You'll learn things if you just sit and listen.
This is what I've found one week into being a home-owner.
As I sit now I hear crickets outside my window. I hear the clumsy tumble of our fridge in the kitchen making ice. I'm learning the scuttling sound in the hallway is gusts of air from the air conditioner racing up the vents. When I'm quiet I can hear our neighbors playing the banjo across the street. Sounds have meaning.
I'm still learning what the gentle groans and creaks of our floorboards mean. The way the roof shudders in the wind. I like to think it's telling me how it feels, using the only words it knows.
You'll learn things if you just sit and listen.
Twenty-six years have taught me to listen to my breath. Am I holding it? Letting it out in relief or stress? Why can't it flow? I'm learning to listen to the deep and labored sighs I breathe when I'm tired, or can't find peace. It's time to stop, inhale, take a break.
This physical house of my soul reflects its inner workings. I'm learning to be still and listen.
These days I'm not so subtle. I use words like weapons I can't control. Words that come rushing on the scene before I know I've said them. They sound foreign, like they belong to some other girl who's desperate to be heard.
You never know what you're saying until you just sit and listen.
I've forgotten how to be still and listen.
Less of me, more of Him.
The first few nights the sounds of my house kept me up-- what was that? Who is there? Why is that rattling and where did it come from? And as I face them I find I can rest, because I take the time to track the sounds down with my ears. To address their needs, to just let them be.
But it isn't just the new house that keeps me up lately. It's the house I'm in. It talks, stresses, thinks and worries. It wonders about the future and groans and creaks.
When did I stop taking the time to be still and listen? Why can't I stop making noise? The words rush and I just say things because I feel them. But do I really listen?
I'm learning I need rest when I make "noise". I need someone outside myself when all I can see is myself. Especially when what He has to say brings so much life.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
I can rest because my creaks have been heard and tended. I have a Father who knows the noises of my house even better than I do. I've been heard, I've been undeservedly loved and taken in.
I hear the beauty of life when I just sit still and listen.