Heard It with My Eyes

The irony of what I am about to write is stunning. I spent several weeks frustrated. I didn’t even know that I was frustrated until the last couple of days when my husband and I sat down one Saturday evening and just asked each other how we were. I struggled to express myself and what was possibly wrong. It sometimes takes me a while to process emotions dealing with situations. It usually helps me to talk or write them out. I sometimes say to my husband that I need to “auditory process”.

After a half hour or so of being unable to clearly communicate, it finally came out.

I was frustrated because I felt like God wasn’t speaking to me.

At least, not lately. I’ve only begun to share here how God has taught me through pictures, everyday life occurences, and I wasn’t seeing any of that. I would sometimes try to force some meaning into something that happened, but I knew it was me and not God.

So, my husband started sharing with me how he had felt God was speaking to him lately. He began with the fact that he used to feel God spoke to him mostly through the Bible, which is wonderful.Recently though, he has felt like God has used me to speak to him, our new little baby, people at work and church, and ongoing events in both our lives.

I didn’t want to hear this as encouragement. It wasn’t spiritual enough. My train of thought was, “God has spoken to me this way and that’s how it will be.” My reaction as he pointed out ways that he had grown and things he had said to me that had made me grow was to shrug it all off. I likened it all to coincidence.

But, but he is right. C.S. Lewis writes in his book “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, which tells the story of four children entering another, sort of magical, world,

“No,” he [the professor] said, “I don’t think it will be any good trying to go back through the wardrobe door to get the coats. You won’t get into Narnia again by that route.”

Just as the professor says to the children that they will get back to Narnia but just not in that way, so I too must remember that God will not always speak to me in the same way. This should lead me to be a better listener. I should not downplay ways that God may be speaking to me just because the avenue is new to me. God is a brilliant teacher and like good teachers He will use many ways of teaching students until they understand the lesson.