Ready to sing at the pageant

Dawn-Joy Thornton

When I was about 14, I entered the Miss Teen Hemisphere pageant. I had always loved being in pageants and on stage, and had spent a lot of time preparing for this event. But a couple of days before it was to begin, I started to develop the symptoms of laryngitis, and by the day of the pageant, I had completely lost my voice.

I was able to complete the first few modeling categories, though I couldn't participate in the questions and answers. Some of the other people at the pageant were doubtful about my staying in the competition, especially since I was scheduled to sing for the talent portion. I didn't want to stick it out just through willful determination. But I felt confident that I should continue—that God was right there with me and would help me the rest of the way. My parents, sister, and a close friend had traveled to the pageant with me, and we all prayed throughout the morning and afternoon.

Backstage, I found a tiny room where I could try to do my vocal warm-ups. My mom and our friend came with me, and continued to encourage me. But it was soon obvious that I couldn't make a sound, and we decided to spend my warm-up time praying instead. I had been taught all my life that prayer includes getting closer to God by focusing on what God is. From the time I was a small child, I had loved the names for God given in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. And one that I especially related to was Soul. I recall that we prayed along the lines of seeing that any expression of talent is God's work being performed through His children. It wasn't throat and vocal chords that were the key to my expressing the qualities of Soul, but rather the understanding of what it meant to be God's image, as the Bible teaches (see Gen. 1:26).