itsawonderfilledlife

Anyone else feeling that the start of 2021 to be discouraging?

Anyone else shaking their head?

Anyone else feeling defeated already?

Anyone else feeling that the noise, the chatter of everyone around them, is so loud all you can do is be quiet?

I had to pull myself together recently, as I felt that the darkness in our world was overtaking me, pulling me down into a pit of despair.

I don’t think I am alone in that despair.

What are we to do we do when we encounter despair, disappointment, sin and evil?

There are those who must declare, shout out, announce their every thought for all the world to hear.

I am not one of those people.

I need to feel the sorrow, the loss, the tragedy. I need to take it in and turn it over, and over and over again.

I need to weep in the sadness of in inhumanity of humanity. Allowing that sadness to become part of me.

I need to pray … groaning to God, who I acknowledge must ache far more than I. It is only in conversation with Him that comfort and answers are found.

In Augustine’s writings in The Confessions, he pleads, “Bend down to my soul’s ear, O Lord; open it, and tell my soul: I am your salvation.”

Augustine’s concern is not his own silence, but his perceived silence of God. He begs for God to take the Q-tips to his own soul’s ears (something no doctor would advise) and clean them out so that he might hear the message that God seems to be hiding from him. Augustine is looking for what we humans all long for at one time or another …

a message in the stars,

a rainbow in the sky,

an audible voice from his God.

He demands to hear from God, what his soul is already fully aware of …

that he’s got this

Whatever this is …

And so, while I listen for the voice of God, while I am quiet so that I can hear his voice in my soul …

I am quiet, but not blind.

“Be silent in the LORD’s presence and wait patiently for him.”
Psalm 37:7