The Sound

Listen.  Can you hear that?  It’s everywhere, all around you.  You can hear it in a newborn baby’s very first cry, and in his daddy’s awe struck smile.  It is heard in the whispering of the wind through green Spring leaves, and you’ll hear it in roaring thunderstorms.  It is the sound of an apology and forgiveness.  I can hear it when the sun rises, and in the quiet sparkling stars at night.  A mother’s kiss on her child’s bleeding knee creates an echoe, generating a melody in harmony with every single thing around us. 

The sound keeps everything going.  The earth rotates because of it, and new stars and galaxies are born through it.  What you see, what you feel, what you think, all of it is drenched in this sound.  Listen.  Can you hear it now?

Curious?  Want to know where it comes from?  Come lay your head down here, on the Father’s chest.  Now can you hear it?  Softly, faintly at first.  But wait, keep listening.  The longer you listen the louder it will get.  Soon you will feel it beating through your veins, like a steady drum in a thick green forest.  It will stir up your own heart to beat the same rhythm.  The same sound.  Can you hear what it is saying?

Lovelove                    Lovelove                    Lovelove                    Lovelove                    

Love is patient, love is kind, love is all you need.  Love really does make the world go round.  But why does the world seem so devoid of love?  If Love is everywhere, why is there so much room for pain? 

Let’s say your little boy has just gotten his first bicycle.  He’s so excited to learn how to ride.  You push him around a couple of times.  “Let go now Daddy, I can do it.”  You let go.  The next moment you’re bandaging a knee or an elbow, but a few minutes later he is up again.  Though he might have had one painful experience, which is probably only the first of many, you as his parent know that it is not the “bad bike”.  It is only his inexperience.  However you have a choice.  Take the bicycle away and protect him from falling, or allow him to practice and maybe give him some knee guards and a helmet.  He will definately fall again, but with each fall he will learn a valuable lesson.  These lessons will make him confident and strong.  He’ll learn to believe in himself, and to try and try again.  He’ll learn that failure is not making a mistake, but rather not having the courage to give it one more try. 

Do you understand where love is in the world?  Love allows you to get up on the bike again.  No matter how painful the fall was, what’s most important is that you learn to get up.  And still Love watches every move you make.  Love cheers you on, and Love comforts you when you’re hurt.  But Love’s main objective is that you learn and grow.  You want your child to grow up to be like you, right?  Love wants you to grow up to be like Him. 

So yes, there are painful things in this world, this world that is kept alive through Love.  But removing those things will take away the possibilities for growth along with the need for Love.  A need that we have as a result of these difficult things. 

Now...Come lay your head down here on Father’s chest again.  Listen to His Lovebeat.  The more you listen, the more it will become part of who you are.  The more you understand this sound of Love, your ears will open to hear it all around you, even in pain. Listen to Love and remember that nothing you do can ever drown out that sound.  It is in you and it surrounds you.