Last week, I had the honor of being featured on writer, Marnie Hammer’s, blog for her Hear Him Louder Series where women are invited to come and share their encouraging stories of hearing God’s whispers in their everyday lives.

If God’s movements and voice have felt nonexistent or a little quieter in this season of your life, I invite you to lean into these words today and see what the Lord might have for you to receive.

Because in today’s guest post, I share with you a very simple and practical, 3-step rhythm to help you behold more of God with you in your everyday moments. I believe this rhythm can be life-giving and useful for you in your relationship with God no matter what season you find yourself in.

God’s ultimate invitation to you, friend, every single day, is one of deep communion. He longs to be in close relationship with His Beloved — you. And I pray this rhythm that I’m about to introduce you to today would take you deeper into Christ amidst the quiet seasons, the loud seasons, and every other season in between.

Hear Him Louder Essay Series: Celia’s Story

I was craning my neck so hard around every corner that my head was beginning to pound. I started praying that it would jump out at me from among the tangled mess of antique books, furniture, jewelry, and wall hangings. But it didn’t, at least not right away. It took about an hour of searching in the maze that was the giant Antique Mall in Edinburgh, Indiana, to finally find it.

A few months ago, my husband and I ventured into the Antique Mall for the first time, in search of something else, and that’s when I saw it.

It was an antique art print, a replica, of the famous painting by French artist, Jean-Francois Millet, known as The Angelus. The painting is of a man and a woman working in a potato field, and I know it’s a potato field because at their feet as their heads are bowed in prayer, is a basket of potatoes. In the background, very distantly as if only a whisper, can be seen the outline of a church steeple.

Both the man and woman have heard the church bells toll, which is why their heads are both bowed in prayer. The sound of the church bells for them was an invitation to pause, cease from their work, and remember God’s presence with them.

I glanced at it briefly the first time that I saw it hanging on the walls of the Antique Mall but chose not to take it home. For the entire month that followed, all I kept thinking about was that painting and the sacred meaning behind it.

The painting now hangs in my entryway, making it one of the first things you see as you make your way from the front door and down the hallway that leads to the living room. Each time I pass by, I pause, pray, and give thanks, just like the man and woman in the painting.

The Angelus is a physical picture of what I believe God desires most from us: a deep, intimate, moment-by-sacred-moment type of communion. A loving relationship that invites us to behold more of His presence with us in the mundane of every ordinary day. The kind of relationship where we are open and attentive to all the ways in which He chooses to speak to us and make His presence known.

Finish reading my guest post on Marnie Hammer’s blog here: Hear Him Louder Series

peace be with you,