Silence
I feel very strange tonight. I am home alone for the night,
and I can’t
remember the last time I had a house with no hubby or kids in it for 24 hours.
After I dropped the kids off at their sleepover, I began to
think of all the activities I could accomplish in just one night... plan out
our summer, get ahead on my schoolwork, pray, read, the list was extensive and
I was excited. However, I wasn't in the house long when something odd captured
my attention- silence! This silence made me aware of neighbors chatting, car
doors closing, children playing in the street, a baby crying- I didn't even
know there was a baby that tiny in the neighborhood! Honestly, I was astonished
at all the outside life my ears were detecting. I was reminded of standing in
the desert at nighttime, looking up at the incredible display of stars and
being surrounded by the complete absence of sound yet experiencing the
overpowering awareness of a universe beyond mine. No experience compares to
that, witnessing such grandeur encased in such stillness naturally causes
worship to arise in one's heart.
Tonight my world is silent, yet there is an active world
right outside my doorstep that I seldom notice. I realize that our personal lives
are so noisy, so polluted with constant chatter, media, music, phones, alarms
and a million other distractions that our ability to perceive what is outside
our immediate universe is severely handicapped. We would not hear God if He
were screaming at us, and He rarely screams at anyone. We need more of what He
says, "Be still and know that I am God." Maybe that explains why He
takes us into the desert at times, it is where we can hear Him best if we are
not afraid of the silence.
