On my simple walk up the steps to work yesterday night, my shoes filled with water, my pants became damp and soggy, and my whispery blond hair evolved into a dripping mop on top of my head. As I sloshed into the coffee shop filled with Alumni from the school and countless others for a Christian concert held in the chapel, all eyes turned upon me. Monk, the New Zealand coffee shop manager, burst into laughter. Coop, one of my good friends and the supervisor for the night, laughed and said, "You look like a rat that crawled up out of the sewer!" The rain fell hard all night long, but the air felt crisp and clean when I left the coffee shop around 12:15 a.m. A quiet mist clung to the earth, and lightning traced glowing arcs through the sky. A beautiful night!

Mom picked me up this afternoon, and Dad, Ams and I went to Barnes & Nobles. I've been seeking a good devotional book, one that is actually worthwhile and not filled with cheesy, cliche Christianity. In other words, I was not looking for a Max Lucado book (sorry Max Lucado fans). I finally found something beautiful: a collection of writings from various saints throughout the ages, put together with commentary by Richard Foster. I sat outside and read through some of the writings of Henri Nouwen's Making All Things New:

"From all that I said about our worried, overfilled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us.

Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word absurd we find the Latin word surdus, which means 'deaf'. A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear.

When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means 'listening.' A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow His guidance.

Jesus' life was a life of obedience. He was always listening to the Father, always attentive to his voice, always alert for his direction. Jesus was 'all ear.' That is true prayer: being all ear for God. The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God."

As of lately, many things have been going on in my life, some mentioned on this blog and some not. I do not believe a blog is the place to pour out every nook and cranny of the inner sanctuary of our heart (though sometimes my posts seem to do so!). One area in my life that I have been struggling with has been prayer, especially the aspect of listening to God's word, to His guidance for my life. I have offered up many prayers for answers, then gone about with my life trying to answer them myself. God is telling me, I believe, "Listen to Me. Instead of filling your prayers with countless words, just sit down, shut up, and listen."