my first words...

as a person who uses his voice a lot, be it making inappropriate interjections to make people laugh or simply making music, it's the strangest sensation to go and try to speak out only to find that you cannot make a sound if you tried.

i've been sick and without a voice for the past 4 days. at first it was quite awkward, whispering when i should be speaking out, trying to make audible tones only to result in raspy-airy whisps of nothingness, but since then i've gotten used to it. it's strange, i'm not even sure, any more, if i'm intentionally whispering or if i'm trying to speak out. i have to consciously give my voice an audible test because i'm not sure if i've subconsciously given in to the whisper. sometimes i forget that people can't hear me and begin speaking quickly like nothing is wrong. i've resolved to not trying to communicate anything complicated in louder places... OR... typing out my remarks on my iphone notepad. i was with some friends this weekend and one of them noted that talking to me was like talking to a pen pal... that all the talking was one sided. it's almost become normal for me. (and for some reason, deep down i actually believe that my voice is gone forever... weird, i know... it's not what today's post is about though...).

naturally, since my voice has left me, i've begun to think about it's (hopefully) inevitable return. if i'm being honest, at this point it feels like it could take weeks to finally come back, though it only left in a matter of days. i have visions of having to go through strenuous vocal rehabilitation as if it were a montage sequence in an awesomely-bad 80's flick. i've even considered the possibility of sounding completely different than i had before, leaving behind my smooth velvety uber-masculine baritone murmurs for a lower husky rumbly extremely rugged bass. but the topic that has really been on my mind is this: when my voice comes back, what will be my first words?


my. first. words. what is it that i will finally be able to say. what is it that i will finally get to communicate via an audible tone? will it be worth while? will it be funny? will it be life-changing? will it matter to anyone at all?

okay, i understand that this might sound a little dramatic from a guy who's lost his voice. i do realize that i've been whisper-speaking to people the entire time, and that my voice won't just come back all at once, that it will arrive in patches and for a while i'll be speaking in awkwardly-funny half-whispers like a kid going through puberty, i get that. i guess it's really the concept of having my first words all over again that really is intriguing to me, and here's why:

i go through so many days, so many moments, where i'm just spouting off any thought that pops into my head. some people love having me around because of this. some people *ahem*sierra*coughing* probably find it annoying. i say a ton of things that are completely filler and don't matter, but don't we all? don't we sometimes speak trivially to cover up seemingly awkward silences? don't we shower people with perceived affections and compliments to make ourselves look good? don't we go out of our way to criticize people and/or things to sound like we're heavy thinkers? don't we say quizzical things to garner desired attention? i can tell you that i'm certainly guilty of all of these things, and probably a few more.

so here i am, Chatsworth YapTrapperstein himself, forced into the inescapable situation where i have to think about what i want to communicate to people because it has to count, because people certainly don't need an earful of raspy airy nonsense. that's how it should always be, isn't it?

i spend enough time misleading people and being facetious. just yesterday i convinced people in my young adults group (big shouts to AMPLIFY, follow us on facebook as 'we amplify' or twitter.com/we_AMPLIFY) that i was whispering because there were people sleeping upstairs. i'm good at nonsense, i know that i am... but i think that i can take that time and apply it to something more useful.

i think that i could tell my wife that i love her and think she's beautiful more often. i think that i could spend more time encouraging people and helping them grow. i think that it could be spent consoling those who are hurting, or giving Godly advice to those who need it, because believe me, there are plenty of people out there who need it.

most importantly, i can use that time to share my faith. to tell people about the God who's loved them in those times they needed to be loved. i certainly don't do it enough, and there are too many people out there who need to hear it for me to be taking days off.


