Silence is Golden

Today we ended out 48 hours of silence; I feel refreshed, to say the least.

When we were first “released” into our silence, I made myself a nest of blankets and pillows, figuring that I would spend most of my time in my room since it’s so cold and there was rain forecasted for days on end. We were told not to fight being tired… so I didn’t. The first thing I did was take a nap. I slept comfortably for a couple hours and woke up just in time for dinner. But the marvelous part was that I woke up humming a line from a song, “you’re my safe place” and the truth of the matter is that God is my safe place!

I got a ton of sleep the past two days. After about ten hours of sleep I woke up right in time for breakfast (are you noticing a theme of waking up right in time for meals?). But Thankfully, it was sunny! God does hear the cry of my heart! I went for a walk down at the park wondering what God had for me there. I was wondering and I took a couple little trails that I had always overlooked on my other visits. It was wonderful to see what was off the beaten path and see all the hidden benches and charming resting places. I stopped and watched a pair of ducks for a while. I named them Mr. and Mrs. Duck (real original… I know). I watched them swim and dive under water and one would always follow the other. They would swim until they bumped into a piece of ice that was floating and then they would hop up on top and walk on the water, I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself and think “Jesus ducks”.

Backtracking a couple of weeks to another walk down at Fishtrap Park, the other girls showed me how much fun it was to throw rocks through the frozen lake. During my silent walk I could feel that God was tugging on my heart to symbolically give something back to him by throwing a rock through the ice. I wandered until I found a good, solid, frozen spot and a spot that had rocks near it (it’s been above freezing the past couple days so most if the ice was pretty thin). I found the biggest rock I could (granted it was only about half the size of my fist) and I chucked that sucker at the ice as hard as I could. But to my surprise the rock didn’t break through the ice but it just skidded to a stop on the other side of the lake. I stood there completely dumbfounded. Then I realized that it was a melting process. I had expected to watch the rock disappear but instead I just watched it sit there. I know that in the spring the ice will melt and my rock will sink to the bottom but as long as that rock is no longer in my reach then everything will be ok. My spring may come sooner or later than actual spring, or it may never come at all but the fact of the matter is that the rock is no longer mine to hold.

I had come into this retreat hoping that God would just break my heart and that I would be able to cry for some things that I have never really mourned. I spent the evening in the tree house with candles lit just thinking about things and looking through my bible. I was overcome by the word “Hosanna”: it’s the Hebrew word of praise meaning “save”. I was overcome by the feeling that I had come to God in a spirit that was longing to mourn and cry but God wanted a time of peace and celebration with me. God wanted me to sing praise songs and talk walks in the sunshine. He gave me the sunshine so that I could rejoice and be glad, He heard even the trivial cry of my heart.

“Your father knows what you need before you ask him” Matthew 6:8b.