A new sound....When you reach the age that I am, and I am not really saying what that is, you do not realize that there may be new sounds out there that you have never before heard. I know that is a sort of arrogant assumption to believe that there are no new sounds out in God's great world to hear. But to be honest with you before today I had never thought about it.

After a great worship service in our Marble Community Church, Jon and I took our yellow lab, Starbuck (yes that is her name and yes I do like coffee very very much), for a walk down to Beaver Lake. It was a relatively warm day and the surrounding mountains with their blankets of snow were magnificent! There was a gentle refreshing breeze and that is what created the sound. Beaver Lake has a very thin fragile cover of ice on it which is cracked in many places. The breeze stirred the thin ice and this most unusual sound was created. I stopped in my tracks and looked around for what was causing the sound. Jon, being from South Dakota and much use to frozen country, explained to me, a southerner, what the sound was.

I was so amazed that I got as low to the lake as I could on its very edge perched on a rock and listened. It was a sort of music in its own way. There was no traffic (after all it is winter in Marble) and no other distracting human made noises so that I could clearly hear this mysterious sound from nature. It was not so different from the "still small voice" that the scripture speaks of. My excitement was that I had heard a new sound, one that I had never heard before. How many new sounds are out there to be heard if only we stop to listen!

It is my prayer that I will have "ears that hear" and "eyes that see." It is my prayer that I can hear and be excited by the still small voice that is so willing to speak to a soul that is ready to listen. It is my prayer that I will always be ready to listen even if that voice speaks in a way that I have never before heard!

"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
"Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him....." Psalm 37:7