Saturday, November 10, 2012

Five-Minute Fridays: Quiet

I sit down to write this post - the theme of Quiet - and I push back my chair, walk away, pace through the day, go to sleep, wake up and come back.  I keep coming back, but words elude me.  Five minutes have passed, five hundred times, and still I wait.  

My fingers are quiet, but friends, my heart is all but quiet here.  I wait for Quiet.

These days, I think of Quiet - and I think, immediately, of Love.  I don't know why, but those two, together, they seem to me a dissonant pair.

My love is too quiet in all the ways it needs to be loud, and too loud in times it needs to speak just above a whisper.  And this, my heart knows, is dissonance.

I think of the painful poetry of the Love Chapter, so beautifully recited at weddings, ironically impossible.  How we can think that loud actions equal loud love, when really, any actions done without love are only loud actions - proverbial fingernails on chalkboard, clanging cymbal in a string symphony.  And yet love in quiet service can be wonderfully, beautifully loud.  

I ponder these things, on my knees, scrubbing grime from kitchen floors as tears pour down and I'm asking God to scrub the grime from this calloused heart and teach me to love this Quiet-loud.  Because I don't know, I just don't know how.

There is a love that must die to self that it might come back to life, and only One who can bring back from the dead, and so I pray for faith to lay me down in quiet and be raised up to live the lovely loud - because this death is only the beginning of love.



Because there is no other way to love. 

*This post is part of Five-Minute Fridays and the community of writers linking up at Lisa Jo's blog.   

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful post! A comment I left on another blogger's post included the verses from Zephaniah that promises to quiet us by his love & the next breath says that He will rejoice over us with loud singing! Praying for you tonight! <3

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    1. Oh, I love that, Sarah... thanks for reminding me of that beautiful promise. And thank you for your prayers!

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  2. "And yet love in quiet service can be wonderfully, beautifully loud."

    Mmm. I love this thought. It's so counterintuitive and so very hard to actually live out, but it's so true. Beautiful thoughts, beautifully spoken. Thanks for the blessing!

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    1. Well, I'm just happy to hear it was a blessing to you :-) It is VERY hard to live this love out, that's for sure. But I can't think of a more fulfilling life goal. I keep thinking how deeply thankful I am for this hope, that God empowers us to live the impossible love that he's modeled for us. Bless you!

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  3. Amber, you seriously break my heart open. Thinking so much of this love that speaks quietly lately. I, too, feel unable to do it. This part, ohhh: "I ponder these things, on my knees, scrubbing grime from kitchen floors as tears pour down and I'm asking God to scrub the grime from this calloused heart and teach me to love this Quiet-loud. Because I don't know, I just don't know how." How I relate to your words. We do need to be taught to love the quiet-loud. It is so counter to all the grand gestures of this world, that even in love say, "look at me, look at me, look how much I love."

    "My love is too quiet in all the ways it needs to be loud, and too loud in times it needs to speak just above a whisper." Yes, this is me, too.

    Bless you for your honest, beautiful weakness, dear Amber.

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    1. I have such a hard time believing this is hard for you, too. Loving seems to pour out of you - or at least out of your writing (which I believe is pouring from your heart). But it's good to know we're not alone in this. It's funny, as with pretty much everything in life, it seems, that the older I get, the more I realize I know so much less than I thought I did about love.

      Thank you for blessing me in my honest weakness, Ash. It's a comfort.

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