filled me with great calm. Nancy and I still find ourselves amid a great storm, yet in answer to some women’s prayers who were but strangers to us a few months ago, I find myself filled with great reverence for this mega star-breathing God.

One day, like Jesus calling out to Lazarus in the tomb, Jesus will shout out, “Grant, come out,” and nothing in all of creation will be able to keep me from running home into His arms. On that day, I will hear Jesus speak to all my life’s storms, worries, and fears--however great--“Silence! Be Still!” And I will experience a great calm that I could never have imagined. Looking into His tender, kindly face, I will be awestruck with a deep and abiding, great reverence.

Sometimes I feel like God is asleep—but only because I'm half-asleep to the breadth and length and height and depth of who He is.