3 gifts found in silence

 

It was so hard to find a moment of silence today. 

There’s the sound of construction that’s practically in my back yard.  Honestly, that frustrated me because it was such a beautiful almost spring day.  So nice I wanted to sit on the porch and be silent.  Breathe in the fresh air and have a moment of peace and quiet.  

But instead I heard the almost constant beep of the machines, of the loud clanks of the dump trucks emptying the bed of dirt.  The squeak of brakes.  It’s been going on for months!

Today, this day where I was on the hunt for the gift found in silence, there were so many distractions.  The big machines, the dogs barking, the neighbor next door making some kinds of ruckus in her backyard, the garbage truck, the recycle truck.   And then another loud noise…so loud it made me go look out the window.  It was the truck that picked up sticks and yard debris.  It didn’t normally come on Wednesdays.  I remembered we had two trash cans full of sticks, so I ran to the side of the house to get them to the road before the truck drove by our house. 

I made it on time and just stood there as the man in his bright florescent safely vast dumbed the sticks into the machine in the back of the truck that shredded the sticks into little pieces.  It was so LOUD!  I looked at the man’s ears to see if he had plugs in them.  He didn’t.  I don’t know how he does it every day!  He really must have hearing damage with that job!

Does he ever hear silence?  Does he always have a ring in his ear because he hears a LOUD roar 8 hours a day 5 days a week?  Is it constant?

Most of the day we hear noise the entire day…traffic, radio on in traffic, meetings at work, fingers typing at work or checking facebook, kids laughing or bickering, the TV, iPod exercising, the laundry machine or dish washer running and the list can go on.

Is it only at night when you’re in bed ready to go to sleep when you hear silence?  Even then I have to have a noise machine on!

And then if and when we do have a moment of silence, we don’t know what to do with it!  It’s a rare moment we don’t often have. We don’t often make the time for it. 

But in those moments of silence are the times where we can hear God’s voice the most.  In silence, when we stop talking, when we stop listening to all the distractions, when stop thinking of all the things we still need to do the rest of the day, in that silence we can rest.  Rest in the silence of peace.  Rest in the silence of grace.  Rest in the Spirit for refreshment or to be rejuvenated. 

Silence is a gift from God but we often don’t know how to use that gift.  Silence is a gift we can give God, as well.

#213   when silent, when you take time to listen, your heart can hear what God is teaching you.  When I was silent today I heard the teaching that…

History = His Story. You have your own story. You have a history. You continue to make history every day.   Your history might not make it into a book that students study at school in history class or in the local news, but daily moments in your life make history in His Book.  You history lessons in your life vary from “hard to grasp” to “easy to see the reasons”.  You make history for God’s purpose and plan. You are making the history of God’s Story…God’s Book of Life.

#214  the silence on my morning walk.  Even though the birds were singing in a chorus the entire way, that was still a peaceful sound.  But it was still a silence to listen and praise and give God thanks.

#215  the silence in the kitchen for 5 minutes while fixing dinner.