Voiceless

When I was a kid I had a lot of nightmares. One of the common themes in my nightmares was not being able to speak, or scream. In my nightmares, I would try and cry out or scream and no sound would come out of my mouth.

I was voiceless.

Although I never have had a real-life experience where I needed to cry out for help and nothing came out, I’ve felt that paralyzing feeling of voicelessness many times in my life.

As a pastor’s kid, I often felt like I had no way to say what I thought about stuff, at least not outside of my home. I couldn’t share my thoughts about a situation, confront someone who was lying about my family, or even acknowledge that I knew a situation was happening.

While I lived in Brazil (from ages 13 to 19), I would often learn about things going on in the church or our community. Either I’d figure it out by putting two and two together or my parents told me and my siblings about it.

I always appreciated the trust they put in me. My siblings and I were all vaults. We’d never share information that was told to us in confidence.

But it became hard when I’d go to our church or see people I knew were involved in problematic situations. I would have to pretend I didn’t know what was happening or play dumb. It would have been inappropriate for a 16-year-old to chime in.

But that wasn’t the hardest part. The hardest part was knowing that people were attacking my parents and their integrity and not being able to defend them. This happened a few times in Brazil where groups of people thought it was a splendid idea to come after my parents for virtually non-existent reasons.

I couldn’t go confront said people. I had to go to the prayer room every day and see them there and pretend everything was chummy.

One time a pastor from another city showed up at our house at 10 pm to confront my parents about a bunch of crap. He didn’t speak English and my parent’s Portuguese wasn’t good enough for that conversation. I had to translate. He showed up to confront my parents about an apparent “secret sin” going on in our church. He wanted to know the details of said secret sin, not necessarily confront them about its existence. Classy guy.

What I should have done was tell him to get the heck out of my house instead of putting up with that.

This only increased as I got older. When I was 19, my last year in Brazil, I had to sit by and watch as people tried to cause a church split and push my parents out of the church completely.

It was agonizing to watch. I knew what was going on. It was impossible for the 19-year-old Chloe not to figure out what was going on and who was responsible.

I felt voiceless. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I wanted to do. But I was supposed to pretend I knew nothing.

I was stuck in my 15-year-old mindset that I couldn’t do or say anything. It took me years to break out of that.

Our last few months in Brazil were very painful. And beautiful. I got to see the fruit of our labors in Brazil and see my friends thrive as I left. But I also had to watch my parents and others clean up this mess at the same time.

If the divisive liars were smart, they would’ve waited until we had officially left to try and take everything over. Lucky for us, they didn’t. Well, lucky-ish.

Instead of simply enjoying our final months in Brazil, I watched as my parents and the current leaders of our church down there cleaned up a tremendous mess. It tainted our final moments there.

I remember one night trying desperately to fall asleep, but I couldn’t. I could hear the conversations in the living room. They were talking about how to deal with this situation. I just wanted to get away from it all. Since I couldn’t do anything about it, I didn’t want to know anymore.

My childlike desire to always be in the know about what was going on was dying. I didn’t want to know if I couldn’t do anything about it.

But I wasn’t a child. And it’s not like I could turn off my brain.

Some might think “Wow it must have sucked to grow up in her home”. Even though there have been lots of tough times in my life, I don’t feel that way at all. My parents coached us through how to forgive, deal with sin, and love people.

I remember going out to lunch with my dad one day and him sharing about a situation that was going on in the church. I knew about the situation already, it involved people I knew and loved. He shared with me why and how he was responding the way he was. He talked about the biblical precedence for his decisions. He was teaching me how to be a leader.

My parents shielded us as much as they could, but in reality, they couldn’t shield us from everything. Especially as we got older. I was deeply involved with our church in Brazil and had a decent pulse of what was going on.

I am who I am because of how my parents raised me. I learned to love people despite their sins and issues. I know biblical protocol for how to deal with people better than most pastors, at least it seems that way right now. I’ve been trained by fantastic leaders. And for that, I am immeasurable grateful.

When we eventually left Brazil the situation was mostly cleaned up and we departed for Denver, Colorado.

What took place over the next 2 years was like our final months in Brazil, but worse.

I had to sit back and feel voiceless as I watched my parents get lied about, betrayed, and misunderstood. Over and over again.

Once again, I was voiceless.

What I didn’t quite realize yet was that I was no longer a child. I was a 20-21 year old woman with a voice and strong opinions. But I still felt like I had to sit back and take it all in silence. I wasn’t supposed to “know” what was happening anyway.

If I could go back, I would have responded differently. I think Chloe Unleashed would have come out to set some people straight.

But she didn’t come out. I sat back and cried as people wrote a 6-page document on all the ways they hated my parents and their family. Their family, including me.

I thought I had escaped all that when I moved back to Kansas City in 2021. For a while things were great. But I was once again confronted with my voicelessness.

I saw my parents get berated behind their backs. I sat there fuming as people did it in front of my face. I waited and waited for someone to defend them, but only one person did.

My family is very tight. We all have an innate, intense desire to defend one another. Especially when we’ve been in so many situations where we needed defending, and each other.

I remember sitting and listening to people throw shade at my parents. I didn’t know what to do. I was still stuck in my 15-year-old head that told me to keep my mouth shut.

It took me a while and some counseling to learn that I have a voice. I am an adult now. I can share my thoughts, and opinions, and yes defend my family if I feel the need arises.

I am not voiceless anymore.

I think this Substack is one of the ways that I am discovering my voice.

I can share what I think and show the world who I am.

My parents never ask me to defend them, or even need me to. But I see it as a way to honor them and what they stand for. When I defend them, as I have on this Substack, I get to stand behind them and support all that they’ve done in this past year and their 30+ years of ministry.

I also think that my feeling of voicelessness developed not only from being a pastor’s kid alone, I think it stemmed partly from IHOPKC.

I am not trying to blame everything in my life on IHOP. But I think there is a connection between my feelings of voicelessness and the culture at IHOPKC. No one was allowed to speak up. No one could be honest with how they felt about the culture, their teams, or the leadership.

People who spoke up were ostracized. Anyone who said anything remotely negative was branded as “offended”.

I think a lot of people who spent time at IHOP have felt a measure of being voiceless, or that their opinions and concerns weren’t valid or important.

It takes some time to discover your voice again. It’s taken me time. But I think I’m finding it.

I think younger Chloe would be proud. And vindicated.

P.S. Be on the lookout for the official launch of my new interview series called “Detangling”.

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash