BETWEEN HEAVEN AND YOU

“What do you do when heaven stays silent?” I used to think I knew the answer. You pray harder. You believe more. You don’t question. That’s what I was taught. That’s what I lived by. At twenty-one, I was supposed to be strong in my faith. Unshakable. Certain. The kind of girl who didn’t hesitate when she spoke to God, because she believed He always listened. I wanted to be that girl. I really did. But wanting something and becoming it are two very different things. --- It started on a Tuesday. Rain-heavy sky. Gray lecture hall. The kind of day where everything feels a little too quiet, like the world is holding its breath. The lecturer was talking about something I can’t even remember now. Notes. Scribbles. Half-asleep students pretending to listen. Normal. Safe. Until it wasn’t. “Can I ask something?” a voice said from the front. The room shifted. Not because the voice was loud. But because it didn’t belong to the silence. The lecturer paused. “Go ahead.” There was a small laugh somewhere behind me, like someone expected a joke. Then the question came. “What do you do when heaven stays silent?” Silence swallowed the room. Even the pens stopped moving. I remember looking up slowly, like my body understood before my mind did that something had just changed. People were waiting for it to be funny. Or stupid. Or irrelevant. But it wasn’t. It hung there instead. Heavy. Real. And for some reason I couldn’t explain, it didn’t leave. I didn’t know his name yet. I only knew the shape of him in that moment—calm, careless, like he didn’t care who he disturbed. Like he wasn’t afraid of the answer. --- I told myself I would forget it. I didn’t. Because questions like that don’t behave normally. They don’t stay in classrooms. They follow you home. They sit with you in church. They whisper when you pray. And they make you wonder if you were ever really listening… or just repeating words you were taught to say. --- That night, I prayed anyway. Kneeling. Eyes closed. Voice steady at first. “God… I know You’re there…” But halfway through, something in me cracked. Because for the first time, it didn’t feel like I was speaking to Someone. It felt like I was speaking into nothing. Still, I stayed there. Waiting. For warmth. For peace. For anything. But heaven stayed silent. And silence can be louder than answers. --- Six months earlier… That was before I knew Rowan Blackwood’s name. Before I knew he smiled like he didn’t care about consequences. Before I knew he would sit beside me in ways I couldn’t ignore. Before I started questioning not just God… But myself. And everything I believed love was supposed to be.