Jo Ann Fore - When a Woman Finds Her Voice: Overcoming Lifes Hurts & Using Your Story to Make a Difference

Only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth,
and that is not speaking.

~Naomi Wolf

I blame Disney.

Those storybook tales we held to as we grew upthe wonder and magic of happy endingsohhow those dreams and expectations can set a girl up for disappointment when lifegets hard.

And at some point, life always gets hard.

I remember the day I surrendered my happily-ever-after, that day I sat cross-leggedon the bare hardwood of my living room, a thirty-something worn-out mama and abandonedwife. My fears, doubts, and insecurities sparkling much brighter than my trampledtiara.

Broken dreams and unmet expectations leave invisible wounds, ones that linger, confuse,and overwhelm. Our souls stained, our hearts wrecked, we tend to lose hope. Our mouthsbroken, we fall silent.

While silence can be serene and comforting when we need a break from daily living,silencing who we are, our internal voices, weakens our ability to connect heart-to-heartwith others.

Over time, our voices can fade to insignificance. The nothingness permeates our liveswith low self-esteem and threatens to steal our very identities.

Have you (or someone you know) ever fallen silent? Felt unable to express yourselfbecause you were misunderstood, attacked, or criticized in some way? Have you everhurt so badly you doubted the pain could go away? More importantly, have you felta sharp pull to hide these hurts?

That's not God's plan.

Your voice matters. In fact, it's a personal gift from the One who made you.

Pull that truth in tightto the very core of your being. Relish the freedom.

You aren't alone. Unworthy. Powerless. You are important in God's eyes. You aren'tdefined by what has happened to you, or even your own wrong choices; these thingswill not destroy you. You are loved. Needed. And what you have to say is valuable.

Intoxicating, isn't it?

Those thin places
where truth seeps through
those are the places where Jesus walks,
the places we find healing.

Dare you believe it? The Pollyanna euphemisms can fade quickly as you default towhat you know best. After a brief interlude of hope, your mind pulls back, pulverizedby self-doubt. Is what I have to say really meaningful or valueddoes anyone evencare?

It's hard to forget those times you were forced to keep secrets. Or those times othersmade you feel worthless and inferior, pumping up their ego at the price of your self-worth.

This battle for our voices is intense. We want our freedoms. To feel joy. We wantto matter. But our worlds are loud, filled with friends, family, and co-workers aswell as social demands and outside negative influences.

And in the midst of all this noise, we tend to lose the voices that matter mostbothour own and that of the God who whispers to our hearts.

I well know the roar of silence, the taste of fear. I've lived the numbing quietof suppressed emotional pain caused by unfathomable hurts. But I've also reachedout and grasped the hand of freedom extended by a personal and loving God. I've cometo savor the liberty to speakto participate in my own life and the lives of thosearound me. No longer does life pass me by.

A tumultuous journey of childhood sexual abuse, a twenty-year struggle with bulimia,and emotional and physical abuse in a former Christian marriage threatened to derailGod's purpose for my life. With a shattered sense of safety, I couldn't believe God,much less trust him. With a brain hardwired by destructive negativity, I made countlesspoor choices. And the fallout of those painful life experiences left me vulnerable.Voiceless for years.

But it didn't have to be that way.

Over time, in the healing shadow of Jesus, I addressed the toxic beliefs that hadsoiled my life and twisted my thinking. As I learned to identify these lies and replacethem with truth, I couldn't help but think differently. Unaware, in the midst ofit, I was retraining my brain.

The first step toward freedom is to choose truth.

Today, I use my formerly silenced voice to tell others about God's goodness and theplan he has for us to live a life of joy and purpose. A full life. A free life.

I don't share my story, or the stories of others, to sensationalize or compare. I'mgut-transparent about the cuts on my soul because I have benefited from the healingpower that lies in this sort of exchange. Those times others have shared the messinessof their lives, those were the times I finally realized I wasn't alone. The timesI found the courage to confront my own mess.

When we hear others say what we cannot,
we somehow start to make sense out of a pain
that cant otherwise be expressed.

I am one of many, only one out of countless women who have suffered hurts and woundsthat slice soul-deep. Do I share this connection with you? While I don't know yourstory or situation, I do know that together we can gain strength to restore the lostyears.

We can overcome these things that have hurt us and reclaim our voices, using themto make a difference.

Even before we were born, there was hope for the power of our voices. It was assumedwe would speakimportant that we did. At birth, family members pressed in to ensureour lungs drew in bittersweet air. Unworried with thoughts or expectations of others,unencumbered by concerns of value, worth, or meaning, and in our most primal andauthentic voice, we cried out. Signaled by the sound, everyone celebrated new life.

Somewhere along the way we lost that celebration of unimpaired voice. Many of uswere shamed, intimidated, or bullied into a habit of silence. In time, we adopteda false voice; we put on a life-is-just-fine, thanks-for-asking mask while we liveda life on the outside that was deeply divorced from our innermost truth.