A Whisper in the Woods
“Can I whisper something in your ear?” my four-year-old son asked and scooted closer to me on the couch.
“Sure, buddy,” I replied, turning my head away from my laptop screen so he could have my ear.
He giggled then cupped his pudgy hands around my ear. Then I felt a rush of hot breath—but no audible words. He backed away expectantly, but I shook my head.
“Can you try again?” I encouraged. “Maybe whisper a little louder?”
He grunted in frustration but tried again. This time, I made out a few syllables but nothing coherent.
I felt bad not being able to hear him, but there was just so much noise around us. The television blared their favorite afternoon show, and my youngest was yelling for another snack. Internally, my mind was still thinking about the work I had been doing moments before.
“I’m sorry, but I still can’t understand,” I responded. His shoulders drooped. “Can you just quietly tell me what you were saying?”
“I said, ‘You’re the best mommy in the whole world,’” he huffed, his tone no longer matching his sentiment. The tender moment seemed lost.
“I love you, too, buddy,” I replied and pulled him into a hug. “I’m sorry I couldn’t hear your whispers.”
Noise often chases away any silence in our hearts, our heads, and our homes during this season. As one year ends and another begins, loud voices shout out what we should be doing, buying, and thinking. On December 26, sales on toys will be replaced with advertisements for planners. Baking supplies for nutritional supplements. Twinkling lights for yoga mats.
An avid goal setter myself, I usually love this time of year to reflect and reset. To take the good of the past twelve months and plan to make it even better in the next. I typically select a word for the year and base all my goals on that central intention. Since Thanksgiving, I have been considering what word I would choose for 2025.
I scroll social media, seeing authors growing their platforms and starting exciting new projects. What word would get me to that? I see homeschool moms cultivating beautiful learning environments and perfect children. How could I achieve that next year? One influencer redesigned her whole house this past year and another successfully accomplished a spending freeze. Which one should I imitate? I save posts from book accounts promoting new discipleship resources and devotionals to start the new year. What one word could encapsulate everything I want to improve in my life?
I scroll, tap, and save—mentally adding products to my cart, disciplines to my schedule, and burdens to my shoulders.
At the same time, there’s been a constant whisper in the back of my mind. A tug in my heart. Something holding me back from going all in on one ambitious word for my upcoming year.
I could feel the breath of a word but could not comprehend it’s meaning until I ended up speed walking at our local botanical gardens a few weeks ago.
My head raged with a tension headache from sitting in holiday traffic, running errands to return items (and purchase new ones), and adding two items on my to-do list for every one completed. I pulled out of the shopping center, gripping the steering wheel and feeling like the entire world was sitting on my chest.
With thirty minutes until I needed to pick up my daughter from her zoo class (and my Target drive-up order still not ready), I whipped into the parking lot of the botanical gardens to walk off some of my anxious energy. I turned my phone on silent and left my earbuds in the car. I needed some mental and physical space to figure out how I would not end this holiday season buried under exhaustion, unchecked to-do lists, and glittery wrapping paper.
I sped walked through the woodlands area, eager for God to give me a solution to all that was on my plate. I thought through our schedule the upcoming weeks, playing Tetris in my mind to make it all fit. I stomped past couples leisurely strolling—making a mental list and checking it once again. In my frenzied focus, I almost walked right into a tree but stopped short when the sun cracked through the branches, shining a spotlight on the fiery orange leaves.
My mind and legs halted for a mere moment, mesmerized by the light dancing on the auburn leaves not yet fallen. The sudden beauty temporarily silenced the shoulds, what-ifs, and hows that had been firing through my brain, long enough for the whisper to finally ring loud and clear.
Slow down. The words echoed in my head, like they had been there all along.
The refrain which I couldn’t place for weeks now had discernable syllables.
You don’t understand, I thought. I have a book launching next year, and other ideas of things to write. And I’m adding another kid to our homeschool. And our church small group needs me now more than ever.
I would have continued my list, but I felt that whisper again, like God had been trying so long to finally have my ear tuned into his voice.
So I stopped, waiting for more, but nothing else came. No solution to my busy schedule. No list of what to delegate or what to drop altogether. No magical solution to our hectic life.
Yet I felt like I could breathe again. I walked more slowly, out of the woods—across the stone path of the Japanese garden and through the rising steps of the dormant rose garden.
I kept waiting, hoping for more direction, but at the same time, that whisper seemed to be all that I needed to hear.
Weeks later, and I still don’t know what slowness will look like in the coming year. I’m still launching a book. We’re still homeschooling. Our ministry at our local church still grows. Yet I’m learning to desire stillness in a culture that yells at me to do more, faster, and better.
I didn’t leave that thirty-minute walk in the woods with direct orders for what’s next. However, I at least could finally hear the whispers in my heart. I felt like I was tuned into God more than I had been in months.
It only took me turning off everything else to finally hear God’s whisper.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Whisper."
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