looking through me

I’ve lived too long in a season-less land: the leaves don’t drop, no flakes of snow fall, new growth doesn’t fight through cold, hard ground.

With a lack of rhythmic cues my ability to recognize signs of subtler seasons has never developed. I overlook internal indicators. I see life’s seasons not as they approach or as they are but as they slip to completion behind me. In retrospect I affix labels to what was, though even then the names are elusive.

But perhaps the long season I sense drawing to a close now can be categorized and celebrated before it’s a memory. Because it’s been a good, hard season. One I knew was valuable as it unfolded, but I didn’t know what it was.

Now I know. It was, and is, a season of quiet.

For almost a year the volume ratcheted down—as if God turned the knob on everything around me, placed His finger on my lips and gently murmured, “Shhhhh . . .”

The noise faded, and I began to learn how to listen. It’s a lesson I may never master, but one I can’t afford to rush through . . . and I haven’t. It’s been a long, slow practice made easier when words weren’t pouring out of my mouth and the internal torrent stilled.

The quiet freed me to listen and watch. For eleven months I spent my lunches alone. In the midday solitude I read words that poured life ever so slowly back into my grief-depleted soul. I learned to rest and wait to be needed, wait to be called.

Instead of pushing for connection, I idled on the periphery and let relationship build slowly. I offered myself in measured moments. I had more to give—and I knew it—but it wasn’t the time . . . it wasn’t the place. I couldn’t explain it, but now I see it was a gift for me to accept and enjoy without overanalyzing . . . and without guilt.

Though it’s still quiet I sense a change coming. The breeze is stiffening. The air is heavy with possibility. Yet I see how active God was in the quiet months as He built my capacity to accept His love and lean hard into His timing and plan.

I don’t know what the new season will be—or how long it will last—but I’ll enter it with deep gratitude for the quiet and the One who needs no volume to be heard.