What are you listening for? Over the course of fourteen years I gave birth to six children. For the first three months of each child’s life they slept right next to the bed in a bassinet. My husband thought our children were perfect because they slept through the night from the first night we brought them home from the hospital. Of course that is not the case, it is just my husband was not in tune to hear their cries. He slept through every diaper change and every feeding. He couldn’t understand if I was tired in the morning when I was making his breakfast, after all, I got a full night of sleep.
It was about when the bassinet held our third child, that my husband bolted upright out of the bed and exclaimed, “Don’t you hear that? Something has one of the chickens!” I strained my ears to try to make out what he was hearing, and then heard a very faint squawky squeak. I had to really concentrate to hear the muffled cry for help. He was out the door before I was sure there was even a noise at all. He was able to save the chicken, and I was left wondering if I were going deaf, because he heard that in his sleep and I could hardly hear it while I was awake.
Why, I wondered, didn’t he ever hear any of the babies making any noise, yet he heard that almost silent cry for help? The difference is, I am in tune to the babies cries. It is my responsibility for their feeding and changing, where his responsibilities were to make sure this farm ran smoothly and the livestock were taken care of. He can hear a car, truck or tractor a mile away, while I can hear one of the children’s cries if they get hurt on the playground. He was in tune to hearing farm noises and I was in tune to children noises. I would waken from a sound sleep, if down the hall, the breathing of one of the children would change, or even stop for more than a second or two.
That is what it is like to be a child of God, his ears are in tune to our cries for help, thankfulness, and prayer. Even if our cries are silent he is in tune, listening to every sound that we, or our heart may make. And he never sleeps, or lets his attention for us be distracted. We have nothing to fear, he will always be there for us, morning, noon or night.
As parents it is important to stay in tune with our children at every age. To be careful to listen to what they are not saying as much as what they are saying. Listen to their body language, and make sure they know they can come to you with anything, great or small, and they will be greeted with love and understanding not ridicule.
We as authors must be in tune with our characters to help them reach our vision of what and whom they can become. The story is only as strong as the characters we create, and fruition we bring them to.
In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.
Psalms 18:6
The eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.
Psalms 34:15
And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
Isaiah 65:24
Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.
Micah 7:7
I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.
Psalms 116:1-2