An Oasis of Silence

Note: I wrote this last night but didn't get a chance to type it up and post it until today.

I had four hours to myself today to spend alone in my house.  I wish I could say the house was perfectly clean and organized and chores were all done and it was four hours of quality writing time in which I wrote blog posts to schedule and more of my novel--but it wasn't.  I wrote a little--I made an outline for a writing project that I want to start in the fall, and had an e-mail exchange with a friend about it.  I made some soup for a fellow church-member (he'd bought it at our auction fundraiser and it was time to collect).  I did some laundry, delivered the soup, rested on the couch for a little while with one of the cats, looked at Pinterest, slept for a few minutes, then wondered when my husband and kids would be getting home.  

Those four hours were so relaxing and restful.  In addition to somehow managing to sleep for 10 hours the night before, it was a short period of time that was like an oasis in the desert.  It was like a mini Sabbath (and how nice that it was on the actual Biblical Sabbath day).  It was a rest for my body, mind, and soul.  I don't take the time to do this regularly.  There is always something going on.  As an introvert, the busyness and noise of the children are wearying and overwhelming at times.  In silence, I feel recharged; I feel more alive.  Yet, silence is almost always elusive.

As I write this, my kids are in the bathtub, being only moderately noisy.  I'm sitting on the bathroom counter, watching the sky turn pale pink as the sun is setting.  I can't actually see the sun from where I sit, but I know it is there; I can see its effects.  The sky above the pink is blue, streaked with thin white clouds, and the fields I can see beyond my own yard are still and silent.  

I am reminded of my verse from last year from Psalm 62: For God alone my soul waits in silence (verses 1 & 5).

Even though my boys are having fun in the tub and the ceiling fan is making noise, out the window is the promise and hope of silence and renewal. t will come again, as surely as the sun sets and rises again.  I may not know when, but for today, I have experienced its effects on me, and for now it is enough.