Perched in the swing most of the day and looked at that beautiful azure sky trying not to cry as I watched the flock of glorious cardinals enjoying the warm sun on their crimson and fawn brown plumage. My yard was just full of song birds today, gifts sent from heaven to lift my spirits. Hiral Nagda says, “Birds chirping around you is a beautiful realization that life is incredibly good. Let this sound be a gentle break in your routine.” Not many symphonies from the birdies because the weed eaters and lawn mowers and leaf blowers down the street were performing loudly. The workers groomed that little yard all day! “May my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living,” EE Cummings.

Fatty the squirrel tore up one of my bird feeders so I broke out the heavy artillery this morning, a spray bottle of peppermint oil. I sprayed every bird feeder pole and the ground around them. Squirrels hate the smell of peppermint so he won’t be climbing the poles anytime soon. I watched him gather seeds around the feeders and he didn’t go near the poles. I guess I need to get a corn cob feeder for him. Just don’t want the raccoons to get wind of it.

The sky was cloudless all day growing bluer as the afternoon waned, then a softening of the blue leading into the beginning of the sun setting. The sun was just blinding in her bright beauty today, stepping on the horizon’s edge dressed in a gown of steel gray, radiating warmth as she sparkled with long silver rays. Father Sky donned his aviator sunglasses as he took the sun’s warm hand, escorting her down the runway of sunset through the horizon shaded a pale apricot stretching high to the heavens where Mother Nature had brushed watercolor strokes of pale blue and warm vanilla. The sun turned on the twilight as Father Sky kissed her goodnight and the night sighed and stretched and woke to see a full moon hanging high, bathing the earth in ethereal light, casting dancing shadows across the landscape. Father Sky cast millions of stars into the sky, sprinkled around the luminous moon, little pin pricks in the velvet darkness of the night sky.

In order to experience the night we have to learn to be silent and hear the love of God in the silence of the darkness. We really don’t have to preach our faith loudly. We simply live our faith. God says, “Be still, and know that I am God,” Psalm 46:10. In silence we hear God whisper. I hear him when I’m perched in the porch swing and the yard goes silent and I see the beauty of the birds and the landscape at sunset. We can speak to God in the silent times through our prayers or through thanksgiving for our many blessings. In our silence we let God reach out to us.

When God is silent and we can’t hear him, when we have doubts and insecurity, God is still there waiting for the proper time to speak to us. Just because he seems absent doesn’t mean God is not speaking and not hearing our prayers. “God’s silence is not God’s absence, so keep going,” Guguletgu Ndlovu. Sometimes he is speaking and we choose to not listen. Other times God is silent because it’s his will that things are going to remain unchanged and we have to have faith and pray for grace to accept things the way they are.

God is in control of our lives and we have to trust the path he’s set us on. He’s mapped out our journey and is walking with us. We’ll have challenges but we will face them with God and through prayers and Christian faith we’ll complete our journey to heaven’s gates. And what a glorious reunion it will be.

“God will shout during your storms, whisper during your sunshine and sing during the rarest rainbows you will encounter.” — Shannon L. Alder