Speak Up! Speak Out! Be Heard!

I was thinking of how shy both my daughters can be at times. A character trait they quite possibly inherited from both their father and I. But I know that they are smart, ingenious girls who demonstrate wisdom and insight beyond their young years. As I pondered all of this, my thoughts were that they have so much to offer anyone that cross their path even as they are still young, growing, and ever learning. I thought about how what they have to say has both challenged and inspired me as their mother. How, I so appreciate their humor (often sarcastic), hearing their voice and conversation with each other, friends, or just their perspective on issues adults can over complicate.

So being the ever so reflective person I am, I pondered all these things in my mind wondering how to advise our daughters. How to share with them to best convince them to never go mute in a world that desperately need to hear what they have to say because it is life giving. How do I best advise them that in this life there is struggle and hard times but to never be in dismay. I want to teach them that a part of them winning in life and having triumph over defeat rest in their ability to use their voice. As I thought about this my best words of wisdom are…Words are powerful! Never let anyone or anything rob you of your ability to speak. Speak up! Speak out! Be heard!

Have you ever experienced or gone through something in life that left you feeling as if the very wind has been knocked out of you? That the road to recovery seemed far and unreachable? No matter how hard you tried you could not pull yourself together or shake it off. It is as if, if you could scream you would but the situation/circumstance has rendered you mute with barely air to breathe. Though times and trauma has that ability. The ability to make you feel lifeless and without hope. Many go silent in response to it and many don’t even notice. You’ve stopped talking so people think you are “ok” “better”. But buried within is the pain that seeps out on occasion but is never fully verbalized to be confronted so the journey to recovery can begin. You have gone mute but there is a war raging internally. An internal struggle with self to achieve freedom from agony and move forward but you don’t know how to do that.

You’ve lost your ability to speak. However, to move forward you must fight through it. The scripture in the Word of the Lord denotes that life and death lies in the power of the tongue – Proverbs 18:21. Every opportunity and muster of strength you have to speak, do it! Find someone that will listen and share your way out of being locked into a prison of your own thoughts and consistent replay of that experience that has the potential to hold you captive in a specific space of time and to sequences of events that have caused you harm. Our voice/words contain in them power, the ability to chart our course in life and be a determining factor of the trajectory of our lives. Our voice/words has within them the ability to aid in our own healing process and help others too. Search back to who or what has caused you to lose your voice and your ability to speak out? What has caused you to believe that what you have to say is of no importance or of little significance in shaping the life you desire to live? What has robbed you of your power that lies in your spoken word?  Your voice matters!