I used to hate silence. I always had to have something in the background. Silence made me come to terms with my own racing thoughts and anxieties.
Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, or maybe it’s because I’m in a better place emotionally, silence truly is golden. Our house is silent a lot of the time, minus the whir of the water heater or dishwasher.
I think we can hear God in the chaos of life, but silence has its part as well. One moment of silence I can recall was when my husband and I went camping at Caballo Lake, New Mexico. We couldn’t wait for the sun to set because we went during Labor Day weekend where, in the desert, it’s still in the 90s during the day. I remember getting up in the middle of the night, and I came out of our tent and looked up at the sky to see something I’ve never seen before: the Milky Way. I’d done my share of camping, but New Mexico in general is sparsely inhabited. The campground we were at was probably 50 miles from any decent-sized town.
I cried when I saw the Milky Way. It was something I’d seen in pictures before, but never with my own eyes. Without the ‘silence’ in the sky – no clouds, no light pollution – I never would have experienced God like I did in that moment.
Readings:
mercies per mile 