We all need a safe place

There is a place at Hope’s View that is fast becoming my safe place. It looks out into a forest of tall trees with a beautiful ground cover of fluorescent green spider plants. A staghorn in my eyes’ view, which continually amazes me as it suckles onto the branch that is so thin and yet it is secure there.

Then directly in front of me is a beautiful tree, its trunk is solid and strong and as your eyes follow it up the trunk, it branches into three parts, yes, three from one. I call it my trinity tree. And from where I sit it goes so high in the sky and in a straight strong line it calls to the sky, shouting it is resolute and strong. I love to sit here and feel the silence of nature; the occasional bird breaks the silence and then silence again. Today it is the gentle dropping of dew after the rain, a butterfly clumsily flutters by. It is a safe place for me to sit. I breathe it in and breathe it out.

In this safe place the world and all the thoughts that want to intrude, seem to fall away and move to the distance. There is no hurry to move. He is not looking at his watch to tell me He has to move to another appointment, or He needs to see someone else. There are no lists to tick off. I feel that time is not His master, but that He is the master of it all.

I am learning that in this space words are not necessary. I don’t have to say anything, request anything, even need to think about anything … which is good as there are many things I simply have no answers for.

“Sharing silence is a profound act of trust, love, and courtesy. It is a mutual gift, a necessity, a helping hand, a path, and a discipline. (Gunilla Norris)

Of course I would dearly love to hear His voice, His direction, His counsel, maybe even His gentle correction. It is how I have been wired and taught to pray for many years. It is how I have functioned as a disciple always seeking to be better, know more, do more, excel in all things. But in this new space … it is just silence and wordless.

“The deepest level of communication is not communication but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and beyond speech, and it is beyond concept”.

(Thomas Merton)

Maybe I don’t stay long enough to hear His voice or maybe for now He is teaching me that it is safe to simply be silent. The safe spaces allow Him to capture and fill the silent spaces of my heart that I have been afraid to sit in for a long time, in case they remind me of how lonely and sad and rejected I can feel. In this place that is beyond words … I simply listen and feel God say, “I am ok, I am enough, I am loved, I am safe”. This is a concept I cannot explain, but it is very real for me.

Psalms 46:1

“God is our place of safety. He gives us strength”

Where is safe for you? Everyone needs that safe place to run to, to retreat, to breathe. Does this seem a hard thing to believe or comprehend?

It is a discipline I am learning more and more about. I am learning that we don’t have to do anything, but that I must choose to be disciplined enough to stop doing and simply let Him. And perhaps that is the hardest discipline of all. I wonder if finding ‘silence’ seems impossible. It too is a discipline. If not total silence, it might be more about needing to silence certain aspects of your life. I am sure that a ‘safe place’ will look differently for everyone. However it looks, it will be about our pace, slowing down, stepping aside, changing the noise and creating space. My prayer is that as you seek to find your safe place, you might see it as a gift, a helping hand and a profound act of love. My prayer is that as you meet Him in these spaces, that it will fill your soul as it does for me as I stare at my trinity tree and balancing staghorn and let the sounds of nature wash over me. I am thankful He simply meets me here.