The Sound Of Silence

Psalm 46:10 "Be still, and know that I am God..."  KJV

Yes!  I did steal the title of this blog.  From a song from a movie that makes me very old if I say I watched it.  (Trivia for those of you on the front side of 50)  But is silence not the most blessed sound in the world?  And yet isn't it the most difficult sound to make out?  How often do we sit, surrounded by noise and chaos, with a sense that perhaps we are missing something?

I spent the first half of my life making lots of noise.  I couldn't stand the silence.  In school I joined every club, went to every afterschool activity, was in band, chorus, cheerleading, swim team.  I worked before school and after school.  Later on as I became a mom, I filled my days with doing.  If your a mom, you know what "doing" is.  Trying to be super mom.  Every play date, every activity, every sport.  Ballet, soccer, 4-H, church, and so on.  When my marriage fell apart and I went back to work, I spent hours "doing".  Chasing success, going back to school, joining clubs.  As my kids got older and I became less smart (oh you moms know what I mean), I spent hours and hours trying to change their minds.  I had to be the cool mom, the mom who made 100 cupcakes,the mom who chaired the dance, the pta (that's what it was when parents actually helped the teachers) president, brownie troop leader.  There was never any silence in my life.  Never any room for me to hear from anything or anyone.  There was a deafening amount of noise that overshadowed any ability of God to speak to me.

When you spend your life making mistakes, silence is your worst enemy.  In the silence are the voices that tell you how bad you are.  How guilty you are.  How screwed up you are.  Not voices like Sybil heard (another trivia moment for you).  Just the voices of the enemy as he tries to draw you away from God.  And since I never knew I could talk to God, I never knew that He might want to speak to me in return.  God was someone who talked to moses or abraham or maybe even that crazy hankie throwing preacher on tv.  I was willing to do anything to avoid the silence.  My friends used to say they never knew how I could keep up the pace I kept up for all those years.  I once drove 8 hours to watch my son run in a 30 minute cross country meet and then turned around and drove home too be at work the next morning.  All because I didn't want anyone to think I was a bad mom.  In the silence of my life, that's all I heard.

Psalm 34:4 "I sought the Lord and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears"  KJV

Once you have heard the whispers of the Almighty, you yearn for silence.  You know that quiet is nothing to fear.  The voices of the enemy have no power over you.  Not that he won't try.  But when you have the Holy Spirit in your heart and He speaks to you, there is nothing that you can't overcome.  Try to find some quiet time each day.  For some of you that might even have to be the bathroom.  But if your kids (or animals) are like mine, they are sure there is a secret exit that you are going to use and they spend all their time trying to figure out how to get into the bathroom or get you out of the bathroom.  No matter what, even if you have to get up 30 minutes early (did I just say that.....buy a Keurig, it will help the earliness of the morning be more acceptable) or go to bed  a few minutes later, take the time to find some silence.  Take time to listen to the Holy Spirit.  Take time to give your mind time to heal.

I still work too hard and run too fast and do too much.  I still have a long way to go to overcome my desire to be "super" at everything.  When I sit down to write these daily blogs, I have to spend some time in silence.  Waiting to hear what God wants me to say.  Making sure that it's His approval I seek and not the approval of the world.  I imagine He sometimes laughs at His headstrong, opinionated daughter who writes, erases, writes, erases, argues, gives in, and ultimately shares with you the things He puts into my heart.