Laura Ashley

architect of silence

The city exhales

its last, ragged breath,

a long, drawn-out sigh

of fading traffic, distant dogs,

around two-thirty in the morning.

A profound stillness descends,

not emptiness, but a vast,

ink-washed, expectant canvas.

This is where He begins.

No hammer’s clang, no rasp of saw,

no roar of engine or grinding gear.

His work is subtle, ethereal,

a careful unbuilding of the day's clamor,

a weaving of quiet

from the unraveling, frayed threads of night.

The usual torrent of thought

softens, dissolves into mist.

The day’s urgent voices,

sharp as broken glass,

recede, ebb like the tide

from a newly exposed shore,

revealing forgotten shells and smoothed stones.

Here, in this deepest hour,

when even the tireless cicadas finally pause,

and the first, tentative bird call

is still only a whisper of a promise,

the very air itself

becomes a cathedral, vaulted and grand.

It is then I feel the imprint

of the Architect's unseen hand,

not sketching blueprints on crackling paper,

but sculpting the expansive space within me.

He gently smooths the jagged edges

of lingering worry,

hollows out luminous chambers

for breath, for absolute stillness,

for the slow, unhurried unfurling

of genuine prayer.

This silence is not absence.

It is presence,

dense and potent,

a vibrant hum beneath the quiet,

the very breath of God

infusing the quieted world,

and resonating within the quieted, receptive soul.

It tastes of clean mountain air

just after a desert rain,

feels like cool, ancient marble

under a searching, tendered palm.

It sounds like the slow, deliberate

unfurling of a single, new leaf,

or the quiet, reverent turning

of a cosmic, boundless page.

And in that vast, sacred architecture,

built not with human hands

but with the cessation of all striving,

all clamor, all urgent reaching,

I finally hear—

not with ears, but with spirit—

the gentle whisper,

the knowing glance,

the quiet, unassailable 'Yes'

that holds all light,

all purpose,

all belonging.

This is where the true day begins.

salt and redemption

The ocean, vast and ancient,

rolls its green-gray weight

onto the shore,

a steady rhythm of surrender,

of taking back and giving.

Its breath, a fine mist

on my face,

tastes of salt,

and something more primal—

the tang of old wounds,

the sharp clarity of tears,

the unblinking eye of truth.

I stand here,

where the land ends and the endless begins,

my feet sinking

into the shifting sand,

each grain a memory,

each retreating wave a letting go.

This is where redemption lives,

not just in the grand pronouncements,

but in the ceaseless ebb and flow

of grace.

The way the tide

washes clean the broken shell,

smoothing its edges,

turning its rough interior

into a polished bowl for light.

It’s the wild, untamed mercy

that seeps into the cracks,

purging the stale,

preserving the true.

The world, too,

is often a shoreline of wreckage,

but here,

in the tireless churn and whisper,

I feel the great hand

of the Redeemer,

salting the wounded places,

making us whole,

making us resilient,

until even the deepest scars

begin to shimmer

with the ocean’s own,

eternal light.

the unwritten journal

My hands,

they find beauty

in the discarded,

the forgotten things—

a faded postage stamp,

a torn-out page from a forgotten book,

a crumpled receipt,

a single, tarnished button.

They don’t know yet

their true purpose,

these scraps.

They lie scattered,

a chaos of memory

and potential.

But then, the stitching begins.

The glue, a patient balm.

A careful hand,

a quiet intention.

And slowly,

from the broken pieces,

from the things too small to matter

on their own,

a story emerges.

Not written with ink,

but with texture,

with layer upon layer of grace.

This is how His love works, I think.

My life, too,

is a collection of uneven moments:

the bright successes,

the dark, crumpled failures,

the plain, overlooked days.

A mess of disparate parts.

Yet, He is the ultimate Artist,

the patient Maker of the Unwritten Journal.

He takes the torn edges of my regrets,

the forgotten joy,

the quiet prayer whispered

in the predawn dark,

and with a hand of infinite tenderness,

He folds them,

stitches them,

lays them beside each other,

revealing patterns I never saw.

He doesn’t erase the flaws;

He highlights them,

turns them into texture,

into character,

a testament to His enduring presence

in every scrap,

every lived breath.

And suddenly,

what was once just fragments

becomes a masterpiece of mercy,

a testament to a story

only He could truly write.

Laura Ashley is a seasoned freelance writer with over two decades of experience contributing to both Christian and secular publications. A self-proclaimed “Bible junkie,” she is passionate about delving into the intricacies of scripture and making Christian principles relevant and applicable to contemporary generations. Currently residing in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico, Laura is embracing what she calls her "second life" by the seaside. When she's not immersed in writing, she enjoys spending quality time with friends, volunteering at local orphanages, and pursuing her creative passion of making junk journals.