My friend Dan commented about yesterday’s blog post about nothing: “When any of us don’t have much to say, it probably means it is time to listen.”
Listen. What a great thought.
What do you hear when you stop and listen? I’ll tell you what I hear.
I find myself back in the moment, 15 months ago, when my life changed and my life with my love ended — that morning when I had been reading out loud to her, as she had asked me to do in the final moments — when, stunned and confused and having trouble processing the moment, my eyes rested on what I had been reading to her:
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
It finally sank in then, and ever since, when I find myself at a loss for words, and if I remember (as Dan did) that it’s probably time to listen, those are always among the first words I hear.
I don’t know why I walked into Hobby Lobby a few days later, wondering what to do with my life now that it was all different. When I saw the little plaque that said, “I trust the next chapter because I know the author,” it took me a minute to see the point, but when I did, I got out my wallet because it had to go on my wall.
That’s where my mind goes when I stop to listen. “Tell the story again,” is what I hear. “Someone who needs to hear it may not have heard it before.”
And in telling the story again, I find I needed to hear it again, too.
