29. Finding Meaning when Heaven Is Quite with Emily Adams
Have you had moments where you poured out your heart to God again and again and felt met with silence from heaven? When President Nelson told us that in the coming days we’ll need the guiding influence of the Holy Ghost, Emily Robison Adams took his counsel to heart. But while seeking to understand how God speaks to her through prayer, Emily didn't get any answers and, in her words, “God felt gone.” Through struggle, study, and with time, Emily came to understand that sometimes when we think heaven is silent, God is with us in a space of communion that she calls Divine Quiet.
“I don’t always feel the spirit, but I show up to show God”— Emily Robison Adams
Links:
You're not alone in feeling like heaven is silent. It's important to share your struggles and feelings about getting answers to prayer.
The moments in the silence can teach you lessons from heaven that you might not receive otherwise, but it still might feel difficult, so lean on these three things:
Remember your past interactions and experiences with the Spirit. Drawing upon these moments will help you to recall that God has answered you before, and He will again.
Change the way you look at the scriptures. The scriptures were written by imperfect people, and there are many different points of view within the scriptures, so embrace the differences and be okay not having an opinion about everything.
Rethink prayer. You may just have to ask for God to be with you in the silence, even if you aren't feeling the divine revelation or answers you are seeking.
Small & Simple Challenge
Find time to remember God this week. Look back on the moments and interactions you've already had with the scriptures and ponder on those moments as a strength to receive more guidance in God's timing.
Transcript +
Kathryn Davis 00:00 Have you had moments when you poured your heart out to God again and again and felt met with silence from heaven? Hi, and welcome to magnify, an LDS Living podcast where we cheer inspire and embolden each other as women and followers of Jesus Christ, we hope to use our influence to make a difference in the world. I'm your host, Kathryn Davis, a mom, a seminary teacher, and a grilling enthusiast who loves God. When President Nelson told us that in coming days, we'll need the guiding influence of the Holy Ghost, Emily Robinson Adams took his counsel to heart. But while seeking to understand how God speaks to her through prayer, Emily didn't get any answers. And in her words, God felt gone. Through struggle study, and with time, Emily came to understand that sometimes when we think heaven is silent, God is with us in a space of communion that she calls divine quiet. I'm just so excited to kind of have this conversation. I've been really looking forward to it.
emily adams 01:04 Oh, thank you. I'm so happy to be here.
Kathryn Davis 01:06 And I'm so excited for this discussion. Because I think it's going to be really helpful for me, and so many of our listeners.
emily adams 01:15 wonderful. I'm excited too.
Kathryn Davis 01:17 okay, but before we begin and kind of delve into some of these topics, we always like to have a couple of rapid fire questions so our listeners can get to know you a little bit better. Are you ready for some rapid fire questions?
emily adams 01:32 I'm ready.
Kathryn Davis 01:33 Okay, awesome. Okay, Emily, you are a practicing lawyer. And I just want to know, as you watch movies and shows about lawyers, what about those shows or movies makes you kind of shake your head and think that is actually not at all what a real lawyer does or looks like?
emily adams 01:56 That trial happens like six weeks after something occurs, you know, the timelines in the real world are much, much longer. And my husband was watching this lawyer show my husband's lawyer also. Oh, really? Yeah, wow, that we argue really well. And he was, he was watching the show. And I just like, poked my head in and watched a little bit with him. And there was a lawyer on the show that was trying to get in some evidence. And he did it in a way that was explicitly prohibited by the actual rules of evidence. Like, who wrote this? That's like the rules of evidence. So you can't do that. So anyway, most of my job is very, like, not exciting. It's sitting at a computer and reading and writing for hours and hours and hours, is not what's portrayed.
Kathryn Davis 02:46 So fun. Well, now you live in Utah. But you went to law school in Minnesota, correct? Yes, we get a lot of snow here. But I have heard that it pales in comparison to Minnesota winters. Yes. So here's my question. How do you survive those Minnesota winters?
emily adams 03:11 I think they're just tougher in the Midwest, and we are here. And in Minnesota, they have all these wonderful indoor things. Like they have indoor playgrounds. And in Minneapolis, they have skyways that go between the buildings, so you don't have to walk on the sidewalks. In the winter, you go through the skyways. And so they developed great systems for not having to be out in the cold all the time. But then they're just heartier. You know, it's so many people will cross country ski. And I think the only time school was canceled was when when we were there for six years, was when it was so cold that the oil froze in the school buses. It was ridiculously cold. They're just tough. Yeah.
