What voice do you hear?

I heard a song coming home in my car yesterday.  It was on the radio and I was amazed at the lyrics.  The song is called "Voice of a Saviour" by Mandisa.  It summed up my last book perfectly.  'You and I are not that different', we are all on a path searching for something.

I wanted to share the song and a portion from my novel to inspire you to look at yourself and at your "neighbours" in light of the Saviour.

My story, Unexpected Things, is about a 24-yr old woman who has been scrapping through life.  None of her relationships have even come close to meeting the ache deep inside her.  In her desperate attempt to end the overwhelming pain and the despair she feels she is introduced to a young fellow who is nearly 30 years old.  He is kind, understanding and compassionate - emotions she hardly has words for in her vocabulary.  


I wrote a scene for the book
that I sent in for the novel contest. This scene takes place a third of the way through the story as the young woman, Marabelle, is grappling with how all the pieces of her life fit into the greater puzzle.  She has a man named Nick in her life that feels comfortable - she has known 'Nicks' all her life. She intuitively knows where his kind of relationship will take her  -it's familiar.  Then she has Adam, a Christian man who respects her and cares for her on a deeper level than she even knew existed.  However, for all the 'right' he brings to her life - she has never felt more afraid, more unstable and more unworthy.  All of which feels like he is a round hole and she is a square peg.


The scene takes place after a serious accident which has left her immobilized for awhile.  Nick was the cause of the accident but has mysteriously 'not shown up' since.  Adam has stepped in to assist with her care.  And Marabelle can't accept it easily.  Fran is a woman who hired Marabelle to be a live-in nanny, but has gently assumed the role of the only mother to ever invest nurturing words of kindness into Marabelle's life.


I hope I have given you sufficient background to help you understand the scene.  I hope you enjoy my take on "The Voice of a Saviour."

It’s funny how volatile a woman’s emotions can become.  Friday I had come to terms with how much I needed my friends and how important it was to treat them respectfully.  Well, then came Saturday.

“Stop hitting me Marabelle.  I don’t want to drop you.”  Adam said, gritting his teeth.

Fran was right behind us as Adam carried me up the stairs to the bathroom. 

“You are not giving me a bath!”  I gave one last pound to his tight chest before all my strength was drained.

“Trust me, I’m not.  Fran is.  All I am trying to do is get you there.”

Fran tried her best too.  “Mara, he will just put you in the tub and then I will do the rest.  Be reasonable, please.  You’re worse than the boys at bath time.”

Adam laughed out loud as he shimmied sideways through the bathroom door frame.

“I do not see the humour in this.” I stated.

“That’s too bad.  Because sometimes humour helps to get you through some rough times.”

“And how would Mr. Perfect know that?”

Adam dropped me the last inch or so into the porcelain tub.  The shocked look on his face was worse than the bump to my rear end.  He backed away out of the bathroom without a word.  I could hear his boots clumping down the stairs and then the solid thump of the front door. 

Fran stood over me, adjusting my casted leg outside the tub.  “I don’t know if you know this or not, but Adam went through a very hard time when his parents died.”

“I know.  Four years ago.  I didn’t mean it.”

“Then why did you say it?”  She stood up and walked out, quietly closing the door behind her.

I felt horrible as I worked to get my clothes off.  I hate myself for what I’m doing, but I need company in my pain and misery.  I’m tired of feeling alone all the time.

I ran the bath and sat there wishing desperately for the water to have magical powers to wash away more than the sweat and grime on my body.  If only it could run though my body removing the hate, the fears, the loneliness and the damage.   If only ... 
         When my bath was done, Fran returned to help me dry off and redress.  She sat on the toilet seat beside the tub.  “I know it’s not my place to comment but would you be open to a little motherly advice?”

‘Never trust a man especially if he says he loves you’.  ‘You will always be trouble, Mara, so fend for yourself and leave me alone’.  That was motherly advice.  I’ve had more than enough of that to last me a lifetime.

“Depends.  What is it about?  I don’t want to talk about Adam.”

“Well, it isn’t about Adam directly.  It is mostly about you.  How about I tell you and you can decide what to do with it?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I’ll tell you what I see.  You look like a young woman who has so much spirit and so much vitality but you are afraid to actually use it.  You seem afraid to live, to let others near you and afraid to admit that you want to be loved.  Everybody in the whole world has two basic needs, I think.  We are born with them, which means nothing we do or others do to us can erase these needs.”

She paused to take a deep breath.

“Are they love and respect?” I asked.

“Not exactly.  One is the need to be loved by another person.  To give love and to receive it from someone we care about.  It can come from a spouse or a child or a dear friend.  The point is that it doesn’t matter where you get it, but you must get it somehow.  A lot of the pain in the world today is from people trying desperately to find it.  We tend to look in the wrong places sometimes.”

I thought about Nick.  He hasn’t called to see if I’m fine.  Is he the wrong place to look?

Fran continued.  “The other basic need we have is for God.”

Not this again.

“Don’t give me that look.”  Fran said.  “I didn’t create mankind.  He did.  And He created us to need Him.  We have a hole in our soul that can only be filled with Him.”

“That’s your religion, not mine.”

“Hear me out for a second.  Whether you want to fill that void with God or not does not negate the fact that it exists.  It is there in everyone.  Some find God and He fills them up to overflowing so they never feel in need again.  Others choose to find alternative fillers.  They find things that never satisfy and never take away the ache, like relationships,work, fame, drugs or alcohol.”

A vision of my dad lying passed out on our living room floor with booze bottles strewn about and clutching his wedding photo filled my senses.  After my mom left he fell to pieces.  He turned to the bottle to fill his void and eventually he was unable to work, unable to raise us girls, unable to do anything.  Never satisfied.

          “Marabelle, I am not trying to tell you that you have to choose God.  He’ll tell you if you need Him.  My point is this.  Without Him you will never find peace and rest.  Your past will haunt you and your future will haunt you.  You will forever search for 'Nicks' to fill the gaping hole in your soul.”  




Where do you turn when things start to unravel?  Has God filled your soul with his irresistible love?