The Spectator

When you decide to be silent, you become a spectator. You stop being the main character of your own life and you become the audience for everyone else.

For a long time, that was my role. I retreated into the background. I thought, 'If I just watch, I can’t get hurt. If I don't pick a side, I can't be wrong.'

I spent years just absorbing other people's lives. I watched their mistakes so I wouldn't have to make my own. I listened to their stories—the girls, the dramas, the victories—because I felt like I didn't have a story of my own worth telling. I became a vault for other people's secrets.

I thought I was hiding. I thought I was just surviving the stress of my home life. But looking back now, I see that God was doing something else. He was training me.

He was using my silence to teach me empathy. He was using my pain to make me a better listener. While I was sitting in the spectator seat, feeling invisible, God was whispering, 'Watch closely, Axel. Learn how people feel. Learn what hurts them. Because one day, you’re going to need this.'

I wasn't just a lonely kid in the corner. I was in a classroom. God was teaching me how to read hearts, starting with my own breaking one.