So grateful that all these years later, the Lord continues to teach me how to use my voice.
Intro when originally posted in April 2015: This is the second part of a discussion. Part 1 was Sorting out Shyness, Fear and Introversion. Coming soon in other posts – thoughts on being a strong (dangerous?) woman and thoughts on being an introverted leader.)
This second installment in the series has proven troublesome. In part, it’s because something keeps intruding into the story that I hadn’t intended to talk about. After two weeks of being stuck, I’ve concluded that it’s not going away. I can’t talk about being a strong woman without talking about the need to find my voice.
Remember the 1999 movie Runaway Bride? Maggie Carpenter (Julia Robert’s character) has left several fiancés at the altar and a reporter does a story about her. As he talks individually to each former fiancé, the interviews often take place over breakfast at the local diner. Each guy orders his eggs in a different style. In the course of conversation, every one of them mentions that Maggie likes her eggs the same way he likes his.
That’s a woman who didn’t know how to use her voice. That was me.
I mentioned last time that part of the process of letting go of fear was that I discovered I had a “voice” and that I wanted to use it. I also said God did the deepest work on my fear during a scary stage of my life. What I didn’t say is that it was as my marriage was ending after 25 years. I was a stay at home mom. I’d never been driven by career aspirations. I really just wanted to be a wife and mom. I loved volunteering. But suddenly I was looking at re-entering the paid workforce, being more completely on my own, facing an “empty nest” without a companion and all the other things that go along with that.
(Just a side note – there is a danger in oversimplifying any divorce and I don’t want to do that. And this isn’t the place to share details. This is about a profound work the Lord did in me during that time frame.)
The person who should have been my biggest cheerleader no longer played that role. When you live with someone who doesn’t treasure or value your voice, you get confused. You wonder if you are really what the other person says. When you are put together the way I am, you keep trying to prove that you’re good enough – but it never makes a difference. You ask counselors if your thoughts are normal and they try to help you see that even asking that question indicates there is distortion in your marriage and in your thinking.
It was in this context that God was working on my fear and shyness. But He was also telling me I had a voice – one that it was okay to use. Over the years, I had grown in confidence in certain areas. I knew my stuff when it came to heading up Children’s Ministry. I was competent in a number of other areas. But at my core, the part that was most intimately connected to my hopes and dreams, my likes and dislikes, the things that made me laugh and the things that made me cry, I didn’t know how to use my voice. There was a tentativeness around most people.
Some of the most tender moments in my journals came as the Lord told me that not only was it okay to have a voice, it was important to use it. He told me I had value and He gently encouraged me to believe that. He, the Lord of the universe, showed me His delight in my voice.
Some steps were big. Some were small. I grew enormously through the years of counseling before the marriage finally ended. And in the midst of the intense pain that was my life for those years, this growth felt like a gift – the hidden gem. It felt like weight being lifted off my shoulders. It felt like fresh air. I was coming alive in ways that were exciting to me. But to my husband it seemed as if the ground rules were changing and he could not rejoice in the things that felt like freedom to me.
Eventually, I was the one who filed for divorce. I had begged God that if my marriage was going to end, please have my husband be the one to file. In the end, for a number of reasons, I had no choice but to do it. And in doing so, I found a new piece of my voice – one that I believe the Lord knew was important for me to use. Admittedly, it was a piece I had never wanted to use, a piece that initiated me into a club I had never wanted to be part of (divorced). But it was a voice that came from a place of realizing I had value and importance and a call on my life. Perhaps most importantly, that there were lines it was appropriate for me to draw and there were things that were important for me to say.
Toward the end of Runaway Bride, Maggie Carpenter has figured out more of who she really is. She’s an artist, among other things. She’s built a successful following in the city. She’s found her voice. She’s eaten every style of cooked eggs and she announces to the reporter: “Benedict. I love Eggs Benedict. I hate every other kind.”
Finding your voice matters. And egg preference is just one of the fun parts.
Betty's Thoughts 