A Voice Lost in the Noise

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I kept shaking my head in amazement the rest of the Allume weekend. I was amazed that God used Mary DeMuth to whisper in my ear. I felt my wobbly legs grow stronger from the infusion of confidence. As soon as I dared look around at the talent in the room, I was walking on spaghetti strings of jello again barely able to stand on my own two feet.

It was awe-inspiring to rub elbows with four hundred or so bloggers, including some with rock star status, every time I ventured out of my room. According to wordpress.com, “Over 391 million people view more than 3.8 billion pages each month.” Wordpress alone drives over fifty-seven million sites.

Can you see what I'm thinking? The four hundred of us gathered weren't a spit in the internet ocean. If we weren't even a spit . . . I was, and will always be, lost in a sea of noise. Not only am I lost, I am behind and running to catch up on all things technically related to blogging. While waiting for the next keynote speaker, I slunk down in my chair and began to make peace with myself for the five minutes of every week I can do so.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Darren Rouse was sitting in the lobby when I arrived. Here's the thing, you might not know who he is, but in my community of bloggers, he's a rock star. He's one of those who makes a real living blogging – and by real I mean in the style which I will never be accustomed. He'd been on the elevator with me a few times because we were lodging on the same floor of the hotel. If you saw him on the street, you'd have no clue he was a rock star because he looks and acts like, well, everyman. He was funny and shy and real about his faith.

This humble man, who lives in the stratosphere of success, flew all the way from Australia to tell us about his life as a pastor and how he discovered blogging. He recognized the power of the medium and wanted to harness it. It was 2001. Know what he thought at the time? He thought he was “behind the curve” and that he would never catch up. In fact, his first blog post got zero views while his review of a camera model he used on a trip went ballistic.

His words rang in my ears like the bells of Notre Dame. Darrel Rouse thought he was behind the curve ten years ago. Oh my fraidy cats. He knew exactly how I felt. And then, God used Darren Rouse to whisper in my ear a second time that weekend:

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

“You don't need a huge following to change one life, and if you change one life, your blog is big enough.”

This theme over-arched the entire weekend, but his comment was the one that tied all the related ones together.

Here's the truth: I am always going to be lost in the noise. I am never going to catch up. I can bob and weave with Facebook as they alter  algorithms and force brand pages to pay to be seen. Facebook holds the winning hand. I will disappear unless you work hard to see me and my updates.

I can set goals and take classes to grow my blog. I can figure out how to create printable pages, produce my own ebooks, and ask other bloggers to help promote my pages. I can do those things because of the gracious and wonderful community of bloggers God is allowing me to befriend. I can chase the blogging world's definition of success and not change a thing in the world.

I have felt the frantic push-pull of the 'do this – do that to reach blogging success and generate an income'. Believe me, I feel it even more now that I face life as an aging single parent whose last teenager will soon fly the nest. I tell myself I have no current job skills and that 'all' I can do is write, so I better figure out how to make this blogging-to-'real'-writer scheme work and work quickly. Can you feel my anxious frenzy growing?

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Toward the end of his talk, Darren told the story of how he watched a little girl eat cake, the same kind of cake he had only just finished savoring bit by bit, tiny bite by bite. After an approving nod from her mom, she grabbed the cake with bare hands and devoured it in seconds becoming a chocolatey mess in the process.

He then encouraged us to give up the fork and gobble Christ without reserve because those of us who gorge ourselves on him will live. That's when I knew what I've always known. Life is hard. There are bills to pay even as an uncertain future looms.

Yes, I want to be a rock star famous writer who travels and speaks and rubs elbows with bloggers and authors like Darren Rouse and Mary DeMuth till I think, “Hmm...this is normal. This is what I do.” But the only thing that will matter when the world ceases to spin is the one life that was changed, or not, because of what I wrote.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I will always be invisible, and this blog will last for only a season. If you feel invisible today because words harshly spoken convinced you you are, I see you. Your pain is real. Your loneliness is real. Your need is real. I know the one who can be there in the midst of that pain. I hope you meet him here in the midst of my messy, needy life. I hope you feast fork-less and with abandon because you meet him here.

John 6:57 (Amplified Bible) Just as the living Father sent Me and I live by (through, because of) the Father, even so whoever continues to feed on Me [whoever takes Me for his food and is nourished by Me] shall [in his turn] live through and because of Me.

