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| Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative |
We are headed into deep water, so be prepared? If you
think the toddler swimmie you grabbed from the local drug store last summer to
keep your youngest afloat will do the job in the days ahead, rethink things
now. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
This series is about a writer who contracted laryngitis
of the soul and lost her voice. I told you that. I told you professional
bloggers with much Google-fu advised me to lose the fraidy cat and rebrand.
I want you to know I admire, respect, and appreciate
their advice. Given their understanding of analytics, SEO, and branding, they
make a valid point. If I embrace my inner fraidy cat, brands who wander by here
may tend to shy away.
In embracing who I am, I diminish my validity and
marketability. I may as well have a big ole ‘L’ for loser right across my
unprofessional forehead – especially if I miss a comma or two here and there at
three in the morning. I get that. I do.
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| Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative |
So, when I left the shores of Captiva behind, wheelbarrow
loads of conference speak buried me neck deep. Those words mixed and mingled
with where I was in life until I lost my confidence, my courage, and my belief
in myself.
I became overwhelmed with the need to do more, better, faster
and to master everything at once. The urgency of it all became more than I
could bear. I burned out before I really got started.
I mourned privately and lurked on my professional
blogging groups. I pinned blog minutia and supported the shiny, spit polished platforms
others were creating.
I thought, “One day, I’ll need this and get back to it.
Oh, who am I kidding? At the rate technology changes, by the time I get back to
it, this info will be obsolete.”
I had to have weekly immunizations for envy and
jealousy as my blogger friends met and exceeded goal after goal while I tried
to think of one I could set.
Before I knew it, six months had elapsed while I tried
to pretend I was not a writer and that I’d never had a blog to begin with. I
don’t mind telling you, it was pure agony.
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| Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative |
And, in those months of quiet, my private life became even
more chaotic. A hard fought for marriage kept slipping more and more out of
reach no matter what I prayed, what I did, or who the counselor was this time.
I think I realized how close the end was the first time
I heard Christina Aguilera and Great Big World sing, “Say Something”. I can’t
remember the last time I cried til that moment.
I don’t think I even cried in the fifty-six numb days between
life and death when my courageous, conscious, fully lucid mom lingered on a ventilator.
But that song, that song, reduced me to sobs that would
not stop for hours on end. It was as if all the tears I had not cried in almost
twenty-five years found their voice on the wings of that song and would no
longer be silenced.
And, this my friend is where my story stops being one only
writers can identify with and becomes one for any fraidy cat who has had
laryngitis of the soul.
If you know me, you know I am a person of hard fought
for, down in the dirt wrestling, sweaty-ugly faith. If you are just meeting me –
I’m not one to sugar coat things about my faith. I hope that won’t set you back
too much?
I know there is a God who cares, and I don’t think he
is the one that sits on Bette Midler’s ‘distant shore’ watching me with cold
indifference.
I do understand the irony when I turn around and say I
am not always sure where he is showing up in my story. Shoot, a lot of the time
I wonder if he is aware of my story at all. There. I admitted it.
I was having one of those nights of arm wrestling with
God. The house was quiet enough to imply my two insomniacs had finally
drifted off for good.
The debris of the day was scattered around me like a
World War I mine field. Mocking me. Reminding me I had bills to pay, boxes to
pack, school to plan, cabinets to paint, one-hundred other things that one
person simply could not do alone, and a marriage in the last gasps of death.
The soulful strains of “Say Something” gripped me by
the heart, and floods of tears drenched the computer keyboard. I don’t know why
I wasn’t electrocuted.
Yes, I know it’s a secular song, but as that song
filled the room, I cried out to God. “Look at this mess. Do you see me? DO YOU
SEE ME? I.can.not.do.this.alone. It’s humanly impossible. Do you see?”
And into that forsaken misery it seemed a whisper
filled my heart:
Yes.
I see you. I know your circumstances are untrustworthy and have been for as
long as you can remember now. I know you cannot depend upon the earthly one who
promised to be the most dependable to you in the entire world. I
get that. I do.
Now I have a question for you. In the midst of everything that
is untrustworthy, do you trust me with your untrustworthy circumstances? Do
you?”
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| Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative |
Well, I told you this journey was not for the faint of
heart and that drug store swim wings were not going to be sufficient. I told
you this is a story for anyone who had ever suffered from voice stealing laryngitis
of the soul. Believe me now?
Lord, be kind to us. We have waited for your help. Give us strength every morning. Save us when we are in trouble.
Click below to follow the series:
Part 1 and Part 2
