High school. Talk about a time when I had lost my voice!
It started in junior high. The chatty, outgoing little girl that I had been got buried under the ugly divorce of my parents, a move to a new state, and a nightmare junior high experience. Yes, that included the typical stuff of trying to figure out who I was, but then my own “best” friends started bullying me. They seemed to love the power they had over me, even threatening to beat up other friends if they talked to me. I wanted to hide and escape, but where do you go when you have to be in class and walk to and from school every day?I didn't know much about God, so it didn’t cross my mind that I could turn to him for reminders of who I really was or who I was becoming. I had no idea that Someone was there to walk with me through that crushing season.
I now can look back and see he was there, protecting me and beginning to draw me to himself.
Thankfully the friends of junior high went to a different high school, but the whole experience left me so shaken that even after I found new, great friends, I was afraid to speak. I would but words were often carefully measured. I’d cringe and want to hide when I perceived that I’d said anything wrong. With one friend, who I really cared about, I could share my feelings and even be angry. While it sometimes strained our friendship, I think I was thankful I could be myself and she wouldn’t entirely reject me.
One tiny step in finding my voice. God wasn’t going to let it stop there.
(More to come in future posts)
How about you? Have crushing experiences and relationships silenced your voice? Your heart?
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