Sing...

Ok, so I confess it...  I've been feeling a little sorry for myself the past little bit.  I look around me & wonder when this cloak of invisibility landed on my shoulders & why I can't take it off.  Understand, I don't care what strangers think of me; but I care a great deal about what the people that matter to me think of me... I want them to see me & I want to matter to them.  This is not unique.  Many are exactly the same.  The rest are the opposite of that; they care about what strangers think & disregard the people they claim to care for.  But I get off track...  The point is that I want to matter to the people I care about & I rarely feel that I do.

But more than I want to be seen -- way more than I want to be seen -- I want to be heard.  I remember even when I was very small saying a thing to someone only to have them hear something completely contrary to the thing I said or the intent with which I said it.  Even in written form when there is definitive proof of what was said  strangers & soul-mates alike perceive the opposite meaning.  It has been a puzzlement that has plagued me and forced me to become painfully forthright & articulate & still it continues to happen.

It would be easy to fall into a pattern of hopelessness & just give up at trying to connect & communicate with others... but, well, it is simply not within me to give up.  So I continue in what has become my habit of forthright & articulate then I cry when I am still misunderstood because I have no control over another's perception & the alternative is silence & invisibility.

This past Friday morning I was trying to get my van out of a quagmire that used to be part of my driveway & I was letting loose on Yahweh, and I do mean I was letting Him have it!  Not about the van, oh, no, I had gotten WAAAAAAY past that & as is often His way He simply listened to me rant until He finally wearied of it & spoke; it was quiet but firm...  "Sing"

Ha!  Sing?!  Really?!  I've been singing for as long as I can remember.  It hasn't made a difference & I haven't even sought out a venue since my divorce was finalized over a year ago & at this point my practice time has become practically non-existent.

"Sing"

Why?  I don't feel like it!  I feel small & impotent & invisible & I'm angry!

"Sing"

FINE!  I don't even remember what I sang, I just did...  but you can bet it was no praise song!  I raged.  Then He yelled back "There you are Rachel.  There is your voice that you have been yelling at me over.  You are never invisible & never ignored & very rarely misunderstood when you sing.  THIS is your voice!  THIS is your connection!  THIS is your power!"

Understand something; I have always known I become transparent when I sing.  I can act & dance & perform like I was born on a stage... but there is none of that when I sing, there is simply me -- laid bare.  Even still, I didn't realized that the very thing that makes me transparent also strips the cloak of invisibility from me & makes me truly heard.  But I turn around to look & in retrospect I know it to be true.

So, just like that it seems the tools of empowerment are within my grasp again...  still...