The end of silence

Our silent retreat is over and it was, I felt, a huge blessing. Today, at our first session, we got to share about our experiences, and for me, I didn’t really feel like anything big happened to me or that I really experienced something major. I enjoyed the time away from life in general and just to be silent and listen to God, but that was it. God spoke to me through my memorizing Psalms 119, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. The others spoke about how they had cloths thrown at them, they had conversations with God as if he was really right there, and how rocks didn’t fall through the ice. For me, I just took one verse, picked it apart and seen what it had to say.
It may sound like I didn’t get anything out of this retreat or that I didn’t enjoy it, but in fact, I loved it. It was amazing and relaxing to just sit back, read, sleep when we wanted to, and to not have chores to do ( just kidding )! I just think I really expected much more from it and sometimes God just doesn’t show you as much as the other, but he still shows you his love and that he will be there for you always.
As I said before, I picked apart the scripture I’m memorizing in a way to help me memorize and also to help me get in tune with God. I’ll give a brief statement about a few of the 10 verses I learned in the 48 hours.
Psalms 119:7... “I thank you for speaking straight from your heart, I learn the pattern of your righteous ways.” To think back, its kind of funny that this verse was first to memorize. The things I wrote down in my journal was that God can speak to us in different ways. That some people hear him differently but yet he still speaks to us straight from his heart! Right there God spoke to me in a different way then he would’ve spoke to the others.
Psalms 119:8.… “I’m going to do what you tell me to do; don’t ever walk off and leave me.” Doing what God wants us to do isn’t always easy. Sometimes its hard and it feels like God just isn’t there anymore. But he wont ever leave us and he will always here for us. He isn’t like some friends that leave you when you have done something wrong. He sticks by you even more then before.
Last week, I started a cross-stitching project. It’s of a kitten hanging on a tree branch and it says ‘hang in there’. I’ve been working on it while memorizing and every stitch I made, I thought about how much that project is like life. When I started it, it was just a piece of light blue cheese cloth and lots of brilliant colored threads. Just like when we are born, there is nothing really there. With every stitch I made is one less then when I started. Just like every event in my life is one closer till my life is over here on earth. If I wouldn’t have directions and a picture of the finished item, I would be lost trying to work on it. Just by looking at it now, you cant tell what it is. Just like how we have no idea what our next step will be in life. We cant see past what we are doing this very moment. Like me with the end picture, God is the only one with the end picture of our lives. Everyday, every trial, hard time, struggles, wonderful days, is one more ‘stitch’ in my ‘fabric’ of life. All I can do is try my best to make sure I get that stitch perfect so that my end project ( life ) will be filled with brilliant colors and hanging up on someone’s wall ( heaven ) for looks and memory. Live life to the fullest, ‘cause you only get one hack at it. Live it the way you want others to remember and see it.