His voice gives voice to my voice...

Lately I have been listening to Amanda Cook's CD, Brave New World, on repeat!! If you have not had an opportunity to listen please do yourself a massive favor and just do it, so so good.

God has been speaking to me through a song from the CD, It's called "The Voyage". 

Lyrics in italics :).

"speak, even if your voice is trembling, please, you've been quiet for so long, believe, it will be worth the risk you're taking..."

For as long as I can remember I've always struggled with expressing myself verbally.... Expressing myself through written form has never been an issue (case in point :p) but the verbal expression has often times than not found me tongue tied and swallowing my words or even more likely than not, just remaining silent. Makes for very awkward social settings :p

I can't say if a part of me just never believed that i actually had something worthwhile to say or if I just felt that even if I were to speak It just wouldn't matter really. I guess I must have learnt that somewhere but not only did I learn that, I believed it to be true and from that "truth" I then lived. For you see, the things we believe to be true in our hearts are the places we live from, from which we engage life from, from which we relate from, with others and dare I say with God.

O I had a lot to say, still do :), and I said it too, in my head :/. I  just could never say it out loud. I'm not talking about anything profound as such but even just my opinion about simple things, just such a struggle...

"You're afraid"...

Fear, that large tree that stands in front of you, its roots long established in your being. The rings around your heart, the evidence of years it has taken residence there. Its bark, the scaling wall around your heart, there to protect you, but also keeping the very nutrients you need to survive out.  Scales they are, for if you were to peel them away you would see that the Phloem no longer performs its function to carry sap to the rest of your being. That the growth in diameter that the Cambium provides has been stunted as fear conquers and takes more ground in your heart. The Xylem now dead and though the Heartwood is there, it is weak, it cannot support you...

Too scared to ruffle some feathers; to upset the apple cod. Too scared that if you were to actually open your mouth, others might come to see the inadequacies that you see in yourself;  the insight that  you feel you lack. Too scared that your words might offend them, might actually challenge them, might even challenge you. Too scared that they'll reject you. Perhaps even too scared that contrary to what you have spent your whole life believing, what you have to offer, to give, through words, might actually matter...

...but you can hear adventure calling, there's a rush of adrenaline to your bones, what you make of this moment changes everything "..

Is it any wonder that I now find myself in situations where more than ever I feel the need to speak up, then fear steps in and I feel as though I cant. At this point I have two choices to make: 1. I bow down to fear and have the life sapped out of me (which I have allowed for years), which is what fear does; it prevents you from living or 2:  bow down to the God who is love and let His love fill every space in me that is fear driven. My counsellor helped me to realize something a few weeks ago: to remain silent when you know you are to speak up is in effect to agree with and in actual fact contribute to things staying the same when they need to change...

It is so much like my Father to place me in  these circumstances, where keeping quiet could potentially be harmful for me but also to those I am in a position to speak to, for. Yet where speaking up allows me to experience more of His love, so much more of freedom in Him.

"What if the path you choose, becomes a road, the ground you take, becomes your home"...

To speak or not to speak, that is the choice... over this period I have felt the Fathers prompting to speak, to challenge, to question, to encourage, to confront, family, friends, strangers, those in authority over me, eek. These might seem as simple things but for this mostly silent girl, what giant mountains they have been. The times I have chosen to be obedient to His prompting to speak up I have felt Him in it, His peace, even when my voice was trembling, in the very literal sense. He has given me the courage to face the noise, to face the fear, to face the possible rejection. The times I have chosen to keep quiet have been the loudest, the resounding sounds of my voiceless thoughts assaulting my mind and heart, screaming to be let out.

"the wind is high, but the pressure's off, I'll send the rain, wherever we end up, wherever we end up"...

More and more I  am learning to depend on Him. At just the right time He provides the words to speak, He provides the courage to speak them out, He provides the strength to receive the response; positive and negative. I can't do it on my own, for I am at times only able to see the large tree in front of me, inside of me. Perhaps then speaking for me is not so much so that I am heard, but perhaps it is for me to hear the voice of Him who speaks and enables me to speak..

And so I hear Him gently whisper  "for the longest time your focus has been on the magnitude of the tree. Take a step back. Do you not see the vastness of the body of water that surrounds it, the lush green around it. Increase your vision. The tree is not as big at it appears to be, but you won't ever see that if you don't step back to see what's around it; look beyond it. Be still, do you see the ripples in the water, even a gentle breeze is powerful enough to move a body of water, how much more powerful My voice to give voice to your voice, the wind of My love to carry you to where you need to be..."

"I am the wind in your sails, I am the wind in your sails"...

"Fearing people is a dangerous trap, but trusting the Lord means safety" Proverbs 29: 25

It's Okay

I know what it's like to feel as though you have failed at life. I know what it's like when yet another birthday approaches, and all it serves to do, is remind you of how far you have failed to come, as opposed to how far you indeed have come; because far you have come. The deep sense of disappointment at having achieved much but feeling as though you have achieved nothing, because what you have achieved somehow does not fit in to your own ideas about what success is and more so what society deems as successful, more so for people in your age group.

