Have you ever lost your voice? When colds and laryngitis cause sore and scratchy throats it can be hard to speak a single word and frustratingly difficult when people can’t hear or understand you.
Can you imagine the horror of waking one morning to discover you are completely mute and then remain that way for several months? This was the experience of fellow award-winning author Norma Gail who will share with us how her faith and trust in God saw her through this challenge and drew her closer to Him.
Let’s pick up the story with Norma Gail, now able to speak again, listening to what a young bank clerk has to share…
“I’m sorry to hear you’re moving. I will never forget how brave you were to walk into a bank and hand a teller a note.” The words of the young bank clerk jerked me back in time like a bungee cord.
A quiver of well-remembered fear and isolation tingled its way up my spine as I searched for an answer. “I didn’t know if my voice would ever return, so I had to keep going. I couldn’t have done it without God’s help.”
As I left the bank and walked to my car, the knowledge that my difficulty touched someone else warmed me more than the spring sunshine. Loss of my ability to speak could have made me doubt the love of God but as I clung to Him, God’s nearness wrapped me in a veil of hope.
It was frightening to wake up mute for no obvious reason. A whistle remains on my keychain because walking through a busy parking lot is fearsome when you cannot scream. Emails, text messages, and hand-written notes helped, but good communication requires body language and tone of voice. Others did not always understand me, but God knew my heart.
People often turn from God when bad things happen. I shed a few tears and asked why, but in the silence, my relationship with God grew like flowers after rain. I wrote notes while other women led our Bible study in my place, the topic—becoming a vessel God can use. I was being used in ways I never dreamed by learning to live life in spite of my handicap.
I admit feeling angry when doctors were unable to diagnose the reason for my silence. However, even my mute condition could not separate me from the One who loves me most. God was with me.
Nothing “in all creation will be able to separate me from the love of God”. The words of Romans 8 resonated to the core of my being. So I prayed, and one day a friend called from the university medical center. After four and a half months of silence, I began to speak the first day in therapy.
The lessons of my experience remain, even eleven years later. I discovered that relying on God enables me to face intense struggle with courage. I learned compassion from a new perspective. Best of all, the young women who helped lead the Bible study now lead groups of their own.
Nothing can defeat us when we meet challenges in God’s strength. He never intends our circumstances to overwhelm us. God wants His children to become “more than conquerors”. Seeking Christ’s perspective and acting on what He reveals leads to blessing. Our times of fear become milestones on the road to courageous faith when we follow God’s directions and stay the course. © Norma Gail, January 21, 2016
About this week’s guest on A Thought From Penny
Norma Gail is the author of the Christy Award nominated contemporary Christian romance, Land of My Dreams and has been a women’s Bible study leader for over 21 years. Her devotions and poetry have appeared at ChristianDevotions.us, the Stitches Thru Time blog, and in “The Secret Place.”
A former RN and homeschool/soccer mom, Norma
Gail loves family research, history and Scotland. She lives in the mountains of New Mexico and enjoys tackling 4×4 trails in her Jeep, with her husband of 40 years. They have two adult children.
Contact Norma Gail:
Facebook.com/pages/AuthorNormaGail
Plus.google.com/b/102717101441594679714/+Normagail/about/p/pub
Pinterest.com/normagailth/boards/
Goodreads.com/author/show/7874459.Norma_Gail
