all the intersections

The past month has been a season of silence.  I've made an attempt to silence myself, no longer trusting my voice.  I have shied away from leadership in my church or small group, from blogging about anything but my silence, from speaking from anger.  I haven't been perfect, but this has been a season of striving toward love and peace in all things.  There have been moments when the silence threatens to break and I am bursting at the seams with restless energy, moments when the silence does break and I speak (and often come to regret it), moments when God speaks through me and the silence transforms into a holy whisper.  These are the moments of clarity, when my silence becomes more than a self-imposed discipline, when it becomes clear that silence must be a continual, life-time practice.

~~~

It was a morning of madness, as I have come to think of it.  I had a bad feeling going into it, a feeling of dread overcame me and I didn't know why.  I should have prayed then and there, but I figured it was just typical Marilee emotions: flighty and unpredictable.

My sense of foreboding proved well-founded.  All hell broke loose.  Yelling, tears, accusations flew as they tore each other apart.  I pretended to not be there, pretending to check my email in a flurry of flustered awkwardness.

And then, as quickly as the storm blew in, it departed, leaving me to observe its painful destruction.  I sent out a desperate text message, a dear friend responded telling me she was praying.  And in the minutes that followed, God gave me the opportunity to speak words of hope and peace to a fractured soul, to tell her that I chose no sides, that I was praying for her, and that I knew how painful this must be for her.  She cried, and my soul wept with her, for the hopeless pain she carries day after day, for her loneliness and alienation, for the destruction she leaves in the wake of pain she carries.  As I gently touched her shoulder, I prayed desperately for peace for her.  For forgiveness in this place where forgiveness is so scarce a commodity.  For tenderheartedness when human nature seeks only its own advancement.  For love to break through when anger takes its wicked course.

I prayed for salvation.  For deliverance.  For an end to all this madness.

And God spoke to my heart that I was just in the right place.  Not taking sides, not giving advice.  Just offering love, peace, and hope.  And standing in the gap, interceding on her behalf and on her enemy's behalf.  Because my love must have no boundaries.

~~~

This particular Bible study was immediately and painfully different than the others.  The alone-in-a-crowd feeling was back and I shrunk into my corner and read a novel, not knowing how to engage a room full of friendly strangers.  My social awkwardness was rearing its ugly head and I hated it.  The room was fuller than it had been before and yet I felt alone.  I had come with so much on my heart, so much that God had spoken to me about the passage we were studying.  I was eager for the small talk to end and the study to begin.

And as quickly as it began, it derailed.  Suddenly we were sprinting full-speed down a rabbit trail that had little to do with the matter at hand.  The discussion was good, but I didn't agree with much of it and didn't know how to express my disagreement.  I remained largely silent, but the silence was a struggle.  I silently mourned the loss of the chance to talk about my earlier discovery.  I had thought it so important, and the opportunity was gone.

And in that moment of frustration and disappointment, God spoke to my heart: Daughter, your desire to speak of that which you know is not always from me.  Learn to be silent, to value the words of others above your own, to bring only mercy, compassion, and love to the table.  Learn to let Me speak through you, or don't speak at all.

~~~

James 1:19-21 (The Message)
Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear.  God's righteousness doesn't grow from human anger.  So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage.  In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.