Kathryn Davis 03:54 Yeah, I think I'm a wimp.
emily adams 03:58 So am I. I'm acclimated back to Utah weather. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, it's 15 degrees. I'm freezing. But in Minnesota, it'd be like negative 10. Negative 15.
Kathryn Davis 04:07 Oh, man. Here's my last question for you. You've mentioned that you love to go on walks with friends. What is your favorite thing about those walks?
emily adams 04:19 I love being outside. I love the one on one time. And I think there's just so much goodness that comes from moving your body. So if you have like that beautiful combination of being outside moving your body and being with friends. It's just remarkable.
Kathryn Davis 04:31 I agree with that. It's actually as we start talking today, being outside when I go on a walk or on a run it is honestly, I think the best time where I can talk with my heavenly Father. Well, Emily, thanks for being here. And I am excited to talk with you about this concept of divine quietness. And I think this idea of divine quietness is more common. And it's an experience that so many of us have. And I think it happens more than we realize, and people are struggling with this. And so I want to ask you, what is this idea of divine quietness?
emily adams 05:13 The idea that you're trying to connect with God or get an answer to prayer, and God seems to have disappeared. There's no answer. My Divine quietness occurred. When I wanted. I wanted to figure out how to get answers on direct questions from God, because I thought that was a really important piece of figuring out how to connect with God, how to figure out the Holy Ghost, you know, how to receive personal revelation. And so the one direct question that I wanted an answer out with was whether the Book of Mormon was true. So I read the Book of Mormon. And then I sat down, and I prayed. And you know, I've said this prayer a lot of times in my life, but never have gotten an answer on it. And I just felt nothing. And I felt nothing, as I continued to pray. And then I felt that I got to a point where I couldn't even feel the spirit at all. So my divine quietness was very much I just felt very disconnected from God. And from the spirit, and from that entire piece of my life.
Kathryn Davis 06:12 Which is sometimes such a hard and lonely place to be in often, we feel like it's just us that we're the only ones experience this.
emily adams 06:21 It's so true. I mean, I thought that I was the completely defective spirit like that I was the only person of all of God's children don't couldn't, that you know, that felt so cut off. But as I've talked about, and as the book has come out, it's amazing to me how many people have said, I have felt the same way. So I think it's quite a common experience, but we just don't talk about it very much.
Kathryn Davis 06:46 Right, which is why I'm so excited about this conversation to be able to talk about this more. It's something I talk about every day in my seminary classes, because so many of us are experiencing this. But I want to ask you, how did you discover that this was actually a place that God was with you this divine quietness that he was with you, and not somewhere he left you?
emily adams 07:09 So it took me probably a solid year to 18 months to get to that place. For about a year, year and a half, I was in a space where I thought that God was totally gone, that he was wrathful. And awful that if he did exist, he was not worth worshiping. It took a lot of work to get to the point where I was willing to say, okay, maybe God is here. Maybe God isn't wrathful, maybe there's a reason for this quietness. Actually, the quietness caused a lot of depression and anxiety. And I had to take care of that first. And then once I got to a point where I could think a little bit more clearly, I just read a lot of books. And I read a lot of books outside of our faith tradition, because in broader Christianity, there's a whole concept of the dark night of the soul and of quietness that we just don't have within our faith tradition. And those are really helpful concepts to me. So taking care of my mental health, and then reading a lot. And then talking with people, those three things together got me to a place where I could say, oh, okay, I think this is a place where God is showing himself in a different way, a way that I had never thought of before,
Kathryn Davis 08:19 But it took you a long time to get there.
emily adams 08:22 A really long time to get there. I was really, really angry. For a long time, I felt betrayed. I felt like I had been lied to, you know, so I'd had all of these really hard emotions, because I had really poured my heart into this. And had thought sincerely, that if I truly tried to connect with God, that God would have to respond to me. And when God didn't respond, I just felt like my faith crumbled. Everything that I had ever taught seemed completely wrong. And I was just really, really mad. I was really mad, really depressed, and really anxious for a long time about all of it.
