The Sounds of Night for iPad on the iTunes App Store
The Sounds of Night for iPad on the iTunes App Store.
My family downloaded this app for the first time last week. My four and six year old sons were home with me at the time. We read through the story with them enraptured the entire time (not something that usually happens with these boys!). When we were finished, they asked to read it again. Then again.
Later that night, my eight year old son began having night terrors. I told him about the app and asked if he would like to try reading through it with me. As we read through the story, he began to calm down. By the end of the story, he was calm enough to utter a few sounds, but still could not even speak. I began reading the Bible verses to him from the last screen. I asked him if he wanted to read them with me, but he was still too scared to talk. As I read the verses over and over, he began mumbling the words along with me until he was finally calm enough to read them aloud.
He picked his favorite of the four verses and repeated it to himself over and over until he was able to go to sleep. I am so grateful for this app, and for God leading me to find it on the exact night we would need it.
Whether you are looking for a great bedtime story, an app that your pre-readers can interact with, or something to help your children with their fears, this is a great choice.
Radio Silence Has Ended
I look back over my posts and wonder how the time could have passed so quickly. How has it been over a year since I have last recorded a mission? How have I not been here, the place where I planned to record each mission that our family explored. Each odyssey that we began?
But then I think back over the past year, and I recall the journey. Selah‘s “The Broken Road” leaps into my mind. How has time changed so much from last year to this? How has everything changed? Nothing that was then seems to be now. Our odyssey has continued, but my words disappeared.
For a wordy Southern girl who was dubbed as being able to “talk the horns off a billy-goat” at the mere age of two by her babysitter Mrs. Dalrymple, this girl was completely silenced by the hand of God. I had planned to talk about it on my professional blog, but the words would never come. I have been brought to the place where I have learned that there is a sacred space between work and home, private and public. And I have learned that they overlap in ways that I had tried to separate. Perhaps some issues with my children are more public than I want them to be, and some issues with myself should really be more private.
In the space of eighteen months, I have traveled the road of Psalm 46:10. I have learned to be still. But even more, I have learned to know God. Not just that He is, but truly who He is. Yes, some of us take a little longer than others for things to sink in. I fully admit that I have always been a late bloomer, but I also know that a late bloomer is better than a vine with no blooms at all.
During this time, I had not been commanded to be quiet, yet I had not been able to find any words to speak. My well had gone completely dry. I sat. I listened. I felt a bit like Elijah during the drought after his creek went dry. There was simply nothing there. I knew that He had told me to write, but He gave me no topics, no words. I knew He had appeared, but the words had vanished. Fear surrounded me. Doubt plagued me. How could I be a writer when there were no words, no message, no audience.
I learned that I had an audience of One. He was the One I needed to talk to. He was the One I needed to fall in love with. His voice was the One I needed to hear. Not the voice of strangers who clicked a “like” button on my page, but only Him.
As recently as five days ago, I had nothing to say. I sat with a friend talking about God’s calling on my life, and we both questioned what He wanted me to say. I still felt I had nothing to offer. It was all about me and what I understood. I sat down daily and tried to write. I searched for words. I found emptiness. I felt God tell me that I would begin writing today, and I was terrified. How would I suddenly be able to write when the well had been dry for months.
But this past weekend, I was refueled. God led me to a mountaintop and put my feet on holy ground. He surrounded me with His presence, and then He sent me home.
And He sent me with words.
The words that had eluded me for months consumed me. The thoughts I needed to communicate flew through my fingers more quickly than my eyes could keep up. I soon found myself typing with my eyes closed, reflecting back to when my mother had taught me to type more than 25 years ago. Not looking for hints, not reviewing my errors. Just finding my rhythm and going. Not worrying about mistakes, errors or word counts. Just going with the flow, hearing the click of the keys and sending words out faster than my mind imagined possible.
Today the words have not stopped. I have written for hours, and still the words flow. I have saved many of my thoughts for other days, but still the words continue from my heart.
How can I share all that God has blessed me with?
How I can I be the woman who He created me to be?
Can I be an example to others who have experienced what I have, and can I safeguard others from going where I have gone?
I do not have the answers, but He does. As He leads, I will write. As He stops, I will stop. I do not have a platform, a genre, a following. But I have an audience, an audience of One, and I have the life that He has given to me. I will let my Captain pilot this journey, and I will sit in the copilot’s chair. Learning from Him, putting my hands on the controls as He leads me to, but knowing that I cannot take the controls away from Him. As long as I do this, my odyssey will be one of a lifetime and I will be filled beyond measure.
Odyssey of a Lifetime 