If you have a voice, no matter how ordinary or extraordinary your life is, and if you’re determined to use your one voice to change the world, how are you going to do it?
What will you say? What will you do? How will you live?
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These big, looming questions can make us feel so small and insignificant. We look around and see these big names with big platforms making such a big difference – and then we look around at our own lives and see hectic and chaos, small steps and seemingly boring to-do lists.
But I’d like to offer something different. I’d like to ask you to stop and sit for just a minute, to look around at what you do behind all the doing.
We rush here and there with a million little things on our minds, but do we ever truly realize that our normal every day can actually change the world in one million little ways?
You speak encouragement with your one voice when you sit down to write a short note or verse, put a stamp on it, and send love through the mail.
You speak love with your one voice every time you meet a friend for coffee, listen intently and strive to hear their heart behind the words.
You speak reassurance with your one voice as you take your kids to the park, sit on the bench with another mom, and share the common joys and struggles of what feels so mundane.
That Pinterest board of quotes, verses, and encouraging words? It’s a bright light every time we scroll through the Pinterest dashboard.
Each Facebook status with a real update speaks volumes of your vulnerability, story, and the joy you find in life.
Your honest invitation into your messy story opens the doors wide for community.
You have things to say and we need to hear them, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we need you to write a best-selling book.
Your voice is your art, your gift back to this world. You were born to make art, to speak up and love much, to carry a story and share it with the world.
I fear that too often we believe we have nothing of value worth sharing. Perhaps sometimes we think if we could just get “there” or get better at “that” we would finally have something to say.
It’s not true.
We need you and your voice right in this very season of life, this very path you’re walking.
In A Million Little Ways, Emily Freeman says, “the world needs you to come alive right where you are and not where you wish you were.”
What are you waiting for? That isn’t a rhetorical question. What’s holding you back?
You can build up the world around you or you can tear it down – the choice is yours.
It just takes one person to stand up and speak up or sit down and listen hard. I don’t know what the people around you need in this season of life, but you do. Stop. Sit. Listen. Pay attention.
And then love, encourage, share, run, hope, dream, build, plan, lead.
Maybe just start with a smile.
It doesn’t have to be much. It doesn’t have to be big.
Small is the new brave, friend. Take one small step and watch the change it can bring.
You can change the world.
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After searching through the archives (okay. old posts. but “the archives” just sounds so legit.) for something to share while I’m gone, I landed on this. No matter what you’re facing or what you do on a daily basis – you speak life and paint art in so many little ways.
Your voice is your art. Use it.
Posted originally for Alabama Bloggers here.
