The Sound of Inaudible Heart Beats

I have drums. I have dejembes, bongos, congas. I even have a walking drum. I bought them for WonderBoy's birthday last year, and he never got into them. I was going to sell them but felt a bit of a hesitation, so I prayed, and out of nowhere, a friend of mine called and asked, "By any chance do you play the drums?"

Well, I think "play" is a monstrous stretch, but I do beat on them.

She said she was praying for me that morning and felt like the Lord told her to call me and tell me when I play the drums, I play people's hearts, and in my "playing" the drums, I connect people's hearts to His, I intertwine the beating of their hearts through the beating of the drums.

I kept the drums.

For the last three days I am again left mostly horizontal due to vertigo. Tonight I asked the Lord what I am to do with the silence, and just a quiet thought floated through, "Pull the small dejembe onto the bed with you and play."

So, I tried to do that. Except I couldn't hear the rhythm.

Usually, I can lay my hand on the drum and feel something. Not tonight. When I told the Lord that I needed help because I heard nothing, I heard this beat so quiet it was almost inaudible...as though it had given up hope to be heard. And I couldn't figure out how to play it.

I could not get such a silent sound from the drum. So I prayed again and asked how I was to play this sound, and suddenly I knew.

I took my fist and hit the drum. Right in the middle of the head. I hit again. As hard as I could. I beat the drum as hard as I could right in the middle to make the loudest sound I could...

...because when a heart begins to become inaudible....

...the desperation to be heard screams.

Like someone pounding on the walls in which they are trapped screaming, "FIND ME! FIND ME! FIND ME!" That is the sound of a heartbeat fading into nothing.

Tonight I pounded on my dejembe, and it yelled, "FIND ME! FIND ME! FIND ME!"

I didn't even care if I broke the head because sometimes that is what it takes for people to be heard...to break something. A law. A more. A normal routine. A conversation. It is like a scream in the silence of life that says something isn't okay.

Tonight I beat on that drum until my hand hurt, until it hurt too much to continue, and then I held onto it wondering how many inaudible heartbeats are ceasing because it hurts too much to continue.

And I wonder in their screaming, "Find me!", how many of them I can find...how many God can find through me...if I just stop trying to make a rhythm of my own...and ask Him to help me hear their rhythm...especially when it is faint...and their screaming is silent to my ears...but not His.