We are all fearfully and wonderfully made to be different

We are all fearfully and wonderfully made to be different. We are individually created by God, with all those specific character traits, to flourish and blossom and bring joy to the One who made us.

We are all different and all have to go on a journey to find our own tone and melody for life.

Voice confusion

Almost 20 years ago, I left my country the Netherlands to go to Calgary, Canada to to do Bible College. A big part of the school was centered around worship, and all students were encouraged to get plugged in. So here I was, ready to audition for one the worship teams with absolutely no experience or training in singing or whatsoever. I had only worshiped in a corporate setting or alone by myself, but never on a stage with a microphone in my hand. I knew there were different voice types, but I had no idea what my voice type was. I chose a song and practiced as much as I could in my dorm room. I tried singing high, because I assumed women were supposed to sing high, but it was rough and didn’t sound right. Glad nobody heard me. I seemed to automatically default to a lower tone of voice. I clearly had no clue what I was doing, but I had a desire to learn and help out.

When audition day came, I stood on the stage and started singing. Then the worship leader stopped me, changed the key he was playing and told me to sing lower. I started singing and immediately I felt stronger and way more in control of my voice. The worship leader stopped at the end of the song and excitedly yelled: “ Awesome! We needed another alto!”. There it was: I was an alto. All this time I tried to sing soprano, but it sounded terrible and my voice was powerless. Once I realized I was made to sing alto, all of sudden singing became easier. Now, just to be clear…I like to sing, but I am not gifted as a singer.

Harmonies

One of the things I learned during that season bible college, was the fact that there is something called ‘harmony’. Harmonies are incredible. I LOVE hearing voices sing in harmony..different voices singing their own part at the same time. There’s something so powerful about harmonies. The soprano sings the soprano part. The tenor sings the tenor part. When a soprano tries to sing tenor, it will not sound very good. When a soprano tries to sing tenor it will sounds a little weak and it will cost way more effort than singing the soprano part that comes naturally. During the harmony all voices are singing at their maximum strength and potential, and the most beautiful sound comes forth. I love it. It is so powerful.

Family dynamics

When I started thinking about the different voice tones, I couldn’t stop thinking about my own family, the family I was born and raised in. How we are all so different, and how we each have our own voice tone here on the earth. In seasons we are all doing our different things that bring life to us and those around us. We all had to spend time figuring out and finding out what our own individual tone was and what specific part of the song of life we are singing here on the earth. Finding that out is not an easy task, it is something that takes time, trial and error, following your heart, following your passions, cutting out the things that drain you in stead of give you life and so on. I think it is safe to say it is a lifelong journey. It’s a journey that takes us through seasons. Every season is different, but our life brings forth a melody no matter how alive, hidden, exciting, painful or boring the season may be. We are always developing, growing and maturing.

My family exists of five people and we all couldn’t be more different. We are all creative and influential in different ways, and all trying to do what we are passionate about. We all have seasons where we flourish and seasons that seem dry and rough. We are all human beings trying to find out who God made us to be. Let me introduce you to my family.

My dad is amazing

He is a man who has always been called to influence and bring justice. He used to be a police inspector, and used that authority to bring righteousness and fight for justice. He is always standing up for the truth and not at all afraid to open his mouth, confront injustice and lies and speak truth instead. Near the end of his police career he became more and more involved in politics and ended up serving twelve years on the province/state government in The Netherlands. In that role he has been able to be a door opener for justice, while being part of a team that was able to divide millions of dollars for projects to help the poor, to develop and equip struggling youth and adolescents and those that were struggling to make it within the Dutch society. Through his influence in politics he always tried to be a voice for those who didn’t have a voice. He has always been a person that was a lot in the spotlights because of the different roles he served in. His heartbeat is ‘justice’. He still brings it wherever he goes.

My mom on the other hand is very different

Not necessarily in the spotlight, not as verbal as my father, but highly influential in the lives of the people God places on her path. No matter where she goes, she oozes love, life and truth. The Dutch do a lot of their daily stuff by bike, and that’s really how my mom is being used. She will bike to the grocery store and stop by a sick friend on her way home to share an encouraging word, or bring a word of life to people struggling with depression or loneliness. She will speak or send encouraging notes whenever she feels led (which is very often). She has rock solid and unshakable faith, and will always speak that into situations. She is the one that visits the widow when no one is looking, or the one who will call that struggling friend to invite her over to meet new friends and be pulled back into a community. She always connect people to sources that will bring life to them. She was the teacher that taught elementary school for so many years and always made sure all the children in her class had an opportunity to ask Jesus to come into their hearts before the school year was over. Maybe not highly visible for all, but she is highly visible to God. And one more thing…as she bikes through town, she will always be singing. I have never in my life not seen my mother sing while on her bike. She is a soprano..

My oldest sibling is my sister.

