Finding My Own Voice

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The words came by way of encouragement. Yet, when I read them, my heart plummeted into  my feet. The thud echoed around me as I measured the impact. My shoulders went slack as did my jaw. I felt myself bristle a bit.

Could it be that someone would seek to impose their agenda on my choices? On my words? On my blog journey? Was subtle criticism buried behind the encouragement to do more faster with more intensity?

I read the note over again trying to decide if the fatigue of the day colored my reaction. I waited a while. I read it again. I felt the same twinge in my heart as my spirit cringed anew each time.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Sadness came in foggy wisps that mounted until my soul was dark and damp and cold. The impetus to write a new blog post stalled. I wrestled with myself and my response. The encourager has reason, I suppose, to have a vested interest in my end product and result. Perhaps enthusiasm got the better of my encourager? One can only hope, I suppose.

The note was but the first domino that sent a series of dominoes skittering across the floor of my soul. Last week I sat on the mountaintop enjoying the picturesque implication of a stress free life. I ignored the fact that I would come home to find the same life waiting for me with all its thorny frustrations. The note jolted me back to reality. If the writer knew, would a request for a do-over follow?

The message made me second guess who I am and what my journey is all about. Every half our or so, I re-read the contents. What, I wondered, had been lost in translation between the writer's intent and my response?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I remembered the day back in May. The thought came: “If you write it, they will come.” I remember how hokey I thought it was. Even I could see the play on words from that classic baseball movie. Me? The imposter? Write my way back to God and let all the world watch it while it happened? No way. Rather than evoking silence, my hesitation just made the voice in my soul cry louder. “Write! It! They WILL come!” Despite my fears, I wrote. You did come.

So, here we are, you and I. I am stronger now than I was then. To my continuing and humble amazement, you keep coming back. I have begun, again, to see God in the details of life. Sadly, this new, impatient voice asking for a status report and something more of my writing life than I have yet produced gives me pause. It feels as tho' I am being asked to be more than I am. To do more than I feel I should be doing at this given moment.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I did not set about to create an evangelical altar call for the masses in cyberspace the day I sat down to write about my journey. I was writing MY way back to God not trying to forge a path for you. If my journey gave you strength or lit your path, all the better.

I had a sense that there is a fraidy cat in all of us. It is a secret we keep with jealous tenacity lest others see our weaknesses and find us less than we should be. The fear we harbor keeps most of us from removing our masks. It keeps us from waging honest war with our brokenness.

Especially here in the buckle of the Evangelical Bible Belt, a hard fought, sweaty faith is frowned upon. A stiff upper lip, full of trust and praise, is required if not out right demanded. It is so much easier to evoke the blessing of the Name It and Claim It God whose plan involves health, wealth, and prosperity than it is to simply say, "Life hurts, and I find it painful when it does." 

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

At last, I took a deep, cleansing breath. I never used all that Lamaze stuff in the process of childbirth. It sure came in handy yesterday. I took another one and another. I shook away the fog. The sun came out as the Son broke thru the fog of war. 

I am me. I am broken and insufficient, but this blog and my agenda for it are not. I know this assertion is true not because I am full of boastful pride. It is true because the blog does not belong to me. It belongs to the good God that urged me on even tho' we were in the wrestling match of my life. I take another deep breath. I have found my voice.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

The insecurity fades. I set the dominoes of my life in order again. I am writing my way back to God. In the process, I am hoping he will find me. Perhaps, he will find you too? 

Genesis 32:38 (Bible in Basic English)

And he said, Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel: for in your fight with God and with men you have overcome.