I used to write things I knew, things I’d learned. I wrote in a voice of experience. I seem to have lost that ability. My writing now consists of unanswered questions, blind wanderings, and a jaggedness I cannot smooth, no matter how much I finesse.

I used to pray eloquent prayers. My prayers were smooth, comprehendible dialogs with God. Oh, sure, there were the quick one-liner ones, but the majority of "prayer time" prayers were proper and respectable. They weren’t the songs of angels by any means, but they sounded decent to my own ears. These days my prayers mirror the brokenness within. Words come in stops and starts, spoken with the voice of a child gasping between sobs. Gone is the eloquence. Gone is the smoothness. Gone are the long-winded requests, the lists and the beautiful imagery.

I used to know how to speak to God and write the words in my heart. I recognized my own writing, my own prayers, and felt good about how I expressed myself "out loud".

I don’t recognize my own voice anymore. Perhaps its the two and a half years of screaming — all the crying and wailing I’ve done. It seems to have irrevocably altered the tenor and flavor of my voice, much like the effects a bad cold. There’s a raspyness now…. it’s as if my voice has been stripped… all that’s left is raw reality. No wisdom, no thesis statements or golden nuggets. No powerful zingers. Just. Raw. Me. Sometimes I even develop laryngitis… I try so hard to speak, but all that comes out are squeaks. Where does my voice go???

I love my voice when I have a cold. My normally high pitch disappears and I have this wonderful smoky, warm tone I’ve always wanted. I feel like Kathleen Turner, Marlene Dietrich, Sheryl Crow and Tina Turner all rolled into one. How cool! It’s what makes living through a cold worth every second. And its why I always try to record my voicemail greetings while I’m sick.

But the jury is still out on my new emotional-spiritual voice. I go to pray like I used to and it feels so very wrong. Like I’ve just moved our relationship from intimate to formal. Like talking to your best friend as if she were the President, instead of your closest confidante. But when I think about continuing to pray like I have the last two years and it feels somehow inadequate to talk to The LORD that way, know what I mean? I didn’t care about that the last couple of years. Desperation will do that to you. But some little voice in me keeps whispering that I "should" move beyond those "child’s cry" prayers and speak to God more like an adult.

I cannot go back to my old voice. It’s gone forever. Life moves us forward every day and the things of the past never come round again. We can look back longingly on them, romanticize them all we like, but they will never return. I can either remain frozen in my longing, forever chained to the past, or I can release my hold on the past and grab hold of the God of the Present. The choice is ever before me.