On the morning of my birthday, the studio is still. The best time of day. When not one sentence is spoken by another. Thoughts are my own. And I shepherd them carefully, respecting their shyness.

They tiptoe around a bit, hiding from me like children playing a game, circling up and peeking at me from around the couch, and then the bookcases, and then even the electric guitar propped up by a stool, muted but ready to sing.

No sudden movements. Just a settling. A patient knowing that they will come when they feel safe but seen, acknowledged but unforced or rushed. I decide I like them, and they trust me a bit more with themselves.

What are you thinking, feeling, dear one?

A question with many answers. And I am familiar with this reality more than any other: doubting any answer I give—not just to you, but to me—as true.

Don’t hide, don’t hide. Come out. I am here. You are loved. Trust me. Trust you.

And I stand, my feet strong and steady beneath me. I let the voices I realize I’ve always known, sing love song after love song over me. I feel each word. I know each smile. I hear them and accept them and love is in me, love is in me, love is me.

My friend shares how when she awakes, her eyes still closed but her mind racing with threats of worry, she lets love’s song sing through her to quiet her heart: “Rejoice, rejoice!” With her heart pressed to this voice, she settles. She knows (as you do) the voice who loves. And when she turns toward it, it cleanses her, it holds her, it brings her back to the familiar: love from the inside out.

Come home, come home, come home.

So, in this morning quiet, my bare feet pressed to cool concrete floor, I raise my head and recognize love’s laughter. Laughter fills the room so I can feel it on me and in me. And mind and heart come out of hiding, folded into safety. I am loved, loved, loved.

A few hours later, when a friend invites me to listen for God’s voice while we gather together in her home, I try to describe how sometimes God’s voice isn’t a sound but a knowing, a seeing, a trusting in a love we, really, have always known.

Angels

They are around me

illumined circles

of many bodies

around me

around me

the kiss of your lips on my cheek

and your tiptoes

thunder muted

as I love like you

taught me

I love what

you’ve taught me

with this band of gold

surrounding

one born from dust

and made glorious

your lips now mine

marked with song.

Click here to go to the poem, and here, for the portfolio of poems.

Would you join me in listening for God’s voice and write a poem to document your experience of it? Begin with a few lines—a feeling, a visual you work to describe. Trust your heart, trust His leading. Let your thoughts catapult you into a new way of being as He woos you toward Himself.

Let this truth propel you deeper into the place where He speaks this through you and you hear the laughter singing: you, my darling, are so dearly loved.

Love,