Find Your Voice Part Two [162]

Our voice is not vocal without our heart.

The voice needs a heart, spirit and body and it needs a full, wholehearted connection to us.

And our voices are going to steer the rest of the ship, just like James said.

Welcome to Podcast Coaching for Kingdom Entrepreneurs.

I'm Kristen Fields Chadwick, your podcast coach on this transformative podcasting journey.

Our mission, empower Kingdom entrepreneurs to confidently launch and grow podcast, fostering a journey of being seen, being heard, being known, and making a lasting Kingdom impact.

This is podcast Coaching for Kingdom Entrepreneurs.

Your voice matters.

Hey everybody.

Welcome back to Podcast Coaching for Kingdom Entrepreneurs.

I am your coach and your host, Kristin Chadwick and we are continuing on with our three part series about how to find your voice.

Last week we ended on asking two questions.

Who do you say God is?

And who does God say you are?

And I'd love to hear from you.

And how did this go?

Are you liking the journal that goes with this series?

If you guys have not listened to the first part, I encourage you to go back listen to that episode, download the free journal that goes along with this.

It's going to be in the show notes for you and I would love to hear from you.

Come find me on social media, you can find me here on the podcast on YouTube, you can connect with me on email.

I would just love to hear how this is going today.

I want to invite you more into this conversation of finding our own voice.

And I'm going to open up my heart and my story to you and my own testimony.

And I promise this is all, all connected and all a part of this journey of really understanding how to find our voices.

And first we really needed to find who God is and know that he created us in his image and we are muchness Good.

As we talked about last week.

Here we go.

I grew up going to church with a mama who took us to church and found a church to bring healing to our hearts after a divorce and a really complicated journ.

And I am forever thankful for my experience in growing up in the church and being involved in a youth group.

I was really grounded in scripture and in truth.

I had a great community, I had great mentors.

And I will say that one of my favorite gifts I ever received was a Bible from my mom right before I went on a missions trip to Dominican Republic.

I was 16, no, 17 years old and I remember sitting on the front porch and my mom gave me this Bible.

It was a women's Bible and she had taken the time to open up the Bible and write on Psalm 139.

Personalized that whole chapter.

And so it she had written in Kristen, Kristen, Kristen over and over again just really personalized it for me.

And it really helped me understand that God really wanted a personal relationship with me.

And my story was so full of ups and downs and trying to be a good Christian and definitely failing with letting go of fear and rejection.

And I had learned a lot of self coping things to protect myself.

I had learned that vulnerability and risk taking were uncomfortable and too scary.

And like many of us in those teenage years, my heart was hurt.

And using my voice was really only met with a lot of fear and a lot of shame.

I think back to when I was little and I would love to do performances and dances for my parents.

But as I grew up, again, that shame would creep in.

And some of that shame was external, some of it was internal.

Words that I spoke over myself, arrows that pierced my heart.

And as I mentioned in the previous episode, I know we all have words that have built us up and words that have torn our hopes and really destroyed any risk taking within ourselves.

And I'm telling you the story because again, our voices start with our story.

Our narrative begins to shift.

And without really taking time to notice, we continue to go after the default of where our mind, our mindset has really gone.

And so I got really comfortable as a teenager with being comfortable.

I really allowed myself to be put in the background of things.

And I stifled my voice.

And the only place I felt free and comfortable to use my voice was in writing.

And I loved, loved reading poetry in high school, I think because it stirred and spoke to my heart that that was trying to hide behind a protective layer.

And I remember one of my favorite English teachers, her name was Mrs.

Jacobson, saying to us over and over again, use your voice.

Find your unique voice when you write your papers, I want to read your papers as if I am hearing your voice on paper with proper grammar, of course.

And so I did just that.

I felt so encouraged by her to be free to write, to use my voice in writing.

So in private, I, I wrote my poetry.

I listened and read poems by Jewel.

Somebody out there, you know what I'm talking about.

Jewel wrote these amazing poems outside of writing music and tried to really hear how she was using her voice in poetry and would give it my best shot to give voice to my teenage angst and grief and joy.

And I found myself in writing over and over again on paper, I could use my voice, but vocally, I still struggled to speak.

So fast forward from high school, 10, 12, 15, years later I began to really ask these questions that I posed in the last episode.

Who are you God?

And who am I?

And there I was met inside of grief that needed to process exhaustion, desperation, asking the Lord, who are you?

Who am I?

I needed to know the origin of my story.

I needed to know I was part of a bigger picture.

And I needed to know that God had a plan in the midst of all the trials that I had walked through, as many of us walk through and, and we're currently walking through in that specific time period.

And it felt so out of my control.

And in his kindness he answered me.

And my faith really went from a lot of head knowledge of who God was to a heart centered, transformed experiential faith.

I experienced God in a more profound way one weekend in particular.

So I'm going to share the story of again, like I said, I was asking these questions of who are you God?

Who am I?

What are we doing this?

Is this even real?

And I went to a retreat one weekend and I was asking the question, per the leaders request to just sit down with God, much like I'm doing with you today and asking who am I?

Who did you create me to be?

And I really didn't hear anything.

It was, it was quiet.

And then I felt like I needed to walk upstairs and go take a break.

And on this table.

Oh, you know what?

I forgot an important part of the story.

So let me, let me rewind a little bit.

So at this retreat, this gal was speaking and she said, pay attention to the things that you really don't like.

