The Importance of Listening

Today when walking down the corridor at work, I bumped into the specialist in paediatric palliative care who was enormously helpful to us in organising Leah’s end of life care.

Straight away I felt the pangs of heartache, as my heart was transported back to the 14th January 2014 in Belfast City Hospital when the doctors caring for Leah had told us that we had “no options” for her end of life care, because she was on a ventilator she would have to remain in ICU until she died. When a work colleague heard about my plight she contacted this doctor who immediately dropped everything and drove seventy miles to enable our daughter to be transferred to a Children’s Hospice where she died in peace and dignity, surrounded by love.

Today as sadness once more enveloped my heart, I silently asked myself “Must it always be this way, will there always be pain triggers waiting round every corner?” Then I remembered hearing recently that every event is actually 20% fact and 80% perception, so I started talking to myself in my head about how blessed we were to have had the support and expertise of this amazing woman and how much her input meant to us at the time. Within minutes I was feeling more positive.

A couple of hours later I was going down the corridor and I met her again. She stopped and asked me how I was. I looked in her eyes to see if she was just being polite or if she really wanted to know. Her facial expression told me that she really cared, so I told her the truth. She also enquired about each family member. I briefly told her about some of the ways in which we are struggling to rebuild our lives while battling the pain of grief and loss.

Then, just like she did in the corridor of the City Hospital 26 months ago, she hugged me and said “Let’s say a wee prayer.” For a few hallowed moments she quietly lifted up each member of my family to God in prayer. I felt God’s peace touch my heart.

She’s a very busy doctor, with a very busy agenda, but somehow in the middle of her very busy day she took the time to minister to my heart. How long did it take? Ten minutes perhaps? Yet it meant so much to me.

I felt blessed and encouraged by her actions, but I also felt challenged. How often am I so caught up with my own agenda – however good and noble that may be – that I allow no time for the unexpected, no time for ‘God’s agenda’?

A few weeks ago I was scrolling through the Facebook page of author Cheri Gregory  when my attention was caught by a quote from a book called The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction by Adam S. Mc Hugh.

I immediately headed over to Amazon, where I read this about The Listening Life:

“Be quick to listen, slow to speak.” James 1:19 How would our lives change if we approached every experience with the intention of listening first? In this noisy, distracting world, it is difficult to truly hear. People talk past each other, eager to be heard but somehow deaf to what is being said. Listening is an essential skill for healthy relationships, both with God and with other people. But it is more than that: listening is a way of life. Adam McHugh places listening at the heart of our spirituality, our relationships and our mission in the world. God himself is the God who hears, and we too can learn to hear what God may be saying through creation, through Scripture, through people. By cultivating a posture of listening, we become more attentive and engaged with those around us. Listening shapes us and equips us to be more attuned to people in pain and more able to minister to those in distress. Our lives are qualitatively different indeed, better when we become listeners. Heed the call to the listening life, and hear what God is doing in you and the world.”

I was ‘hooked’ and ordered it immediately. When the book arrived I started reading with great enthusiasm and got as far as page 50, then unfortunately I got totally distracted by other books that I was reading simultaneously and forgot about The Listening Life. This is by no means a negative reflection on The Listening Life; I regularly have three or four books on the go at any one time and I dip in and out of each of them depending on my mood!

I absolutely love books, I only wish that reading them were as easy as buying them! However, today’s encounter reminded me of why I bought The Listening Life and how important it is to listen – really listen – to God and to each other.