In Quietness and Confidence

Caben Coch Reservoir overflowing

photo credit

Above all guard your heart
for it is the wellspring of life.

- Proverbs 4:23

For thus says the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel:
“ In returning and rest you shall be saved;
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.”

- Isaiah 30:15

Summer speaks of much activity, warm sunshine, blue skies, flowers in full bloom, bright splashes of color.

Then comes fall, that gentle, quiet season. The very word "fall" paints a picture deep with meaning. This season invites us to slow down, drink in the beauty, reflect, do a spiritual inventory.

It has been very hot and dry here in our province these past weeks. There was hardly any rain and I have had to get up before daybreak just to water my garden. The water pressure has been low; more often than not, only a mere trickle would flow out of the garden hose. It was much easier to use my watering can, and fill it with water from the old fashioned hand pump. Doing this of course required many trips to and from the pump located at the back of our house. But I didn't mind. The garden was very thirsty and longed for water. What little moisture the night mist left behind was gone by sunrise.

After months of piling dried leaves, left over vegetables and fruit peel into a compost heap, I decided this week to "harvest" the soil that has been forming underneath. There is a garden shop near our house that sells organic material composed of dried cow dung, rice chaff, wood ash, and press mud (a solid waste obtained from the sugar mills). I have also availed myself of several packs of coffee grounds that Starbucks gives out to anyone who wants them.

This morning, after mixing all of this organic stuff, I had a big mound of nutrient rich garden soil. My maid and I spent three hours putting all the soil around the plants. I know that in just a few days, I'll be seeing much evidence of growth around my garden again.

After lunch, there was a heavy downpour, just the very thing that the garden needed!

How grateful I am to be spending these weeks here at home. Aside from doing yard work, I was also able to supervise the repairs being done. My British friend Trudi and I discovered that we could buy a big sack of assorted broken tiles from Citi Hardware for only a hundred pesos (US$ 2.00). I asked my carpenter to make a long wooden table with a mosaic tile top. It was an inexpensive and creative way of adding color and beauty to the laundry area.

There is much progress, and my heart fills up with hope.

How much easier to look at a glass half filled, and see it as half empty...or to walk into a room and see nothing but imperfections.

But once again, I choose to look at my life in light of the glorious possibilities available to me from my Father's heart.



Last week I had the wonderful opportunity of spending time with Jane Rubietta. Getting to know her heart is one of the Lord's best gifts to me this year.

Our church had two events with her; one was the two-day Women's Conference 2009 entitled Come Closer, and the other was a weekend retreat, Simply Resting.

Jane spoke of things very close to my heart. She talked about the longings of our heart.

"What we as women desire is unfailing love," she said, quoting from Proverbs 19:22.

"The longing for perfect is God-given. We were created for heaven - for Eden. We were created for perfect."

And yet, the truth stares us in the eye. Daily we find ourselves struggling with disappointment, with discontent. Running away from the pain. We choose to live frantic and frenzied busy lives to "keep us from having to face who we are and who we are not."

And we end up settling for less than what God intended us to be.

We were not created for this. "Deep inside our hearts is a longing for quiet."

"Silence is healing," Jane says." It is one of the ways that we create space for God."

During one of the sessions, she shared this lovely quote written by Bernard of Clairvaux:

If then you are wise, you will show yourself rather as a reservoir than a canal. A canal spreads abroad water as it receives it, and a reservoir waits in stillness until it is filled before overflowing, and thus, without loss to itself, communicates its superabundant water.

I know Jane's coming to our city at this time is not an accident or a mere coincidence.

She shared with us lessons she had learned first hand from the Lord, things that we ourselves needed to hear.

I've never met Jane before. But while listening to her, I felt like I'd known her for a long time...

She addressed our feelings of failure, and disappointments with ourselves. She called them our "not enough-ness." People will fail and disappoint us as well. No one person can really meet our expectations perfectly.

But failure is not fatal, they are always redeemable by God. Our pain prepares a way for us to function in our gifts.

It really amazes me how God used Jane to speak hope into my own heart. Tears came to my eyes as she shared words that God had personally spoken to her:

"I am loving you perfectly from heaven, but I am doing it through imperfect people. Are you willing to let me do that?"

Silence is this holy place where you just let God love you. In this place you are accepted...in this place you are given the freedom to be yourself.


Jeremiah 50:6 pretty much summarizes the condition of our hearts:

They have forgotten their resting place.

God invites us to come home to His heart where we have an encounter with the healing power of beauty.


I don't want to live in Babylon anymore, Jane says.


That line spoke so much to my heart. Once again, I knew God was calling me to find my rest in Him alone...

Jane shared the ways rest can come:

Rest by starting over.

Rest in conflict.

Rest by admitting our need.

Rest by grieving.



Finding rest by grieving...this was an eye-opener. John Eldredge says that we need time each day to worship and to grieve.

What a fitting ending to this season, as autumn gently and quietly gives way to the cold and dark days of winter!

For isn't autumn is a kind of grieving? A willingness to let go, and start over? A relinquishing?


I am reminded of the words of Joyce Rupp who talks about befriending our inner darkness. She writes:

...darkness has become less of an enemy for me and more of a place of silent nurturance, where the slow, steady gestation needed for my soul's growth can occur.

Joyce Rupp, Little Pieces of Light

Yes...I definitely can say "Yes" to that.

My heart resonates as I realize that

to accept God's fullness is to be in touch with my own emptiness...

to receive His comfort, I need to face my own pain...

to appreciate the lasting quality of eternity, I must be willing to live with uncertainty for now.



I came across this beautiful meditation written by a pastor in Dusseldorf, Germany. His words fit perfectly into what Jane has been saying! Let me end this post by quoting a portion of what he has written:

You are more than your circumstances. Your failures are not the final comment on your life. Your outward limitations do not deprive you of eternity touching your soul. An arid moral environment does not mean that you cannot be filled with the Living Water of holiness.

... guard your heart and fill your thoughts with the true, noble, and pure things of God. This is your life and He is your Wellspring to give you strength and encouragement in times of difficulty.

Read more here.

My Prayer:

Dear Father, how I want You to be my joy, my strength, my all in all!

I ask You to fill me, and help me be as a reservoir, that I may minister to others out of the overflow

... from a sense of fullness, rather than a sense of emptiness.

Enable me to create quiet places in my heart for You! How I desire to tap into the wellspring of Your heart, to that river that never runs dry!

Help me to hold on to hope, even as the year ends, and I am on the threshold of another year, another beginning!




Here are a few pictures I took at the CICM Retreat House in Talisay City where we had our weekend retreat:

Sunday early evening, sun had just set; tide beginning to come in. (November 15)

Monday, early morning, low tide, and clouds just beginning to form. (November 16)

Grassy place with trees and small huts for times alone with God

Young bamboo and coconut trees growing by the seawall

Jane and me, kindred spirits