Have you ever gotten emotional reading a children’s book? Please tell me that I am not the only one this happens to! One of the books that gets me every time is The Rabbit Listened. The book shows the different ways that people can respond to things that happen to us and how a lot of times, we just need someone to listen. Often times after being heard - really heard and understood - we can start to move forward. I try to practice this with my kids and with the people in our church. I can think of specific times that I have not done this well. Like the time a friend in our church was telling me about a podcast he had heard. I barely let him finish his sentence before I started telling him all the reasons why the message was incorrect. He didn’t say much after that; I could tell I spoke too quickly. I was just afraid he would be misled. I tried to back up. I asked him questions to understand what he thought of the message. Turns out he saw the error in the doctrine, but he still needed to talk about the interesting points and how he came to the understanding that it was false teaching. He needed a listening ear, a safe person who believed like him who he could verbally process with. I almost missed the opportunity. 

Another opportunity I had to practice listening was when our adopted five-year-old son cried for 15 minutes because he felt he missed out on something fun because he fell asleep early. It really wasn’t that big of a deal, but it was to him. I have no idea what this precious boy lived through the first years of his life. So even though the situation looked like he was overreacting, I held him as he sobbed on my shoulder and I remembered the greatest gift I could give him there was to listen, to hold him and to comfort him. After expressing his sadness and feeling like he had been heard, he calmed down and felt better. 

So I am learning to listen. As a mom, as a friend, as a ministry partner, I find many opportunities to practice. Sometimes out of fear or my urge to fix everything, I want to jump in and correct but listening first is something I am learning. I try to ask questions to better understand and then guide the conversations to the truth in the Word. Isn’t it a sweet gift to know that God listens to us? He invites us to “pour out our heart to Him”. He knows it all but He still invites us to unload it all on Him so we can have the blessing of being heard and understood.