Please stop.
Please stop saying to people that I will lose my voice because I'm not using it.
Please stop because it makes you look ridiculous and makes me uneasy.
Please stop because you don't know what you're talking about.
Please stop cursing me and making me the bad person in your diluted movie...
My voice, my talent is a gift from God, a gift which He saw fit to give me and which He may see fit to one day take away. If that were to ever happen then its something that He and I will have prepared for. It's not something that He will strip from me because I don't get up on a stage every Sunday and sing for the people like an entertainer or a monkey. I'm neither. I'm a girl who happens to have a talent, I'm a girl who chose to channel that talent at my church, instead of at a bar or on a corner. I'd think you'd at least be grateful for that small tidbit. That I wasn't trying to chase some far off dream of stardom only to be disappointed and unhappy in my life (like someone we both know). No, instead you're upset that I stopped singing because of your inability to continue to bask in a glory and praise that does not belong to you.
You've found greater pleasure in the good reviews, compliments and pride you take from my talent than I ever will. You like me to sing because you have invested in it the only thing you can, your own feelings. Have you not ever wondered why I stopped singing in the first place? I don't think you have, because you've never asked me why I walked away. I'm sure you've come up with some far fetched reasoning...but the truth is you don't know because you've never cared enough to ask. So let me enlighten you. My talent became my burden, it became an unwanted friend and a task I was not only ill prepared to handle, but too immature to fully grasp. My talent (being cultivated by those, like you, who like to hear the praise) was becoming my downfall and I was unhappy in that state. I was given a long awaited way out and I took it.
At 19, I didn't know what real worship was. I knew I liked to sing, I was given an opportunity to sing and did so...but singing and leading worship are two very different things. To be put up on a stage every Sunday for years, like a performing Monkey, was at first wonderful, but because my head and heart were in two different places became toxic. How can I help to lead people to worship when I didn't know which way I was going? I felt a fraud was being committed and I didn't want to be apart of it anymore. So, when the opportunity came I took it. I've never regretted that step. No, because I started to fall...deeper and deeper. I fell farther and farther from God and if I had been in a place of "leading" it would have been terrible. I could not honestly stand in front of the congregation and sing praises to God when all I wanted to do was yell at God. I don't want to be inauthentic, not in life, not in worship. So it was best for me to walk and I will never regret or second guess that.
After a year I was open to sing again...(meaning my schedule would permit it) but my heart, would not allow it. I was still not in a place I'd call spiritually healthy and therefore would not allow myself to get up and lead. Time moved on and you continued to badger me about singing, never asking why I wasn't, just demanding that I do it. I never did. I made a promise to myself to be right with God before I got up to lead his flock. Years came a went and I sat...questions from others came a went and I sat. I began to occasionally sing, as an emergency option (just to help out), but it wasn't a serious commitment. Still you asked and still I sat. Did I miss it? Yes, but not in the way you'd think or hope for. I missed using my voice, but not to received praise for it...I missed the feeling of hitting a note I wasn't confident in, but not because I pulled it off...but because God pulled me through. Once I began to understand what true worship is I began to feel uncomfortable with the attention and praise because it wasn't my attention or praise, it was God's. You however, love the attention my talent brings to you and therefore lament to anyone who will listen that you don't understand why I don't use it, then go on to say I'll lose it.
I am in a good place, I'm in a church I adore and I'm growing in my relationship with God. I'm not singing. I'm not singing because I'm still not yet in a place where I feel comfortable standing on the stage leading. I've talked to God about it and He's standing firm with me. I may never be apart of another worship team, I'm okay with that. He may see fit for my voice to be used in other ways, that's His decision and my path to follow. But, I suspect, that even if I was apart of the worship at my new home, you'd still be upset because I wasn't where you are...because it doesn't really much matter to you if I'm singing, what matters to you is the praise that rains down from the people who hear me sing. They come to you because you like it and I deflect it.
My voice is God's tool, God's instrument and God's gift. It's merely my talent...one He saw fit to give me. I will use it as He sees fit, but I will not use it just for praise, especially when spiritually I'm not completely healed from being so deeply broken. That's it...the reason I am writing this to you...it's not that you choose to curse me with your words to those who mean very little...but that you've never stopped to think where is my child spiritually that she'd give up on the talent God gave her? No, you've never thought about that....you've never asked or cared. You've also never asked yourself if God is using this to find and develop any other talents I may have that were overshadowed by that one...why would you? Because any other talent wouldn't give you the praise the this one gives you.
I could go on and on, but I'll finish it here. I'm not resentful or angry. I'm sad, but that's nothing new. Our whole relationship is based on your doing, saying or thinking something and me being sad that you never actually asked or listened to my truth of it. Like all things that concern me deeply, I've written this out and can now move on something else. One day you may read this and understand me. But, I don't hold out hope for that...because it doesn't interest you. It's easier to believe something that's wrong than it is to know the truth.
Until Next Time.
