Learning to Listen

A Blog?? Really? ME? If you know me at all you know a few things. I am not a writer, I am not a speller (please feel free to bask in the many errors that you might find in this), I always said would never do a blog. Don't get me wrong I love to read and glean from the venerability others may share on their own beautifully crafted and eloquently spoken pages but doing it myself is FAR outside of my comfort zone. But one thing I AM trying to be is a listener. So if someone tells me to share I better listen, and I feel like I am being told to share.

To be honest I have never been good at listening. I like to pretend I am. I mean its kind of my job! But in reality I am usually thinking way to hard about responding well. Giving the right advice, encouragement, reaction. I have spent most of my life desperately trying to say just the right thing, "Don't mess this up Amanda! They might leave, you might hurt them, they might hurt you, you might screw it all up!". The truth is I have been a very selfish listener.
 A few months ago I realized that this poor habit had not only invaded my relationship with friends and family but with the most important person of all... you guessed it... God. Oie Vey! Always trying to prove to Him I was good, I could be better, I would know the right answer or say the right thing... I did this for a LONG time. Sometimes my efforts to be "good" were so exhausting that I fell straight into sin, sometimes after long bouts of these tiring efforts I hurt myself, sometimes I hurt others. But God is so gracious isn't He. He gets us to the point where we can't fight anymore, we can't try, we can't talk or pretend our way through life anymore and that is when we listen.

I am learning to listen.

I spent the last week in a country racked with poverty and devastation. I spent it surrounded by women of all ages and backgrounds that are learning to listen, to share, to LOVE. Some of these women hear Him in the silence, some hear Him in the sweet words of their small children, some hear His voice loud and clear amidst buildings crumbling around them. This journey has taught me more than I ever could have imagined. I did not try, God did not ask me to prove anything to Him or "be" anything. He simply called me "Do you want to go on a journey Amanda? Do you trust me to lead the way?". As I learn to listen I am also learning to share. Share not what I think you want to hear, or what will make me look "good" but what He speaks.

So here I go.... not climbing or trying... just falling. Into love, into truth, into GRACE, and what a fabulous fall it is :)

I will share more about Haiti but it has been taking my awhile to even form the words. If you want to read more about the team, the mission, and what He did you can read it here http://www.hespeaksinthesilence.com/category/etc/.