My voice is gone.
I've been singing a lot lately, but what else is new? I've also lead a few dance rehearsals, and I've always been a talker; thus, I am confused and frustrated at the loss of my voice.
It's humbling for an outgoing, social person like myself to be unable to communicate. Sure, I can text and email, and even use the broken bits of sign language that I know. But I cannot express myself in the way I do best: song.
I feel like Ariel.
Only without the red hair.
Or the man.
Still, I do my best, like her, to seem put together, appealing, and ready for the adventure of life. I am fortunate to have the assurance that within a few days, God willing, my voice will be back and my life will continue in its sing-song style, per usual.
Fortunate.
I cannot help but think, in this time when I have only a temporary loss of voice, that there are millions of people who have no voice. Who have never had a voice. Who may never have a voice.
It's not that their minds are empty, or that they don't have anything to communicate; on the contrary. These people have everything in the world to say, their minds teeming with ideas, opinions, and stories. By "people", I don't only mean people of impoverished countries or the stereotypically "oppressed", I am talking about anyone who knows truth yet cannot express it, cannot touch it. Sometimes, we see what is right or wise or just, yet we cannot communicate it because of our life circumstances.
I think about the hundreds of children I have met in the 1,200 miles between Haiti and Guatemala. I have NO doubt that each and every one of them KNOWS that something is not right. They see all the white missionaries come to them, usually only for a week at a time, and they see their happiness, their brilliance, their "foreignness". They see these people are different: cleaner, quicker to speak, unfamiliar with eating off the ground. These children see the looks of disapproval exchanged when we hear that only half of them will complete a middle school level education. They KNOW. They see it. But they say nothing because, well, who might listen? Who would continue to tell them "no"?
When I think of "voiceless people", I also think of some of the young women on my floor here at Baylor. Girls who, like me, spent the majority of their lives in upper, middle class homes with all the privileges that kind of life comes with. We have the same opportunities, and fortunately live in a country that allows us to use our voices. Yet still, we feel a sort of oppression sometimes, something that tells us,"you can't say that," or, "no one thinks that; you'll be too different." So we remain silent, passive to the truth, apathetic to what we know is just, for fear of striking out.
I want to be a voice for the voiceless. I want to be the hands and feet of my God and proclaim, "Speak! You are heard by the Almighty!" Being physically voiceless has been tiresome and exhausting. And only for a few days have I experiences this frustration! Many spend their whole life with the burden of their unheard, unspoken voice on their mind. I beg to the Lord, "Father, why have you sent me here? Why have you given me life? Why did you give me the gift of communication, the passion engage with the oppressed?" I don't know the answers to all these questions. But I know that my God has given me a voice, a piece of His voice.
Though I have not a physical voice today, I have eternal voice in the Kingdom, extending the Good News of Jesus.
And so do you.
You need only to speak.
Say it with me.
"Here I am, Lord. Send me."
