In the silence.

Today ends 9 days of complete silence!  I must first say that I am SO thankful to talk.  Secondly, I am SO thankful for Apple (the iPad and iPhone made communicating with people/ordering food a whole lot easier) ;).  

For those of you who don’t know, my time of silence was due to small nodules on my vocal chords, which was from over-singing while being sick for too long!  I am on the mend and continue to believe for my complete healing!

Seeing that I have been silent for over a week, it seems fitting that I should write about silence.  Now, I am not promising anything profound to come forth; but, I do know that the majority of people do not do vocal fasts, so hopefully you can learn something new from my experience!

Two funny things I learned while being quiet:

 Ordering food.  One of the BEST reactions I got while being on vocal rest was when I would go in and order food.  Obviously, I could not go through drive-thru (though I do have an awesome voice app that speaks for me in a British accent!).  So before I would go in, I would type out my order in my notes app on my iPhone, then I would go in, motion to the person working the register that I had no voice and proceed to show them my phone.  We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words but so were the facial expressions given to me by the people working the registers!

 Mute vs. Deaf.  I also learned that apparently a majority of our population does not know the difference between someone who is mute and someone who is deaf.  I cannot count the times someone told me that they were sorry that I was deaf or the number of times someone changed the volume of their speaking voice since I couldn’t talk!  If you were one of those people, please do not take offense to this!  We all have our moments :)))

 3 things God showed me while being quiet:

 Words.  You never realize how important something is until you do not have it anymore.  My inability to communicate with people was a huge struggle, and I realized how important not only words are but how important being able to speak words out is to us as human beings.  I heard once (don’t hold me to this!)  that when you speak a word, it never stops.  The sound waves continue to move passed just the moment the word was uttered.  Stops and makes you wonder what you are speaking out of your mouth over friends, over family, etc.  It makes me value my words so much more and my ability to speak them.

 Relationship.  With words, we are able to communicate and through communication, relate with one another.  I have to say that these days of silence were depressing.  Without words, I automatically lost one of the most common ways to relate with the people around me.  I realized on a whole new level that we are purposefully created to have relationship not just with God but with the people around us.  There is strength and unity in our relationships with one another, and I took that for granted.  There is a reason God didn’t stop with Adam.  He created Eve so that Adam would not be alone.  

 Prayer.  Obviously I couldn’t speak even when it came to praying.  While I do believe God hears my thoughts without me having to verbally speak them, it is extremely hard to keep your thoughts focused when you can’t verbally speak them.  So over the past 9 days, I had a hard time praying.  (Maybe that’s not a good thing to admit, but I am not trying to hide who I am.  We all struggle at times!)  I could definitely tell that I felt not only spiritually but also physically different, almost dry.  I realized in a new way the power prayer and having consistent communion with God has in my life.  I honestly do not see how people who do not have God in their lives live.  I really cannot fathom it.  

 I hope this encourages you all!  Let me know what ya think and be blessed!

 “In the silence You are speaking.

In the quiet I can feel the fire.

And it’s burning, burning deeply

Burning all that it is that You desire to be silent in me.”

–In The Silence, Jason Upton

2 comments

  1. pattianndt

    Matt,

    You are such a witty writer! Thank you for sharing and I so appreciate your heart! I did not realize you had nodules on your vocal chords. I thought you had maybe over done it at Pink.

    I, too, can not focus enough to pray silently, in my head. I get too distracted. Hearing myself speak the words does help, but then I realize I am doing all of the talking, I can get distracted again, so I am working on “it’s not all about me.”

    Oh, and I heard the same thing about the spoken word too, that the sound waves go on and on. Words do have POWER! In more ways than one.

    Thank you again for sharing your heart! I pray continued healing and that those nodules will never return, EVER! In Jesus’ name, Amen!
    (Yes, your words are in encouragement!)

    Patti

    Reply

Leave a comment