A little over a year ago, I heard a talk entitled Redeeming A Sound from Dan McCullough, a renowned charismatic worship leader and songwriter. To be quite honest, it wasn't anywhere near as riveting as some of the other messages I heard in the same time period, but for some reason, the title stuck with me. Redeeming a sound. Redeeming a sound. Redeeming a sound.
Fast forward. One of the very first words I heard this school year was on the subject of redemption. Lacey Thompson referenced Isaiah 61, reminding us that shame is no longer our portion, because we have been redeemed - not restored. When something is restored, it is repaired to the condition it was in before it was damaged or broken but redemption... Redemption is so much sweeter than mere restoration. Redemption looks like this - in the places I was robbed or I blew it, when God redeems us, we get a double portion in that area in exchange for any shame we carried.
I've had anxiety issues for so long (even before they were diagnosed), that I'd almost forgotten there was a time when I wasn't affected by them. In retrospect, mine was a gradual regression, from an effervescent and outwardly expressive youngster to a young adult who spends most of his time carefully hiding away, worried about perception, rejection, and inadequacy. It started with accepting the lie that what I had to say was better swallowed than spoken, and grew in every facet of my life until I started to accept an uneasy complacence in my silence, and before I realized what happened, even the thought of opening my mouth caused my voice to shake and when I would try to sing anywhere but in a room by myself, it was like someone was squeezing off my voice at the root.
Something was/is definitely broken, and I think it no stretch of the imagination to say that the mere restoration of my voice would be worthy of celebration. But God is so much more than that. God is not just the restorer of the broken, God is the God of the redeemed.
So my journey begins, to re-claim the voice that has eluded me for so long. This is the year that a new sound in me will be released, and Holy Spirit has been guiding me to the places where I left or sacrificed integral parts of myself at the altars of public opinion - often times without even knowing. Yesterday morning, I drove to an old school of mine that was the site of so much hurt and pain for me as a child. It was there that my voice was first stifled, that I started to believe standing out was not okay, because all it seemed to get me was bruises and abuse from both my peers and sometimes teachers. I pulled into the parking lot with eyes filled with tears, and drove around the school to view what had once been a scene of my ostracization and misery. I could see the scenes replaying in my head, but this time, Jesus was there. I parked in front of the building and cried, telling the people who I'd thrown away so much of who I was born to be, that I forgave them and then I forgave myself for making idols out of the approval of people.
From there I went to the church where I was discipled me as a boy (and later dismissed as a leader) that I purposely avoided since, sat in the sanctuary of my childhood with my guitar and began to play - no performance necessary, before reading the last couple of chapters of The Shack and weeping uncontrollably. Why am I sharing this? Its because hurt doesn't just go away when we refuse to look at it. Just because we don't acknowledge our past, doesn't mean it doesn't continue to haunt us. But the promise of the Gospel remains - that God will not allow pain to come without something new being born from it. I know this now, and not just in my head, but in my heart.
Last year, I realized the power in standing my ground in the face of things that terrify me, and now I'm going back to face all the giants that caused me pain - that I sacrificed my voice to, because I want my stuff back, and as a Son of the Kingdom, I'm demanding what is required of a thief - that they must pay back seven times what they stole, even if I bankrupt all of Hell in the process.
I know that I can slay any giant that I can look in the eye. And this one, like so many others to come is going down.