Silenced

There are many reasons for the silence. Many reasons not to open my mouth.

Noise, noise, noise all day long, but I fall quiet where it counts.

Shame. Fear. Confusion. I have allowed these to silence me.

Because how can I share my grief, healing, hope, and joy as a mother when I’m still the mom who is losing her patience and speaking angry words I wish I could quiet?

Because how can I write of love and redemption when I often fail in the place most intimate to me – my marriage? And how do I write of walking broken with my mate, when I have found that admitting weakness in marriage is often taken advantage of by others?

Because how can I say that after all the healing and miracle and everything God has done, I’m still having trouble finding my way?

Because how do I write of joy when I know the pain of many, and how do I write of grief when I have been given so much healing?

Because what good is one more voice in all the noise?

I tried to tell my counselor that even though blessing has been poured out, I am still hurting, and I don’t know why. I threw blame as a shield. There were no answers, and I felt I should have fallen silent. As always, I am too much. Too much mess, too many confused words and emotions.

I want life more abundant. I believe it has been promised to me.

But I am still walking wounded, exhausted from trying so hard to live the faith I believe. Trying to be the woman Sunday school lessons applauded, and I have longed for and rebelled against my entire life. The woman with the gentle and quiet spirit. 

And now time is running out. I am holding a daughter, who I am to show the way, but I have no idea how to help her walk into the womanhood Christ has for her.

I have sat so many hours with her in my arms already, and still the clock and calendar keep rushing by. I am practicing presence, and I have heard the restless ache of my heart.

It is time.

It is time to grow silent down deep where the how-to manuals don’t reach.

It is time to speak what I am learning even though I cry out like Isaiah, “My lips, they are so unclean.”

Though no one may hear or care. Though what I write may only speak to my hungry heart, and hers one day. It is time.

I began this blog because it was the only way I knew to fill the void left between my Joshua and I. For some reason it was the only form of prayer that worked in that deep grief after losing a child stillborn. Words typed tangible and set free for others to see was my offering.

So over the next few months of summer, while I have a bit more time as we break from homeschooling til the fall… I am going to share daily or close to it. The images will mostly be in chronological order, giving an account of the beauty that has unfolded as my new daughter has grown. And the words will be what I am learning, a new birth that is as old as anything. A truth that is sweeping me up and rescuing me as I come to the end of myself. A truth so simple and deep that I feel I am probably the last to understand, but I wonder if there are other sisters still longing…

The Truth that is the only Word worth forming. The Word that is gentle and quiet, and filled with power beyond my understanding or imagining.

The Word Who I have loved since childhood, and still do not understand. Who I long to please and am afraid to speak for fear of diminishing through my own brokenness – Jesus.