The lights are dim and I hear a sweet suckle on a pink pacifier. Her breaths get quick and short as she searches her crib for my face.
I whisper, "shhhhhhhhhh" and her feet stop kicking. Her hands relax from flailing and she holds tight to her chest. "Brooke, Mama is here," I barely let the words leave my lips.
She knows I am there, although she cannot see me.
This routine reminds me of having faith in my God. I cannot see him, surely I can see the beautiful work of his hands in my daughter's face, the seasons changing, and the life all around me, but I cannot see his face. Brooklyn cannot see my face as I lay her to sleep, but she can hear my voice. And if I am still, if I truly sit and listen, I hear my Heavenly Father calling out to me.
The first time I truly heard God's voice was my junior year in high school. While laying on a freezing gray concrete floor in North Park University between a row of chairs, the speaker
I usually count my breaths when nothing is going on, I usually get to 10 then get bored and start tapping my foot or fingers. I think about what I ate for lunch. Where Ashley, Karen, Ben, Andy, Jamie are sitting. How cold that darn floor is. STOP? This was torture.
"Be still, be quiet. Don't think to breath, just lay there and be."
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? There is NOTHING there!
But I trusted, and sat, and waited. Finally I got to the point where I literally heard nothingness. (This is how I trained myself to fall asleep so quickly too, but have since lost that talent with the becoming of a worrying mother and all... or more so thinking mother.)
I'm not sure if it was that day, or another day that we did this exercise again. My memory sucks, p.s. did you notice? But this time, the speaker challenged us to be silent, to still our minds and simply listen to the scripture he read. We were supposed to see what stuck out to us and then repeat that over and over and over until he spoke again. I know that I wrote down what stuck out to me in a journal that is buried in my basement at the moment.
It went something like this: "Psalm 25:4-5
Show me the right path, O Lord, point out the road for me to follow,"
for me to follow, for me to follow, for me to follow on and on and on and on.
Then we did this again, I would have missed the rest of what he said, and I waited to hear what God wanted me to get out of this lesson.
"Show me the right path, O Lord, point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me."
God who saves me, God who saves me, God who saves me.
"Show me the right path, O Lord, point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you."
Hope in you, hope in you, hope in you, hope in you.
Does any of it make sense when put together?
For me to follow, God who saves, hope in you.
Nope, but each moment I clearly heard that what stuck out to me, and that was ALL that I heard, and it was JUST what God wanted me to hear. Just those few words, or even one word. It was like, deep within my soul, a tug that made those words sound different than everything else. So surely, it was some man's voice that said them, but truly God who spoke them.
By faith, I know that was the voice of God.
So when B-lyn goes down to sleep, she has this sense of faith that I am right there, although she cannot hear me. When she grows up, she will hear my voice even when I am not around. "Brooke, be kind. Be gentle. Use nice hands. Look before you cross the street."
Tonight I called out to her and she wrestled in her bed after a few "shhhhhhhhh"es, "Brooklyn, Mama is right here." in a quiet whisper, and she heard me, because she was listening.
God is calling out to each of us, but we are so busy we don't even take the time to listen for it.
Do you?
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