Voices

For as long as I can remember, I've heard voices. The voices of anyone. And everyone. Friends. Mentors. Authors. Teachers. Family Members. I'm an equal-opportunity listener. The voices' owners likely have no idea that I hear them. They never intended to inflict guilt or expectations upon me. I do that on my own.

It's a curse. And while I know that everyone, to one extent or another, entertains voices, I've wondered lately if my condition is more serious.

The voices and I have cohabitated for so long now, I didn't realize they were a problem until the last year or two. As I left various roles and opted for a simpler life, the voices became more noticeable. They were louder, sometimes so loud that I could hear nothing else. At times they virtually screamed, rendering me useless.

I love this simpler life, one focused solely on family and domesticity. But without my former roles and the occasional accolades which accompanied them, I began to feel small and insignificant. Like the layers of an onion gradually peeled away, I sat exposed and raw. 

God, in His sovereignty, knew that it was time we do battle with the voices, some of whom I've toted around since childhood. And while the voices have always been with me, the mouths and messages have always been tailored to fit my season of life. I guess I have designer-voices like that. Couture actually. Custom-made just for me. 

As I've mentioned before, I've been home full-time for two years. Like many of you, I'm forced to do things every day that I'm not good at. Things I don't want to do. Repetitive tasks that no one sees. 

And as I task (or fail to task), I hear "this season's" voices. The voices of all those books I've read on mothering and home-managing and being a woman of God. The voices of older, wiser women who were much better at balancing, at organizing, at preparedness. Or of younger, energetic women who are better at doing life than I am. Voices who only wanted to help and encourage. But instead, they pummeled me again and again with the reality that I am not doing all that I should be doing. Voices who remind me of how inconsistent and undisciplined and haphazard I am. 

And I, in response, am no longer encouraged or eager or inspired. I am guilty and weary and less-than. Because I've tried, through sheer inspiration and willpower, to do what those many, many, countless voices have told me to do or be. And I have failed virtually every time.

I love the book, Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. Toward the end of the book, Miller reflects on a session he had with a counselor. He too was tormented by voices and self-condemnation. His counselor told him that he was "letting other people name him, letting others decide his value." That his value needed to come from God. And God just wanted him to "receive his love and to love himself too."

Miller goes on:

And what she {the counselor} was saying was true. I knew it was true. I could feel that it was true. But it also felt wrong. I mean, it felt like it was an arrogant thing to do, to love myself, to receive love. I knew that all the kicking myself around, all the hating myself, was not coming from God, that those voices were not God whispering in my ear, but it felt like I had to listen to them; it felt like I had to believe the voices were telling me the truth...

...'I know God loves me.' And I did know, I just didn't believe. I had heard it before, but hearing that stuff didn't silence the voices...I needed to believe it was true. I needed something to tell the voices when they started chanting at me.

(emphasis mine)

For Miller, he took this problem, that had never seemed like a spiritual problem, and he began to pray about it. And in time, God turned his knowing into believing.

And that's where I want to be. At the point of believing. To be a girl who is finally free to receive love and to actually love herself. 

And I haven't arrived at that place. I'm in that crazy netherworld somewhere between knowledge and belief. Some days I'm closer to freedom than bondage. But on any given day, I return to my familiar shackles and the accompanying chanting.

I know that someday I will hear one Voice and only one. And that my own voice will no longer chant condemnation and guilt, but will instead sing in beautiful harmony with its Maker... 

But I am not there yet.