Kathryn Davis 09:00 Yeah, well, and I think that those are emotions that so many of us can relate to, or at least on some level, yeah, like frustration or anger or disappointment? Or what's wrong with me, right? Why am I not getting the answers, which can lead to depression and anxiety. And I know that this journey to this place, also, for you included some help from friends. And I just want to ask you, how did having friends who understood or reached out to you, how did having those friends help you get to where you are today?
emily adams 09:34 They were absolutely crucial. So for the first eight months or so I really didn't open up to very many people. I opened up to my husband a little bit into my parents a little bit...
Kathryn Davis 09:46 how come? How come you didn't open up?
emily adams 09:48 Well, under a lot of reasons. So I think that there was a long time I didn't really understand what I was feeling. I knew that I felt terrible. I knew that I felt afraid and that I felt upset but couldn't really articulate why. It took me a long time to get to a point where I could actually explain what I was feeling and why I was feeling the way it was feeling. And then this also happened... The quietness started in January of 2020. And as we all know, the world shut down in March of that year, and so church shut down, I was here in Utah, so we didn't have any church meetings. So there wasn't a lot of interaction with other folks for that period of time. It was very isolating. So it just took me a while. And it really was my Relief Society presidents I was a released study teacher, and in like, August or September of 2020, she said, You know, I'd like to start sending out like a little newsletter, like an email newsletter, can you write something for that newsletter? And I said, Sure. And so I wrote a little blurb that basically said that I had felt that my faith had crumbled, but I was holding on because I was trying to remember, you know, my experiences with God in the past. So I sent that to her. And I said, if this doesn't work, that's okay. I can write something that's different. But this is kind of where I'm at. And she said, Nope, that'll be perfect. So she sent it out. And from that came the two people that really, they caught it, they realized what I was saying, and they reached out and said, Hey, do you want to go on a walk? my favorite thing. And it was those two that really walked with me for months and months, and I was able to talk with them. And it was separate, like they didn't know the other person existed. But I talked with them and walked with them for just miles and miles. And it was through that process that I was able to really heal. There's something special about being in a place where you can talk to somebody who's experiencing depression, or anxiety or feeling this type of quietness from God. And you can actually express out loud the things that you're feeling and the things that you're thinking. And you would never say those in church, like you probably would never say in church that you're feeling abandoned and betrayed by God. Right? You know, because I think you probably would have some people freak out. But I could say it to these people. And once I could express those feelings, it's amazing how much emotions lose their hold on you when you can begin to actually identify them, and talk about them and get to the root of why you're feeling that way. And those two women gave me that space where I could do that.
Kathryn Davis 12:10 So you said they kind of caught your signals that they got it. What allowed them to be able to kind of catch on to what you were saying?
emily adams 12:20 You know, it's interesting, I talked with my dad about this, probably a year ago. And he's like, Emily, there's no coincidence that two people who were also struggling, were in your same ward. So I think there was a divine intervention in there. And I don't know if they were feeling nudged without knowing that they were feeling nudged. But they were both experiencing something similar to me. So different reasons. They're both on kind of different paths. One was at the beginning, one was more at the end. But I think they could just understand what I was feeling. They could sense that there was something wrong and that they should reach out, then I think that that truly was just such a gift.
Kathryn Davis 12:58 Yeah, I agree. And I think it's interesting that you said for the first eight months, you kept it pretty quiet, pretty close to the chest. And then you were able to open up to them. So what have you learned about being open about your struggles?
emily adams 13:16 I think that it is wonderful. If you can open up to appropriate people. I don't think that we want to go and you know, thought-vomit all over testimony meeting or something. But I think there are a few close special people in your life, that it's really important to open up to and to express your struggles and to work through things. My husband has gotten really good at this conversation where I will say I'm struggling with this. And he will say, Is this a pushback conversation? Or is this a conversation where I'm just saying, oh, man, that sounds really hard. Because sometimes you do need sometimes you need the person that's just there. And like, oh, man, that's really hard. And sometimes you need the conversation where they're pushing back on your thoughts a little bit so that you can clarify what you're thinking. And you can really clean things up a bit. And I think you need both of those kinds of conversations when you're working through hard topics like this. And that can come from the same person or from different people. But it's really helpful to be able to have those hard conversations.
