As an English major, there's precious little I love more than—you guessed it—books. And you know what books are filled with? Words. I love words. Long words, short words, poetic words, blunt words, flowery, descriptive words. All of them.
Words are pragmatic: we use them to communicate information from one person to another. We use our words to communicate everything from basic needs such as hunger and thirst, to our deepest desires and goals in life. We use words to entertain, to tell stories, to preserve history. We use them to convey emotion. We have the ability to use our words to speak life and encouragement into those around us...and we possess the uncanny ability to turn words into sources of destruction, vindictiveness and hate. Words are powerful. The very God that I worship spoke the world into existence—with words! I don't need any other proof that words are important.
But sometimes words leave me hanging, and usually at the most inconvenient of times. I tend to find that when I need words most, they fail me. When I want to communicate a deep sense of gratitude to someone, gratitude that reaches beyond a simple "thank you"...I have no words. When I feel the need to defend someone who can't defend themselves, I bluster and spew impassioned words that either make little sense, or leave little impact. When I am so completely overjoyed, I often find that the grin on my face and the laughter erupting from my soul are communicating my sentiments far more accurately than words could. When I find myself broken and hurting, the tears that pour fourth come because I don't have enough words to express the deepness of my pain.
Sometimes words just don't work. I find this frustrating on a profound level.
And yet, words are not the be all end all of communication. The absence of words leads to silence, and silence leaves time for introspection and reflection. When words fall short, I'm forced to be quiet, to focus on how I really feel, and to just simply...be. Society places so much pressure to always have the right words to say: the catchiest slogan, the funniest jokes, the most impactful speech, the most persuasive answers and opinions, the right advice to give. Somewhere in the middle of all of this wordy chaos, we forget how to just be.
Why is it that stillness, quiet and silence make us so uncomfortable? When I think about my own experiences, I find that most of the moments that I cherish the most are those for which words fall short: when I watched my best friend walk down the aisle to get married; when someone took the time to just sit with me in silence while I cried, instead of trying to fix my problems; every single time I laugh so hard I can't breathe.
So I'm trying to teach myself to be okay with not having words. I recently started working with an autistic child who is mostly non-verbal, and sometimes his lack of words is frustrating, but I'm learning to read his communication in other ways. I'm learning to appreciate that words work differently for different people, and sometimes they just don't work at all, and that's okay.
Scripture says that when we don't know what to pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that are too deep for words. If God communicates beyond words, then it must be good, and I want to appreciate it for what it is and how it makes me grow.
