In quietness and confidence is your strength
This is a powerful phrase in an ancient scripture. (Isaiah 15)
Here are a few other ways it is translated from the Hebrew:
In quietness and trust is your strength
In quietness and trusting confidence is your strength
In silence and in hope shall your strength be
This invitation is so counter-cultural.
Where does my strength come from? Not from pushing? Striving? Or gritting my teeth?
Strength comes from stillness? Quietness? Silence? From trusting? And hope?
It seems this is an inner posture of the heart that takes a life-time to learn.
Recently, someone dear to me shared this ancient text with me and told the story of how these words came at such a significant moment in their lives. It was a good reminder to my own heart.
Am I able to be quiet and trust?
Quietness – Quietness requires slowing down. Deep breath. Pause. I recognize in these moments where my muscles have become tight, constricted. As I write these words, the song, “I am with you” begins to play. The lyrics come to me, “I rest in Your presence.” How significant. Have you ever been with someone that is so safe for you, you find yourself resting, fully? You find yourself being silly even? There is a rest that comes when you are with someone that completely accepts you and embraces your being. These moments are such a tremendous gift in life. I believe in these moments we discover again who we are, we discover again the joyfulness of childhood, we discover the preciousness of life. This is the kind of friendship that is at the heart of the Universe. It is such a paradox that the Universe holds this vast expanse and yet a mystery of intimacy. This summer I spend many nights on my deck on my Mexican blanket, looking up at the stars. Seeing the macro universe, the expanse, the mystery of my own existence filled my heart and soul. Could there also be the micro intimacy of the heart in the midst of this vastness? Nothing one can prove, except moments of profound awareness that lift the heart and soul. Deep calls to deep. These are gifts that come through quiet; a rest of being, a rest of soul, a rest that enables one to breathe and listen. Alone, or in the presence of another where one can feel utterly safe, quietness opens an inner landscape of the heart. Quietness is perhaps an inner state of being that leads to awareness.
Trusting Confidence – I love the combination of these words. If quietness is an inner state of being, then trusting confidence is the energy that propels an inner attitude towards decisions, action, and presence in the world. I believe that trusting confidence emerges from the awareness that happens in the quiet. Quietness builds a root system into the inner well of Wisdom. I can’t trust out of my own will power. I can only trust from the profound gifts of awareness that emerge through the silence. From the silence, I learn of the song of the universe that is longing to sing itself through my life. This is an abstract concept, I know. But it is so hard to articulate the reality of this inner knowing. Recently, the metaphor came as “inner knowing” being a place of an inner rudder, guiding one’s life. There is a quiet, trusting confidence in the rudder of a ship. It holds steady. It is a guiding principle. It is a source of stability, durability, strength, and perseverance. It holds a hope of reaching a destination, a goal, a longing. Can I trust this deep inner rudder, even in times of waiting and unknowing? It seems the only way forward at times; to trust even when one cannot fully see, trusting with a quiet confidence in the mystery of the path.
Unfinished Song – As we sing the song of our lives, we are living into the notes and rests of each moment. We are unable to always know how the song will end! But may we find courage in the quiet. May we find courage in the silence. May we find joy in the song of our lives and know profound trust that yields a gentle confidence as we live from the beauty of our souls.
Do you take time for quiet? For rest?
Do you know that you can find a quiet confidence within? A confidence built from trust that emerges from the stillness? This is available to us all when we listen and open our hearts to receive.
Here is an excerpt from the new book, Pause, on the gift of Rest. Chapter 49 
Many of us don’t understand the true value of rest. We may see it as a place of recovery, a place to catch our breath. Perhaps rest is that, but it is also so much more. Rest, if we deepen into it, allows a sense of pause in our lives, causing us to listen to the wisdom within. There is wisdom our bodies carry. Wisdom our hearts carry. Wisdom our souls are inviting us to listen to.
When we rest, we allow a pause, a spaciousness in our lives where we can give attention to the inner wisdom. Many of us are looking to external authority to tell us what to do or who we are. Without pause, we do not allow ourselves to find an intrinsic knowing, an internal wisdom. This inner wisdom is deeper than our instinctual responses and requires an attentive heart, stillness of mind, and a humility of heart. We are invited, through deep rest, to listen, to listen to the Source of all Life.
Rest allows us, when we pause and listen, to receive deep provision for our lives, like roots being energized from the wellspring way under the ground. When we understand the value of this kind of rest, we will be hungry to pause, so that we can receive the wisdom we need for the next step.Pausing and rest bring moments of quiet, which allows us to be reoriented to a source of Wisdom, which provides confident trust in taking the next step. (you can order Pause here – now available)
For whatever this moment of life is bringing you, may you have the courage to pause and listen, courage to be still and draw up the wisdom that is there for you, courage to know your life is so precious and worth caring for.
With love,
Cathy
