For as long as I can remember the thing in my life that has brought me the most joy is music, more specifically singing. I know now that even before I knew the Lord, my soul was aching to worship Him. When I would sing, the overwhelming feeling of joy that would feel like it wanted to explode from inside of me was my soul just longing to sing in worship to my creator! Music has always been the way the Lord draws me to Himself and speaks to me…heart and soul.
I remember hearing songs as a child about the Lord that would bring tears to my eyes, before I even knew just how real He is or that He loves me!
But for ten years now, that voice has been silenced in many ways.
I got sick in college for about 5 months and it damaged my vocal chords. I lost a huge part of my singing voice and it has never sounded the same. I have been singing since before I could really speak. It was (and still is) a devastating thing for me. I love to sing more than anything in the world. Even in my darkest times of life, singing, sometimes through tears, would somehow help me get through. After my vocal chords stopped working like they used to…sometimes not at all…it was harder and harder for me to find joy when I couldn’t see any before me.
Since losing my voice, I’ve stopped really singing. Every once in a while I will, but it’s usually when I am sure no one can hear me for being drowned out or I am alone. Hearing myself sing always felts like a lil stab in my heart. I’ve grown to hate my voice so much. Most of the time, I would just mouth the words so it looked like I was singing along with others. It’s so rare that I will just let it all out like I used to, heart and soul. Singing has become another thing that hurt my heart.
One of the biggest things I’ve been asking the Lord for since July has been to really, truly, fully heal my voice…to restore all that has been lost and broken. I just wanted to sing again! To sing without worry that when I sang, it would actually be a note that came out and not just air.
I didn’t quite know the fullness of what I was asking Him.
Over the last couple months, the Lord has been giving words, visions and scripture to friends of mine for me…it’s amazing how much He’s been speaking to me about worshipping Him…mainly about singing again. Really singing, with all I am, heart, soul, AND voice.
My teammate Raj got this vision for me in Cambodia. We did this thing where we got someone’s name on a paper but couldn’t look at it until after we did some listening prayer and then read it out loud before finding out who our name was. So he got this vision of someone in a field singing and the voice was strong. As she sang, angels came out of what was being said. The voice was leading people to the throne of God, into His kingdom like they were being lassoed and brought in by the voice of that person. When I heard him read it out loud, I knew that it couldn’t be for me, cause I can’t really sing. I was so surprised when he read my name, and a bit sad at the same time.
Patrice gave me this word one day: with a trumpets sound release your song of praise for all the world to hear. There’s still so much more to be released from the depths of your soul, don’t hold back.
When I started writing all of this, in prayer I heard the Lord call me his song bird. At the sound of this, the tears came so hard. It is something I long for, but it was still so hard to hear in this moment. My soul LONGS to sing! To really truly sing, not just a few words or notes here and there, but to let out all that is in my heart. I just hate how most of my voice is gone, how much I have lost, how half the time when I try to sing only air comes out where notes used to be.
At first I was hurt that the Lord would speak those things to me. In my little mind those things hurt a whole lot more than they helped. I wasn’t finding joy in the words He chose to speak to me. I found pain. I couldn’t understand why He would keep bringing that up when He knew how much it hurt me.
Yet I kept asking Him to heal my voice.
I had no idea that He was speaking to me of His healing. But that it is a whole lot more than just my voice He wants to heal. For so long I’ve let lies keep me silent. I’ve let the lies that I wasn’t as good as others…that the voice I had to sing with wasn’t really beautiful…my voice didn’t matter…my gift wasn’t as important as others gifts…my voice wasn’t worth it, so why even try?
Satan has been fighting to keep my praise from reaching the Creator. I fought against him at first, but then I fell into believing the lies he fed me as truth. I no longer fought against him but with him. The lies and fears of sucking and looking like a fool keep all this music stuck inside of me. Most of the time when I am at worship or I’m listening to music on my own, my heart gets so overwhelmed it feels like it’s going to burst!
I’ve lived in fear, comparison, and self-hate of my voice for so long that I don’t even know how to let go and just sing for the Lord with all I got. There’s so much I’ve been holding in for so long that I forgot some of it even existed. I honestly don’t know how to let it all go even still. I just know, I’m so exhausted from holding all of this in for so long.
I know the Lords asking me to step out in faith and just trust Him, that He longs for me to give my whole heart, soul, and song to Him. I just don’t even know how to let it all go enough to allow him to hear the song he’s given me in my soul.
It’s crazy. I never have a time when I don’t have some sort of song in my heart. When I pray for people, my first thoughts are song lyrics or I feel the need to worship over them. When I am doing a prayer walk or praying over a place, I worship to the Lord over it. Worship is so much of my prayer life.
Just listened to a talk from Passion 2013 and Louie Giglio said the only way to worship is to give God his breath back, he put his breath in me and raised me from the dead. I was dead but now I am alive because he breathed his Spirit into me! It’s not about me. I have the Lord’s breath in my lungs! When I worship, the only way I can worship is to give God his breath back, and my living and my singing are all about one legacy. It’s all about him! Why do I make it about me and what I can do? Ugh Lord you gave me life! You literally pulled me out of the pit of hell and put your Spirit in me. You trust me to share that life with everyone I meet. My worship is about so much more than singing. My worship is my life. Everything about my life should worship you!
Father let your perfect love cast out all these fears and hurts and lies! Show me where to begin. I know worship is all about you, it’s not about me…I just wish I could stop feeling so useless and inadequate.
It’s a hard but beautiful thing when the Lord breaks lies and hurts off of your heart. You just have to keep choosing to follow Him step by step by step. He is the ultimate healer and He is faithful! Slowly but surely my voice is coming back. Even if it’s not the way I want it right now, He’s healing my heart first and I will continue to trust Him to fully restore my vocal chords…in HIS timing.
