I am wound too tight by schedules and piles these days while quiet lingers always out of grasp, and so many bodies in tight spaces can overwhelm a heart longing for reverberation. His voice, it seems, comes to me like pond ripples, such a subtle vibration that I’m want to miss it for all the squeaky wheels.
Some people hear Him loud and clear, in clarity and certainty, but my amateur ear is deaf to His loudness as of yet, and the booming voice seems to become another fog horn in the harbor, another barking seal, another bustle of the marketplace.
It’s the straining in the silence when He speaks to me most, tuning my ear to a sound outside my untrained range, like hearing a dog whistle. A lot of children can hear dog whistles when the rest of us are oblivious. A lot of children see and hear God, too, in the everyday, in the subtle things we breeze past in the ever-swifter movement of pursuit, whether they recognize Him in the mystery or just dance inside the carefree beauty of the universal uncertainty that the rest of us fight off with aggression. Children are good at this, but for me it takes work and I confuse work and works so very much I’m not sure I know the difference at all some days, but there is a difference, you know.
I go about it all another day—shake my fists and consent to another obligation, another distraction for His glory, but a busy schedule for God can never replace a quiet moment with God and I’m forever tangling the two into knots, like James in the Scriptures but messier—faith and works and love and silence and service and doubt and righteousness and resilience braided into a bristling rope, a noose built by silent oblivion with which I strangle God right out of my own paper heart, frayed at the edges and beating slow and cold and ever more independent. But a heart without God is a heart without oxygen and it is always in gasping for air that I meet Him face to face.
So I pray, desperate and wordless, for just one gasp at a time, only enough to sustain me for the moment. I want wild eyes and a thirsty tongue, gaping lungs and clawing hands that never cease knowing how badly I need Him, how essential to my survival those pond ripples really are, how very much I miss when I don’t let them move and nourish and define me. There is not enough room for radical love when the life noose gets tight, but inside the moment-by-moment God breath, there is nothing but room—an infinite supply of grace, love, peace, and life in enough abundance to bulge and burst and cover us all in His riches. Much like manna, though, it is purely momentary and in this temporal life, a heart must return to it day by day and breath by breath. We stumble, in this, and with eyes at their clearest I see it starkly behind the façade, the world a wasteland of spoiled and hoarded abundance.
Lord, reign on us. Rain on us. Bring your grace and truth—day by day, breath by breath, ripple by ripple—near enough to sustain with just enough drought to keep us ever thirsty for You. Amen.
Cara, this is such a beautiful post–straight from your heart, and I get it, I completely get it. It’s a messy place learning to hear and serve but yet be still and listen. These words from you are a beautiful breath of honest surrender and His grace. Thank you.
Thank you for the encouragement, Kris. You lift my heart. <3
Much like manna, though, it is purely momentary and in this temporal life, a heart must return to it day by day and breath by breath. Yes and amen. I need it like manna to fill me up, only to wake up and fill the empty again tomorrow. Lovely write Cara.
Thank you, Shelly. Sweet blessings, friend.
Cara, this is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I love the poetry in your words, melodic and lyrical, drawing me deeper — into the space of a breath, where I can feel His still, small Voice welcoming me, my heart longing — where “His voice, it seems, comes to me like pond ripples, such a subtle vibration…” Thank you for these words, this space, this breath of grace.
And right back atcha, for your breath and words of grace, Cindee. Thank you.
one of your best, Cara. i love the honesty, the desperation of this piece. it calls to my own need and the dryness of this hungry heart.
love this quote, and hold onto it in days where i’m praying for grace to rain,
” . . . for Jesus, peace seems to have meant not the absence of struggle, but the presence of love.” (Buechner) these words anchor me.
thank you, friend. honored to share this.
Thank you for the quote, Kelli. So often I forget that love and peace are not found only in the absence of trouble (or the absence of a full schedule) but right in the midst of every breath, for the asking. Love to you, friend.
Oh. My, oh, my. What beauty and Truth.
Thank you for helping me shift into the proper gear for the week, miss Carla.
Blessings.
Thank you for your sweet words, Darlene.
Beautiful, just beautiful breaths of grace and truth. Thank you!
Oh, how you write . . How beautiful He is in you, Cara. You make us thirsty here. Thank you.