About four weeks ago I completely lost my voice after singing one Sunday at church. I have since seen a specialist who discovered a nice little polyp on my vocal chords. Yesterday began a series of vocal and speech therapy sessions. All this to say, it has been a very long 4 weeks, dealing with the inability to talk, let alone, sing . It is a helpless feeling, actually, but not hopeless.
A dear friend of mine from my church back "home" in Tacoma, WA sent this excerpt to me and I wanted to share it with you. It has been such an encouragement to me, as I hope it is for you, for whatever you may be walking through.

"There is no music in a rest, but there is MAKING of music in it. In our whole life-melody, the music is broken off here and there by 'rests,' and we think we have come to the end of time. God sends a time of forced leisure, sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts - and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator. How does the musician read the rest? Se him beat time with unvarying count and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between. NOT WITHOUT DESIGN does God write the music of our lives. But be it ours to learn the time and not be dismayed at the 'rests.' They are not to be slurred over, nor to be omitted, nor to destroy the melody, nor to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat time for us. With the eye on Him we shall strike the next note full and clear."