God Speaks In The Silence

I have this remarkable friend who is incredibly organized in ways I can only imagine because I don't have the skills or the wherewithal to emulate their example.  

But one of the gifts they gave me was a challenge to clean up the unread text messages on my phone and to clean and organize my email inbox.  

The text messages were easy; I got those done in under an hour--deleting most of them and unsubscribing from all of the spam texts I receive from merchants and political organizations. 

But the email inbox was a different story.  

I had roughly 160,000 emails in my inbox, and over 77,000 were unread.  For those super organized folks who are reading this, please don't judge me.  Your heart may be pounding a little from the stress of reading that first sentence, but it gets better, trust me.  

It took me almost a week, but I now have a clean inbox with only 11 emails (as of today), and my trash and junk mail boxes are cleaned daily.   I've also unsubscribed from over 400 spam email lists, which keeps growing.  When I get a spam email, I unsubscribe from the list and delete it. 

Additionally, I've created folders to store emails I want to keep based on the subject matter, which I've never done before. 

If you were wondering if there was a point to this, there is.  

I didn't realize how much noise all those emails and texts created in my life until they were gone.  I'm now receiving fewer emails daily, and the ones I receive are almost all from trusted sources.  

It's the digital equivalent of peace and quiet.  

One of the many things I learned during my week-long silent retreat at a Benedictine monastery this past summer is how much silence matters to us when we seek oneness with God. 

You see, God is always speaking, always being revealed all the time, all around us.  But we are often too distracted by the noise in our life, which keeps us from hearing God's voice. 

But if we can reduce the noise and find space for quiet, we can hear God's voice again, speaking to us in our once-scattered thoughts, whispering to us in love the truths about who we are.  

That we are cherished.  That we are filled with Divine purpose.  That we are enough. 

May you find ways to make space for quiet in your life today and every day from this day, and may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.