Prayers for a Zombie in the Midst of an Apocalypse pt. 2

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

It was time for newbies to mingle. Putting my game face on, I slipped into the venue taking little comfort in knowing I would recognize a few faces. Truth be told, I went to the social because I figured I owed it to my brother-benefactor to squeeze every ounce I could out of the conference. My heels left tread marks on the carpet between my room and elevator given the force required to get me there.

Noise square-danced around the multistory atrium as it echoed and bounced round and round and up and down. Have hotel architects never heard of sensory processing disorder? I'm neuro-typical and was becoming dizzy with the effort to make sense out of the cacophony of sounds. Between noise and nerves, I was nauseous.

I wandered aimlessly through the hall bobbing and weaving, speaking and nodding but not lighting anywhere. Finally settling into a chair near an animated group of trendy gals, I strained to hear their conversation. We made chit-chat about who was from where and regional accents. I began to feel like the invisible grandmother in the room.

Courtesy D. Scott

I soon realized I had plopped right down into the middle of a group of women who had business relationships and were ecstatic to see one another since they lived in far flung places. Ooooooops! I watched them for a bit admiring their hipness and energy. Again, I wondered, “What am I doing here?” As quick as I could, I made excuses and wandered some more thanking the good Lord that supper was about to be served.

So it was I began to pass my time going from break out session to meals and back to my room. Here and there I snatched comfort at seeing a familiar face who knew I was a fraidy cat in the midst of a life altering apocalypse. In those moments, I could be real: real vulnerable and real transparent instead of trying to be the trendy grammaw in the room full of hipster blogging moms.

I was doing o.k. really. I was meeting and mingling without anyone running away like her hair was on fire. I even managed to be glib enough to elicit laughter when I felt I needed to. No one knew my real life, the one I left behind at home, had fallen apart only days before my plane took off for Allume. I was safe behind my mask. 

Mary DeMuth's break out session filled quickly. I arrived at the door and stumbled to the front. It was standing room only. I slumped against the front corner wall with a bird's eye view of the speaker and slid down to the floor. It was a good thing because I was gonna need that line of sight when she started to pray. And, it was gonna be a good thing I wasn't standing because I might have fallen down in shock.

Courtesy and in Loving Memory of Christina Jones Hooker

The wall behind me hummed from the energy building in the room. I wondered how she'd speak order into the building chaos. Magically, the room fell silent. She made a few jokes about being a writer who'd never published a best seller and asked us to join her in prayer.

I don't promise that the following words are verbatim, but they are as close as I can recall given that my mamma taught me you can't take notes while someone is praying.

Mary's voice was feathery around the edges as if she was just nervous enough to make her voice all but quake. Either that or she'd just run up a flight of stairs to be on time. But, this is what she said:

Dear Lord,

I am praying for the woman whose life has recently been affected by trauma and for whom words have been destructive. I pray that you would break the power of those words and help her know she is not defined by them.

It's a good thing my mamma wasn't there and that the good word says "watch and pray" sometimes because my head snapped up, and my eyes popped open. I kept watching Ms. Demuth to see if she was gonna return my open mouthed stare.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

Common sense told me I wasn't the only one in that group who found her words uniquely personal, but my heart said she was gonna open her eyes, look to her right, and point directly at me as she continued to pray. I heard what she said after that, but I didn't really take it in because God took up where my ears left off understanding her words.

It was as if he said:

I see you. I see you right here in the middle of all these cool young women. You are right where I wanted you, and I gave Mary these words because I wanted you to know I care enough about you to have a total stranger pray for you and not even know it. I am going to break the power of the trauma of your separation and the words that triggered it. You are not defined by those words. I defined you before I threw the stars in space. I brought you to this place in such an unorthodox way because I didn't want anyone or anything else to confuse my point.

Courtesy Mad Penguin Creative

I see you fraidy cat, and he does too. I know the power of traumatic words that define your days and tell you who you are and what you cannot be. You are defined by the God who created you not the angry words banging and clanging in echoes throughout your heart and soul. He wants to break the power of those traumatic words and set you free.

I had to get on a plane and fly to Allume to hear God's voice. I hope you heard it right here on this page in this hidden corner of cyberspace. Come back again and walk with me a while? You are gonna be amazed at who I met and what I heard the rest of the weekend. It sure amazes me! 

Courtesy B. Creasy - 2010

Psalm 40:5 (Amplified Bible)

Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.