"Like a lark who is learning to pray."

Is it okay if I'm transparent with you? If it's not, I guess I'm going to do it anyway.

I'm really happy at the moment. All strong emotions tend to spread of their own accord, but happiness bubbles further and more quickly than the rest. It's harder to resist sharing.

The reason why I'm happy is that my voice is finally strong again.

I became sick the day after Christmas. I felt it coming on the day of Christmas, so I suppose that's a more accurate start day. After that, I felt seriously ill for three weeks, well into the month of January. My health had improved greatly by the end of those three weeks, but my voice was still mostly gone for an additional two weeks. After five weeks of relative silence, I was finally able to speak clearly again and carry a tune that spanned beyond half an octave, and not just any octave, but half of my lowest octave.

My voice had returned. I could feel it. Before that point, even when my speaking voice starting sounding like it was approaching normality, I could still feel something in my throat telling me that it wasn't. I knew if I talked too much, what little voice I had would disappear again, and if I ever tried to sing anything, there was always something there blocking it. But whatever it was had finally gone away.

I rejoiced. I didn't have to repeat every word that came out of my mouth anymore. People could finally hear me again. And I could finally sing a simple major scale without sounding like a dying bird. I did expect, though, that after such a prolonged period of non-use it would still be somewhat weak, even though my throat had healed, so I wasn't shocked when singing the national anthem was still far beyond my reach.

I knew it wouldn't get any better continuing to lay dormant, so I began to use it as best as I could, as often as I could without fear of creating damage, and I figured it would be back to the 100% I had come to know faster than you can say "Bob's your uncle."

But it wasn't quite that fast. I kept testing the proverbial waters and finding them to be lukewarm. After a little while, I started to feel a bit of sadness seeping back in. Yes, I know I needed a lot of rehab, but did I really need this much? I've been doing what I can to rebuild, but for days on end there's been no progress. Shouldn't there be progress? And as much as I tried to not think it, eventually "Is this as good as it's going to get?" popped into my brain, and that was not an encouraging thought.

But as of today, I can confirm that all strength I had pre-Christmas has returned (what made this more ironic, is that I sang a lot on Christmas day, publicly that is, more than I had in a while, then woke up the next day as hoarse as a chain smoker), just a few weeks after being freed of illness. Funny how a few weeks can make me feel so defeated. I'm grateful it was only weeks and not any additional months.

I count my voice a gift. I've had others share with me an appreciation of it, and that is a blessing I am sincerely grateful for, but I think it has been a gift as much to me as it has to any of them. Music is a thing that I draw life from, and God knows that. He made me that way. So what a great blessing to be able to make it myself. I can't tell you the number of times I've felt healing begin to displace my wounds as I've sat singing out my hurts. And as much as I enjoy hearing the voices of others, nobody else singing would have done the trick. Mercifully, God has helped me disentangle my identity from my voice, so when it fails, I'm not as fragile as I used to be. I still feel there's hope to go on, whereas I formerly would have been devastated.

But because of God's grace, I am not limited to only enjoying the root of my identity. If my voice ever leaves, it'll be sad, and I'll move on. God will heal. But as long as it's here, I'm going to be happy about it.