My Worth Isn't Determined by What I Say

by Sarah Van Diest 
@SarahVanDiest

Something to say?

We don’t always have something to say. It doesn’t change our worth, value or significance, it just means right now we are quiet. It is a good time to listen, to be still and know that He is God. It is a good time to employ our senses and take in from the world around us.

In the stillness a picture enters my mind of a starlit, clear, expansive night sky. In spite of its enormity, or perhaps because of it, it sits easily over the valley and mountains nesting beneath.

The delicate dominance

            Of the night sky over the land below.

            ~ A sweet oppression.

A deep breath of my own echoes to join the night’s smooth rhythmic breathing: warm air rising and cool air settling in.

That sky, in all its magnificent grandeur, with all the secrets it holds and the splendor it displays, its depth is beyond our comprehension. What it contains, at least to us, is equivalent to the infinite. We cannot take in all that it is, and yet it dips down into the scope of our vision and we see it, behold it with our small eyes, and we are set in wonder. How does it not crush us? How does it not snuff us out? How are we not fully overwhelmed, enveloped and engulfed by its immeasurable vastness? How do the forces that hold it together not undo all that we are?

It is in the hollow place of questions like that where we hear our Father’s whispers. His breath fills our souls with reassurance; our hearts beat in accordance with His comforting, strong will that proclaims our right to be here, our worth and our value. He alone sustains us. He tells the oceans where to stop and the stars where to stand. He holds the night sky’s tremendous weight and the day’s light does not consume us.

If there is not awe that rests in us when we are still, we would do well then to open our eyes to the evidences of our Father’s greatness all around. We would do well to read God’s words to Job and be astounded once again by all that we do not understand and cannot know. 

Do not worry if you have nothing to say today. Be still and listen. Our Father speaks. “He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth’" Psalm 46:10.

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Educated as a teacher, Sarah taught school for nearly 20 years. As a young woman, she lived in China amid the rice paddies and water buffalo near Changsha, and then later taught English in Costa Rica for four years and raised her two sons. 

Sarah is married for the second time, the mother of 2 boys and the step-mother to 3 more. She and her husband, David, work together in their agency The Van Diest Literary Agency. Her full name is Sarah Ruth Gerke Van Diest. She’s 5’5” and cuts her hair when stress overtakes her. 

She is a freelance editor (including a New York Times and USA Today bestseller), blogger (The Write Conversation) and writer for hire. Her first book releases with NavPress in 2018. 

http://christianliteraryagency.com/

https://www.facebook.com/sarah.gerkevandiest

https://twitter.com/SarahVanDiest