I WANT TO BE HEARD!

Have I ever told you that I have sensory overload?  I never knew there was a name for what I experienced on a regular basis until a few years ago when my daughter-in-law, Lindsey, enlightened me.  (She shares this disorder.)  If you'd like to understand it better, you can go here to see all of the different aspects of it.  But my sensory overload usually occurs in a large crowd.  I can handle small crowds well--but put me in a large crowd and I get overwhelmed very easily.  There are times when it's as if the noise mounts and grows stronger the longer I stay in the room until I'm almost ready to scream!  Typically, I find a quiet corner or move to another room to "readjust."  It also presents itself when I walk into a department store to shop for clothing and there's not enough space to walk around and the clothes are packed tightly on racks.  I just walk out.  It's too much...I can't take it.

That's what I'm feeling these days with opinions.  I'm on overload and I'm about to "walk out" on social media.  Or maybe I just need to find a quiet corner.  I'm honestly trying to find the balance in all of this.  I want the truth.  So I'm going to the One who is Truth and asking him to quiet me with revelation.

I don't know if it's a new tactic of the enemy or just the direction our society is going when left on its own...or both.  When did we become so opinionated?  Myself included.  Why do we have to have an opinion about everything?  Was it always this way, but our worlds were smaller?  Or has it literally exploded?  I bounce from one end of the spectrum to the other.  "I need to speak up!"  "I should shut up because I'm going to offend someone."  "No...Jesus called those Pharisees a brood of vipers!"  "But he loved the adulterous woman and told her to go and sin no more."  I've never found myself disagreeing with myself as much as I have these last few weeks.  I can tell I'm on overload.  It's all beginning to sound like the teacher on Charlie Brown:  "Wah-wah-wah-wah..."  I need my quiet place.



I'm a little bit frightened.  It just all seems to be escalating and I have no idea where it's going to end.  If we all keep demanding that our voices be heard, it could eventually get ugly.  Or maybe it already has.

I just want to follow Jesus to those green pastures and still waters.  I think it's quiet there.