What’s Your Piece?

I’m not going to lie. It’s been a hard month. 

If you know me well you know I hold a lot of confidence and boldness. My speech can be pretty direct and straight forward. I feel it important to clearly communicate what I need, I love conflict resolution because it helps me work better with people in the future, and I’m not afraid to give constructive feedback if I think doing so will spur on growth in others! I have a loud voice that’s good for announcements and gathering people. I’m not afraid to speak up, be in front of people, or project my voice. One of my squad mates tells me that my voice is commanding and soft. What a beautiful compliment. 

Because I communicate like this I love it when others are also very direct with me. I know that operating this way is a strength of mine and God has been able to use it in so many good ways! However, my speech isn’t perfect and my direct tone and boldness can both be taken the wrong way and offend people. This is where God is continually teaching me about gentleness and discernment with my words! 

In the past month I hurt someone with the way I communicate. There was conflict in this relationship that also hurt me deeply. Through the way everything fell into place I felt like I had lost my voice. Not only had I hurt someone with it but I felt like I was being told my communication style was wrong. I stopped making announcements to my squad, being straight forward with those around me, and even speaking at the same volume I normally do. 

I didn’t even notice I had been doing this until I got up in front of my squad to make an announcement. I literally stood in front of them unable to speak. I don’t know what happened but I couldn’t even imagine speaking loud enough for the whole group to hear me. In that instance I realized how deeply effected I had been by the situation I was in. I had lost my confidence in who God created me to be and was changing this huge piece of who I was, to be what I thought others wanted me to be. 

In this moment, in front of my whole squad, I turned to my co leader and simply said, “I’ve lost my voice.” Praise God she knew exactly what I meant. She said a quick prayer for me, I composed myself quickly, and turned to speak to my squad. At a volume that would be typical for me but one I hadn’t used in days I just said, “Um…” and then out loud I said, “Wow, that feels good.” I felt like there was a little piece of me stepping back into who God created me to be. And I went forward saying the rest of what I needed to say. 

A couple days later I went to a different squad that was having a debrief to teach one of their sessions. At this point I still felt like I wasn’t completely me. There was a question in my mind that if it was that difficult to speak to my people, a group of friends that I know well, for only 5 minutes, how was I supposed to preach an entire sermon to a group I’ve never met, for an hour? 

I started out by explaining to them a little of what I had been feeling and let them know how honored I was to have the opportunity to speak to them. I told them how I felt like this was going to be something that God used for my healing. I had no idea how true that would be. 

I spoke to them about identity and used passages out of John 16 and 17. I told them over and over again how much God loves them and shared that when they start to truly believe the good things that God believes about them then they can walk around with confidence in who God created them to be. It was in this thought that I realized I hadn’t been walking in the confidence I normally do and was encouraging them to walk in. I had started to forget who God said I was and what he created me to be good at. I had to start believing again the good things that God believes about me. It all clicked and I started crying in front of all these people who I just met. 

God loves me. Deeply. And he created me the way he did for a specific purpose. For many specific purposes. If I don’t walk in that then not only is the world not experiencing the unique piece of God that can only exist within me but I’m not glorifying God to the fullness to which he is able to be glorified within me. The world needs the piece of God that he has asked me to bring into the world. The world needs the piece of God sitting in you. He wants to expose to the world to himself in how he has uniquely created you. We have to walk in confidence of who God created us to be if not for anything more than to glorify the Lord. 

That night I got my voice back. I’m walking in that confidence and boldness again. Do I do that perfectly? No. Absolutely not. But God is teaching me more of exactly what the piece he has put in me looks like so I can more accurately share that with others! 

What’s your piece?