Silence - The Keeper of Grace

The action of grace in our hearts is secret and silent - from Tables in the Wilderness by Preston Yancey

I have never really gotten on well with silence. It’s so far removed from who I am. I thrive on the noise that accompanies my day. Each interaction, each task full of loud clanging.

I really wish I wasn’t like that. I really wish I could see the goodness of grace in the silent, in the secret places. I am so desperate for peace yet so afraid of what the stillness might bring.

And because it’s always still before the storm I am afraid of what the silence will unearth so I make things busy and noisy and distracting.

As if. As if I could stop the howling wind with sheer determination. As if. Each excuse for not resting in the quiet just delays the inevitable surrender.

I believe my fear of silence has also silenced my pen. My words bottle up and then vanish because I can’t be bothered to sit down and invite them to slide silently across my page.

I am so afraid of where stillness might lead that I have not even asked God to show my fear and to help me seek the quiet.

I feel so disconnected from my soul, from those things that I love and feed my soul. I feel as if I am a wasteland that is drying up.

And it’s not until I realize that there is nothing I can do, nothing I can accomplish that will make this better. Nothing that will find me seeking silence until I accept that Jesus is the only person who can fill those places in me where fear shouts.

May I stop looking for ways to fill the empty places in me with my own strengths. May those empty places remain just that, empty until Jesus fills me.