Silence

I believe that everyone, regardless of who you are, has a voice and that voice needs to be heard. I find myself sometimes believing I am not worthy of being heard. Surely I have nothing intelligent or worthwhile to say. But I find myself sometimes getting into a trap of just talking way too much, and my words become a huge mess of noises. On the other side of this, I believe everyone has a voice that needs to be silent. Where we stop thinking we can help or know the answers to everyone problems. Have we lost the art of listening?

I'm a question asker to the point where I have to seriously punch myself in the face to stop asking people questions. I tend to listen, but definitely don't listen as much as I talk. And I think most of you would agree that I like to talk. :) I just find it hard to listen. It's a weakness of mine. Because of that weakness I always want to ask people questions so that I can learn a little more about who they are.

That makes sense in my brain because sometimes all I want is for someone to ask me questions. Questions that challenge me and strengthen me...ya know those good ones where you just start crying cuz it was that good of a question. But I'm being blessed by silence. It's what I need right now.

I'm struggling with hearing people telling me words of things I already know. It's things that people are really being sincere with, but it just hurts my heart. It's a time in my life right now where I just need to be heard and in return I just need silence.

But how on earth do we discern that in peoples lives? How do we know when to be silent or when to use our words?

I'm grateful for the words people are speaking into my life. They are encouraging. But don't you ever just find that after you hear the same thing over and over again you just sense it's the "right" thing people should be saying and just want them to stop saying it. It's like that record that has a crack in it and is stuck on the same phrase that keeps repeating over and over again. That your brain just gets numb to those words and more frustrated because it won't stop? Yeah. That's me.

I'm guilty. I say things to people all the time that are the "right" things to say instead of just being silent. It makes me look important, intelligent, witty, and cocky. I apologize for playing that game. I want to listen more to people and just be silent. I spend so much time thinking of what I am going to say that I miss half of what someone is telling me. And in all actuality what that person is telling me is most likely what I need to be hearing.

There are things you cannot understand, and you must learn to live with this. Not only must you learn to live with this, you must learn to enjoy this.
~Donald Miller