What better time to end my hiatus than Easter?  Easter: A rising from the dead…a coming out of hiding…a great return…a breaking of the silence.

Silence…?

My short time away from my computer-key-therapy was spent in busyness and mayhem.  I’ve been sorting, packing, and cleaning in order to get our house on the market.  Our desire is to move closer to our church community and family.  This, however, requires the kids to switch schools, yet again, and with that, comes all kinds of thoughts to process and forms to fill out.  All of these decisions required a stepping away so that I could be intentionally focused on the choices and tasks at hand.

So here I am.  Struggling to keep the house clean while on the market, still two months left of this school year, and the calendar steadily filling with weddings, graduations, and celebrations of all kinds.  I almost feel premature in my return.  Soon (hopefully), I will have to pack more boxes, make some out-of-town trips, and in general, be too busy for my own good.  I might find myself stepping back once again, in need of another break, in need of some silence.

But what better time to break silence than Easter?

Have you ever thought about silence?  Have you ever been quiet enough to truly experience it?  And then when your words have stopped, have you ever been still enough that your thoughts stop?

Me either.  

When I try to be silent, other sounds intrude…it’s never completely silent:

Distant birds chirping.

Cars humming two streets over.

The dog’s breathing gaining weight as she falls asleep under my desk.

Dang, I forgot to start the crockpot…

I wonder if the realtor will call today…

I really should get a hair cut.

The silence is never completely silent…unless your lying breathless in a tomb. 

When I consider my return to blogging, my breaking of silence…I know nothing of the topic.  I not only wonder if this is the right time to start writing again, but I also question if I’ve even taken a true break.  If I’m honest, I don’t know true quiet, true rest…because even in my portrayed absence, I’m still busy.  Again, if I’m honest,  I don’t know true sacrifice, true death, or true breathlessness.  I’m always clinging to self-interests, comforts, or lung-filled gasps for control.

Perhaps I don’t know true silence, because I don’t know how to truly surrender.

Jesus, while seemingly absent as His body lay in that tomb, was hard at work.  He was waging a war.  He was busy going to the place of mayhem, defeating death, conquering sin, paying off the debt of mankind.  His hiatus wasn’t a vacation.  His purposeful silence redefines the understanding of my own rest.

His silence had motive.  His stillness acted in extremes.  His body slumped over, but His Spirit ran into battle.

Perhaps, I need apply a new silence to my lips, or to my keyboard.  One that requires a laying down of my own comforts and opinions.  One that only speaks through actions of sacrifice and words of mercy.

As I come back from my blogging hiatus, I consider how Jesus broke His silence.  The earth shook and He appeared to many, making sure they knew the only news that mattered: they were loved and redeemed.

At first, my own breaking of silence seems pretty insignificant compared to all that Jesus has accomplished.  (Plus, His ground-shaking-bit…no one will even notice when I’m back!)

But, I see that His breaking of silence tells me all I need to know about re-engaing my own voice:

He loves me. (John 3:16) (Romans 8:35)

He has won me. (1 Corinthians 6:11) (1 Corinthians 6:20)

He has equipped me. (2 Corinthians 3:5) (Ephesians 1:3)

He has empowered me. (Ephesians 1:19) (Ephesians 6:10) (Romans 8:37)

He has sent me. (Matthew 5:13-14) (Matthew 28:19) (John 13:34-35) (2 Corinthians 5:20)

What better way to break silence than with the example of Jesus’s own ground-shattering return from the quiet tomb…to proclaim the only news that really matters.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

Galatians 2:20