Kathryn Davis 14:20 I agree. And it's actually opening up that I think, is where many of my answers have been found. Even when I have felt like heaven was silent. I just remember my first time really away from home. I was at the BYU Jerusalem center. And I was 19. And I was beginning to question and doubt and wonder about my testimony and answers and I prayed and prayed and prayed and felt nothing. And I was in Jerusalem. I was in the Holy Land, and everybody else was having these incredible experiences and sharing them. And I was feeling nothing. And so then I began to doubt like, well, it must be something wrong with me, or I'm not getting the answers, or I'm not worthy enough to receive the answers. And then I went through weeks and a few months of just self doubt, and anguish. And then I even begin to doubt if God was even there. And I remember after about like three and a half months of nothing, and everybody else was having something and I wasn't, I went into my bathroom, because it was the only place I could be alone. And I turned on the water, and so nobody could hear me. And I just remember sinking to the floor and saying, God, are you even there? Because I don't know anymore. And at that moment, the phone rang, my roommate was like the phone's for you. And I took the phone with the windy cord into the bathroom. And I answered it, and I was like, hello. And it was my dad. He said, Honey, I just felt like I needed to call and I just said, Dad, I don't know, I don't know, if God's there, I'm not getting answers. And I was able to just really open up and share with him. And at the end of a really long conversation, he said this to me, he said, honey, know that I know. And until you can find out for yourself, rely on that. And trust in that. And he hung up the phone. And for the first time in months, I felt peace and I felt calm that my dad knew. And I knew that he wouldn't lie to me. And I could hold on to that until I could receive my own answers and my own hope. And I held on to that for a very, very long time. And I think that is one of the reasons why I have been so prompted and push to teach Seminary is so that I can say the same thing. Know that I know. And there are going to be moments of silence and until you find out for yourself, rely on that and trust in that. And that's something I've held on to so many different times in my life.
emily adams 17:05 I love that story. Kathryn, that's powerful. What do you think I can ask you a question?
Kathryn Davis 17:11 Yes, yes.
emily adams 17:12 What do you think that three months of silence did? Like how? How are you changed? Because of that three months of silence? Opposed to if you had just gotten an answer, or we're having all of these amazing spiritual experiences like the people around you?
Kathryn Davis 17:26 I think that's such a good question. And I've thought a lot about that. But I think it was in my sorrow. And in my anguish and my questioning, I had to dig deep to even continue, right, I had to just keep going and keep trying. And for me, especially as a teacher, and as a mom, those three months are more helpful and beneficial for me than probably any other experience in my life. Because I understand, when I have kids who have said, answers aren't coming. What about you?
emily adams 18:06 There's definitely a piece of me that feels a lot of our church that I never understood before. Because I always felt that I was really close to God, I felt that my faith was strong, I felt that I could feel the spirit. And now I understand an experience that I've never had. Before that point in time. I also felt for me, mine was really an exercise of really figuring out what my faith was based on. And when that ran headlong into the reality of not getting anything from God, I'm feeling that heaven is gone. I had to really examine what my faith was based on and realize a lot of it wasn't helpful. Like, for example, I really had this more transactional mindset with God. I thought that if I did x, God had to do Y. And it took me a while to realize that that was one reason I felt so hurt because I had done all the x's right.
Kathryn Davis 18:57 So you've prayed you fasted, you've done all the things, and it's not happening, right.
emily adams 19:04 And so the quietness for me gave me some space to actually realize that that was what my faith was founded on. Or a good piece of it was and that wasn't one of my thinking errors that I needed to work through. It allowed me to see that and to say, is this something that I really want my faith to be based on? Is this helpful? Is this useful? And I think that, you know, the transactional mindset is a good way to teach the gospel when you're a little bit spiritually younger. But when you're when you grow up a little bit and have a little bit more of life experience, sometimes that transactional mindset doesn't work. So I had to get rid of it and find some time figuring out what I was going to put in its place. And for me, I decided that my faith is based on God is good. That's all I can say. And that's okay. So it's really just taking away that if I do X, God will do Y. And replacing it with God is good. And I can trust in God because God is good.
