Standing in Your Silence

Music and lyrics of songs run through my head over and over. Often, they strike a chord within me and relate to something much deeper then just words to a song. Standing in your silence is just one line and the title to a Bebo Norman song written as a love song. This song being one of my new favorites is listened to often and so six words hit me and have changed my prayers, my view of God, and related specifically to a current situation in my life.

Lately, God has been changing my views and helping me to learn to be more dependent on Him to move things in my life and work them for the best. (not that He doesn't work everything out for the best because He promises that He does. Just that I don't always trust this even though I believe it) I do not have the gift of singleness or so I have been told by the many people who have had a say in my many occurring guy issues and circumstances. This is a simple problem for single people our age and can often drive us crazy as we spend countless hours pondering the opposite species. This issue has been a popular discussion and blogging topic for me as I try to solve the communication between myself and some of the guys in my life. This however is not the point of this blog....just some background to it.

So as valentines day rolled around I was faced with some issues; spiritual as well as relational. God used some situations in my life to realize even though I love Him and deeply desire for Him to be my main focus, I was starting to shift. It reminds me of a tornado. If you have ever seen the movie Twister (yes, I actually like this movie) there is a point at the end they have an encounter with an F5 tornado. They need to get directly in front of it in order to put "Dorothy" where she will be picked up by the tornado. Two groups follow this gigantic terror of nature. Of the two groups trying desperately to succeed, the one that stood back and watched as the tornado shifted it's direction and turned the other way ultimately succeeded. The other group kept going until they themselves were sucked up into the tornado and lost their lives. This is often how our lives shift we see something coming (good or bad) and if we don't take the time to asses the situation we can get sucked right in along with everything around us. Do we die? Not necessarily in a literal way but anything is possible.

So what then was my problem? It had become that something good had become too much. I was letting my desire entice me and prolong the necessary. Believe it or not, I am actually talking about the popular computer myspace program. It began as way for me to communicate with my friends and became something a little bit more. Seems harmless doesn't it? It is except when you let your emotions get too wrapped up in it. I am a girl and therefore emotions play a huge role in my life. Dumb....at times. So what began as fantastic communication with many people I had not talked to in awhile began to cause me to stumble. I was so excited to get an opportunity to chat, email, and comment with a couple guys that I actually began to feel somewhat emotionally attached to them though outside of the computer there was often little to no contact with them. Why the struggle? I desire to be in a relationship and have rules for spending time alone with guys, talking on the phone with guys but did not realize the need for computer communication. For me, that tapped a little too much into an area I have been protecting and so my boundaries were being bypassed without me knowing it. I would then go on several times a day to write these guys or see if they had written me and usually they had. If they had not I would begin to stress as to the why. Basically it became a huge distraction and stirred up the desire rather then helping it as those relationships were not going to go anywhere.

I spent a night away up at my cabin with music, a bible, a book, my stuffed animal and a cozy fire (which I built myself-very proud). I was consumed with thoughts of my situation wondered when and why I had began to stress over guys. I came back the next day feeling better but still seeking answers. I had prayed about my guy issues but there was no resolve to the problem. The next night I went out dancing and temporarily forgot to think about any of these things (one of the joys of dancing). But then at my missions family house I was again distracted by thoughts from before. Grrrrr........ What was wrong
with me?

I awoke the next morning having had very little sleep the night before and began to blog about what I wanted to do with my life if I only had 90 days to live. I realized then I would be so focused on the Lord and sharing the gospel with the people around me. Would I be thinking about relationships-not dating ones that is for sure. And it was at the moment I realized how I had gotten to where I was. I had not been careful with all my communication with guys and realized since that is one of the turn-on's to guys for me I had allowed and fed my own struggle. It was the next day, Valentines, that I deleted my Myspace.

Who knew how much of a difference this decision was going to make on my life. The stress of my guy situations disappeared and I earned many more hours in a week to focus on other things. I realized that I could now turn my mind back over to focusing on being single and how I can love the Lord and trust Him to deal with the details. I learned and desire what it means to "Stand in His silence", And even though that line is a relational one between a man and a woman I am loving how much more I want to be with the Lord and how my thought are not consumed with boy drama. It even helped me too see clear enough to realize that something my mom and dad had told me that weekend made tons of sense. They spoke of how you will find the person you are supposed to be with when you are running the same direction in life. This was not a specific comment on the guy I was talking about with them that night but it did make me realize only days later than even though I am very interested in him, we are not running the same direction at all. Can that change? Yes, but for now I don't want anything of it and have decided no until or unless we start running the same direction. And this decision put me at peace.

So after a week of this I was singing "Standing in your Silence" and as I shampooed my hair another line stood out to me. This line struck me even more then the first and the idea of standing in God's silence. There is a line that says "open up my eyes so I can see" and it is talking about a girl who in this metaphor is the sun and directly before he says "I have been praying for daylight". I am not going to relate this to this because the line to me started an entirely different chain of thoughts.

"Open up my eyes so I can see." This now has dominated an idea in my prayer life regarding relationships as well as God's plan for my life. I want desperately to seek what God wants for me and not that which I want for myself. I know He knows what is best and what His plans are and how he will get me there and so I want Him to allow me to trust and see. Therefore I must trust and seek. This is really the entire point to me of this bloc as this truth hit me so hard. He can show me the direction to take with each and every thing I do. This falls into my decisions on guys as well. I don't want to search based on my own strength and my preferences but desire for Him to open my eyes up to see the situations the way He wants, the pursuits I should follow, the guy I should like and let Him drastically change me through it.

This also brings up another issue. What are we not seeing because we are too distracted by other things. We think we are seeing and we find out what we saw was wrong, we were decieved. Satan is great at drawing our attention different directions and bringing storm clouds to our view. Even though these clouds are beautiful, they distract us from the rainbow in the distance. Therefore I pray God opens my eyes...I want to see Him and Him alone.