The sound of silence...

Silence is not really something I know much about. I've always been a gregarious person with a HUGE mouth. Every parent/teacher conference my parents ever had included the words Jami, talks, and a lot. Most of the time I'm not sure I could even pick silence out of a line up. My life is SOOOOOOOOOO loud. We always joke we are "The Loud Family," but it really isn't a joke. My house has a constant din that seems to be the soundtrack of my life. Last summer when we moved in to this quiet, country neighborhood in the boonies, we kept saying, "There goes the neighborhood," because we are ANYTHING but quiet. However, this past month I have really been called to a time of silence.

I'm not entirely sure why, but God called me to silence my fingers this past month. At first it started out as just busyness. To my normal load of mother of four with a husband still recovering from brain surgery who telecommutes and homeschools, I added caring for an elderly Aunt in my house full time and traveling to the city to care for my elderly Grandmother twice a week. Plus I was planning a HUGE birthday gala event for Hannah. Finally, John and I were walking through a bit of a valley (not really a valley... more like a culvert) of fear related to a significant increase in his pain level accompanied by a return of some of his Chiari symptoms. (Visit to the Neurosurgeon earlier this week put all our fears to rest, and switching up of his medications has eased the symptoms and pain.) This all made for a busy time which did not allow for much blogging. I felt a little guilty about leaving you all hanging and not blogging; however, after a little time I realized that I had NOTHING on my heart to blog about. It wasn't that God wasn't moving all around me, but I could tell that there was nothing He was pressing upon my heart to speak about. Then earlier this week the dandelions burst open the dam in my soul, and I could feel my writing pressing upon my heart again. I'm happy to be back, but I'm also contemplating what all that silence was about.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the silence was to shore me up. I am about to enter several months of "one year ago todays." Anniversaries of the most difficult things I have ever in my life dealt with will be hitting me over and over again this summer, and I suspect that (knowing me more intimately than any one else does) my Creator knew I needed a little silence to rest. Only time will tell if that is the truth or not, but I have a sneaking suspicion I will look back on April 2010 as a fortifying time.

However, I digress.... the point is what lesson should the sound of silence bring? To someone like me who can hardly find silence in the din of children, work, and other related chaos, it sometimes becomes a dirty word. Silence! Ha! It tastes a bit bitter like the word Atlantis to the treasure hunter. I know it exists, but my inability to find it makes that word feel icky on my tongue, in my mind. But silence can be the Holy Grail to your soul. In this case, I feel the blog silence was to strengthen me. See as much as I love to write, and as much as I love all of you, sometimes my blogs bring me nothing but trouble. It often feels like no matter how much I share someone always want to know more. Furthermore, sometimes my intent... the moral of my story... is so completely misunderstood, I am left feeling like a failure for not getting my point across more appropriately. Yet while I suspect the main purpose of all this silence was the shoring up thing, there was a hidden agenda too. I discovered that while I hear lessons from God all around me, sometimes the chaotic din is blocking out lessons too. The little lessons, the quiet things are easier to find in the silence.

Well consider yourselves forewarned.... the silence is over! I feel blogs backing up in my heart like cars in a traffic jam on a Friday afternoon. Yet I'm hoping to hold on to the fortitude God brought through this season of silence and striving to remember to seek out the silence with my whole heart so that I can hear the itty bitty lessons He has for me too.

Hope you have a GREAT day and that you can find a little silence today too.