Silence

Microsoft clip art

Remember a serious crush you had when you were in high school? Michelle and I were in typing class together (Flashback: The class taught kids how to use a typewriter correctly. You know, those clackety things people used before computers to create documents?). From what I could tell we hit it off pretty well. Joking and laughing and occasionally stealing glances when the teacher wasn’t looking – needless to say, I was a little distracted during class. Maybe it’s because of those interactions that still, to this day, I don’t know how to keyboard correctly.


Yet, even though I spoke with her, I remained silent about The One Thing That Mattered: how I felt about her. And so, I remained trapped in my own, self-constructed solitary confinement of unspoken hopes and dreams.

I drowned in that same silence when I found out she had started dating some guy. Some other guy. Some guy in our typing class, no less, who probably used his superior typing skills to woo her, unlike me who continued to hunt and peck. Some guy who apparently had no problem talking to her on a deeper level, unlike me who kept silent about such things.

So while they started joking and laughing and stealing glances, I ached inside, left to repeatedly wonder “What if I had said . . . ” Every word I failed to speak when I had the chance pressed down like stacked weights on my chest. Her same actions that used to thrill me, now tore me apart. I resembled David’s remarks in Psalm 39, “When I was silent and still, not even saying anything good, my anguish increased” (Psalm 39:2).

By not saying anything of importance or meaningful to her, in effect, I abandoned her ears to let them roam and find something of substance to listen to; something our fellow typist verbalized.

What is The One Thing That Matters to you that is being left unspoken, and to whom? How could your relationship with God, your friends and your family improve if you said something – anything - about how you honestly feel and what you think? During this time of resolutions to start the new year, make it yours to start tearing down the walls of silence.