Kathryn Davis 20:00 You can trust his character. I love that. Well, I think so many of us often feel like the heavens are silent. I mean, Christ, even on the cross, felt that God had withdrawn. Yeah, there has to be a reason why, and what can we learn? And what can we feel in those moments?
emily adams 20:21 Right? Right. I really liked the idea of that dark night of the soul, which is something we see in Catholicism. Yeah, it's not concept we have in our church. But the whole idea is that sometimes God does withdraw. So that we can realize that we've attached a lot of benefits to our own righteousness. That we've said, because I am so amazing. God is blessing you, and all these amazing ways, or I'm doing this, because I'm receiving all these benefits from God. And when you take those things, we take the benefits away, which is oftentimes feeling the spirit, then you have to ask yourself, Why am I actually doing any of this? Is there a reason for me to be doing this? Other than I'm getting all these awesome things from God? Is there something that's just inherently good about doing these things? So the dark night of the soul kind of takes out all of your conceptions of God, and gets them all out of the way? And asks you to really examine your own soul and say, are you doing things just because you want God bless you in a certain way. I really liked that idea. And I felt like that's in a lot of ways. What happened with me was getting the transactional mindset out of the way. And focusing instead on God is good. And I'm doing these things. Not because I expect to feel the spirit or I expect to receive blessings. But because it's inherently good, so I don't necessarily feel the Spirit as much now, as I did, you know, before my quietness started, but I have gotten to the point where I'm like, I do a lot of things with the expectation that because they are inherently good, and because I want to show God that I'm willing to show up. So I go to the temple, I don't necessarily feel amazing in the endowment. It's not like this amazing spiritual experience for me. But I can show up and show God that I'm interested that I'm trying and that being in the endowment is an inherently good thing. I can pay my tithing now, because I get the spiritual high, or all of these blessings. But because it's inherently good to learn to sacrifice a little bit of your money to God, you know, so it's just, it's just a different focus. It's a different way of approaching the to-do's and the commandments that we've been taught all our life that I just prefer, and right now, it works for me, it might not work in 10 years, but right now, this way of approaching it works for me.
Kathryn Davis 22:44 You're doing things because you love God.
emily adams 22:47 And it's pretty interesting. You know, when I really started looking at why was I doing these things, you know, why? Why was I reading my scriptures or saying my prayers or going to church, or any of it, I'm doing it and so much of it came down to I wanted a feeling I wanted to feel the spirit, you know, or wanted some blessing. And when you take all that away, suddenly you're like, Well, is there any other reason to do this, besides feeling the spirit of receiving a blessing? And it's, it's great to really, you know, tease that out and figure out if there's any other good reason to do stuff.
Kathryn Davis 23:19 What a powerful lesson, you've shared three things that you did, while you were trying to understand this quietness from God, you talked about remembering spiritual experiences, different ways to look at scripture, and ways to rethink prayer. So can we walk through those three things together? I want to hear a little bit more about your thoughts on why each one of those were so important to you, you said, remembering spiritual experiences. And so how did this help you this remembering how did that help you when you weren't seeing answers when you weren't feeling the spirit?
emily adams 24:00 So remembering was really key to wanting to stay with God. So when I was in just that dark space, where I wasn't even sure if God existed, or if God was even remotely worth worshiping, or being around, I had to resist the impulse to rewrite my history, and say that God had never been present. Like I've never felt God in my life. But I mean, I, I've never seen angels, but I have definitely had experiences where I felt that there was something greater outside of myself, that I felt, and remembering that I had felt that at some point that I had had experiences at some point, that would just give me something really small to hold on to. And it got me to a point where I was like, You know what, I shouldn't make the decision now to give up on God. I should give it a little longer. Because I have had these experiences so I shouldn't throw God out the window right now. So the remembering part, just gave me just a little bit of I'd say desire gave me the desire to try to stay or to try to figure it out. I think if I hadn't had had those experiences, I don't know if I would have stayed, but because they had something that I could hold on to and say, I know, I felt something bigger than me. I knew I felt something different. I know that I felt some love. I know that I felt like powerfully when I was singing, I believe in Christ that I believed in Christ, you know, I might have been 15. But I felt something and it stuck in my memory because it was powerful. I shouldn't throw everything out the window now. So remembering I think is incredibly important, especially when you're going through those hard times, because I think you really do feel a draw to say, at least I did, I felt a draw to say, oh, God's never been here, ever. He's been gone my whole life, or he's never existed. So the remembering helps you just have a desire to maybe keep going when it's really hard.
