Truest Voice

Only now am I more consistently recognizing my real voice...

because I'm finally learning to speak with it again. So many years I've "tried on" the voices of others, seeing if they may possibly be a better fit than my own... and because I learned not trust mine. 

I tried to speak my truest voice...

in the most important of times, when it mattered. All of it matters always. I spoke my voice, but it was ignored or torn by other voices around me. Voices I should have been able to trust. Voices of those who could have and should have protected, nurtured. Voices that instead flippantly cast my words aside without regard. Voices that said, "don't talk and never ever tell."

A layer grew thick until it enveloped my heart... 

and the journey beyond the loss of my voice only served to wrap the layer tighter. Suffocating. Self-protecting. Until my truest voice hid in the deep, shackled by fear. The great intruder. 

My truest voice attempted to speak on occasion...

and a few stopped to hear. Truly, some listened. And some understood. Yet still others did not. And they tore. Again. And the shroud pulled tight over my heart, soul-shredded once again. 

Yet an holy intended fissure unnoticed among the chaotic shredding waited...

as a seed grows purposeful, emerging through the bramble, forging a path to the sun. 

My truest voice...

broke through the fissure at His Calling. 

My beloved spoke and said to me,
    “Arise, my darling,
    my beautiful one, come with me.
11 See! The winter is past;
    the rains are over and gone.
12 Flowers appear on the earth;
    the season of singing has come,
the cooing of doves
    is heard in our land.
13 The fig tree forms its early fruit;
    the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.
Arise, come, my darling;
    my beautiful one, come with me.”

Proverbs 2:10-13 (NIV)