**Take caution, dear reader. This post contains one raw, tender heart.**
The last few months I made a commitment to practice
vulnerability, transparency. I struggle with depression, namely postpartum.
Filling in the blanks.
In my family of origin, I don’t recall sharing my heart. I
don’t have many sweet memories of being heard. In my transition to adulthood, I’ve
grappled with finding my voice. In high school I was an angry mess—for good
reason—so my tongue was sharp, quick, hateful because of a damaged, diseased
heart.
At college, my voice sweetened as I allowed the Lord, the
Healer, to quiet my tongue as He performed a great surgery on my heart, mending
diseased portions of it.
Somewhere amidst traveling and working in the Balkans and in
Japan and in American high schools, my voice found laughter, a rich vocabulary, friendship, and
instructive
cadences.
The rhythm of life and my voice fused into a purpose:
teaching. I felt alive. Needed. In my element. I remember thinking, “God has
made me to be a teacher!”
Now I am a stay-at-home-mom. And I’m struggling.
I talk with, sing to, play with, and recount stories about
my children. Even in the midst of chatter and talk, my heart feels silenced.
Once again, I have that unshakeable sensation that the thoughts and feelings
and songs and stories of my heart aren’t important enough to be heard.
It’s not true, you know. Every heart deserves an audience.
Every heart has a beautiful story, a sweet and sorrowful song to sing,
especially once the Maker of All mends and heals and restores the heart. Even
my heart. I will always have an Audience of One.
My Audience of One even called me to this place—this place
of uncertainty, this place of entangled thought—to find Him and to find another
vocal frequency.
So I’m trying to fill in the blanks: I am a _________ woman,
wife, daughter, sister, friend, mommy.
And this is my voice.
Lord Jesus, every good and perfect gift comes from above, and there is no shifting shadow in your character, in your goodness. Help me give way to this new gift of voice you are working in me, so that I might sound more like you. Amen.
