Valerie Rae Hanneman
Lamentations 3:28 “Let him sit alone in silence, for the LORD has laid it on him.” (NIV)
I went on a three day retreat called “The Walk to Emmaus” It was one of the most life changing experiences in my life. Before you go on your Walk you are told next to nothing about what will occur - you are simply told not to anticipate anything. I thought that was a little different, but friends had gone on the Walk and they had been really enthusiastic about it afterwards, so even though my middle name is “control freak” I went. I wasn’t anticipating what would happen - but I was most certainly anticipating having three days to focus on my relationship with Father. Due to a number of reasons - mostly job related - my personal time with God not only lacked quantity, it lacked quality. Big time. Now I had this wonderful opportunity to reconnect with Him. I was praying for a fresh encounter with my God.
We were concluding one event at the Walk, about to go to another event when our lay-leader made a startling announcement. “As you go out of here we would like you to practice the discipline of silence.” All of a sudden she had my total focus - what did she mean “discipline of silence?” She went on to explain that we were to maintain a period of silence in which we did not talk to each other. She gave us the period of time, and my jaw hit the floor. I even checked with the woman sitting next to me to make sure I was really hearing what I thought I was hearing. I was. I panicked. The period of time was excruciatingly long. Of course those of you who know me know that five minutes is excruciatingly long for me to be silent. If I am not talking to somebody - then I am talking to me. Stick me in a line of people and we are best-buds by the time we check out. It would not surprise me to find out that I talk while I am asleep. And the lay-leader wasn’t talking about a period of minutes of silence - oh, no, she was talking about hours of silence. HOURS? I CAN’T TALK FOR HOURS?!? As we left to begin our period of silence my mind was in a frenzy of denial. ‘I can’t do this! Does sign language count? Yeah probably. They are crazy to expect this! No normal woman can go this long without talking and I am hardly normal! What if I have an emergency? Okay, I can probably talk if there is an emergency - but what constitutes an emergency? Is pending insanity due to unnatural silence count as an emergency? Cause I am about to go nuts! Can we write notes? O for pete’s sake, Valerie, the pencil would make noise! I am a dead woman - I will not survive this!’ I cannot even tell you how much time I spent freaking out because I could not talk.
Have you seen the contradiction yet? I am ashamed to admit that it took me way too long to see it.
I had longed for, I had prayed for, time with God - a quantity of time - a quality of time. It was the reason that I was there! And I had been given that time - almost gift wrapped. A period of silence. Not only was I insulated from the stress of my life by being at the retreat, but now I insulated from the rest of the people at the retreat. I couldn’t talk to anybody - except God. I had been given quality time - time without outside interruption - with God. I had been given quantity time - HOURS - with God. Everything I had asked for - but I didn’t see it until it was almost too late.
Why did I almost miss this gift? I almost missed it because it did not come wrapped the way that I thought it should. I had lots of ideas of how I was going to renew my relationship with Father but believe me - not being able to talk to others wasn’t even on the radar scope. God is the God of the unexpected. The universe shows how endlessly creative He is and there is no reason not to expect that same creativity in our relationship with Him. I wonder how many times I have missed His creativity because I looked past the unexpected and looked for Him in the mundane?
I almost missed it because He called me to meet Him in unknown territory. He called me to leave my comfort zone. And although with my mouth I obeyed His call to a period of silence, in my mind I rebelled. That was what my freaking out was all about. I didn’t give my period of silence a chance. I didn’t give God a chance to reach me. I simply refused in my mind. I set myself up for failure, I tried to find ways around it. I even threatened insanity if I was not allowed to go back to my comfort zone. I acted like a spoiled child not getting her way. I wonder how many times I have missed something new with God because I have refused to leave what is comfortable in our relationship?
I almost missed my gift from God. But the time came in the frenzy of my mind when I called out to Him, “You have to help me! I can’t go much longer without talking to somebody!” “Talk to me!,” He said, “I thought that’s what you wanted.” Well, duh! He was right. (Of course)
There were two sets of sounds in my silence. The first set was discordant. The sounds of panic and rebellion. The second set of sounds in my silence was the sounds of praise, of worship, of silent words spoken to the One that I needed most to talk to.
LORD God, thank You for the gift of silence. Help me to recognize You in the unexpected opportunities, help me to not rebel when You call me to come out of my comfort zone. I want to dance on the waves with You.
Contact Valerie or sign up for the e-Ministry of Fresno First Baptist at valerie@fresnofirst.org
Posted by Valerie at November 18, 2005 01:46 PM