From the time I was young, I had an awareness that words—searching for them, harnessing them, and wrestling with them— were part of my calling. 

As someone who stuttered, I also knew words were not easy. I’ve never expected or experienced language to be something easily tossed around. 

My stutter has been more persistent at some ages and stages than others. As a young child, I was in speech therapy. I was frustrated by the way words snagged somewhere between my head and my tongue, but I adored the moments when my speech teacher, Mrs. Witte, appeared at the classroom door, called my name, and invited me to her office to work with me alone. By adolesence, self-consciousness took over. My stutter was most severe in my senior years of high school and college, when everything was uncertain and changing. As the ground shifted under my feet, so did the pathway from my brain to my mouth.

Today, as an adult, I might go days without stammering, then suddenly find myself in a work meeting or on a phone call, pushing through word walls that keep me from saying what I really mean, and feeling far less eloquent aloud than the dialogue that directs me inside my head.

I’ve logged countless hours perfecting the art of hiding my stutter or pushing past it.

I’ve changed my order at a restaurant because the words I wanted to say weren’t available to me. Once, I called for takeout, intending to order veggie fajitas, but when those letters got stuck, found myself blurting out “fish tacos,” sounds more available to me, and then eating those instead. 

One of my main coping mechanisms is my mental thesaurus, which allows me to quickly pull up a different, accessible words quickly from my database. Words that begin with “D” in particular trip me up, which interestingly, the letter of my first name. For years, in conversation I replaced “divorced” with “separated,” or “choose” instead of “decide.” 

I also spent years avoiding my vocation, the work I really wanted to do for fear of showing up with a stammer. I avoided teaching because I’d have to stand up in front of students and talk all day. I avoided writing because I’d be asked to read it aloud or speak about it.  

I eventually got fed up with putting off my calling, and I realized that not doing what I was called to do was more painful than doing it imperfectly. 

What got me through was facing the stutter. I remember that first class, a room full of eighth graders, and the morning I tried to read a short story aloud and kept getting stuck on the words. I stopped, told my stutter story, and asked for the students’ patience and grace. Almost immediately, the atmosphere in the room changed. In a middle school, where almost everyone feels a little uncomfortable in their own skin, where almost everyone is covering something up and pretending to be more okay than they are, I believe my vulnerability endeared me to the students.

My own teacher, Jack Ridl, taught me the most important word in the English language is with, and when I was with my students, when I stopped trying to cover up, when I opened up about my stutter, you could feel the molecules of trust bonding in the air. It was an assurance that this was a safe place to show up as yourself. And sometimes, in doing so, my stutter lessened. Or maybe I just got less self-conscious about when it came out.

I’m getting better at recognizing the moment to drop the veil and address my stutter directly, rather than exhausting my human thesaurus or pushing on painfully. When I interrupt my script, stop, and say, “I have a stutter,” it relieves the pressure for everyone. I can explain that, like a nagging cough, some days it decides to show up, and others it doesn’t. I can’t always predict when or if it will happen, and I know my self-consciousness and anxiety can make it worse. But it’s better for all of us if I can find a way to communicate that my communication won’t be flawless. That they might have to listen differently. Or be a bit comfortable with some rough edges. 

Recently, while leading the first of a four-day training I was co-facilitating, I shared my stuttering story. On the third day of the training, a teacher approached and asked to chat. He said that he has Tourette’s Syndrome, and my story was a gift to him. He explained how helpful it was to hear my struggle, which connected with his own.

He also mentioned he had recently been in another presentation I had given on dyslexia (another D-word), when a colleague nearby him wondered aloud what was wrong with my speech— and he was able to share about my struggle. He said that understanding made all the difference, and that the colleague remarked  “how cool” it is that I refuse to allow this impediment to stop me. 

I’m glad others relate, and I’m grateful for the man’s kindness and vulnerability in sharing his story. And I also still despise the discomfort of my own vulnerability. I can say the stutter has given me gifts, and still admit that if given a magic wand, I’d make it disappear in an instant. 

It, like many things in life, is complicated. It’s a both/and. I’d like my stutter to go away completely. To be miraculously cured of it. And, in my stammering, I’ve also realized that comfort, too, costs me something. At times, my struggle to get the words out makes me more aware, humble, and attentive.

On Saturday, Helen Luhrs shared a brutally brave, beautiful, and honest reflection about discomfort—about not blindly or simply spiritualizing, but wrestling with God in the dark. Though her pain and experience are much different than my own, I connected to her resistance to easy answers and clichés. I appreciated her refusal to cheapen grace or downplay pain.

I dream of being as eloquent in my mouth as I am in my head. I dream of seeing a word on paper and making that word a reality out loud as it echoes internally. 

I can rationalize the ways the cracks in my speech let light in, but my human nature, my ego, would rather just be smooth and whole. I don’t like that people quietly ask what’s wrong with me. I don’t like pretending or covering up, or rehearsing with the anticipation of where I might get stuck or what I’ll do when it happens. I’d like to have more control over my own voice. I might refuse to use AI filters to make my face look younger and shinier on social media, but I’d take a polish for my voice in an instant.

Our wounds —and I say our because we all have them—allow us to grow, to show up, to be real, but that does not mean they are enjoyable. We may discover gifts along the hard path as we walk it, and that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t prefer a helicopter rescue.

We may encounter God in our suffering, but that doesn’t require slipping into the simple, slimy spirituality of everything happens for a reason. When I think of the people around me and the hard things they’re encountering — the pain of illness, death, suicide, addiction— I believe God shows up in those spaces. But there is a difference between recognizing the gifts of vulnerability and asking others to be content, grateful, or even just okay with the struggle itself.

There is a tendency, especially in Christian circles, to move too fast from the pain to the blessings. We want to gloss over Good Friday and Holy Saturday to arrive joyful, shiny, and whole on Resurrection Sunday. But we need to get better at sitting in the discomfort with and beside people before moving quickly to clichés, silver-lining spirituality, or easy assurances about God’s perfect plan. 

I’ve considered that stuttering might make me a better writer. Maybe it has made me more attentive to words, more patient with sentences. But I’d still prefer to have it taken from me. Finding a benefit in something challenging doesn’t mean we’d choose it, or even want to believe that it’s “God-ordained.” 

Our world is broken, and we are too. Maybe the sooner we can learn to dwell here, among the wreckage, picking up the pieces and caring for those around us, the better. I don’t wish to endorse or oversimplify pain, but do wish to stay attentive to it. Those who have given me the gift of listening well, those who choose grace and empathy, those who allow space for my imperfection, are a foretaste of “thy kingdom come.” 

May we be the kind of people who can sit with a stutter, walk with the broken, and care for each other—and words—well.

P.S. Want to learn more about stuttering and listening well? Michigan State University’s School of Journalism recently released 100 Questions & Answers About People Who Stutter: A Listener’s Guide, part of its Bias Busters series. I appreciate that the book isn’t about curing a stutter. It’s about promoting understanding and helping listeners listen well.

Band-aid on road by Luis Villasmil on Unsplash
Rocky trail photo by Simon N on Unsplash