with singing.

There are so many things I'm not good at. 
And apparently I have an inner monologue determined to record each and every one of them. 
There's a voice in my head that tells me I'm not enough. Some days it's quiet and some days it's super shouty. 
It's the strangest thing to discover the back of your brain muttering mean things to yourself. 
The whisper is so soft, so ordinary, so normal that I rarely stop to investigate. I just let the words run through my veins until they seem like a normal part of my DNA. 
You'll never measure up. 
You're too much. 
You're hard. 
You'll never achieve anything worthwhile. 
Your words won't match up to hers. 
You can't do that. 
You're just not good at this. 
I heard that voice in the car today, as the clouds moved in and it began to drizzle. I was driving toward home. Alone. Maybe that's why I listened without just letting it wash over me. Maybe that's why I tuned in to the nefarious whispering I'd been letting slide up until now. 
I listened and I almost couldn't believe what I heard. I was surprised a bit, actually. Kind of amazed that I was still capable, after all these years, of such petty meanness to my own self. Because the thing about that voice is that it's a nit picker. It delights in destroying the DNA of a day, of a dream, of a thought. 
But when I tuned in it sounded more and more like static. Fuzzy, harsh, wiry, unforgiving. But small. I have a friend who calls it devil static- the noise that tries to drown out the truth God is speaking into our lives and through our lives. The noise that crackles and cackles and tries to poke fun at who we are becoming; tries to derail us in the name of embarrassment, of shame, of fear. 
I told that voice off today. 
Talked back to myself in an empty car. 
Because I remembered that a Father God who surely loved His son with all the gut-fire with which I will love my own children one day handed Him over to pay my ransom; to rescue me from a brutal kidnapping, He sent His only Son unarmed into the drop spot. 
We all know what happened when He arrived. 
I called that voice out. And in doing so I could almost hear it deflate. I addressed that voice with my whole attention, my God-inheritance, my royal claim. and I could hear the static fizzling. 
I am not nothing. 
You are not nothing. 
We are daughters and sons. Purchased at a price. Beloved. 
And there is a much greater voice. A voice with all the rich, resonant tones of truth so filled with love for us. A voice so unlike that devil static. A voice that will "no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing" (Zephaniah 3:17). 
With singing. 
Not hissing or criticizing or comparing or mocking. 
With singing. 
I'm sitting on my grey tweed chair in the corner of the living room and just letting that beauty sink in. 
And a new song plays in the back of my head.