Each Of Us Is A Word Of God Spoken Only Once

​Sister Peg Dolan once said, “Each of us is a word of God spoken only once. We have a word to speak with our lives, and if we do not speak it, it may never be heard.”

That is a scary line - but maybe in a good way. It makes me ask myself: what word is God trying to speak through me?

And maybe the scariest question, am I speaking it?

I don’t think the question is whether we’re speaking a word with our lives. We all are. Every day, through choices, through presence, through silence, we’re saying something. The question is whether it’s the word God intended for us to speak, or just the one we’ve pieced together from fear, from comparison, from survival.

I find myself circling back to that question: am I speaking the word God wants to speak through me? My life has been a mix of trying to fit into words others expected of me, trying to erase words I wished I could take back, and now - slowly - trying to listen for the one word that was planted in me from the beginning.

It’s a terrifyingly freeing thought. Terrifying, because it means I can’t just coast. Freeing, because it means God isn’t asking me to be someone else’s word. He’s asking me to be mine.

I wonder what the world would look like if everyone truly spoke their word - the one God whispered into them at creation.

Would there be less striving? Less comparison? Less noise?

I imagine a world less crowded by followers and repetition and more alive with original voices. A world where instead of competing with one another, we would be completing one another. Every word joining together, forming sentences of compassion, paragraphs of justice, whole books of love.

It makes me think of Paul’s image of the body in the bible, many parts, each with a role, each essential. If even one part refuses to speak its word, the whole body feels the silence.

But here’s the harder curiosity: how much of the world’s suffering comes from people chasing the wrong word?

We chase the word of self-importance, and we end up with greed.

We chase the word of control, and we end up with war.

We chase the word of image, and we end up with emptiness.

I don’t think most people are maliciously trying to speak against God. I think they are, like me, desperately trying to find their word. But somewhere along the way they confuse their own word with God’s word spoken through them. And that subtle difference becomes the gap where suffering grows.

I don’t know that I’ll ever fully answer the question of whether I am speaking the word God wants to speak through me. But I do know this: when I pause long enough to be curious about God's word in my life and not forcing out the word I want it to be, I usually find myself living more gently, more honestly, more attentively.

And maybe that’s the beginning. Maybe speaking the word God has for us doesn’t start with certainty but with curiosity. Not with a loud declaration but with a quiet willingness.

Each of us is a word of God spoken only once. The world needs your word. It needs mine. And if we don’t speak them, the silence will be louder than we can bear.