cloaked in quiet

there are very few things i enjoy more than a quiet evening at home - curled up in a blanket, drinking coffee and reading a book. i don't know what is the quality of silence that can make it seem full... but often this is how a quiet can sound to me. even living in an apartment complex where there is inevitably neighbors' noise, it can sometimes be so still that the only thing natural to do is sit and listen... ear pressed up against the heavenly door, noticing and placing each sound into its earthly context. it is a game that cannot be lost or won, a matching game of prayers and dreams.

there is nothing so serene in my life, as evenings like this.

here in the quiet, i am free to dream of all the things i hold dear or hope to hold dearly someday... with no explanations, no defenses, no motivations to produce and uphold... simply free to sit here and be Lauren. free to reminisce over past regrets, as if from a distance - where the sting is long since past, and forgiveness is all that i remember when looking at the scars. free to pray for things that are much too big for me to accomplish... to pray for them hesitantly, but with a passion whose source is full both of Himself and the blessings He longs to bestow.

in this moment, cloaked in quiet... there is freedom here.

my family has many home videos from when my brother and i were young... and as i've gotten older, there is one thing i have noticed about myself in those videos - one thing which i most contrast with myself, the way i am now. as i watch myself on those videos, i see freedom... i twirled and floated, sang songs, ran up to the camera... enjoyed attention. i was shy, yes - that hasn't changed - but i was so uninhibited... sometimes it is hard for me to watch those videos without crying.

those dances i used to do - those spins and twirls through the living room, through the sprinkler in the backyard, through the mall... that song that never stopped pouring forth - i sometimes wonder if that spirit still exists somewhere deep inside me. underneath all the inhibitions, the dull and sharpened understandings, the accomplishments and failures, the heartbreaks and patches... underneath it all, does my spirit - does my soul still delight like that? does my heart dance freely?

i think about this often, and most often i do not know the answer.

but then there is a night like tonight - when the silence is full - when my heart still feels the shadows, but somehow finds its rest within them... and i sit here in this apartment, drinking my coffee, reading Charles Dickens and listening to the clock tick the quiet away...

and i know - by the very beat of my heart i am assured - that although the little girl has grown, still because of Love, she sings. she finds her Love, and basks in it.

and within that Love, she dances freely.