Sometimes I speak loudly. With clarity. With direction. And sometimes I speak so softly that you have to slow down to hear me. The silence isn’t absence. It’s intimacy. It’s the kind of closeness that doesn’t need words. You don’t have to perform for me. You don’t have to fill the quiet with the right prayers or the right feelings. Just sit with me. Let me sit with you.

I’m not far away. I’m right here. Closer than you realize. Listening to everything you don’t say. Loving you through every season, even the quiet ones

I’m not far away. I’m right here. Closer than you realize.

– Jacqueline Whitney

God want’s you to hear this today —

“I know it’s felt quiet between us lately.

You’ve been wondering if I’m still here. If I’m still listening. If you’ve done something wrong to make me pull away. You’ve been straining to hear me and getting nothing back.

But the silence between us isn’t silence at all.

I’ve been here the whole time. In the moments you didn’t realize were prayers. In the peace that came when you weren’t expecting it. In the strength that showed up when you didn’t think you had any left. In the timing of small things you wrote off as coincidence.

Sometimes I speak loudly. With clarity. With direction. And sometimes I speak so softly that you have to slow down to hear me. The silence isn’t absence. It’s intimacy. It’s the kind of closeness that doesn’t need words.

You don’t have to perform for me. You don’t have to fill the quiet with the right prayers or the right feelings. Just sit with me. Let me sit with you.

I’m not far away. I’m right here. Closer than you realize. Listening to everything you don’t say. Loving you through every season, even the quiet ones.”

Jacqueline Whitney is the author Held: A 50 Day Devotional For Parents and All That You Deserve.