The Voice She Couldn't Name

Maria Chen spent her first morning at Cornell's Sapsucker Woods completely overwhelmed. The May forest was alive with sound — trills, warbles, sharp chips — but to her untrained ears it was beautiful chaos.

"There," said Dr. Eleanor Vance, her research mentor, raising a hand. "Did you hear that?"

Maria heard dozens of things. She shook her head.

"It'll come again," Dr. Vance said. "Wait."

Three times that morning, the same liquid, flute-like phrase floated down from the canopy. Three times Maria heard it without recognizing it — just background, part of the ambient noise.

On the fourth pass, Dr. Vance touched her arm. "That's a wood thrush. Once you hear it, you'll never unhear it."

Something shifted. The song Maria had been dismissing suddenly stood apart, clear and unmistakable. It had been calling all morning. She just hadn't known what she was hearing.

Young Samuel lay in the temple at Shiloh, hearing a voice in the darkness three times and assuming it was old Eli calling. The sound was real, but he lacked the framework to recognize who was speaking. It took Eli, weathered and wise despite his failures, to say: the Lord is calling you. Answer Him.

God's voice doesn't always arrive as thunder. It threads through our ordinary lives — a persistent nudge, a thought that won't fade, a restlessness nothing resolves. We hear it. We just don't know what we're hearing. Sometimes we need someone further along in faith to say, "That's not noise. That's the Almighty. Be still, and answer."