My oldest sibling is my sister. She tried different things in life before she found her ‘thing’. She is a journalist who makes TV documentaries for the Dutch national TV. She is a fighter for justice, just like my dad, but her voice speaks through her incredible documentaries. The stories she has been able to make have made a huge impact, not only in peoples personal lives, but even on a national level. Laws have been changed as a result of a documentary she made about my grandparents years ago.

According to Dutch law elderly people with different medical needs had to be separated and placed in different nursing units in the nursing home in order to meet their personal and medical needs. My sister decided to follow my grandparents’ process as they were moving into a nursing home. My grandpa, with Alzheimer’s would be placed on the Alzheimer’s unit, and my grandma would be placed on a unit for people with physical needs (she had Parkinson’s disease). Their medical needs would cause them to be separated after 65 years of marriage, something that is just not right. My sister followed this heartbreaking process, made it into beautiful document and broadcasted it on national tv. Media and politics picked up the story and eventually the laws were changed so that my grandparents and people just like them would be able to stay together as a married couple, no matter what the medical need was.

She is a voice. A voice to be reckoned with. God has given her the ability to ‘see’ the story in her head as she is recording and writing a story. She knows how she wants it edited and she already hears the music in her head that needs to be put behind certain scenes. Hardly ever is her face on the TV screen, but her voice is heard. She is intuitive and creative. She brings a heartbeat of justice and truth to the earth through her beautiful documentaries.

We need each other, because we are different.

And then there’s my younger brother

And then there’s my younger brother. He does not like any spotlights. He is wise and observant, and more introverted. He is an incredible team player, a quiet powerhouse who is able to help others ‘shine’ by making things look beautiful. He is a front-end web developer. What that means is that he basically build websites from scratch, through coding. He is very technical, a gift I truly admire since I am not technical at all. He has the ability to combine the technical with creativity and create something substantial out of nothing.

He has a gift that I don’t have. He can connect visuals to a written text and he can make it come alive. When I started writing this blog, he approached me one day and asked if he could help me make the blog look more beautiful. I was so happy that he did that, because that is a gift I don’t have, especially not on a computer. He had beautiful ideas about how to make my blog more visual and how to express my thoughts through pictures. I can talk to him about context and he immediately sees pictures of how that could look on a screen. It’s an incredible gift. In working with him, I have been blown away by his creativity. I love it, I admire it, and know that it is something I don’t have. I can create context and sense clearly what the Holy Spirit is telling me to write, but he brings a heavenly beauty to whatever words I write down. I need him. We need each other, because we are different.

And then there’s me

Wearing different hats during the different seasons in life. Right now mostly occupied as a stay at home mom, and doing some writing by the side to keep my sanity and have an outlet..

We all have a different tone

Why did I just share so much about my family? Because we are all so different. We all have a very different tone of voice and that’s OK. I obviously was only able to point out a few things about my family, but I could easily write an entire book about the personality, giftings, struggles and character of ever family member. The picture I created is limited but shows that we are different. I worked for years as a nurse in a male prison, dealing a lot with mental health issues. I am very passionate and knowledgeable about this topic, but I would not be a good police inspector, I have no desire to be in politics, I am not a documentary maker and definitely not a website developer. None of those things are my strength. If I would try to sing the melody and voice tone my family members are called to sing, it would not sound good and it would lose it’s power.

Embrace ‘YOU’

Our oldest son Jeremy is a LEGO builder. He likes to get a new set, build it according to instruction and then destroy the whole thing to make his own creation. He has the ability to think 3 dimensional. He can see something on TV, go to his room and walk out a few hours later carrying that same object completely built from scratch with LEGO. He needs his alone time to build. It’s his creative outlet that brings him peace and joy. When he builds LEGO, he is so happy.

As a parent, it’s amazing to see your child discover what they are made to do. He is a designer and it is life giving to him. As a parent I cannot be more happy then when I see the kids do things they were made to do.

God looks the same at us. He made us all with a purpose and a destiny. He is constantly cheering us on to find out who we are and to embrace who He made us to be. He wants us to find out what comes natural, what we enjoy doing and what brings peace and excitement, instead of us trying to do what others are doing or what others expect us to be doing.

True happiness is found when you learn to embrace ‘YOU’

It is time to stop comparing ourselves with others, and instead start pursuing the things we love doing and the things God placed in our hearts. True happiness is found when you learn to embrace ‘YOU’.

Find out who you are and who He made you to be. What is your voice, what is your melody that brings so much joy to God? There’s a song in your heart that God wrote for you to sing. When you do what He made you to do there will be a release of power, freedom and anointing. Sing the song that your Maker wrote for you to sing. Your core strength will come when you start doing what YOU are called to do, and not what someone is called to do.

When we all individually find our voice tone in life, we can sing the melody of our life back to God. Something that is a sweet melody to Him. And all those melodies together become the most powerful harmony. Each person doing their own part, singing in their full strength to their full ability.

It’s the most beautiful life song we will ever sing.

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