Kathryn Davis 25:49 Well, I think it's easy in those moments to think, Okay, I haven't heard him maybe I've never heard him, right, and to just start going down that path. But I think you're right, it's remembering those moments in the past, can get us through kind of over the bridge, where maybe the heavens are silent for whatever reason. But remembering those moments we've had and those feelings we felt. And for me, having those written down has been key because I forget a lot. And so often, I've had some not, I'm not a great journal keeper. But I wonder if that's why so often we have been asked to write down spiritual experiences is because it helps us remember to get us through those moments of silence.
emily adams 26:40 No, I think it's absolutely true. Absolutely true. And in fact, there was something that just happened, say, like, a month or so ago, where it just felt like God had orchestrated something in our neighborhood in a really beautiful way. And I wrote it down, because I'm like, I don't think any of us that were involved in it felt prompted by God in any way, shape, or form. I don't think we felt like the Spirit came down and said, Do this, or X, Y, or Z. But right? When it all happened, and I stood back, I'm like, this has to be orchestrated by Heaven. It just has to be it was just too much of a coincidence for everything to come together the way that it did. So I wrote it down. Because I'm like, this is something I need to remember. Something I need to remember that God is active and aware.
Kathryn Davis 27:24 There's really no coincidence, and that God is actively involved in the very details of our lives.
emily adams 27:30 It's amazing when you can get to that point, right?
Kathryn Davis 27:32 It's hard, though. Yeah.
emily adams 27:34 And when you are in it, when you are deep in the muck, it is really, really hard to see God at all. Yeah. Or if you do see God, God seems, at least to me, seemed really awful. So if you can have some experiences where God is good, it's good to hold on to that.
Kathryn Davis 27:51 So remembering the other thing you said, was that looking at scriptures differently helped you? Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
emily adams 28:00 Yes. So I, I, I had to really figure out how to re approach scripture, because, you know, so when the quietness started in January, I would open up my scriptures, and I would just read about a wrathful God. That's what I saw, I saw a wrathful, angry God. And I was like, I don't want any part of this. This is terrible. This is awful. This God is not worth worshiping. So just a lot of things that kind of came together, where, you know, a year and a half later, the scriptures became less of a place of harm, and then more of a place of wrestling. And a lot of it was things like, you know, for example, recognizing that oftentimes, what we read in the scriptures is what we're looking for. So if I go into the scriptures, and I look for wrath, I'm going to find because that's how you're feeling. Because that's a thing. And that's what you're looking for. Like, it's like, for example, if I buy a white Chevy Traverse, and I, you know, yeah, to that point of time, I have never seen a white Chevy Traverse. But now that I've bought a white Chevy Traverse, that is all I can see on the road. So it's just like, whatever you're looking for, you will find, it was helpful to realize that, that my mindset going into the scriptures was influencing how I how I read, I also really liked the idea of complementary principles in the Scriptures. And so oftentimes, in the scriptures, you'll have things that don't seem to go together, like justice and mercy, or, or something like that, you know, and they seem to be at loggerheads with each other. And sometimes we focus just on the justice or sometimes we focus just on the mercy, it just seems like sometimes the scriptures can be at war with each other. And it was helpful to get to a point where I could just hold everything in tension and say, these are just complementary principles. You need both you both of them, you're gonna see scriptures on both sides. You may see scriptures in the middle, and our job is to just sit in the middle and just kind of hold it all together. And that's kind of an uncomfortable place. So if you can get to a point where you're trying to hold them in tension and try, instead of trying to shove everything into one box or the other, I think that it just opens up the scriptures. I also really loved the idea that scriptures are just written by humans. And they are humanity's best effort. And so if we're going to see a lot of the personalities of our Scripture writers in the scriptures, and some people were going to agree with and some people were not, and that is totally okay. It's just humanity's best shot. So we can give our Scripture writers a lot of grace, because I need a lot of grace, and we should give them a lot of grace. And I really loved the idea that diversity in the scriptures is actually a really good thing. So you have, for example, Proverbs, which is, you know, if you it's very transactional, right, if you do X, right, and y will happen. And then you have Ecclesiastes, which is, the world is terrible, there's nothing worth doing. And you have Job that is this wonderful discussion of, you know, chemists, friends that are trying to shove God and Job into a box and jokes, resisting all of it. I mean, the Old Testament is a really great example of kind of lots of diverse viewpoints being put together. And our job is to just kind of hold those all together and say, there's a lot of God is complex, humanity's complex, there's not easy answers. And that is really, okay. So it's really great to get to a point where you can where I could hold things, more intention, realize that there was complexity, realized I did not need to have an opinion on everything, once I read it, that I could just let some things sit and just have questions that would last for a long time that was okay, and to just give the Scripture writers a lot of grace and give myself a lot of grace, as I was reading them.
