Croaking on Stage

I'm surprised at how much I still struggle with my internal conflicts at this ripe old age of 32.  In joining the Praise band again after all these years, thinking I am much more confident, equipped, and skilled... and after much prayer and a long period of observation, I still croak on stage.  The truth is, I thought I could just blend right in and use my talents to glorify the Lord with songs of praise.  The other truth is, I have followed my own rules and decided my own life choices for so long, I barely know how to follow another person's lead.  Not that I don't want to.  It's not that at all.  It's that I don't know how to.  Sometime long ago at such a young and fragile age, I learned that following an unloving father's guidance would do me more harm than good.  I've been doing my own thing for so long, tragically it's what I know best.

What I also learned is that I always have to be the best in everything.  If I wasn't then I would never hear that I did a good job or that I was good enough.  I'd always be "stupid" in my father's eyes and never comparable to my sister who was always the best.

Pair that with my hypersensitivity and insecurities and immediately the result is me croaking on stage.  Ask me to lead a song and I am 110% into it and confident.  Ask me to tone it down a bit and not sing too loud and I wonder what the heck is wrong with me.  Am I not good enough?

Humbleness.  Humility.  Servitude.  Grace.  Gentleness.  So many things God is trying to teach me here.

I may be 32, have it all together, or so I thought, yet God is revealing my heart in this current matter.  Surely He called me to join the Praise band again, but perhaps it's not because of my "skill" as I thought after all.  It's a real hard lesson, an undoing of something that took years to build.  He's teaching me all over again how to have a humble and serving heart with His utmost love and truth.

If I don't follow through with it now, how much more stubborn and prideful would I become?  It's amazing to feel all this (even though I honestly feel like a crummy person right now), knowing that God has searched my heart and put me in a place and position where my flaws are openly revealed to me.

I'm going to continue on with God's calling for me in the Praise band.  One Sunday after another, behind my veil of wanting to show my best skills, my insecurities, my struggles with authoritive figures, all of my weaknesses up there on stage, I am going to lift my voice loudly, or even quietly, and glorify His name.