Yesterdays Wonderstruck challenge was silence. Silence is not hard for me kind of like fasting last Sunday night because I usually don't eat dinner on Sunday night. So when Pastor Gregg called for the Sunday evening fast...I didn't squirm. On jot and tittle interpretation, I did have a snack because nothing was said about snacking but I fully understand what he was calling us as a church to do. So if something amiss happens from my snack of a few pretzels before bed, I am truly sorry. But back to silence. When I have a day like yesterday, being at home ensconced, I rarely if ever turn on the TV or radio or music. I love the silence, well except for that ringing in my ears, but that cannot be controlled. It is more like a cicada sound, not ringing but once again I digress. We were encouraged to express our silence, that seems like an oxymoron, in a word, phrase or picture. I decided that to express my silence before the Lord that I would take a picture of the fog yesterday morning. Somewhere in between that thought and missing the fog because it had burned off, were good intentions. Fog is the perfect picture of silence to me; it slows everything down, except for a few wild drivers on I 10, it muffles the sound of cars, it casts the everyday scenery into a different light, and if you are in the fog you must keep focused. Instead of looking at the big picture of the road ahead, your vision is directed at the few feet in front of your car. So in my cone of silence and fog yesterday I heard quite a few things. For one, I have been meditating on a passage in Deuteronomy, yes I am that spiritual she said laughing. One phrase in particular caught my attention and I have been thinking about that phrase for the past four or five days. Are you ready for this because you know it is coming, I was in a fog concerning this phrase, I could not get my brain or heart around it, but I knew it was important for me to understand. I sometimes forget that Roy has all kinds of Bible software and commentaries on the computer as well as the volumes of commentaries, dictionaries, and study books behind me in the bookcases, you know because of the fog. I began combing through a few of the books but could not find anything definitive on the passage but then...on a whim, I pulled out the chronological NLT study Bible I had bought last fall and low and behold, it had an explanation of the phrase and even better yet, it was an explanation that I could understand. So I got out some paper and began writing the meaning of the phrase and how it applies to life and living a set apart life. It all came together in the silence of the morning which is nothing like the song Call Me Angel of the Morning. See the ADD is really bad today.
Another moment of silence came this morning here at the computer. I was all ready to blog, read some FB and Twitter when I discovered the Internet was down. Now that my friends will really silence one. I thought about going over my homework but that wasn't going to hold my attention, so I opened my Bible and read a passage in James. Oh and I did it the way they all tell you not to do, but I just opened up my Bible. It was just the thing I needed to read this morning and it dovetails into the phrase I had the ah ha moment about yesterday. Love when that happens. The Internet came back up later and I am happy to see it and catch up but I am also thankful for that morning silence with my ears attuned and my heart ready to receive that personal touch and the wonderful aspect of this to think over is, this was happening all over the world, to many people,the personal touch of God.
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