Growing

Sometimes being quiet is the loudest way to love.

It is so hard for me to learn this.

The Lord is gently and slowly teaching me how to love by being quiet. For too long, I have equated being quiet with being silent, when they are not the same. A gentle, quiet love does not shy away from speaking the truth. It just doesn’t shout and shove while it’s sharing.

I know it will still be difficult to learn, but I’m grateful I’m being taught how to do this. It fosters growth and love far more effectively than my silence or my shouts have ever done. It is not explosive or dramatic. It is steady and unwavering. Always there, always ready, always truthful, and always full of love.

Learning to love quietly in this way is so beautiful. But sometimes it is so hard. When I see articles about yet another example of the deeply twisted and cruel society we live in, I do not want to love quietly. I do not want to be calm and steady.

I want to scream.

And believe me, some of these posts will be screams.

But right now I am not called to scream. Right now I am called to learn, to love quietly, to gather my strength and to gather my understanding. Maybe then I will be called to scream. Maybe by then it will not be a scream but something so perfectly written that it cannot help but be heard.

God, my God, I hope so.

Because today I want to scream.

But I will sit. Quiet, still, learning, growing, and understanding my own power and gifts far better than before. Knowing them well enough to use them effectively without screaming.

Maybe.