This is one of the greatest challenges for a listener: to delay your response so that others can express their present emotions and unresolved tensions.

Listening to people in pain is about giving them room to grieve and weep and rage and doubt. We’re not there to spiritualize their pain or theologize their experience. Our talk... takes space, when instead we want to give space.

I’d like to think that the work of God might be displayed through my introversion, and not in spite of it.

By no means are introverts against intimate relationships; indeed we are motivated by depth in our relationships. And while the emphasis on intimacy with Jesus is welcome, in community we prefer interactions with smaller numbers of people with whom we feel comfortable.

Psychology professor David Benner says that a major obstacle to growth in our listening abilities is that most of us already think that we’re good listeners.

Introverts often prefer writing to speaking, because writing uses a different neurological pathway in the brain than speaking does.

When introverts go to church, we crave sanctuary in every sense of the word, as we flee from the disorienting distractions of twenty-first-century life. We desire to escape from superficial relationships, trivial communications and the constant noise that pervade our world, and find rest in the probing depths of God’s love.

We who follow a crucified Messiah know that love will sometimes compel us to willingly choose things that make us uncomfortable, to surrender our rights for the blessing of others.

The combination of solitude and internal processing means that many introverts are more oriented toward ideas than they are interacting with people.

Introverted wounds bleed in our minds and hearts, and bleed out in our behaviors, actions and relationships.