Spring Time Chit-Chat

Okay…I need to be writing a research paper. My mind won’t hold still, so I’ve rather been amusing myself with old pictures and stories.

Something kinda-ish jumped out at me today, and it made me chuckle. I was reading in 2 Corinthians where Paul is talking about how if he must boast, he chooses to boast in his weakness because then it’s pretty obvious that success comes not from his own power, but rather from the power given to him from Christ.

This’ll make more sense in a minute, but doesn’t God have such a great sense of humor? He takes our biggest fears and insecurities, and those are the things he uses to grow us. I find that so ironic and hilarious. Happy little story from childhood…

If we go back to my elementary years, guess what my biggest fear was...? Piano. I’m serious. It was my enemy. In Kindergarten, my mom used to bribe me with M&Ms to practice. By second grade I demanded money. That request didn’t work out so well…

I freaked out whenever people asked me to play in public. Third grade recital, I pretended I was sick all day. Even did the whole “thermometer under the heat lamp” thing. Only problem; it was a mercury thermometer, and I got it too hot, so it broke, and there was mercury all over.

Yeah. I got in trouble for that one and still had to play at the recital.

Oh dear. Anyway, I hated playing in front of people. I would force my whole family into the basement whenever I practiced so they couldn’t watch me. I was a weird little kid.

Second story. We need to go back to the early debate days. My worst fear in Jr. high and the beginning of high school? Talking in front of people. My parents decided to remedy this with debate. I cried every week for a month on the way home from class. (Siblings can testify to that.) I tried to convince my parents that debaters were all mean and cruel nerds that were at least partially insane. They didn’t buy it.

So…I was thrown into this mob of people who thought it was “fun” to talk about stuff like taxes and politics. Yuck. (Somewhere in the last three years I was nerdified myself. And now somehow get tricked into doing all the public rep stuff whether it be for classes, organizations, events... Oh well.)

I just find it highly amusing that the two things I hated and feared the most (performing music and speaking in public) are now two of the things I do the most. And are also two of the things I’ll be studying in college.

It never ceases to amaze me how God takes our biggest insecurities and turns them into strengths so that when we succeed, there ain’t nothing we can do but give all the praise back to him. So let me continue to boast in my weakness, for God’s grace is made all the more wonderful when I, in and of myself, can do nothing but freak out and fail. That was Heidi’s thought of the day.

Well, that, and that canned mandarin oranges are better than canned pineapple...