Tracey Marley

I once heard it said that you spend the first two years of a child’s life teaching them to walk and talk, and the rest of their life telling them to sit down and shut up… My babies were late walkers but early talkers. The first words, “Da, da” were followed by a constant chattering that eventually became a one-sided dialog that never ends.

Avery, my youngest, enters a room mouth first and doesn’t have a shy bone in his body. Much to my worry, he never meets a stranger, nor does he hesitate in blurting out exactly what’s on his mind. One morning before school, we were putting in a load of wash. When we came to the bras and underwear, he was full of questions. Instantly, in my mind’s eye, I could see him describing my intimate apparel to his teachers and classmates in vivid detail. “Avery,” I said, “there are some things we don’t talk about to others. Mommy’s underwear is one of them.”

I’m sure my son found something else just as fascinating to talk about that day (thus far, I haven’t gotten any snickers or weird looks from the preschool staff). But that is Avery. Always rambling about something. And when he doesn’t know a word for something, he makes one up. I know not to depend on him if I’m looking for complete accuracy.

Anna, on the other hand, doesn’t talk near as much. She probably figures she’ll never be heard with Avery in the room and therefore limits her comments for instructing her little brother on what he should and should not be doing. This always causes a fight meaning the noise in my house is a constant. It starts right after school and escalates until bedtime. Throughout the supper preparation, I’m usually found to be saying everything at least three times and to no avail.By the time my husband gets home, I’m yelling and don’t even realize it.

That’s why one morning last week, I rose early to snuggle on the couch with my Bible in the quiet stillness that says everyone is asleep. The Lord lead me to the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, where I found the chapter titled, “A Time for Everything”. I had no more got started when I looked up to see fuzzy eyed Anna entering the room. I fought the disappointment of having my quiet time interrupted. She got under the blanket with me and I read through the chapter with her. We talked about some of the verses, and I asked her for life examples of what the verses described.

A time to be born was described as a time when you are young, a time to die was when you were old, a time to plant was in the spring, and a time to uproot was during the fall harvest. A time to love was all the time, and a time to hate, I described as hating evil and sin. We finished our study that morning, but days later, to my surprise, I heard her repeating the verses to her chattering brother. “Avery, there is a time to speak and a time to be silent. This is the time to be silent,” she said. Needless to say, I did a double-take. Not only did she remember our reading, she was applying the scripture.

Knowing how extremely frustrating I find it to speak without being heard, this verse combined with my child’s excessive need to be verbal, leads me to question how God feels about my “quite time” with Him. Often I’m the one who does all the talking. And often all I have to say is about me. Do I ever stop to listen to what it is He wants to say? What He’s already been saying that I’ve been too busy to really listen to? Many times He will put a scripture or person on my heart in a way that I’ll notice, but never do anything about.

Just this week, I felt a strong burden to call a friend. Something came up and I got distracted and never made the call. The next day she called me and I could hear it in her voice. She needed my undivided attention. Not an easy thing to find in my house, so I went to the bedroom where I hid beneath the covers and listened as she poured out her heart. There was a crisis occurring in her life that I had no idea about. The situation she found herself in was causing feelings of guilt, inadequacy, disappointment and fear—and she was reaching out to me. Immediately I felt I had to say something, yet words of wisdom seemed to allude me. “I don’t know what to say,” I replied. “It’s going to be okay. God is still in control.”

“I know. I don’t need you to say anything. I just need you to be there.” She was incredibly relived not by my words, but just to know I had listened. We talked some more and I did end up quoting Romans 8:28 as encouragement—not as a means to minimize her crisis with a “quick fix”, but to remind her of the things the Lord has already turned around for good in her life. She thanked me and later confessed that she clung to the verse all day.

I can’t say I was obedient to the Lord by being the one to make the call to my friend, but I feel like He worked it out in spite of me. So what is He saying to you? Is there something or someone He is repeatedly putting on your heart? A message you are to give to someone? Consider it a call to act, but only after you’ve taken the time to be silent and let Him speak what it is He wants you to say.

“There is…a time to be silent and a time to speak,” Ecclesiastes 3:1,7  NIV