Friday, November 24, 2006

Forced Silence

This past week has been interesting. I had laryngitis for 3 days! I usually get it about once a year after a long cold or something, but this one came up out of the blue. One day around 5:00 I just suddenly had no voice. It stayed gone for 3 days. Ashley called me that night after I had lost my voice and said who is this when I answered the phone. I said this is your momma! And then she busted out laughing! She could hardly talk to me she was laughing so hard!

Although not having a voice for 3 days can be very hard, I feel like it was a good thing, because it caused me to reflect a little on myself. I began to ask myself after the 2nd day if maybe God was trying to tell me something. I began to realize that I don't always listen as much as I should. I need to listen more and talk less. After being forced to do that, I realized it was something I already knew, but now had no choice but to work on. So the forced silence was good.

It was also very interesting trying to teach ten 4 year olds with no voice on the day of their Thanksgiving Feast when they are already excited. After they realized I really couldn't talk above a forced whisper, it was one of the best days of school I've had! They were so quiet all day because they knew they had to listen extra hard to hear me. I even had one teacher stick her head in the door to see if we were in there. She said it was so quiet she didn't think we were in the room!

One other nice thing while I had no voice was that Jeremy had to actually stop and look me in the face when I was talking to him no matter how big of hurry he was in :) It frustrated him a little, but it was nice to have his undivided attention!

I have my voice back now. Well, I have A voice back. Not really my own yet. I have more of a man voice right now. I think I could have sang bass at church on Wednesday night. I was already singing an entire octave lower than every one else!

Being without a voice can be a major pain. But all in all, I really count it as a blessing. God opened my eyes to some things in myself I need to change. And for me that's always a good thing.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!

4 comments:

Danna said...

I know what you mean. I have had my eyes opened as well. Bonnie when she is trying to get my attention will say "momma, momma", however lately I guess I'm not listening well and now she says, "momma, momma, MOTHER!!!" Then first time she did it I really had to take in what she meant. I was not listening to her and I needed to. So needless to say I have started to look at her and listen. Even if it is silly, she just wants to be heard.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and tell everyone that we love them. Hopefully I will see you at the Christmas program. I am going to come and watch Travis perform. See you soon.

Melanie said...

I can totally see Ashley laughing at you on the phone for that. You should have told her you were Chris and were having a bad day!

Terry Rush said...

Some our the greatest moments are wonderfully buried within unwanted interruptions like no voice. Congratulations....blessed by God again!

Love you!

Danna said...

You have finally gone where you thought you could never go, Silence the final frontier. I didn't get to talk with you on the phone but believe me I am rolling in the floor. Honestly, I am sorry you had to go through that. It happened to me this Summer. I woke up on Sunday morning to leave for camp and couldn't say a word! Tell your family hello and we love them.