My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry - James 1:19

Living as Children of Light

Within the precincts of religion are sometimes found certain sins which I want here to mention. These may be classified under three heads: Sins committed out of weakness, respectable sins more or less allowed by everyone, and sins that have been woven into the religious fabric until they have become a necessary part of it. Sins of the second category are those that exist with the sanction of or at least the connivance of the church, such as pride, vanity, self-centeredness, levity, worldliness, gluttony, the telling of "white" lies, borderline dishonesty, lack of compassion for the unfortunate, complacency, absorption in the affairs of this life, love of pleasure, the holding of grudges, stinginess, gossiping and various dirty habits not expressly forbidden by name in the Scriptures. These sins are so common that they have been accepted as normal by the average church and are either not mentioned at all or referred to in smiling half-humor by the clergy. While not as spectacular as a roaring weekend drunk or as dramatic as a violent explosion of temper, they are in the long run more deadly than either, for they are seldom recognized as sin and are practically never repented of. They remain year after year to grieve the Spirit and sap the life of the church, while everyone continues to speak the words of the true faith and go through the motions of perfunctory godliness, not knowing that there is anything wrong.

from Tozer Devotional

are we gonna keep doing this dance?

i've been circling this thing for a while now... it's been well over a year since my last REAL post. there've been some sporadic insignificant posts here and there, but for the most part i've just used this blog for... actually, i haven't been using this blog for anything.

to be fair, i did warn you at the beginning of all this, that my blogging habits were irregular at best. as i write this i actually doubt that anyone is actually going to read it? probably jeramy because he's UBER into blogs... and maybe sierra because she gets frustrated that i never write. but if i'm being quite honest, i wouldn't be surprised at all, if everyone has abandoned all hope...

but the reason i write tonight is because i think i'm on the precipice of a new blogging season... a lot has happened in the last year, ESPECIALLY the last 6 months, and a lot is going to be happening here in the near future, and i can only surmise that it is God Almighty beckoning me to trust him... isn't He always doing that? calling us, pleading with us to take Him up on what He offers...

and not in a begging / pleading / desperate kind of way as if He needed anything from us... but more like a "I've got everything all figured out even though, to your stupid human brain, it appears daunting and sometimes (read:probably) illogical to trust me, because I know that I'm ridiculous but I can be that way because I'm freakin' God for Chri... MY sake" kind of way.

God is so much more interesting, and so much more like His true self, when we don't think we have everything figured out... when things line up perfectly and make sense, don't we sometimes ascribe God to certain atrributes of a situation, especially when they all fit poetically together like some grand puzzle, and we look at the grand outcome and easily smile and say "that's God..." as if He could be confined to A situation like some good luck genie?

as i write and think about this, i'm lead to believe that He is perhaps more correctly identified in those situations where the bottom has conceivably fallen out. when all of a sudden we're laid-off, or have to take pay cuts. or when we're diagnosed with lupus amid other unexplained ailments and are confined to a hospital room and away from our children. or when our family almost falls apart and when we fight for it, there seems to be no end in sight... or when we're moments away from dying in a hospital.

i believe it's in these moments, should we choose to still acknowledge His grace and mercy, that we are correctly identifying who God is. when he have no choice but to trust Him, and to run full speed into His arms and cling to Him, and fight to be in His presence, it's in those situations that He gets to be the God who He says He is... not who we say He is. He's the God that doesn't say that everything will be peachy and shiny and warm and fuzzy. He's the God who tells us that we will suffer and be persecuted and be sacrifices for Him.

yeah, that doesn't sound appealing, i know.

but in His word He tells us that "in ALL things, that God works for the GOOD of those who love Him, who've been called according to His purpose" (Rom 8:28)

again, it says nothing about smooth sails. what it DOES say is that: in EVERYTHING we do, HE uses those moments to make US better. and that's it. it doesn't say that it'll all be difficult, and it certainly doesn't say that everything will be easy. it just says EVERYTHING will be for our benefit, and it's up to us to look to Him and learn from whatever it is He's showing us...

and He's showing a lot of us something right now... so kudos to you if you're seeing God in those tough situations, and PLEASE keep fighting the good fight. i've certainly missed Him in smaller situations, but please believe i'm feverishly following His gigantic footprints...

hey chelle,

it's john wakefield.  you're welcome.

michelle stinks. you're welcome.

Hello? Is this thing on?!

Margarita Olanda deJesus 07.20.1923 - 05.27.2009 love you inang.