My speech patterns are apparently quite malleable. When I was learning French in high school, my teacher had us listen to audio recordings of our vocabulary words. Then we were to record ourselves speaking various phrases using those words. After listening to my recordings, my teacher complemented me by saying I sounded just like a young Swiss girl. The speaker in the recordings had been Swiss.

Later in life I spent a few weeks in South Africa. I met a friend there who later visited me in the United States. Shortly after he arrived, he asked me what had happened to my accent. He was surprised that I sounded so American. I didn’t realize it, but I had adopted the sound of the voices around me while in South Africa and then again when I returned to the U.S.

I grew up in Wisconsin, but I quickly lost the accent and common phrases used amongst my family after living elsewhere. Still, each time I return, or even when I just spend time with my family there, those speech patterns return for a bit to the amusement of my husband.

“Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.” (‭‭Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭9,‬ ‭CSB‬‬)

It matters who I spend time with. The people I relax with, befriend, hang out with, and listen to have attitudes and behaviors that will rub off on me, for better or worse.

If those people are always stressed and directionless, I may find it hard to find solid ground myself. However, if my main cohorts know God, we share that solid ground already.

If the voices I allow myself to hear most often are ones of anger and fear, those feelings will accumulate in my heart until they boil over and out of my mouth. However, if I turn away from those voices and tune in to ones speaking God’s message of love and joy, peace will settle in my heart instead.

Dear God, thank you for your consistent voice of love. Help me to be a person who speaks the way you speak, providing hope, peace, and joy to my hearers. Protect me from harsh voices and cruel attitudes in my environment. Draw me back to your voice, always.