Fear not, silence is okay.

Are you the type of person that gets scared of silence?
Do you find yourself feeling a bit tense when you're in a conversation with someone and neither you or the other person has said something in a few seconds?

I'm like that and I'm pretty sure most of our society is like that. How do I know? Well, just look at all the ways we're being forced into constant entertainment. Constant noise. Constant activity. It's interesting to think that one of our greatest fears is silence.

We've been unfortunately conditioned to think that silence = awkward. That silence = a waste of time. That silence = boring.

Over the past month or so, I've been realizing that this is definitely not the case. In fact, my fear of silence is beginning to be lifted from me.

Here are a few "revelations" I've had:

(a) It's okay to have a pause in a conversation
(b) It's okay to sit in my room for some time in silence and just think
(c) It's okay to step out of the busyness of life and just relax

For the longest time, my idea of productivity was that it involved lots of running around and the ability to check things off of a list. But what I'm now learning is that sometimes productivity is not always tangible. Sure I can write a paper, clean my house, write a song and those things would be considered productive but so can sitting in silence. I used to think sitting in silence meant that I sat in front of the TV for a few hours. Nope. While I may have believed I was truly experiencing silence, my brain was still being entertained and crowded with worldly noise.

I am in NO way promoting laziness. What I am saying is that if God himself shows us the example of taking time to rest, shouldn't we seek to do the same? I used to think God was disappointed in me if I wasn't super busy and constantly occupied but now I see that there is so much fruit that comes out of times of rest and silence, which makes it productive in it's own way.

When you rest, rest. So profound right? But seriously, just rest. Get out of this noisy world and put yourself in silence. It may seem awkward at first but I've realized how amazing this has been for my walk with Christ. Savor the precious moments of silence and you'll see how beneficial it will be to your life.

Fear not, silence is okay.

melody