Who Are We Behind The Noise?

I’ve been reflecting a lot on silence lately. What is it about silence that feels so countercultural? Why does it feel like it’s pushing against the current of our society and the systems we live in?

Everything around us seems to be growing louder. A constant rush of voices roaring louder and louder. Saturating our souls, speaking over one another.

People longing to be heard and hoping to be seen. To be met. Trying to outdo the voice next to them.

And I’ve been wondering why.

Why is noise constantly being shoved down our throats?

Why do we feel the need to fill every empty space?

Why do we shout and scream from our hearts, begging to be heard, begging to be seen? even if its for a fleeting moment.

Perhaps because somewhere deep inside

we hope that being seen will somehow prove that we are worthy. That we matter and that we are enough.

But lately, the trials we inevitably face in life have been teaching me that there is a gift in silence.

A quiet power that speaks louder than words ever could. Louder than any advertisement. Louder than any strategy or anything trying to point us toward what our best version of ourselves should be.

Silence requires stillness. It pierces through the soul and spirit, creating space.

Space for truth and reflection…Space for God. The voice of God doesn't compete with the noise. It whispers. Yet somehow it sounds like thunder. And perhaps that is why so many of us resist silence.

Because silence asks us to stop...

To sit, and with an open heart be willing to listen. To stop the striving. And often, we don't choose that stillness willingly. Sometimes life chooses it for us. As I faced the fires of life that consume you and the grief that punched the air from my lungs, I've come to learn that grief is a doorway.

Loss, heartbreak, and disappointment. The seasons that bring us to the end of ourselves. These moments have a way of stopping us in our tracks. Stripping away distractions and forcing us to sit with what remains.

The broken pieces of dreams you once held so tightly. The plans that changed. The questions we cannot answer and the ache we cannot outrun.

And in those moments, when there is nowhere left to run, silence begins to reveal what was there all along. Not to punish us or shame us. But to point us to the truth. The truth about ourselves. The truth about God. And the truth about the things we've spent years avoiding.

I think that's why silence can feel painful.

Because it confronts us, revealing fears we neatly tucked away in our hearts. Perfectly crafted masks protecting deep rooted insecurities. Patterns and beliefs we've carried for so long that we've mistaken them for who we are.

Silence is like a mirror.

Not a mirror meant to shame us. But a mirror that reveals what is true so that we may walk in freedom. And maybe that's why it feels so piercing and why we resist it. Because truth can be uncomfortable before it becomes liberating. But the more I sit with it, the more I realize that silence is not empty, it has a voice.

And if we dare to slow down long enough to listen, it uncovers what the noise often buries. Revealing gems and pearls, beneath the expectations. Under the endless comparisons, and beneath the pressure to become someone other than who we were created to be.

It reveals our authentic selves.

Like a diamond in the rough, whose brilliance was there all along, hidden beneath layers that must be stripped away before its beauty can be seen. Not created by the pressure, simply revealed through it. Not becoming something new. Uncovering what was there all along. Our unique breath….The voice that existed before the noise and the systems around us told us who we should be.

And perhaps that is why silence feels so countercultural.

Because a world built on constant distraction rarely encourages us to become fully present and keeps us asleep. Silence gathers our attention back, wakes us up and brings us home to ourselves.

Because truth has a way of unsettling the things that were built upon illusion and the masks begin to crack. The striving begins to loosen its grip. The endless need for validation starts to lose its power. The stories we have told ourselves about who we must be begin to unravel.

And while that can feel uncomfortable, it is also where healing begins. Because what is false must often be disrupted before what is true can emerge. And when we begin living from that place of truth, there is freedom. There is disruption…

There is healing. There is movement. There is life…

And that is earth shattering to systems. You then become the mirror reminding people of who they are, that there is more, that that fire and ache is been there , perhaps that is the gift. Not the silence itself. But what it reveals. Buried beneath the noise. And if we follow that truth far enough, it leads us back to ourselves and God.

And perhaps that is the gift. Not the silence itself.

But what it reveals…