Day of Silence
By Jaylene Vroom
A day of silence was something that a lot of people in our group had never done before so it was a new and exciting experience for everyone. Our group is split pretty evenly between people who like to use their outdoor voices and people who like to use their indoor voice, so most of us were dreading the day when words could not be exchanged.
We had three different portions to the day. The first section was based on thinking and praying about others either in the main lodge of the camp, or we could leave and go outside by ourselves if we wanted. It’s amazing how long you can pray and spend time with God when you invite him. We often make the mistake thinking that God isn’t there, but it’s undoubtedly us who have to shut out the noise and everything else in order to hear and concentrate on God.
The second two hours were based on solitude, being alone with God, and being fully devoted to him.
The third section, which impacted me the most, was based on taking in God’s beauty and experiencing his majesty. Walking around outside and looking at the landscape that we were so blessed to be a part of, we would’ve had to have been wearing a blindfold in order not to notice God all around us.
We were at YMCA in Alberta, and the camp is positioned in the foothills of the Rockies with a lake nearby, with fields in between (explaining it with words just doesn’t give it justice when we open our hearts and eyes to God). There was also so much going on outside that I started noticing like the wind blowing through the trees and over the snow, the sound of the snow under my feet, the dripping of the eaves troughs…it all became so loud because of the quiet that we were finally experiencing that was all so new to us.
The main point of our day of silence was to take the noise, busyness, and distractions out of our day in order to be more aware of the ways that God speaks to us everyday. We just have to take time out of our day to concentrate and focus on God.
