Lessons I’m Learning From Having A Voice But Not Being Able To Speak

First, I want to apologize for not posting the past two days. My husband whisked me off for a getaway to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. Between that and finalizing last-minute details for my book, I just could not carve out any time to post. Please forgive me.

Speaking of the getaway, I was initially torn about whether to go. Part of me wanted to go and another part of me didn’t. I struggled with whether I wanted to go away for this special celebration while not being able to speak to my husband. Moreover, although I didn’t know what they were, I knew that my husband had planned a variety of activities for us. I just didn’t want to be in public several times a day and not be able to respond when people spoke to me. On the one hand, I thought my mandated-silence would simply take a lot of the joy and spontaneity out of the trip. On the other hand, this was our 25th wedding anniversary, and I wanted to celebrate it in a very special way.

To complicate matters, whereas I was determined during the first two weeks to not give in to my plight (by avoiding going out in public without a “voice”), I sensed something very different this time. I felt strongly impressed to minimize my outings so that I could spend more focused time with the Lord. Yet at the same time, I also felt a peace to go since it was indeed a very momentous occasion I’d be celebrating. After all, wedding anniversaries occur once a year and silver anniversaries but once every quarter of a century!

After thinking and praying, my first thought was to postpone the trip for another two weeks when I could hopefully speak. But even though I knew he would have understood, I couldn’t bring myself to tell my husband that I didn’t want to go on the trip that he had invested considerable time planning. When I overheard him on the phone trying to reschedule our hotel accommodations, my mind was made: I would go.

We had a great time despite my not being able to speak. But never before could I have appreciated just how much talking makes my life easier. And how much harder it is to interact without a voice. Sitting in a restaurant (again) and having my husband convey my order to our server was yet another lesson in humility and dying to self. This time, the lesson was even more profound than my restaurant experience less than two hours after I had first been told not to utter a word: here I was with the love of my life celebrating 25 wonderful years together and not a single amorous word of affection could I say to him. What do you do at a moment like this when you truly can say nothing?

image047