Wind chimes are one of my
favorite things. I got a new wind chime
for my birthday that plays the most beautiful music. I enjoy it for it’s music but more so for the
sense of God’s presence I have when I hear it.
He sends the wind to make it play, doesn’t He?
As I ran through a
beautiful neighborhood of Melrose this morning, I saw a quaint green house with
a large wind chime at the front porch. I
was excited as I trudged up the hill toward the house because I was going to
hear God’s music. However, even with
the cool morning wind, there was no music, no chimes, no beauty to hear. As I got closer I saw that the chimes were
bound with wire, one against the other.
The voice of the wind chime had been silenced.
I was initially saddened because
I was not going to hear beautiful music.
However, God placed a different thought in my head. The bound wind chime is like many of our
sisters around the world…their voices have also been silenced. Systematically and thoroughly, the voices of our
sisters, both young and old, have been silenced due to illiteracy, poverty,
trafficking, early marriage, fistula, domestic sexual exploitation, slavery,
abuse and every other type of oppression and injustice. Silenced.
So many of our sisters are unable to speak out for themselves, make their
own choices, or even cry out for help.
Like the bound wind chime, they cannot use the beautiful voices God gave
them.
However, we can! No matter how timid or strong, weak or
powerful, quiet or loud our voices are, they are stronger, more powerful and
louder than the voices of many girls and women in our very neighborhoods and
around the globe.
Is your voice free to ring
out for these sisters of ours or is your voice also bound tight with the wire
of fear, guilt, a troubled past, lack of confidence or poor decisions?
I invite you to pray daily
to God to give you the courage to speak out, to be the wind chime for those
whose chimes have been bound. I will be
praying this prayer along with you.
May God’s wind that
lovingly blows through our souls enable us to continually use our voices to ring
out for the freedom of our sisters in our own towns and around the world!
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.
(Proverbs 31:8-9)
Also posted on www.hopeforoursisters.org
