Before I Was Unmuted A Prelude to Unmuted: Born of Water, Built by Spirit

There are some stories you write because you remember them.

And there are other stories that seem to have been waiting for you to become strong enough to tell them.

Unmuted became the second kind.

For years, pieces of my life seemed separate from one another.

The dreams.

The water.

Motherhood.

The relationships that changed me.

The warnings I did not always understand when they first came.

The moments when something within me knew long before my mind had language for what I was experiencing.

And perhaps most importantly, the seasons when I became quiet.

Not because there was nothing inside of me.

There was plenty.

But somewhere along the way, survival taught me how to swallow things that deserved a voice.

Then came the water.

I dreamed I was underwater.

And something happened there that would eventually become one of the most important symbols of my life.

Effervescence.

A word I would carry with me long after waking.

Something was rising.

Something was returning.

Something that had been submerged was no longer willing to remain beneath the surface.

I did not know then that this dream would eventually become part of a much larger story.

My story.

A story of being silenced and speaking again.

Of motherhood and survival.

Of discernment.

Of spiritual encounters I could not easily explain.

Of warnings that sometimes arrived before understanding.

Of relationships that revealed parts of me I had forgotten.

Of discovering that returning to yourself does not always look like becoming someone new.

Sometimes it looks like remembering who you were before the world told you who you were supposed to be.

That is the soil from which Unmuted: Born of Water, Built by Spirit grew.

This book is not simply a collection of things that happened to me.

It is a record of what those experiences revealed.

Because when I began looking back, I could see a thread running through places that once seemed disconnected.

The dreams were part of the story.

The pain was part of the story.

The motherhood was part of the story.

The warnings were part of the story.

The water was part of the story.

Even the silence was part of the story.

And eventually, so was my voice.

There are things in these pages I have never shared publicly in their fullness.

There are experiences I once struggled to find language for.

There are moments that make more sense to me now than they did when I was living them.

And there are parts I am still allowing to remain mysterious.

I do not believe every mystery must be dissected before it can be honored.

Sometimes you simply bear witness.

That is what writing this book has required of me.

To witness the woman I was.

The mother I was.

The woman underwater.

The woman searching.

The woman being warned.

The woman rebuilding.

The woman remembering.

And finally, the woman willing to speak.

This Sunday, I am not giving you the whole story.

Not yet.

I am simply opening the door.

Because something is coming to the surface.

And this time, I am not muting it.

Unmuted: Born of Water, Built by Spirit
Coming soon.

Return to Self Reflection

What part of your story have you survived, understood differently with time, and finally become ready to name?