Hush, Child

Growing up in rural South Georgia, there’s nothing quite like the smell of rain, the scent of red clay after a storm, or the sound of raindrops dancing across a tin rooftop. It has a way of slowing everything down. All you want to do is curl up beneath a quilt, close your eyes, and simply rest.

As a little girl, whenever thunder rolled across the sky, my great-grandmother would smile and say,

“Hush, child. Let the Lord do His work.”

I smile when I think about that now because part of me still wants to ask,

“Couldn’t He work while I’m talking?”

Maybe He can.

But perhaps there is something sacred about stillness.

Because when we’re constantly talking, striving, worrying, planning, and trying to orchestrate every outcome, we leave very little room for God to write His part of the story.

We keep reaching for the pen…

while He patiently waits.

Sometimes I imagine Him smiling, gently setting His pen beside the page, and saying,

“She’s not ready yet.
She’s still trying to finish the chapter I’ve already written.”

So He waits.

Not because He has forgotten us.

Not because He is absent.

But because some miracles can only be received by hands that have finally learned to be still.

The rain teaches us that.

It never argues with the ground.

It simply falls.

Patiently.

Quietly.

Faithfully.

And over time, it softens even the hardest earth.

The roots never complain because they’re buried in darkness.

They simply drink what heaven provides.

Maybe that’s what rest really is.

Not doing nothing…

but trusting that God is doing something.

Some of His greatest work isn’t accomplished in the noise of our activity.

It’s accomplished in the silence of our surrender.

The seed grows in the dark.

The roots deepen in the damp.

The rain falls while we’re sleeping.

And by morning…

everything has changed,

even though we never watched Him work.

So maybe my great-grandmother understood something I was too young to appreciate.

“Hush, child. Let the Lord do His work.”

Because the God who sends the thunder is the same God who knows exactly when the rain has done enough…

when the roots are finally strong enough…

and when it’s time for what has been hidden beneath the soil to break into the light.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” — Psalm 46:10

Sometimes the holiest thing we can do is stop talking long enough to hear the rain.

To remember that while the world measures progress by movement, God often accomplishes His greatest work in stillness.

Long before we ever see the blossom…

He has already been tending the roots.

Perhaps that’s why rain has always sounded like grace to me.