Speak Now or Forever Lose Your Peace

“Never heard them say a word.”

For a shy and quiet teenage girl who had grown accustomed to feeling invisible to most of the people around me, this superlative, which happened to have been voted on by the entire senior class at my high school, was a pretty accurate depiction of who I was at that time in my life – though I would’ve preferred for one of my strengths to have been cemented in people’s minds as they looked back through their high school yearbook, and not one of my greatest weaknesses.

“Most likely to drop everything and help others.”

“Most likely to make you laugh when you’re feeling down.”

“Most likely to be the first one finished with all of their assignments in class.”

For whatever reason, these more admirable qualities that I possessed were overshadowed by the fact that I didn’t say much in high school.

This new label I was given by my senior class shined an unwelcome light on a struggle that I had picked up from a traumatic and broken childhood — the struggle to use the voice that God had given me.

The struggle to speak up and say what was on my mind and in my heart.

The struggle to say anything other than what I was required to say.

I wish I could say that I overcame this struggle right after high school, but the truth is, this struggle has haunted me my entire life. And it’s not like I couldn’t think of things to say or that I didn’t want to speak. Despite the lack of evidence, there has always been a lot going on in my mind. Trust me, I’m pretty funny. No one makes me laugh harder than I do!

In all seriousness, I’ve always had witty things to say, funny comebacks, wisdom, compliments, and all the things that most people wouldn’t hesitate to say swirling around in my brain, but getting these things to move from my brain to my mouth seemed impossible at times. And coming from the home life that I did growing up, where not being heard was to my advantage, I grew accustomed to keeping whatever was on my mind in my mind.

For a long time, I was content not being seen or heard. I was comfortable being in the background, away from the spotlight — away from the attention of everyone. If no one saw me or heard me, then no one could hurt me. Not to be heard, in my broken estimation, was to be safe. And being safe was a priority for someone who had grown up in a world that was anything but. 

My parents got divorced when I was 3 years old, and my dad moved me and my older sister four hours away from our hometown and away from everyone and everything we knew and loved, including our biological mother. I know that most of our memories are forgotten when we’re babies and toddlers, but I remember a lot during that time in my life. My memories included a lot of sadness, fear, and a lot of loss.

My dad met and married my stepmom when I was 4 years old, and I always remember being afraid. I’m not sure why I was initially afraid, but being the older (and somewhat wiser) adult that I am now, I know that fear and anxiety come with the territory when childhood trauma and instability are present in a child’s life – and mine was teeming with both at that time.

Our minds are interesting and amazing things. God created us with so many abilities and natural processes that help us thrive and keep us safe, and one of those processes is what our bodies and minds do when we’re faced with danger.

When humans are faced with situations that are dangerous, threatening, or potentially harmful, our brains will naturally go into the “fight, flight, or freeze” mode in order to help us survive. The fight response is typically when someone becomes aggressive and fights back at whatever is threatening them. The flight response is when someone bolts at the first sight of danger. The freeze response is when someone freezes and their brains just sort of shut down, paralyzing the person, and preventing them from doing or saying anything. These responses are natural and normal in elevated situations, and healthy people will respond appropriately.

However, if someone has been through trauma and abuse in their past, specifically during their childhood and formative years, these survival responses get warped and kicked into overdrive at the slightest hint of danger, even when those responses aren’t always appropriate or necessary. When we, as humans, experience trauma as babies, toddlers, or young children, our brains are trained to do whatever we can to survive and will resort to doing whatever will keep us safest. It’s a survival tactic that God gave us, but when children are regularly exposed to a heightened sense of danger due to frequent abuse and trauma, they revert to and operate out of survival mode at the drop of a hat. And because of the fall of humanity (which we can read about in Genesis 3), the enemy has been using these God-given protective measures against us for centuries.

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One of the ways this manifested in my life as a little girl was being afraid to speak up or say anything at all. I guess you could say it was a “freeze” response. When I say I was afraid to say anything during those first couple of years of our new family dynamic with my dad and stepmom, I am not exaggerating. My older sister, who was a year and a couple of months older than me (and twenty years braver) would always speak for me.

“Tarah, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, she needs to use the bathroom,” my sister would say.

“Tarah, what do you want to eat?”

“She wants peanut butter and jelly,” she’d answer.

“Tarah, what color popsicle do you want?”

“She wants the blue one,” my sister would proudly exclaim.

I’m not sure if I was whispering the answers for her to relay to those who were asking or if she just had a sixth sense about my needs and desires at that time, but either way, she was my voice – literally.

