The Day I Learned to Listen

The Reverend Kay Dennis, Deacon

Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast

There are moments in life that divide time—before and after, unaware and awakened. One of those moments came for me on an ordinary afternoon, the kind that arrives without ceremony. I was sitting across from a woman whose life had been torn apart by grief. She spoke quietly at first, then with a kind of trembling urgency, as though each word cost her something. I remember wanting to offer reassurance, a Scripture verse, something comforting and neat. But before I could speak, something within me urged: Be still. Listen.

What unfolded in the silence that followed reshaped my understanding of God’s presence. I had always imagined listening as something passive, a soft virtue. But that day, I discovered that listening—true listening—is a work of the Spirit. It is an act of surrender. It is a willingness to set aside the need to fix, interpret, or solve, and simply make room for another person’s pain to exist without explanation.

She told me about the night she lost her child, about the unbearable quiet that followed, about the way people’s well-meant words sometimes cut more deeply than silence. She said she prayed but heard nothing. She felt abandoned, even by God. As she spoke, I found myself wanting again to reach for an answer, a reason, anything that might break the tension of her sorrow. But something stronger held me back.

Listening—real listening—requires the discipline of staying with the wound instead of rushing past it. It is a kind of reverence. It recognizes that God often speaks most deeply in the places we least want to linger.

As she continued, something sacred took shape between us—not because I offered wisdom, but because I offered presence. It was as if her pain became transparent, revealing not a void but a mystery. I sensed, almost imperceptibly, that God was there in the rawness of her grief, not as an explanation but as a companion.

We tend to think of God’s voice as something dramatic, a burning bush or a parted sea. But more often, the divine speaks through the quiet resilience of those who suffer. Their testimony is not an answer to our questions. It is a summons to attention, a call to step out of our comfortable certainties and into the holy ground of another’s experience.

The prophets learned to listen this way. Jesus did too. He drew near to the brokenhearted not with quick solutions but with solidarity. He heard the cries of the blind man, the desperation in the bleeding woman’s touch, the trembling confession of the thief on the cross. His listening was not passive. It was the means by which love revealed itself.

That day, across a small table and a cup of cooling coffee, I learned that listening is one of the most profound ministries we are given. Not because it fixes anything, but because it honors the truth of another’s life. It creates a space where God can speak—not through my voice, but through their courage, their honesty, their grief.

And perhaps this is the quiet miracle: that when we dare to listen deeply, we discover that God has been speaking all along—through the stories of those who hurt, through the tears that fall without words, through the fragile threads of hope that remain even in the darkest places.

On that day, I did not offer answers. I offered my attention. And in that attentive silence, I heard the unmistakable whisper of grace.