And so enters shame...I need to cover this up. I need to rationalise it so that not only does it make sense to me but it needs to make sense to others. To those who ask me why I'm still single when my peers are married with children. To those who ask me why I'm still not living on my own. To those whose eyebrows arch when they hear that I'm between jobs and I'm still trying to figure out what it is I want to do, what it is I'm truly passionate about. To those who find it difficult to understand why it seems as though my life isn't going anywhere, why it seems as though I am not thriving. Good gosh I too ask these questions sometimes. I too wonder.  I too question, Lord how come? Sigh. 

This past year God has shown me how futile an exercise for me to try and answer these questions for myself and for others. Sometimes, simply, there is no answer or an answer that is satisfactory enough. Life is what it is, at this present moment it is what it is and that's okay. It's not to say that it will forever remain this way, that things won't change, change is constant, good or bad or just mediocre. I have learnt that I can live on nothing and still have everything. I have had to learn humility and to swallow my pride and allow others to do for me when my independent (proud :/) self was screaming no. More and more I am understanding in my heart that my standing or position or worth in life is NOT tied to what I do or don't do, to what I possess or fail to possess, to what I have achieved or failed to achieve, or how far or not so far I have come in life, but to Whom I belong.  The funny thing about life is that some days are good, others not so good, today I'm employed, tomorrow maybe not, today I have wealth but tomorrow the markets could crash. The funny thing about people is that their opinions of you change constantly, today you're in their good books but tommorrow is a different story. There is only One who is constant, whose opinion of me is constant. 

As another birthday approaches I am learning to be. Be myself, be in the moment, be right here right now, whether good or bad or just mediocre, to be. To feel, the here, the now, the joy, the pain, the doubts, the fears, the disappointments, the questions, the suns rays on my skin, the warmth of another's embrace. To hear, the laughter and giggles of my two year old niece :), the melodious sounds of conversations taking place all around me, my Father's still small voice. To see, others as He sees them, not just what is visible but the invisible, the what cannot be explained by human understanding. 

So, I choose to live in this moment, because this moment right here, right now, is okay. The present is okay, it's what I have, I can't control the future, I can't undo the past. Me, I am okay, broken, not perfect, not yet whole and that's okay because my hope rests not in me, but in Him, the One who holds me together, the One who knows what my future holds, the One who is in my present. 

A Note to my Absent Father...

Today marks the 31st Father's Day I'm spending without you. Almost 31 years of life have gone by, that's something to stop and think about. It's a confusing thing for me this concept of fatherhood; I suppose that would be the case when one has never had a true life example. I can't say I know what it is you were meant to be or do, only that I find myself awed at the sight of a father and his daughter as he walks her to school or just carries her around the mall, a near permanent smile remains on my face and the longing of my heart awakened; what is that like I wonder? What would it be like to hold your hand in mine or have mine held in yours? even 31 years later.  What would it have been like to have sat on your lap? To have been held in your arms, would I have found comfort there, would I have felt protected, loved, wanted, seen?

I can't imagine that it was your intention when you made your choices to sear rejection and abandonment in my heart from my mothers womb. Your failure to be present at my birth and in my life etched in my heart and in my self a deep sense of worthlessness, I mean children are very ego-centric. You could not carry the weight of my conception and birth, how then could others my existence? How then would anyone stay when you chose to leave. I was either too much for you or not enough for you, for you chose something else, how then could I be enough period... In your absence I failed to experience love from you and therefore to be taught that I am indeed loveable. I never received encouragement from you and therefore never really learnt that I can do 'it,' whatever 'it' may be, even when I don't believe that 'it' can be done. You never acknowledged my existence and so I find myself often wondering if my existence really matters at all... Do I matter to you dad? Have I ever mattered to you?

I have often wondered about the kind of man you are and like most kids have fantasized about what life with you and mom would have been like. In what ways am I like you? In what ways am I  different from you? After all, I have 23 of your chromosomes in my genetic makeup. You are a stranger to me, an enigma. I recognize that you are a flawed person, as am I. Broken, as am I. I remember you once said that your father was just as absent and so in some ways I can understand that you did not know how to be a father, how could you. Yet sometimes I wonder if that's my way of making excuses for you, of lessening the deep sense of rejection and abandonment, the deep sense of loss that I carry In my heart today, in my relationships with others. As I grow older, I'm coming to understand that that which you do not possess, you cannot give and to expect one to give that which they do not possess is to be continunally disappointed and to set them up for failure. Forgive me please for continually doing this. Should you have been present in my life, yes. Should you have protected me, provided for me, loved me, cared for me, called me out into being, yes. Yes, yes, yes, you should have. More than anything, I just needed you to be.

There must be some good in you for my mother to have chosen you as her husband, as the one she trusted to father her child. This Father's Day I set you free, free from the responsibility of having to father me. Does this mean that I won't get angry at you at times, that I won't wonder, that I won't  be annoyed by your absence, disappointed in you, no, but simply that you are no longer responsible for me. For though you may have been the most amazing father, or not, there is One is who most amazing. There is One who loves me, who loves you, infinitely more than I could have ever been loved by you. One who has never and will never fail us. One who knows us by name and the number of hairs that are on our heads. One who is intimately familiar with all our ways. This One, He's a good good Father, and this Fathers Day I pray that you would experience the Fathers heart for you, as I am daily coming to know His heart for me and who I am in Him, sometimes extremely difficult to believe and receive, but my journey in life is not yet over, and neither is yours. May you truly come to know this Good Good Father, it's who He is, it's how He is.

Your Daughter,
Tshepi