For those of you who know me well, you know I hate school and I have a serious sweating problem. I have always been the kid who sits in the very back of the room, silent; trying to look as busy as possible so the teacher will never call on me. Public speaking in any aspect makes me very uncomfortable and nervous. What if I say the wrong answer, or pronounce a word wrong or just have no idea as to what is going on? Since dropping out of school I thought those days were over and have lived in freedom from that the past year, until now.
This month every Sunday my team has traveled to a church in a nearby town. We have learned a Bulgarian song that we sing along with a couple songs in English, which is already a big step for me. Don’t get me wrong I can rock out in my car until my face turns blue but when it comes to really singing I am basically tone deaf. Therefore in worship I tend to whisper to the Lord and let others belt it out and listen to their jam session with jealousy. After the worship a couple team members will share a quick message with the church. Well this past Sunday it was my turn. I had told my team that just the thought of this made me uncomfortable and automatically have pit stains down to my hip bones despite my bot-tox injections. (Side note –bot-tox in your armpits is supposed to make you sweat less. So a week before the race I decided to test this theory out and got 20 injections in each pit. I simply refuse to be the sweaty kid on my team, and so far so good!) I told them I had no idea where to even begin this journey of speaking to the church. What if the message I pick wasn’t the right one, what if I trip on my way on stage, you know all the typical fears. Does the trick of picture the crowd naked really work? Because I think that is so creepy and whoever came up with that idea should have just kept that to themselves, I mean really people there are just some things you don’t share out loud. So after a quick call home to complain about how I’m here to grow and change but the process stinks, is scary, and at that moment I didn’t really want to do it, my wonderful mom calmed my nerves and encouraged me to do my best as always.
So that night I took my fears to the Lord and just sat in prayer about what the next morning would bring. I was pointed to Exodus 14:13-14, “Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”” So I took a deep breath in and chose to believe that the God I serve is a good God. He is a God that would never embarrass me or push me to something that I could not overcome. I chose to believe that He would be with me the following morning and that no matter what I chose to preach on, it is a good message because it is His word and nothing that he says in unimportant. And I thanked Him that His strength is not subject to change nor determine my lacking and falling short. So the following morning I got up and in front of a very nice church of about 100-150 people I shared a little piece of what the Lord had placed on my heart. And I didn’t have sweat pits, can I get an Amen!! Now I’m still not comfortable with this by any means and as another Sunday approaches I’m already nervous as to who will speak this week/praying that it won’t be me. And by no means am I ready for African preaching, where you have the entire service to yourself and by entire service I should add that theirs service is 6 hours, like what? By I am rejoicing in the baby steps and the small victory that I overcame a big fear and had a dry shirt on the way home!
