The Sky That Refuses to Answer

The Sky That Refuses to Answer

A Reflection on Silence, Storms, and the Creator’s Unfinished Work in Us

By Kateb Shunnar

There are nights when you step outside, tilt your head back, and the heavens look like they’re holding a secret. The clouds hang still, the stars hide behind curtains, and you find yourself whispering, “Well? Are You gonna say anything?” But the sky doesn’t blink, doesn’t crack, doesn’t even cough. It just stares back at you, mute and endless. And that’s when the suspicion creeps in that maybe the Creator’s forgotten your name, maybe your prayers got lost in the shuffle, maybe your line snapped and no one on the other end even noticed. But then, deep down in that strange quiet, something nudges you to stay. To breathe. To believe that silence doesn’t mean absence it means the story isn’t done yet.

I’ve always wrestled with silence. As a child, I thought it was punishment. If people stopped talking, it meant I’d done something wrong. If the Creator didn’t answer, it meant He wasn’t interested. But life and a stubborn grandmother named Celestine taught me otherwise. Silence, she said, is not the end of the sentence. It’s the pause before the words return. “Even the Creator breathes between His notes,” she’d whisper when I got restless. And I hated how right she was, because waiting is one of the hardest tests.

Once, my grandmother told me a story that I’ve never been able to shake. She said there was once a desert wanderer who grew so desperate for water he cursed the Creator. He stomped his feet in the sand, shook his fist at the blazing sun, and shouted, “If You cared for me, You’d fill my cup right now!” The desert gave him nothing but silence. He raged until his voice cracked, then fell to the ground in exhaustion. Hours later, when he could barely lift his head, he noticed dew gathering on the rocks around him. Just enough to wet his lips, just enough to give him strength for one more mile. “The Creator may not answer like thunder,” my grandmother said, “but sometimes He answers like dew quiet, almost invisible, but exactly what you need.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been that wanderer. Yelling into the wind, begging for a thunderclap, only to get what felt like nothing. And yet, later on, when I looked back, I realized the Creator had slipped small mercies into my path all along. The job that came just before eviction. The stranger who smiled when I thought I’d vanish from the world. The unexpected check in the mail when I swore the light bill would bury me. It wasn’t fireworks. It was dew.

But let’s not sugarcoat it. Silence can be cruel in its timing. You pray for answers about your health, your family, your future, and instead of clarity, you get stillness. And people, bless their hearts, will come along and feed you those tired clichés: “Don’t worry, everything happens for a reason.” Or my personal favorite: “The Creator never gives you more than you can handle.” Oh really? Tell that to the single mother working two jobs who hasn’t slept in three days. Tell that to the grieving man staring at an empty chair at the dinner table. Sometimes it sure feels like we’ve been given more than we can carry. And maybe that’s the whole point maybe the Creator does give us more than we can handle so we finally learn we were never supposed to carry it all by ourselves.

I remember fishing with my grandfather one summer evening. The sun was sinking, the mosquitoes were winning, and my patience had packed up and left hours ago. I yanked at my line too hard and snapped it clean off. I was furious, convinced I’d ruined everything. My grandfather just chuckled, patted me on the back, and said, “Sometimes the fish ain’t yours, boy. Sometimes the break is the blessing.” Back then I rolled my eyes. Now? I see how many times in life the Creator has let something snap relationships, jobs, plans because it wasn’t mine to catch in the first place. Sometimes the mercy is in the break.

And still, storms come. They don’t ask for your permission. They barge in, scatter your plans, and leave you feeling like a tree stripped bare. And yet, isn’t it strange how storms reveal what’s rooted deep? You only learn how strong the trunk is when the wind tests it. You only discover your own resilience when the ground shakes under your feet. And yes, you’ll lose some leaves, maybe even some branches. But the core? It holds. And that holding isn’t your doing it’s the Creator’s grip on you, steady even when your knees buckle.

There’s another old tale I once heard from a friend. A farmer, sick of drought, prayed every night for rain. Weeks passed. Nothing. He cursed the skies. He threatened to stop believing. Finally, after nearly giving up, he walked his fields one last time and saw tiny green shoots pushing through the cracked earth. He realized the seeds had been alive all along, waiting, growing roots in secret. The Creator’s silence wasn’t neglect it was incubation.

Isn’t that just like us? We think silence means we’re forgotten, when often it means something is rooting deeper than we can see. Maybe the storm isn’t killing us it’s planting us.

And let’s not pretend we don’t get ridiculous in our waiting. You tell yourself, “I surrender, I trust the Creator,” and five minutes later you’re refreshing your bank app like He’s running a customer support line. Or you promise patience, then snap at the driver who doesn’t hit the gas the very second the light turns green. We’re funny creatures half trusting, half doubting, stumbling toward faith with one hand open and the other clenching tight. And yet, the Creator sees us, ridiculous and flawed, and still calls us His own.

My mother, Marva, used to say, “You’ll never hear the Creator in your panic. Quiet your heart if you want to catch His whisper.” She was right, though I fought her on it as a kid. Back then, quiet felt boring. But now I see what she meant. You can’t hear the violin if you’re only listening for the drum. You can’t catch the dew if you’re waiting on thunder.

So here’s the mystery, the suspense that keeps us restless: none of us know the ending. We’re all living in the middle chapters the messy, complicated parts where the villain seems loud, the hero seems tired, and the plot twists feel unfair. But maybe suspense isn’t cruelty. Maybe suspense is mercy. Because if we knew the ending, we’d stop walking. If we could see the last page, we’d close the book too soon. Suspense keeps us leaning forward. It keeps us trusting the Author whose hands never slip.

So if you’re standing in the thick of it right now, if the sky above you refuses to answer, don’t assume you’ve been abandoned. Maybe the silence is the breath before the symphony. Maybe the Creator is still writing. And maybe the holiest phrase you’ll ever hear in your storm isn’t “The End” but “To be continued.”

Because sometimes, that’s the Creator’s greatest kindness

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