As I got older, I was able to communicate for myself more and more, but when things got tense or I was in a difficult or uncomfortable situation, it’s almost as if my mouth turned off and I was back in that scary place as a 4 year old girl, afraid to say what I needed to say. I would even have dreams where someone was breaking into my bedroom and I tried my hardest to scream for help, but when I opened my mouth, nothing would come out. That’s a topic for another post, but if you could watch a highlight reel of my childhood, teenage, and early young adult years, you’d see scene after scene of me struggling to speak up and opting, instead, for the perceived safety of silence.

Despite the fact that I struggled with speaking and sharing what was on my heart and in my mind growing up, God saw to it that I didn’t stay that way. As a matter of fact, I am more and more convinced with every passing year that God gets a kick out of propelling His people towards tasks that are completely out of their comfort zones, and the complete opposite of what they’d normally want to do. He has certainly done that countless times throughout my journey with Him, and to be honest, I’m eternally grateful. Not only has He helped me slowly overcome this whole “struggling to speak up” thing, but He has used me in this area so much in spite of my hesitancies.

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Thinking about this fact, I can’t help but see so many parallels between my story and the story of Moses. When I’ve read the account of Moses in the book of Exodus and about how he struggled with being a mouthpiece for the Lord to use in leading the nation of Israel out of Egypt, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve envisioned Moses' awkward facial expressions and the likely discomfort he felt during those early conversations with God and thought, “Same, Moses. Same.”

When Moses lacked confidence and questioned God’s choosing of someone who had a speech impediment and who had been in hiding for 40 years to free His people from slavery, God’s response not only showed His patience with Moses’ doubt, but it also showed His grace and sufficiency over the whole situation – all things that He has done for me in the midst of my own overwhelming lack of confidence and the plethora of doubts I’ve wrestled with when it’s come to speaking up and sharing the things He’s put on my heart to share over the years.

For God to make a habit out of taking someone who struggles to speak and not only giving them the courage to open their mouth, but to also give them the words to say, even while their flesh is fighting against it tooth and nail, is just an awesome display of the transforming power of His Holy Spirit. It also highlights the absolute truths of 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 and 2 Corinthians 12:9, which describe how God often chooses those who are weak, broken, and powerless to carry out His kingdom purposes through the power of His Spirit.

How many familiar Bible stories can we think of where God chose the underdog to do His greatest works?

David. Gideon. Rahab. Mary. The disciples, just to name a few. 

He chooses the weak, the unloved, the unwanted, and the broken because He is kind, and His power shines brightest through those who aren’t relying on (and literally CAN’T rely on) themselves.

When I take a step back and think about all of this in light of the spiritual realm and the spiritual battle that rages all around us, it makes sense as to why God chose someone like me. It also makes sense as to why our enemy stops at nothing to try to silence people, specifically those who have placed their faith in Christ — he knows there’s power in a spoken word!

I mean, think about it. How did God create the heavens and the earth? He spoke and they appeared.

How did we get the Bible, aka the book that teaches us everything we need to know about God and how He can transform our lives, as Christians? God spoke and men wrote it down.

How did Jesus calm a raging sea, heal countless sick people, raise people from the dead, and cast out legions of demons? He spoke and creation obeyed.

When we surrender control of our mouths to the Holy Spirit and we allow God to speak through us as His children and as His ministers, He can bring freedom, healing, and salvation not only to us, but to the countless others that He desires to free, heal, and save through us.

The enemy has kept us silent for too long. Through fear. Through doubt. Through the self-hatred and shame that comes with the territory when you've experienced so much trauma in your life. 

But praise God that we serve a God who is a Healer. We serve a God who specializes in breaking chains and bringing freedom to those who are held captive by the enemy of our souls. When we cry out to God and we lay our brokenness at His feet, He heals the broken places and then uses them — for our good, for His glory, and for the good of those who come behind us in the faith.

If God can use and speak through broken people like me and Moses, then friend, He can use anyone. 

The question isn’t if God wants to do this through us, because He absolutely does. The question is, are we willing to let Him? Are we willing to overcome with His help whatever it is that’s holding us back mentally, physically, and spiritually from speaking things He calls us to speak, whenever He calls us to speak them? 

And don’t get me wrong, there are still times when that old familiar fear creeps back in and anxiety floods my heart when God gives me opportunities to step outside of my comfort zone and share truth. But does He meet me in those fears and anxieties and help me through it? Always. He will do the same for you!

If you belong to Christ, you have a testimony that He wants you to share. Will you share it, or will you forfeit God’s calling to speak up in exchange for a false sense of peace, as I have done so many times?

Speak now, my friend, or forever lose your peace.

(Click the link below for the next post in this series where I talk more about trauma.)

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Speak Now: Part 2 - Speaking of Trauma