this is raw and real.

           Hi! I don’t think I have given a real picture to a lot of people of what’s been happening. In this post, I promise to get raw and real with you about what I am currently and have been walking through with the Lord the last month and a half. 

          This is raw and real. 40 days. That’s currently how long I have been without a voice. I physically have become close to mute. My voice dissipated into nothing more than a painful whisper the week before Christmas. I kept thinking it would come back in a few days. Days turned into weeks and weeks into now a month and a half. Most of the time I feel trapped in my own mind. A lot of my thoughts never get voiced because it’s painful to talk, just not enough time to write them out, or I just don’t. The disappointments of multiple doctors appointments, the misunderstandings that naturally happen, being stuck in one’s own mind, the desire to talk about all the Lord is revealing to me, and the longing to sing, are all there. It has truly been one of the hardest things I have navigated through. Never did I think that I would come on the World Race and spend a portion of it voiceless. At the doctors appointment I had last week, they couldn’t give me a clear time frame for when it would come back. It caused me to swallow a bitter pill of acceptance, as to this is my life now until my voice comes back.

          I’ve rotated through multiple cycles of wrestling and questioning. I’ve asked hard and deep questions of the Lord. Why? Is this a punishment? What’s my purpose now? What’s your will in this? Can I have my voice back? The list goes on. I’ve been through them all. I’ve found that the Lord loves the raw questions. He can take them. He wants the real side of us. He even wants the questions I try to hide from him. The Lord being my loving, gentle, and kind papa did respond. He patiently listens to everything I have to say and responds in nothing but absolute love. 

          I have entered into a new level of brokenness and dependency on the Lord that I never knew existed. There are days I feel so broken and like I have been pounded into the ground. Frustrations, misunderstandings, and even joyful things that I never get to let out. The desire to do more but feeling boxed in. The only place I can run to is the Lord with it all. The one who already knows and I don’t have to say a word. Who saw me crying myself to sleep or heard what I wanted to say. It has created in me a longing for him to be the first one I run to. I long for the safety and comfort of the secret place he provides. I hunger after his voice and presence like never before. He is a breath away. The living God is inside of me and knows me! No words needed. 

          A few days into me losing my voice, the Lord gave me this verse to walk out in a practical way. Let me set the context for you. Exodus 14. The Lord had just brought the people of Israel out of Egypt from the hand of Pharaoh. He was leading them by a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. They come to the Red Sea. The people look up and it’s bad. Really bad. The Egyptians are coming for them full force and they are terrified. They started blaming God and Moses out of their fear. They didn’t place the Lord before them and they were shaken. Moses knew what the Lord had already told him in the secret place because God gave him the answers. So Moses tells the Israelites to not be afraid, that they will see the salvation of the Lord (that is cool in itself), and this “The Lord will fight for you and you only have to be silent.” What? It is so true. I’ve experienced this in such a sweet way!

          Largely, I’ve seen it in the way he brings people into my life to fight and be there for me. I have met several people who deeply care for me and have fought so hard for a voice they have never heard. Countless prayers have gone up for me. People walking alongside of me, going to doctors appointments to be my voice, messaging me, still talking to me and wanting to spend time with me. People catching my tears and reminding me to be patient with myself. Learning sign language and participating in my forms of communication (texting, typing, paper airplanes) that I now have. Reading my thoughts in text form and never letting me give up. 

          The Lord is constantly fighting for us and so often we are not quiet or still enough to experience it. We try to fix it ourselves or hasten to make something happen. The Israelites were ready to go back into slavery and forgot the promise given to them instead of waiting for what the Lord had in store. Spoiler, he parted a sea and they walked on dry ground! DRY GROUND! I sought for answers to comprehend why this was happening. Never found them. We try to rationalize and forget that the Lord works in timing that we can’t comprehend. He moves in ways that only he can and knows how to do. The Lord brings us to these places of brokenness so we surrender our everything to his promise. The promise that he has a greater purpose that we can’t see and that we won’t suffer anymore. When we rest in that promise, everything changes. 

       The Lord has never dismissed my pain. He sees. My ability to do all the things I have set out to do, planned to do, and love to do. A lot of what my life is based upon right now. I felt like I lost my purpose. I can’t really talk about it either. What do you do when you feel like the ground is shaking and you’ve lost your purpose? When you feel a lot of darkness and the world is crushing you? I don’t really know. I’m walking this out right now. It’s not easy and I don’t have all the answers. For me it looks like a fight. Fighting your thoughts, feelings of isolation, wanting to hide, and not giving up. It looks like choosing to “set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, and I will not be shaken (Psalm 16).” The world shakes around me but I can’t be shaken when the Lord is before me. That might not logically make sense to some but in this kingdom lifestyle things just look different. It is being honest with the Lord and how I feel. Letting him catch my tears and giving him the raw moments of frustration, anger, confusion, and hurt. It looks like having people around me who step in when I am exhausted from fighting. It is hourly surrendering and saying “yet not what I will, but what you will (Mark 14).”

          My heart behind this is not to say how hard this has been but how good the Lord is in it. That life is hard but the Lord fights harder. He knows and sees everything. The one we can run to when the depression starts, the feelings are flying, and your heart is breaking. Whatever darkness you are facing or feelings you have, no words are needed to say them before him. I physically can’t say mine but you might not be able to either. There is someone who already does know and already has what you need set in motion. I don’t know why I still don’t have a voice. I can give you my best guess as to what has happened but I may never know. I would not change anything in this season because it is the Lord’s sovereign plan. I have been changed because of it, even if I can’t fully see it. I know what I have learned and I know that my God hasn’t forsaken me or left me at all.

With love,                                                                                                                                          Morgan Kate