I have a voice 2020 lookback

I have a voice – look back at 2020.

As we approach the close of 2020 and I look back at this year I find I have found my voice or better said, I have overcome my fear to use my voice.  I would be lying if I said that this was an easy year – but then I think it was hard in many different ways for all of us. 

Personal voice:  so I nearly found myself saying goodbye to Max on April 30^th.  Max  suffered a massive heart attack and had to be “jump started” twice before they were able to do emergent heart surgery.  Just 5 short weeks later my voice was saying goodbye to my sweet sister in law who succumbed to cancer.  Three weeks after that my voice said farewell to my Mother who passed from Covid 19.    This was a very hard 10 weeks in my life and caused me to make some decisions I had been avoiding. 

Through this my voice found the courage to leave a job that I had been finding increasingly oppressive.  It was not easy but that same day I was offered a new job and it has turned out to be a wonderful healing experience. 

Politically voice:  I know this is a touchy subject…. But – I did find my voice.  With reluctance I finally spoke up and I am thankful I have.  What can I say? 

1. That I believe people who vote for a president based on 1 issue are as ridiculous as buying a house with a crumpling foundation because you like the front porch.  So what if the house falls down behind you as long as you got your porch.  Yet that is exactly what so many of my “Christian” friends have done. 
2. That to say the behavior I have seen from people I once believed to be loving, kind hearted, spiritual people is any thing but.  Some wishing for the deaths of those that have differing views.  Others hoping for civil war.  Where is humanity going?  I ask myself, “how will this end?”  I think of the words of Edmund Burke,  “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  So I took on a voice (see earlier posts in this series) and spoke my piece.

• That all people deserve respect.  Do I always succeed in this – no – but I always try.  I may not like the current president and I don’t feel he is a Godly man by any stretch of the imagination, but he is in that office.  So until he leaves that office on Jan 20^th he has that title.  Does that mean I should not speak up when I see things that are immoral, untruthful or just plain wrong?  I don’t think so, but any protest I do make should be done with respect, dignity and without hatred.  Something I have seen very rarely lately among many of my “friends” on FB.  We have a saying on this site – You can’t tell anyone they are wrong.  Simply state that you respectfully disagree and state your own opinions with out name calling, degrading, accusing or cruelty.  Oh that our politicians would learn to do that, perhaps that would make an amazing change in our country.

Spiritual Voice:  I love the path that God has taken me on.  I have become a stronger, richer woman in so many ways.  Even though I have chosen to no longer use the moniker “Christian”  I do still have a strong and abiding belief in God.  ER go… I refer to myself as a Mono Theist.  This year God has shown many new horizons and paths.  The people he has brought into my life and those relationships that were already there have only made me a stronger, richer woman.  I have had the joy of sharing the spiritual journey of a few others who crossed my path but for a moment.  In return they to have touched my life and left a mark.  I have been challenged to look at things I once held as “truths” and to determine if that was so.  Some things fell away while others remain.  I continue this journey with hope and joy in my heart for where it will lead and how I will grow.  I continue to challenge myself to look inside and ask myself the hard questions with an open heart and mind to hear the answer – even if it changes me.  I look forward to deepening relationships with those in my life and to the new people God will bring across my path.

All in all 2020 has had many great challenges but I come to the close of the year with true knowledge that I am blessed.  I have so much in life to be thankful for and so much yet to come.

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