When I was young, almost every one of my teachers sent notes home like these:

“Meghan is very bright, but she needs to work on communicating with her peers.”

“Meghan is sweet, but she never talks in class!”

“Meghan needs to try harder to be more social.”

For a very, very long time, I struggled to find my voice. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a silent girl.

I can remember being a little girl sitting in Sunday school classes week after week only speaking when asked a direct question by the teacher. I can remember going my entire 3rd grade year with only one friend. When she would stay home sick, I played by myself on the playground rather than try to speak to a new kid. I can remember stepping onto a plane when I left home for college literally shaking because I was completely sure I would not be able to make a single friend due to my shyness.

I can remember the day I started training to work at QuikTrip and they told me they expected me to say hello to every customer that walked through the door. I wanted to run out of the training room immediately and never turn back, but I needed the money for college so badly… so I stayed. I learned to say hello even though I was still afraid.

I can remember a lot of pain caused by not being able to find my voice, too. When you’re a silent girl, people who don’t understand you are often cruel… sometimes due to choice, sometimes due to ignorance.

I can remember in 6th grade when my best friend decided I was too boring (aka quiet) because I didn’t flirt with the boys she’d bring on our adventures to the movies or the mall. I would much rather actually watch the movie than be forced to talk to a boy I’d only just met. She stopped speaking to me almost overnight when she decided I wasn’t “cool.”

I can remember in 10th grade when a boy in class asked me what kind of music I liked, but I couldn’t think of anything to say so I made up some crazy answer only to hear him call me a freak to the other boy in our group project. I remember the day a couple of years later when the teachers stood him next to me and said he would be my graduation ceremony partner. After two years of hearing the word “freak” he’d spoken ringing through my mind, I couldn’t even speak to him.

I can remember the first (and last) time a very outgoing, older teen girl in my youth group asked me to stand with her and the rest of the teens in “their spot” in front our church. I was so excited to finally be included that I tried to ignore the fact that they were tearing another girl apart with their gossip. I can remember this same group pressuring guys who spoke to my sister and me after that, asking things like, “Why would you want to talk to them?” To this day, I have no idea if those boys were really cruel enough to say those things within hearing distance or if they were simply too ignorant to know the pain they caused.

I remember a boy asking me to dinner and to a church service in college and as we walked to the front of the auditorium, two guys behind me sang a song about desperate guys asking out trolls. Considering that I had barely been able to tell this boy about my family over dinner, I definitely couldn’t find a way to explain why I was suddenly upset.

I can remember a friend talking me into running for student council during college. She needed the free boarding that came with winning and she promised me I wouldn’t have to do anything. And then a guy who thought he was being funny started tearing down our posters. And then they told me I had to go on stage in front of the whole school to make a speech. But when I got onstage, the sound guys couldn’t get the mic working and no one could hear me. I remember people yelling that they couldn’t hear and thinking to myself, “I don’t belong here.” I meant here as in in the land of the living, but I couldn’t find the words to even say that out loud.

I can remember laying in bed for days after a particularly bad breakup at the end of college wondering if I died if anybody would even remember me.

Maybe you’re a silent girl.

Maybe it physically hurts to try to speak to strangers. Maybe it feels like every other person has a person except you. Maybe it stings your mind again and again when you hear people talk about how you need to try to be someone you’re not. Maybe people misunderstand your silence for being a snob and maybe they start calling you names that aren’t true. Maybe you just haven’t found a safe place to use your voice yet. Maybe it feels like if you disappeared, nobody would even miss your silent presence.

I’m here to tell you that God made you on purpose for a purpose and despite every outgoing person who swears that you need to become someone you’re not and despite every person who might call you a freak or every person who might make you feel like less of a person because you’re quiet or shy or have a different personality than your peers: you are exactly who God created you to be.

God would notice: God is with you now. Psalms 139 tells us, “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.” He thinks about you so often that you couldn’t even number His thoughts if you wanted to try.

We know that to be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known and God knows you and loves you, my sweet, silent girl. God knows you and He created you to be exactly who you are. Jesus said “I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of mine.” He knows you and loves you and He created you and sees you, my friend.

And He promises in Revelation 21:4 that one day, “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

It may hurt right now. People may say and do things that make you feel like He didn’t create you to be who you are on purpose or for a purpose. Someone may call you “ugly” or a “freak” or ask why you can’t just speak up. And I know — I know— it hurts. It hurts so bad to be misunderstood and told you need to be a different person than who God created you to be. But He has promised that He will redeem your pain and there’s coming a day when you will not cry over the hurt anymore.

Psalms 10:17 tells us, “LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the humble: thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear: To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, that the man of the earth may no more oppress.” We know God will judge those who hurt us one day and He will bring us out of the oppression that hurts us so badly because He has created us for a purpose and that purpose includes your silence.

One day, my silent girl, you will find that God did give you a voice that speaks louder than words. He gave you a still, small voice that more closely matches His voice of comfort. One day, you’ll use your silent voice to feel a deeper compassion for the fatherless and oppressed. One day, you’ll use your silent voice to notice the needs that the outgoing people don’t or can’t see. One day, my fellow silent girl, you’ll use your silent voice to help another silent girl know she is not alone in this world the way God has allowed me to do so many times.

One day, you’ll find that you can use the voice God has given you, however quiet that voice may be, to make a difference. There’s hope, even and especially, for a silent girl.