August Silence

How much quieter can it get? It's hard to believe that in a city like Dallas, you can feel the absence of activity so profoundly. It's as though everyone is "somewhere" better for this middle week of my least favorite month. For some reason, for most of my adult life, August has served as the crucible of my year... it seems I can count on facing something difficult during this long, hot month every single year. I have almost come to dread it, but then it occured to me that maybe there is some "salvation" in this annual corrective experience.

The assortment of reality checks that have marked these 31 days include confrontations from my parents on my maturity, surgeries, unhappy trips with my husband, lack of business, lack of friends around, no sports to watch, searing heat, lack of business, inescapable silence...in short, no distractions to distance me from what God might really be telling me.

Could it be a saving grace that for a few days out of the year I have to come to grips with how I am living, feeling, behaving and functioning? Could this arduous, oppressive atmosphere be the one period of time that grounds me to reality the rest of the year? Is it God's care for me that I'm not allowed to take refuge in any perceived certainty about my health, my future, my business? It makes me wonder if I might should look at August a little differently.