The Voice in the Milan Garden

In the summer of 386 AD, Augustine sat weeping beneath a fig tree in a Milan garden, torn between the life he had been living and the God who had been pursuing him for years. He had heard the whisper before — through his mother Monica's relentless prayers, through Ambrose's sermons in the cathedral, through the conversion stories of friends who had surrendered everything. Each time, he turned away, unsure of the voice's source, unwilling to answer.

Then a child's singsong drifted over the garden wall: "Tolle lege, tolle lege" — "Take up and read." Augustine looked around. No children were playing nearby. The phrase repeated, insistent and strange. This time, instead of dismissing it, he picked up the scroll of Romans lying on the bench beside him and read the first passage his eyes fell upon: "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh."

Everything clarified. The voice Augustine had been hearing for years — through people, through restlessness, through a child's mysterious chant — was the same voice that called out in the darkness of Shiloh's temple. God had been speaking all along. Augustine simply needed to stop explaining it away and finally respond.

Samuel needed three summons and an old priest's wisdom before he answered, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." Augustine needed thirty-two years and a mother's tireless prayers. The Lord is patient with our slowness to hear. He does not stop calling because we do not yet recognize His voice.