Selah

I never knew stillness before. Life was always fast-paced. Mornings were rushed, meetings were running too long, and there was never enough time to finish everything in a day. 

There were brief moments of quiet, but never stillness. A song would be playing in my head. A conversation would replay. A worry, a thought, something. 

Prayers were loud but quick. Worship songs were background music. God was important. But also drowned out. I knew He was there. But I always thought, "We're fine. We're okay. We talk." Like an old, low-maintenance friendship. 

I never knew stillness before. And boy was I missing out. 

In 2018, I thought I knew stillness when I did my #SoakingSeason2018. (Read here: Backstory, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.) I did. For a bit. It remains to be one of my biggest testimonies. But eventually, the noise came back. 

And then stillness came. But before that, there was grief. 

When my dad died in 2020, the noise it created was unbelievable. My phone constantly rang. There were tributes here and there. Even the local radio talked about it. The ripples it caused broke through the already chaotic pandemic world we were living in. People grieved loudly. People I knew, people I never met. My grief was their grief too and while the pain felt unbearable and real, the noise helped. 

And then all of a sudden and out of the blue, quiet came. The world moved forward and people moved on. Yet there I was, in the bedroom I grew up in as a teenager, weeping silently through my pillows. I quit my job. Left the city I loved for 19 years. Moved back to my hometown where I lived beside the church that my father shepherded for the past 38 years. 

For the first time in a long time, there were no more rushed mornings and meetings that ran too long. There was so much time. Prayers could go for as long as I wanted to. And sometimes I didn't even need words. 

Grief came first, but stillness did follow. 

Stillness looked like a morning cup of freshly brewed coffee, enjoyed leisurely. Stillness looked like quiet afternoons staring at my dad's vast collection of books and wondering which ones he would want me to read. 

There were mornings when I would wake up and go on a walk and not think of anything. Not hurry through anything. I just walked until I felt like coming home. I remember one afternoon watching the sunset and wondering how different life has become. How slow days have been. 

It made me think of the Israelites who were walking around in the wilderness. Their days in the desert probably felt slow compared to the busyness of life as a slave in Egypt. But those 40 years in the wilderness were necessary to remove the Egypt slave mentality from them. 

They ate manna daily so their palates could be cleansed and changed into the people that God originally designed them to be. 

My Selah was important. There was an unlearning that needed to happen. A dying of an old self. An embracing of the new. 

And in my Selah, I learned to hear God's still small voice. I heard It in my walks. It spoke to me when I woke up unhurried. It told me things that made me weep, and It told me things that made me want to hear more. 

Sometimes, there are invitations to go back to that fast-paced life. It promised grandeur and riches and growth...but I look at my life now and a glimpse of my devotional journals comes into the picture. It is filled with different kinds of treasure that can only come from a life that knows quiet. 

I asked a little girl once what her name meant, and she said "Selah means to pause and reflect." 

To be given the time to pause and reflect is a gift I am happily taking. Every day, I see the fruits of my Selah Season. Wherever the Giver of Rest takes me from here, I will gladly follow knowing full well that when the questions come - the answers will find me in the quiet.