My day is filled with noise. A lot of little people noise. Momma, momma! Play ball with momma? A giggling toddler and soon to be six year old. A squeaking recorder belting out Hot Cross Buns over and over. A video game or a twenty minute Paw Patrol show or the dryer clunk clunk clunking the wad of wet clothes around and around the cylinder. Even as I sit here during my “work time”, the monitor is on and casting a steady stream of water rushing from Sawyer’s sound machine, and the heat is being forced up through the vent behind me. Gun shots ring from the rifle practice that is often going on around my house, though I have no idea how close or how far the rifles truly are. (They still scare me).

But I’m silent and buzzing with feeling all at the same time. I’m sitting here right now silent, amidst the noise around me. And I’m thinking about how amazing and how much of a blessing it is to have an ear to hear and to be an ear to hear others. To have friends who have been put into my life to bounce thoughts off of, and to share in struggles and hard, life changing decisions and emotions that are so utterly real. I pray that I can be molded into someone who is full of compassion and love and forever and ever be an ear to hear. Not with judgement, and not with pride, but with a pure love. That’s what I pray.

With the noise all around in life, pushing it all to the side to be a hearing ear is so important. Don’t forget to love those others around you, amidst the noise. Love is best to be shared.