I wrote this while on youth retreat last night:

"Constantly restless. Or so it seems, each time we sit to worship, the truth associated with faith dwindles.

Tonight, our speaker woke up without a voice. We asked God to give him one. He did. I understood every word that dripped from his lips. But before he began, he had a moment when he waited for people who felt moved, to come and pray for healing so that he would have his full voice. Though normally I would prod and pray that some youth would arise, instead I myself decided to take a flying leap on faith. Guess what happened. He put the mike to his lips, then took it back down. We sighed, just to get out breathes back to prepare for the moment he would utter a testing word. The mike gravitated back towards his lips only to droop once again, but on the third time, there was not an absence of voice, but an absence of healing. Nothing had changed about his vocal quality. I had been the first to stand, and the first to pray, and perhaps the first to put my heart on the line.

The crushing blow was not immediate. I came slowly as a dark cloud hangs over a town deciding if indeed, it cares to drop its harsh precipitation. The sun is first blocked out, providing a welcomed coolness. Then the wind picks up and the air drops just a bit too chilly. And a lonely prophetic drop dives from the sky. “Maybe just a sprinkle,” you convince yourself, “then it will pass.” Then just as each time before, the dry flood coats your face.

I am not sure if the dry times are just moments craving some semblance of familiarity or fill in the blank. I did, at one point, think quietly, “I wonder if instead of social culture shock, I could experience religious culture shock.” Seems valid. I don’t see why that could not happen. The only real religious gatherings I’ve ever experienced on a true faith level come directly from a Church of Christ perspective. I have never consistently been associated with a instrumental worship service, though I have discovered I do ache for a quality of voice that does not exist with most instrumental services. I keep telling myself... (thought diminishes to an unimportant tangent)"

And then this morning:

"It feels like purpose. When I write, the articulation of life seems to exude out the fingertips. It feels like standing in a magical realm, I can command lightning bolts, as an expulsion zinging and dancing at request. Perhaps it is because I learned to write. I know many of the elements required to artfully and awfully swash together a luxuriant letter (I wanted to insert the word verbiquitous but it is not a real word; sounds cool though). This is not so eloquent when the words attempt to protrude out the mouth. Its like there becomes a traffic collision at my teeth and words lose their focus only to disappear from memory."