Silence for the Soul - Amy Schisler

Today, I am at a loss. The house is so quiet. There are no children to send off to school, no fall sporting events to attend, no evening programs to get ready for. It’s just me and Rosie, planning our day without too much excitement. Rosie sleeping.jpg

This past weekend was a blur of activity. We spent the weekend visiting our youngest daughter at college, and my parents were here until yesterday. It was a wonderful, non-stop adventure in a city full of lights and noise and young people reaching for the stars.

Now, it’s just quiet. And I wonder…

Is this what the rest of my life will be like?

It’s not that I don’t have things to do. There’s always something to do. I have book ideas filling my brain like a rain gauge during a monsoon. There are clothes to wash, gardens to tend, closets to organize, trips to plan. Yet…

I find myself so unproductive it hurts. The truth is, I miss being a mom. And I never saw that coming.

I saw the empty nest as a good thing, something to be proud of–we’ve done our job, and the birdies have flown off to have their own adventures. Now is our time to do whatever we want.

But it’s quiet and lonely and uninspiring.

Nobody ever told me that when the kids grew up and went away, I’d be left with silence. Silence – something I always cherished. I wanted the noise to go away, the shouting voices and blaring music to stop, the constant interruptions to cease.

Yet I find myself at a loss as to how to handle this. I like silence. I like peace. I like hearing the wind rustling the trees outside my window. How can something I always longed for suddenly feel like an intrusion into my happy little space?

Saint Teresa of Calcutta said, “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

So today I will remind myself to appreciate the silence. I will listen for the whispers in the wind. I will remember that there is joy to found in the peace of a quiet day. I will recall Elijah’s recognition that God came as “a tiny whispering sound” (Kings 19:13). And I will accept that there will be days of profound silence, but that in the silence, I may discover a loud, resounding message that will touch my soul.
Saint Teresa on Silence.jpg

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What I was writing about a year ago this week: Spending a Fortune on the Marriage.

Amy Schisler is an award-winning author of both children’s books and sweet, faith-filled romance novels for readers of all ages. She lives with her husband and three daughters on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her books, Picture Me, Whispering Vines, and Island of Miracles are all recipients of Illumination Awards, placing them among the top inspirational fiction books of 2015, 2016, and 2017. Whispering Vines was awarded the 2017 LYRA Award for the best romance of 2016. Island of Miracles has outsold all of Amy’s other books worldwide and ranked as high as 600 on Amazon. Her follow up, Island of Promise is a reader favorite. Amy’s children’s book is The Greatest Gift. The suspense novel, Summer’s Squall, and all of Amy’s books, can be found online and in stores. Her latest novel, Island of Promise, was recently awarded First Prize by the Oklahoma Romance Writer’s Association as the best Inspirational Romance of 2018 and was awarded a Gold Medal in the Independent Publisher Book Awards 2019 for Inspirational Fiction. It is the 2019 winner for Best Inspirational Fiction in the RWA Golden Quill Contest, Best Romance in the American Book Awards, and a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award of Fiction. Amy’s 2019 work, The Devil’s Fortune, is based, in part, on her family history and is garnering many five star reviews.