Kitchen Table Wisdom

Finding my true self by listening for the One voice that never wavers.

Have you ever realized that most of the “voices” in your head aren’t really yours at all, but echoes of what others want you to be? For years, that was my reality. Pull up a chair at my kitchen table as I share how I learned to quiet the noise and listen for the One voice that tells me who I truly am.

The kitchen at the farmhouse could be noisy when we gathered—voices raised, talking over one another. It was hard to get a word in. Harder still to think.

I remember one Sunday dinner when the conversation turned to what I was going to do after high school.

My uncles thought I should become a lawyer. My grandmother wanted me to find a good job, a good man, and give her some great-grandchildren. Mom thought I should be a nurse. Dad said I could do anything but go in the military.

Part of me wanted to be a veterinarian—I thought I liked animals more than people. But my guidance counselor had already decided: I wasn’t smart enough.

The creative side of me wanted to be an artist. Or a writer. Maybe both.

But the voices…

The part of me that wanted to please my mother said, “Be a nurse.” The part that idolized my uncles said, “Be a lawyer.” I did want to be a wife and mother…someday…but not today. And I never really listened to my dad.

I couldn’t hear my true voice in any of it.

So, I went off to college, major undeclared. I lasted a year. Then I left. I found a job.

I can still hear that recruiter’s voice—persuasive, confident—going head-to-head with my dad’s.

I enlisted in the National Guard.

There was my pastor’s voice too, telling me he thought I was being called—before I even knew I was being called. And other voices…so many voices.

Then I finally found the ones that matter most are the quiet, steady ones: God’s voice…and, finally, my own.

But it didn’t happen right away.

Years later, at a women’s retreat, we were asked a simple question: “Who tells you who you are?”

We were invited to listen inwardly and notice which voices rose up.

Some women heard their mothers. Some heard teachers. Some heard people who had wounded them. Some heard people they admired.

I sat there, listened, and realized something unsettling:

I couldn’t hear my voice. I heard expectations. I heard memories. I heard old scripts. I heard the voices of people I had tried to please—or at least not disappoint. And God’s voice was still a whisper beneath the rest.

Has there been a time in your life that you have felt that way?

Don’t despair, friend, God’s voice is there and He will help you find your true voice.

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” Isa. 30:21

God’s voice was there for me. I just needed to learn to quiet the others and listen more closely to the still, small voice beneath them all.

These days, things are different. Not because life is quieter—it isn’t. Not because those voices are gone—they aren’t. But because I’ve learned to pause, to sit still, and to recognize the tone of God’s voice.

And here’s the surprise: The more clearly I hear God, the more clearly I hear my true self.

Not the self-shaped by fear or expectation, but the self God is forming— the one that knows what brings life, the one that recognizes peace, the one that trusts the Spirit’s gentle nudge.

So let me ask you the same question: Who tells you who you are?

What’s the voice beneath the noise telling you?

After sixty years of voices, I finally hear the One beneath them all.

He tells me I am a writer. I am an artist. I am a woman who creates for His pleasure.

And yes— I am a wife, a mother, a grandmother, even a great-grandmother. All of it, by the grace of His will.

And a little Kitchen Table Wisdom for you:

That voice that whispers beneath the noise is there for you too, waiting for you to listen. When you do, you’ll begin to hear yourself—and Him—more clearly than ever before.

Cathy D.