Titus 2 Men And Women

My Vow...My Voice
Thoughts From My Daily Journal 3/1993
by Sharon Merhalski

"Lord thank You for tightly squeezing my heart today as my Pastor told us about the man who believes that You took away His voice because he stopped preaching. I needed to hear the illustration and remember again what You alone have done for me.

I remember so clearly the days in 1980 that turned into five weeks of silence. I remember so many physicians who took care of me. I especially remember my family doctor when he labored to tell me---a 32 year-old wife and mother of two young children---that Bulbar Polio and time spent in an iron lung had taken a toll on my entire breathing system. He cried as he told me that the problems were for the most part unable to be fixed. I remember well his face as he told me that the doctors had all agreed that I was not even going to be able to speak with the very raspy whisper afforded to people who wear a tracheotomy tube (a tube inserted into the windpipe to enable a person to breathe).

My joy and rejoicing over being alive and the expectation of soon having a voice had kept my discouragement about my silence in check for over four weeks. The series of events that God had allowed since the day that I entered the hospital with

bronchitis (mis-diagnosis, drug reactions, and finally respiratory arrest and heart-failure) had given me many opportunities to share my Lord and my salvation with pen and paper...and I was rejoicing in this while waiting for my voice to return.. However, the assurance that I was not ever going to be able to speak again came two days before I was to go home and I allowed the reality of going back to my very busy life silent overwhelm me.

I remember the cold February night when the ceaseless thoughts about my husband, my children, my Sunday School class and my love of telling others about Christ---thoughts that had often turned to prayer---turned to desperate cries to a God who seemed so far away. I sat alone seeking God, thinking, praying, asking questions, and flipping through my Bible. I remember trying to grab words and verses at random until the following seemingly filled an entire page: "And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore, and she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the afflicitons of thine handmaid, and remember me..." (I Samuel 1:10-11b) The Lord also brought several other verses to my attention before I did a very serious thing---before I made a vow.

With some fear and absolute faith that God could I promised my Heavenly Father that I would endeavor to honor, obey and glorify Him with my words every day that He gave me breath to do so if He would will to allow me to have a voice. Several minutes passed before a very sweet rest and peace filled my heart... I trembled as I heard myself speak the precious name of Jesus with the same voice I had before the surgery! (I did not know at that time that God was going to use this promise to bring me to the place where He could completely break me to make me useable.)

The hospital "buzzed" for the next two days and many people came to hear the "impossible". As every medical person has done since then, they eagerly listened to my voice as I told them about the God Who is able to heal and about His Son Who is able and waiting to save every lost man!

At the 1992 Pastor’s School I met a man who also wears a tracheotomy tube but speaks with a very raspy whisper. As we shared what, when and why, I heard him tell me how god miraculously uses him as a Sunday School superintendent, bus captain and soul winner. He told me that his raspy whisper is what the Lord so often uses to draw the attention of people who need to hear the Gospel. I also remember his encouragement for me to continue to use the miracle God gave to me---my normal voice---for the Lord.

I know that God used our meeting to encourage us both and to help us better understand why He chooses to heal some problems and not others. As we parted company I left with another illustration of the perfect "beauty for ashes" that God wants to give in every circumstance of our lives "that He alone may be glorified."

"Father, thank You for being the God of miracles---yesterday, today, and forever. Thank You for my voice and please forgive me for failing to seize

every opportunity to use my voice to share Your Gospel, to love, comfort, encourage, praise, admonish and...to glorify You!"

Psalm 30:11b-12

"Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the end that my glory may sing praise unto Thee, and be not silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto Thee for ever."

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