Kathryn Davis 31:46 we have to give ourselves grace, and we have to give the writers grace, and that we have to understand and trust in the nature and character of God. Right, right. And hold on to that,
emily adams 31:58 and not not throw away things that are making us feel a little uncomfortable. I mean, there are parts of the scriptures that are going to make us feel uncomfortable. And parts that maybe make us feel like that can't be the character of God, you know instead of throwing it away, I've learned that I just have to also hold that space for just hold space for.
Kathryn Davis 32:18 Well, another thing that you mentioned is that prayer became difficult. And sometimes it was just showing up and saying, God, I'm here. And that was the extent of it. So what did you learn about rethinking prayer? That was helpful for you?
emily adams 32:39 So it was really hard prayer was really hard, because I'm like, This is what got me into this mess. Prayer is what got me into this mess. Questions are what got me into this mess. I should never ask questions again. Prayer should be very limited.
Kathryn Davis 32:51 I get that. Right. Right. Sometimes, yeah. And I get like prayers hard, especially when you feel like there's no answer, right? Like, the answers aren't coming. It just seems really hard.
emily adams 33:03 Yeah. Oh, it's just it is incredibly hard. And I began to see prayer differently. So I used to interpret prayers. It starts with Heavenly Father, and then you do your thank him, you ask him, and then you close it Jesus's name. But I've really liked the idea that prayer could be broader than that prayer could be you sitting in a chair, this is what Wendy Ulridge talks about her book, you know, sit in a chair and just invite God, to sit next to you. That's it. That can be a prayer, just inviting God to be with you, being open to God's presence, just inviting him to be with you. The idea of contemplative prayer, you have contemplative prayer is just essentially opening yourself up to God, and you're not going to God for the list of to do's or, or needs or wants, you're just opening yourself up to God's presence. And there's something really powerful about showing up and just saying, God, I'm here, if you want to come, I'd really like it. And all I really would love today is to feel your presence, if that's your will, you know, so I think this is what I need God. And these are the questions I have, I still think that's a really good type of prayer. But looking at more as maybe more of a meditation, or something to just, you know, opening yourself up to have God's presence. I think that that's also a great way to to view prayer. So some might say that that's a little safe. You know, like, if you're afraid of asking God questions. Just inviting him in and sitting next to you might be a little safe. And I think there could be some truth to that. But I do really love, really love the idea of just inviting God to sit next to you and just being willing to take whatever he's willing to give you that day.
Kathryn Davis 34:46 You went through a long period of time where the heavens were silent, that you didn't feel like God was answering your prayers. But do you think God was with you during that time? And is there a difference between him being with you, and you feeling it?
emily adams 35:03 So I am very ready to be wrong about everything that I've said. And what I'm going to say now. I mean, I don't know, there's a lot of things I don't know, I do think that the divine quietness was something that I grew from. And I think it was a really important part of my experience. And whether that meant that I couldn't feel God because it was on my side, or whether it meant that God was just saying, you know, Emily needs a little bit of a break from from God's side, whatever it was, I certainly felt like God was gone. And but I do feel at this point, at the very beginning, I felt that that was awful and cruel. And at this point, I feel that it was really necessary and a really important part of, of my faith journey. So I don't know, if it was on my side, or God's side, or a little bit of both. I've completely prepared to die, go to heaven didn't have God say, Emily, you completely botched it, like, you got that totally wrong. And that's fine. But I do feel like the experience has been something that's been ultimately very good for me. It was really hard in the experience. But it was extremely good for me, in the fact that my faith is changed, it's become instead of being this big, massive thing where I could look to say, Oh, look at how amazing my faith is, look at how righteous I am. It's now much smaller, and it's based on simpler principles. And I'm a little bit more cautious, a little bit more open and a little bit more compassionate. And those are all really good things.
