A Time To Speak

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under Heaven… a time to be silent and a time to speak.

-Ecclesiastes 3:1,7

I once feared the echoes of my own mouth. The heaves and gasps my lips pushed forward, the noise breaking into the air. I could not fathom what formed from my voice.

Deep within my heart I stashed my sayings and kept tight hold of the key. Inside, words pounded on the door and begged to be released. I couldn’t crack open their purpose. When a matter of importance arose, I smiled politely but offered no rebuttal, while my silence led me to conform to the patterns of the people. I did not believe the lies their lives were dipped in, but my voice remained silent. My words remained lonely. Day after night they whimpered at my timidity, and again and again in vain I tried to set them free but cowered in my failing courage.

A clock ticked from somewhere beyond time, each strike of the second hand setting my mind at work.

“Whom shall I send? And who will go?”

“Speak Lord, for Your servant is listening.”

“Help those who cannot help themselves.”

“In the beginning was the Word.”

Voices, sweet and honest, dove into my defenses, breaking down the door that held my captives in my heart’s cavern. If not me, who would speak? Who could hope to hear the Truth if I buried it in the belly of restraint?

A time to be silent would not work if the quiet fear I harbored held me helpless. I awoke my world to a thousand different sounds, rushed my tongue to slip into the praise it must spring forth. I called aloud the Light of my life, and how the hills of love crossed the soundwaves to those in desperate need of refreshment! Words, once so timid and small beneath my breath, now rolled with thunder, struck with strength.

In the beginning was the Word. And that Word has emboldened me to proclaim good tidings and hope eternal to those who have ears, may they hear.

It’s time to speak. May my mouth continue to soothe those in need of grace, and be empowered to keep my fears of silence forever away. I’m using my voice. I’m speaking on behalf of Him who has unblocked my words and set them soaringly free.