Silence is golden

The year is at its end and many are reflecting on lessons learned in the year. One of the most significant things I've learnt this year is the value of silence and solitude. I've learnt to grow fond of times alone when I get to love, appreciate and accept the person that God created me to be. It is then that I am not easily moved when others judge, criticize or look down on me. This has caused me to realize just why we fall prey to low self-esteem as teenagers, because so much of our time is spent around others, and many a times we compare ourselves to these others we spend time with. We find that we aren’t thin enough, not beautiful enough, not ‘cool’ enough, if they still use that as an excuse.

We then grow to alter ourselves, despise ourselves and look down upon our very self because we don’t know ourselves very well, if we did, we’d never do anything to change us. You’d love you if you spent more time with you. If you asked God more what he thought of you than the magazine or your so-called friends. You’d believe in you more if you spent less time staring at your reflection in the mirror and spent more of it looking at yourself through God’s mirror, His Word.

Another thing that has made me love silence so much is that you get to listen and when you listen, you grow. Countless times I’ve stopped myself from saying God isn’t speaking to me and asked myself if I was really listening. Most of the time my mind was too consumed in my problems to hear his soft yet stern voice, it was at those times where I literally had to be still and know He's God.
One of my favourite texts on the subject is James 1:18 which basically says “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” I’ve observed wise people and they don’t say so much though they have a lot to say; they listen more. In that, they grow wiser. Because he who listens gains, while he who talks only spends himself by taking out from what he already knows. And this is coming from someone who has the ability to talk until she runs out of breath. But these are things I continue to  learn as I grow. To observe people, to listen to them. Sometimes, the greatest thing you can do for someone is just listen to earnestly their problem, even though you have no solution for it.

I work a lot with children, and one thing they all love is to be listened to. It’s tiring, trust me. These people can tackle five different topics in under a minute. But I learn so much about life through them when I actually listen, and not just pretend to. They remind me to enjoy life, to stop focusing on my problems, to trust God and smile while still in the middle of my storm; to dance, to laugh, to be silly sometimes. But I’d never know this if I was the one talking all the time. Just cause I’m older and the ‘teacher’, doesn’t mean I have nothing to receive from them. So these days, you’ll find me more on the listening side of life, the silent side, where things make more sense and make you smile more.

“Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice?...Listen, for I have trustworthy things to say; I open my lips to speak what is right." Proverbs 8:1 & 6