Quiet my soul

I sit in the silence, reveling in the rarity.

I survey the snowy scene: neighbor’s roofs dusted with snow, bare trees that look less melancholy when their limbs are iced white, gray skies that I often mistake for gloomy but have come to appreciate as peaceful, pure quiet in this hour before dusk. Children have already come home from school. Parents are not yet home from work. The weather and fading daylight are not conducive to outdoor activities of fair weather. And so, the world around me is enveloped in sheer quiet.

I don’t often allow myself the luxury of relishing the quiet. Why is that? Why does it take illness or sadness to slow me down, tempering my pace of life, to appreciate the world around me? Why does my soul not embrace the quiet surrounding me?

Mellow winter afternoons serve as an invitation into quiet, into slow, into calm.

I want so desperately to be a part of those things. And yet, inside, I feel chaos. December brings a whirlwind of work and family plans and parties and plans with friends and buying Christmas gifts and preparing for a trip in January and trying to remember to pause...my inner world juxtaposed against the serene scene around me provides a stark contrast indeed.

In the quiet, I am granted a reprieve from the chaos. In the quiet, I hear His gentle whisper offering me a chance to remember what this season is even about. In the quiet, I am left with a question: How can I accept His invitation into quiet?

At this time of year, my attention cannot stay fixed longer than a moment, for fear I'll forget something my brain is struggling to remember. Perhaps it's a sign I'm thinking too much. Perhaps it's a sign I need to embrace—and enjoy—His gift of rest. Perhaps it’s okay to focus on the present, on taking one step at a time, on simply being still.

Rest in God alone, my soul, for my hope comes from him.

—Psalm 62:6

It’s in the stillness that I am reminded of my smallness. It’s in the quiet that God quiets all my insecurities and fears of insignificance. It’s in the calm that He holds my heart with His perfect love. It's in the stillness that I remember who He is.

After all, how can I possibly know God if I cannot command my soul to be still?

It's not mine to juggle every task until I lose sight of Him. It's not mine to remember every detail or plan every moment in advance. My plans will always falter anyways.

It is mine to command my soul to be still. To trust He who is bigger than every thought and task and fear and schedule. To thank Him for my smallness because He is big enough to hold it all.

It is mine to embrace His gift of quiet, relishing it until my spirit mirrors the pace of this winter night.

It's my prayer that in this season of advent, you invite Him to quiet your soul too.