Listening for Wildflowers......

I love to do that.  Listen.  I looked it up in Hebrew.....to listen, with the added words "earnestly, attentively, closely"....even "obediently".  I find myself awake in the middle of the night.  It used to frustrate my insides and I'd fight hard for my right to go back to sleep.  These days, I've grabbed hold of the gift like a warm hug and hold it close.  It's my listening time.  I search for it like I'm in a fog looking for a beacon.  It warms me and restores me, these listening hours.  It resets my compass.

I found this in my Love Letter from my Maker this morning.  "No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined.  You'll be called Hephzibah (My Delight) and your land Beulah (Married) because God delights in you and your land will be like a wedding celebration.  For as a young man marries his virgin bride, so your builder marries you; and as a bridegroom is happy in his bride, so your God is happy with you." I believe Him and put it on like a wedding dress and look in the mirror at myself and giggle.  My hair's a mess, my leftover mascara under my eyes.  Only He could love me like that.  I decide to be all whimsy today and buy myself a wedding bouquet of wildflowers because wildflowers seem most unabashedly from Him and they will remind me all week that He has chosen me.   I feel beautiful in His sight. ....because I listened to His heart for me?  It changes the way I see out at the world.

I love to hear someone talk to me.  I grab a pillow if one is close and curl up quiet and sink into their stories; their words become movies in my mind.  It makes me feel invited in and I walk through slowly and turn over what they say like leaves to see what else is under them.  When someone gives me words, I open them, each one, like the tiny presents I used to wrap careful and put in my kids stockings at Christmas.  Listening to others feeds me, teaches me, delights me, entertains me, connects me.  I lean into the time like a campfire glow.  To listen close is to trust and be trusted.  It changes the landscape between two people.  It's passing on what God planted in me.....

when I listened.

This song has nothing to do with listening, necessarily.  I just like it and I'd think the open road would be a good place to listen.  :)

"The best way to show someone you love them, is to listen to them."-Michael Card