Voice

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(Written July 20, 2013)

It seems like so long since I have touched pen to paper, when in reality, I wrote in my journal just this morning. Is it really the same, though? I write so many words, every single day; assignments, essays, tests, poems, my 1000 gifts, journals, fiction, but somehow, writing here, it's different. Here, my words are a comfort. I scratch them out, full of emotion, intending to someday proclaim these words to the world. These are my silent screams; my gasps for air when I still breathe. When the pain in my wrists is fiery, when I feel like nobody cares, when I just feel like crawling into some unseen corner and having a good cry, these words can become a refuge. God gave me a voice, and I intend to use it, because frankly, I've been quiet for too long. I realize now that crying alone in the dark isn't a sign of strength ... or maybe it is just the wrong kind of strong. It takes much more strength to openly admit that you aren't actually as strong as you seem. That you're drowning. That you need help. I'm not just sitting here saying we all need psychiatric help. We need Jesus, and we need His body.

Words. It doesn't take many. The English language makes it almost simple to cry out ... because who of us really can choke out a long-winded speech when we can barely breathe? We need divine help just to whisper a few syllables when they have such magnitude; when we are this small. "I need you," "SOS" even, "I need help," "Pray for me?", "I can't do this alone." Because really, we can't. We've somehow tricked ourselves into thinking it is better for us to just stay there on the ground when we fall. We lie there unseen, bleeding, crying as our wounds slowly heal ... and we know full well they're infected. This is what we do almost daily, rather than simply calling for help. You were not made to stand alone. If you feel like you are alone, and that isn't your choice, but your circumstance, I am here. I know that pain. I want to be here for you. Because really, if the body of Christ lets one another down in their time of need, what have we become? Let us be one in Him, standing together. Broken and beautiful.

Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!  And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken.-Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, 12 (ESV)