When Something Inside You Goes Quiet

Is That You or Burned Toast

Crispy.

I’m not sure how I had gotten this way.

After twenty-five years working as a healthcare chaplain I retired. And, wow, was I tired. I thought resting alone would bring refreshment to my soul…let me breathe.

And it did…slowly.

I loved the work, the patients, the nurses. I loved that, as a hospital chaplain, God was my boss.

It was always a vocation for me…my calling. It wasn’t just a paycheck. But I was either at work or on-call one-fifth of my life. Too much work and not enough play. Not enough energy left over for creativity.

Working through the Covid era took a lot out of me, but I kept trudging, like so many of us who worked in healthcare. Society, in general, became more fragmented, more online, less personal. Churches shut down. Plexiglass went up. We became afraid of being near one another.

Three years before my social security “full benefit” age I started my retirement countdown. I’m not sure when the flame burned out.

I had found a church that allowed me just to be. I worshiped, listened, found enough healing to keep going on week after week.

I think a lot of things coalesced together. Enjoyment diminished. Life slogged on.

Rekindling

Almost three months after retirement, I noticed I was singing to myself.

And it hit hard.

I had spent most of my chaplaincy years enjoying the work. I would walk down the hallways singing or humming. Nothing big or even sacred. It would be the theme song to Gilligan’s Island, a commercial jingle, an 80’s hit, occasionally a worship song.

I must have gone song-mute in the last year or two.
A precious joy had quietly gone still.

My denomination just had their national chaplains conference at our church. This is the first year I felt I really wasn’t a chaplain anymore. But I helped out with setting up the food and snacks. I was able to participate in some of the activities.

A phrase from the Dan Fogelberg song I had been singing the week before ended with “and his song is in my soul.” It reminded me.

Worship has always been my favorite part of a church service because I can get lost in His presence. I always felt worshiping with other believers rebooted me, reset my sluggish system.

When my song returned, I began to know I was finding myself again. Something in me was coming back to life.

And yet, as my schedule was beginning to fill up, I began to be afraid of losing my song again.

I Will Be Your Song

As the worship leader began, she told us she wasn’t sure that she was going to do worship this year again, until she heard a song by Maverick City called Isaiah’s Song.

I’m pretty sure she felt the chorus and the idea of barrenness being reversed was the message the chaplains needed to hear.

Chorus

Sing, sing, oh barren land
Water is coming to the thirsty
Though you are empty, I am the well
Draw from Me, I will provide.

But what stopped me cold was the pre-chorus:

So don’t fear
I will be Your song

That was exactly what I was fearing. And God was promising to be my song. I didn’t have to be afraid. Not just that He would keep me singing. Not that He would provide a melody. He Himself would be my song.

First came, “His song is in my soul.” And now, “So don’t fear, I will be your song.”

How can I fear losing my song?

His song is in me; He is my song.

When Something Goes Quiet

What makes us go song-mute? What happens when life slowly squeezes out the things that tell us we’re alive?

Have you noticed anything quietly disappearing from your life?

Did you used to paint but haven’t picked up a brush in years?

Has your garden turned to weeds?

Has your workbench or craft nook become storage space?

Has your laugh, dance, or music stilled?

Perhaps you didn’t notice…like I didn’t.

How does it happen?
Like me, maybe you got tired. Busy. Responsible. Hurt. Depressed. Overloaded. Maybe you survived something hard. Grieved. Kept going because you had to.

Room for My Soul

What happened as I rested, and found my song? I also began to find my creativity.

I decided to turn my “craft cave” into a studio again. Before burnout, I painted, made jewelry, and played with art clay. Eventually the room became storage. I haven’t returned to all those things, but I’m reclaiming the space to create whatever fits who I am now.

I started writing for the blog and discovered I actually enjoy it.

And as I wrote, I found healing. I’d love to be able to write from the mountaintop, but that hasn’t been my assignment. I am privileged to write from the trenches. And as I find healing for my soul, I hope to bring you along with me.

And as I kept writing, my imagination, traditionally quite healthy and busy, also was relit.

I began thinking of characters who live at a pond. A confused frog. A mischievous owl. A gray wolf who is commissioner of the pond meetings. And, a purple moose — it’s a long story. And next week I just might share a story from those meanderings: “Tuesdays at Heartwood Pond,” an excerpt from a world I call the Mooziverse.

And when you go to call me crazy, remember the neon Scottie Dog restaurant. Oh, and I didn’t tell you about my mom dancing the can-can in her French frilly red and black dress. Or her “trumpet” that was made with a kazoo mounted on a toilet plunger with beer bottle “buttons.”

I’d just tell you I can’t help it. It’s in my DNA. I was a creative child and it’s lay dormant for many years. Blossoming again…with antlers and wings, whimsy and wit. And bad jokes. And typos that become pond lore.

Which is funny in itself. Before chaplaincy I was a typesetter (in the era before desktop publishing). Typos were a capital offense…and now I laugh at them and incorporate them into my own wonderful world.

Apparently, my soul breathes in God and exhales creativity.

And somewhere in all that singing, writing, laughing and imagining, I began to recognize someone else.

Me.

Not Chaplain Deb. Not Mom. Not wife. Not writer.

Just Deb.

Those roles are precious parts of my life, but they aren’t the whole of me. Underneath them is the person God created before I ever earned a title or fulfilled a role.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works… (Eph. 2:10)

I expected healing to mean spending years uncovering wounded places. I didn’t expect laughter, creativity, and play to help uncover the core of who God made me to be.

Explore with Me

My hope for you is that you find room for your soul before you get totally burned out. But either way, God can lead you forward. It doesn’t have to be back to what you used to do, but forward into who He created you to be.

Let’s stop and ask:

God, is there a part of me that You created that has become still? A part that You would like to reignite?
Is there a burden I’m carrying that You are asking me to give to You, so there is room again in my soul?

What Lord, is my next step in finding room again? Room for You? Room to breathe? Room to be?