Like they really irk you because sometimes the enemy can use it to make you not see the gift that God has in store for you.

And for whatever reason I had written down in my journal, peacock, I actually think I know the reason because I was in a season of going to the zoo all the time here in Colorado Springs, which is amazing by the way.

And we, it was part of our weekly ritual.

But at the zoo they have these peacocks.

They're very obnoxious, they are beautiful, but they, they can be kind of pesky.

And so I humorously wrote in my journal, peacocks, I can't stand peacocks.

And so, all right, so there's a little nugget.

Okay, so again I've been asking the Lord, who am I?

Who am I didn't hear anything in our time alone asking that question, but I had written down peacock.

So then during a break, I go upstairs, I look on the table, there's a bunch of collage type papers and scrapbook papers.

Like you could make your own journal at this retreat.

And in the papers was a peacock card.

And so I stuck it inside of my journal because I thought that was interesting, that there was a peacock thing.

And I had just written down peacock.

Well, then I go to the nighttime worship, and we, right before we worship, they hand out a gift to everybody.

And it's a scarf.

It's like a prayer scarf and beautiful hot pink and black checkered scarf.

And the leader stops and says, you know what?

I feel like somebody is not supposed to get this specific scarf.

And one of the other participants stands up, she runs to her room, she comes back, and she is holding a peacock scarf.

You guys, this moment forever changed me.

I knew he was speaking to me.

I knew he was calling me out.

I knew that he was trying to get me to step away from the head knowledge for just a second and touch back into my heart.

I stood up and I was like, that scarf is mine.

And you guys, I.

The Lord has spoken so clearly to me over these last 12 years of hearing him call me his peacock.

That was the start of my journey of understanding my identity as a peacock.

Now, there's a lot there that I can unpack.

But knowing my story about being quiet, about being hidden, about the shame, you guys, the way that the Lord has healed me by using this illustration, this imagery of a peacock has been phenomenal, and it is a big portion of why I use my voice today on the podcast.

So sometimes the enemy overplays his hand.

And the very thing that you think that God would never be in, he opens our eyes to the capital T, truth.

And for me, it was.

My voice was silenced.

But through this moment of understanding that God has called me to be his peacock, to be bold, to be audacious, to not hide the beautiful expression of the colors that he's created within me, I have found courage.

I have found.

It is my idea identity.

The world may tell me something different to be quiet to.

It's not worth it.

It's too risky.

It's too vulnerable.

But the truth is, my Creator has made me to be bold, to silence the enemy's schemes through the power of Jesus.

And fun fact.

Did you know that peacocks eat poisonous snakes?

That's pretty empowering.

So for you, my friend, listening to this episode, you are wondering, how do I find my voice?

How do I find my identity?

It starts with going back to the Creator and sitting and asking him, allowing him to look over your heart.

Where has the enemy stolen and Kept you silent?

What is the kingdom perspective?

What are those hidden gifts behind the wall of shame?

Our voice is not vocal without our heart.

The voice needs a heart, spirit and body and it needs a full, wholehearted connection to us.

And our voices are going to steer the rest of the ship, just like James said.

So, my friend, I encourage you to keep asking the question that Jesus asked his homies, who do you say I am?

And ask your own question of who do you say I am?

Lord, not only does he speak through scripture and you're going to have those foundational verses that say who you are, but be open to hearing words specifically given to you, like my peacock story.

I pray that everybody has a peacock story that is listening to this.

It may be an inside joke between you and God.

For instance, for years when I would write down what I was hearing from Him.

It's not necessarily an inside joke, but it's more of a sweet saying is I know it's him when I hear my sweet one.

And that is beautiful.

And I pray that for you that there's a sweet, lovely name that he calls you over and over again to remind you of how special you are.

We're going to wrap up this episode with a couple of questions and I invite you to be intentionally asking this week and it's inside of your journal if you download that journal as well.

But I don't care how you do it, but I do encourage you to take time to sit with him, get out your journal and pray and talk with the Holy Spirit.

And I just want to pray with you real quick before we wrap up.

Jesus, help us to hear your voice, your capital T truth over our stories.

I thank you that you don't avoid pain.

And I thank you that you don't ever think that any part of our story is untouchable, unknowable, unworthy.

You redeem it all.

I thank you for healing and redemption.

And I thank you for the way that you will use our voices to declare truth.

Not to sweep things under the rug or ignore parts of our story, but to integrate them into your kingdom story.

And I thank you for how you've called us to live in such a time as this.

I thank you for calling us by name.

Each person who is listening has a beautiful kingdom identity.

And we are your children.

We are joint heirs of God.

We are sharing the spiritual blessing of Jesus and his inheritance.

And we know that there is suffering in this world.

But you have called to set us free, set the captives freeing to bring joy and peace and hope so my friends, we are going to wrap it up right there for this week.

Come back next week for the last part of our series of finding your voice and I am excited to hear from you and how this time goes for you.

Again.

That journaling question is what is his special nickname for you?

How does he call you?

All right, take care friends.

Bye bye.

Thanks for listening today.

Hey, I want you to know that there is an opportunity for you and I to connect.

I would love to do that.

Find a link below and we can schedule a one on one free 15 minute consultation.

I want to hear where are you.

In your podcasting journey and how, how can I help serve you and help you bring that Kingdom Impact dream into reality?