Silence

Silence...do I know what silence is? Let's see...when I am driving I listen to music, when I a with Mark we (mostly me) are talking, when I am at work there is constant sounds of phones, talking and business, when I take a quiet bath or spend quiet time my mind is going crazy being loud with the thousands of thoughts that are running through my mind. I am not sure that I know what silence is. And yet I feel as though it is critical to my walk with God. How, if I am never quiet, do I hear God speak? How, if my mind is always going, do I experience true peace and restfulness?

I often feel stressed, overwhelmed and over stigmatized and have no idea why. And now I am beginning to wonder if it is because I never ever experience true silence. And if I am honest I might say that silence, true silence, is a little scary.

I talk a lot. And when I say a lot I mean all the time. Its habit I guess. It drives Mark crazy because he in fact likes silence and is good at practicing pure silence and me I am good at disturbing that silence. I find the constant need to tell him every thought that goes through my mind and I don't even realize I am doing it. This is something I have been working on for a while now. I want my words to be few and everything I say to be important and not useless. Anything else just gets me in trouble and annoys those around me. So if I could get this down silence may just come easier but really these are two very much related topics but also two very seperate topics...back to silence.

I want to try and spend time being truly silent each day. I will start off small maybe 3 min and grow from there. I think God calls us to practice and incorporate silence into our lives but what a struggle this is in our busy busy world. We are trained and raised to have overactive brains. We are always thinking, seeing, and listening and we don't really know any different. I suppose the only way I will pratice silence is away from phones, clocks, music, people, signs, books and anything else distracting. A closed room with nothing else going on. Quiet...oh how we all long for peace and quiet yet we rarely seek it and practice and take it seriously.

Today I will begin quieting my mind,talking less, thinking less, listening and seeing less....more Jesus please...