Trusting God for a New Voice

**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. 

Pray for me, Mommy!

We were having lunch a couple weeks ago: grilled cheese sandwiches, broccoli spears with ranch dip, and cubed apple pieces. It doesn't happen often, but I bit my tongue and cried out.

"What happened, Mommy?"

"I bit my tongue, and it hurts."

"Oh. That's okay, Mommy. Want me to pray for you?"

Her question startled me so much that I literally jumped, "Oh, Izzie, mommy would love for you to pray for her."

Putting down her apple cube and cupping her hands for prayer, she said, "Lord Jesus, mommy bit her tongue. It hurts. Make her feel better. Amen."

A couple days later, Izzie was running around munching on a pretzel and bit her tongue. I was in the middle of cleaning up the meal from the table, getting ready to feed the baby, and wanting so badly to sit down and rest.

I heard her cry out, "Ouch! I bit my tongue." I paused, gently stroked her hair back and said, "I'm so sorry sweetheart. I know that hurts," and then turned to finish what I was doing. 

"MOMmmmmeeeeee! PRAaaay for me!"

Stopping me in my tracks, I prayed. "Lord Jesus, Izzie bit her tongue and it hurts. Please make her feel better. Amen."

"Thank you, mommy."

I am humbled to be her mother. Who taught her to pray like this? I wish I could say that it was me. And maybe I did, but I like to think that her soft little heart somewhere, somehow has learned that there is power in prayer. 'Cause that's what I learned.

Lord Jesus, thank you for a daughter with a soft heart. Teach me to pray with the simplicity of a child's heart. Amen.