Thursdays with the Voice-Bloggers

stifleEach Thursday I’m honored to host an amazing group of women who gather in our online community to share their voices, to share their passion for you finding your voice. Together we walk through the book, When A Woman Finds Her Voice: Overcoming Life’s Hurts & Using Your Story to Make a Difference, and we join hands and hearts here to paint a wide hope. {We’d like to think it’s wide enough to tempt you to your own healing journey.}

This week we’re learning about community, and how when we’ve been hurt we tend to isolate. When we can’t stand the thought of being hurt again, or not being good enough, or of failing yet again, we don our masks and do our lives as if all is well, when, well, it really isn’t.

For many of my years, friends and relationships with others were like a hot stove that could scorch a fierce burn with one mishap. So I avoided them. Built hard, high walls to keep people from knowing the real me. But the walls somehow knew they were a mere fabrication, an illusion of control. And in anger, those same walls turned on me.

If I was going to keep people out, those walls would keep me in.

I could have had love, intimacy, a divine-heart connection with One who loved me more than I could comprehend, yet I chose isolation. Isn’t that what we sometimes do when emotional pain ravages our soul and negative memories freeze us to a numbing pain?

This weekend I took my granddaughter to see Disney’s new release Frozen, in which a young girl-turned-queen {Elsa} is trapped in her secret, a secret that filters into the welfare of her surrounding community. And no matter how Elsa labors to keep herself and her secret hidden, there comes a time when she is discovered, a time that also breeds a new-found freedom and a willingness to move beyond paralyzing fears and a dark past. {Oh how many of us are sitting at that same crossroads!}

A kingdom of isolation
And it looks like I’m the queen

The wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn’t keep it in, heaven knows I’ve tried

Don’t let them in, don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know
Well now they know

{Songwriters Bobby Lopezand Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Watch Demi Lovato‘s version of Let It Go here. }

 

We’d love to hear your thoughts on community this week. Simply select one of the topics below and write a post on your own blog, then link up with us. It’s that simple. And, oh yea, if you’d be so kind to include our blog button in your post, that would be wonderful {you can grab the code right over there on the right hand sidebar under the “Find Your Voice” button.}

If you don’t have a blog, would you be sure to leave your thoughts on these topics in our comment section? But don’t forget to visit some of the beautiful women who are linking up with us because I promise you will uncover some fresh hope and encouragement on this journey to finding and using your own voice. Okay, here’s this week’s topics and I can’t wait to hear from you!

  1. When we struggle to connect.
  2. Connecting with others, even when we’ve been hurt.
  3. How to choose healthy relationships.



2 thoughts on “Thursdays with the Voice-Bloggers

  1. Just in from doing chores and walking the little man to the bus. Thinking about connecting, and how hard it can be. Hard when we want what isn’t easy. Hard when we struggle with fear. With expectations. With disappointment. With anger. Hard to connect where we are at when those we are close to want to connect where it is easy, to avoid the hard stuff. The messy stuff. The ugly. The unbelievable. And that is where we need a heart connection most.

    If you are new to reading here, please feel welcome. This is a safe place. These are amazing, and totally real women. I’m excited that you are here, and can’t wait to read your words, and pray with you.

    Don’t be shy about sharing this page, or the pages on this site. And join in the conversations. Get the book, join the study. Share your blog. Start a conversation in the comments.

    Jo Ann and her team are so dear to me, and I’m thankful for each one!

  2. I saw that movie with my daughter this weekend as well, she had me watch the Let It Go video before we went, I was amazed the similarities it spoke to me. I find it hard to connect in community because of the typical trust issues but there is also a paranoia after connecting of being judged, being left out, of not being accepted by the crowd. That paranoia can simply be overwhelming and too much to deal with, thus isolation is a perceived comfort.

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