Finding one’s voice is the need of every human being with a pulse. It’s what enables us to communicate with others, to express ourselves, our needs. It's what allows us to connect with others. We feel understood, acknowledged by others when they get the meaning behind our words. Entering a space is not enough. You might not even notice me. But if I say something, everyone becomes aware that I am in the room. I am here.
In our home, God was everything. Every feeling, every impulse, every thought, every action was held to what we saw as His Law. It is interesting to me that people congregate around whatever aspect of God is most familiar to them. I’ve seen many a person impose their ego, their upbringing, their beliefs as they quote different passages in the Bible. For a person who grew up in a loving and welcoming environment, the thought of God not listening, not accepting, not loving them is as foreign as hearing another language. So they go to churches that are nondenominational or inclusive. Or they don't go to church at all. They find communion in the experience of living, loving and serving outside the four walls. But for folks like me who grew up with a consciousness deep in oppression, the message of God’s Love was seldom heard. For us, a Loving God would punish you if you didn’t obey him. “He chastens those He loves,” we were taught.
It’s no wonder my mom would tell me I didn’t hear from God. Why would God say something different from what our church super culture would think? Why would God tell me something that was no where in the doctrine, the tradition, the Bible as we understood it? After all, the Holiness church believed they were right and anybody who differed was wrong. So wrong in fact that they were going to hell.
I don’t want you to misunderstand my mom. Her goal was not to hurt me or to confuse me. She was protecting me the best way she knew. She was devout in her beliefs about God. He spoke to her. I remember when I was in college and I was having an affair with a married man. I didn’t tell my mother. She told me that God woke her up and told her that someone was taking advantage of me. She demanded that I give her his name. I wouldn’t. Who wants their mother hunting down the man they are crazy about—even if the operative word is crazy? My jaw dropped to the floor when she came back to me and said that God had given her his name. And the name was right. That's just one of many examples. So if this woman said that I didn’t hear God’s voice, then in my mind, she had to be right.
Sad for me, however, that was the day that I lost a significant piece of my soul. Growing up, I didn’t feel seen. I didn’t feel like I mattered. But there was the hope that if I kept on talking, if I kept on saying what I felt, if I kept showing up, they’d eventually pay attention. I just needed to get the right mix of words. I just needed to say it right. But the day my mom told me I didn’t hear from God, the light of hope went out. I went from feeling like God saw me, heard me and I really truly undeniably mattered to him to...nothing. I was lost.
The whole premise of salvation is that Jesus died so that we wouldn’t be lost. To accept him as your Savior was to…well…be saved. Saved from what though? As a child, saved meant saved from going to hell. It was simple. God, heaven; the devil, hell. If you didn’t get saved, you’d go to hell. For me, living saved was HARD. Everything that delighted me, excited me, everything I wanted to do was of the devil. Sin, they called it. I wanted to sin. That’s why it was so important that I get filled with the Holy Ghost. It was the spirit of God who gave us power to conquer that desire to sin. Without it, you weren’t sealed. You were vulnerable and unprotected against the devil without the protection the Holy Ghost provided. This is how I saw it and heard it as a child.
What do you do? What do you do when you try to do right but you keep comin up short? What do you do? What do you do when your innocence, your vulnerability is mishandled and the truest, most honest part of you goes into hiding because it is no longer safe? What do you do? I couldn’t imagine my life without God. It was more than the fear of going to hell. God was everything. To not have God was like dying. I soooo wanted Him to love me, to accept me, to approve of me…..to speak to me. I needed help. I wasn’t getting this saved thing right. Nothing I did worked. If I danced in church, I was wrong because it wasn’t pure praise. Pure praise was when the spirit would make you do the holy dance. If I prayed and begged God to take the sin away, it was futile. I kept wanting to sin so that meant I wasn’t getting through to Him. If I went to the altar to receive the Holy Spirit, I was denied. Had to be, cause everybody else would speak in tongues but not me. I’d just cry.
I was lost. How can you be saved but lost? Makes no sense. It's like an oxymoron. How can you be claimed but lost? Singing in the choir, lost. Lifting my hands and crying as I worshipped, lost. Going to revival after revival, church meeting after church meeting, lost. Smiling, lost. Straight A student, lost. I looked the same. I acted the same. Nobody around me knew it. I was high functioning and just as animated. Still, I was lost. I wasn't enough. As I sit here, typing on this laptop, I know that the whole point of my journey from that point to this has been about reclaiming what was lost—me.
