darkness is the time to listen

Today Emmaus had classes this morning and then everyone is heading to Vaudreil for Josie's funeral.  We've spoken to Claudin several times and he is still quite in shock and totally overwhelmed as to how to raise these precious three little ones on his own without their mama.  Thank you for those of you who have helped...I am so grateful for you and for ways to meet little parts of some much huge need right now for the Noralus family. 

I have been struggling lately with words, and you've been around long enough to know that I rarely lack them.  When I try to vocalize all that's going on in my heart, I'm regretting it, every time. Tomorrow's Oswald Chambers reading brought me right up to the truth I've been struggling to find my voice over.

Sometimes God puts us through the experience and discipline of darkness to teach us to hear and obey Him. 

Pay attention when God puts you into darkness, and keep your mouth closed while you are there. Are you in the dark right now in yourcircumstnaces, or in your life with God? If so, then remain quiet. If you open your mouth in the dark, you will speak while in the wrong mood--darkness is the time to listen.

Don't talk to other people about it. Don't read books to find out about it; just listen and obey. When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message for someone else once you are back in the light. 

After every time of darkness, we should experience a mixture of delight and humiliation. We should experience delight for having heard God speak, but mostly humiliation for having taken so long to hear Him!  Then we will exclaim, "How slow I have been to listen and understand what God is telling me!" And yet God has been saying it for days and even weeks (or months, if you are extra dense). 

But once you hear Him, He gives you the gift of humiliation, which brings a softness of heart--a gift that will always cause you to listen to God now. 

How I long to be back in the light...to be done with this time of humiliation and darkness, my heart so soft that I can't hardly speak about anything real without coming undone. Maybe one day I'll have a precious message. 

Since I cannot seem to pull myself out or through, darkness is the time to listen. 

Dark time, as I listen, I am at Josie's funeral in my heart, unable to look at her children, and truly with nothing to say.