Kathryn Davis 36:33 And I think, you know, maybe it doesn't happen for everyone, I'm sure there are a lot of people who haven't experienced divine quietness. But I think that there is a large majority of us who have. And so there has to be, for me, a reason. And it's hard, but from hard things comes growth. And I know there were things I needed to learn from when Heaven was silent. And that had to be part of my journey. I just, I believe that. And I know that. And so I think there are reasons that we don't understand. But I also think that you know, God, from what I know about God's character is that his ultimate goal is for each one of us to return to him, right. And so there has to be reasons for sometimes that quietness if we want to return to him.
emily adams 37:29 It's so true. And I love the idea in Romans that God can make all things work together for your good, so that these hard experiences can be redeemed, they can be for your good, it might be really hard to see that at the time. But God can make these things work together so that you in the end, are a better person or more Christ like or whatever you need to work out, you can be worked on through these hard things.
Kathryn Davis 37:55 Amen. Well, I am so grateful that you are so willing to share your experience and be vulnerable enough to be able to share how you felt and what you experienced when the heavens were silent. Because I think in sharing, and being open about that there's a lot of us can feel like, okay, there's peace. And here are some things that I can do. Here, I just gotta keep trying and keep doing it. Because I love God. Not because I get X, Y or Z.
emily adams 38:32 Right. And there's a lot of, it's so nice to not feel like you're the only one who have support groups for almost everything. And it is so nice when you feel like you're not the only one who's having this experience. And I loved when I could find something, a book or or an individual that had even a little piece of what I was experiencing, because I could glean things from them. That was that were helpful. I did have one thing that I learned I had a friend that I went on a walk with, and she said that she'd experienced some quietness from God. And so she went and she read these particular scriptures, and then suddenly, everything was fine. So I got home from my walk, and I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna do the same thing. So I wouldn't I read those scriptures. Nothing. What I learned is that, you know, what works for me is not going to work for my friend or for or for you or for anybody else. We're all on our individual journeys. And certainly, we can, you know, learn from each other, we can get support from each other. But what I need to do, and what I need to learn is going to be different than what my friend needs to do and what my friend needs to learn. And so we shouldn't be comparing our journeys at all. We should just be, you know, sharing so that we can hopefully support each other.
Kathryn Davis 39:43 I think it's so important. Well, Emily, at the end of every episode, we like to leave everyone with a small and simple challenge. And I just want to ask you what is something that we can do this week to feel closer to God, even if, or maybe, especially if we feel something like divine quietness?
emily adams 40:08 I think what we talked about before remembering, spending some time and trying to call back some memory, where we felt where you felt that there was something bigger than you out there, where you felt God in your life where you felt peace where you felt left, just try to remember, write it down, hold on to it, or go review. If you have, you know, journals or something where you write down spiritual experiences, go and review those. But it's so important with you when you're in those heart spaces to remember.
Kathryn Davis 40:36 I think it's so important. And I know it's what's seen me through a lot of hard times, is the remembering. And maybe it's one of the reasons why it's the most used word in the Book of Mormon. In the scriptures. Yeah, yeah. Because Heavenly Father understands, right, and to remember, and that's something that I'm going to work on this week is to remember some of those moments. Thank you so much.
emily adams 41:02 Thank you, Catherine. This has been wonderful.
Kathryn Davis 41:06 I loved this conversation today. And I loved when she said that faith needed to be based on the fact that God is good. So maybe when your prayers aren't being answered, and when Heaven feels silent, can you go to what you know about the character of God? And remember that God is good. Thanks for being here. And hop on over to Instagram at magnify community for more inspiration and conversation. And of course, subscribe and listen to the magnify podcast wherever you get your shows. Let's meet up again next week.