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"We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow-men; and along those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects." In these few sentences, Herman Melville reminds us that we are each an integral part of a grand whole, and as we impact the world, we receive a portion of what we create.
Last week those thoughts reverberated through the chambers of my mind as two hundred pairs of eyes stared intently in my direction. My own eyes stared back at the audience, realizing just how outnumbered I was at that moment.
My name was on the program under "speaker," and I had been in a place just like this one countless times before. Yet for one passing second, I was surprised by how the people in front of me seemed to expect that I had something worthwhile to say.
The person introducing me finished and walked away from the microphone. It was my turn. I stood up, ambled forward, and turned to face my audience. I paused in silence to look into their eyes for a moment and to imagine them not as one great sea of people, but as one individual after another. I opened my mouth - and words flowed through it.
There they were.
The words I had crafted, memorized, and tucked into my cerebral hemisphere for just this occasion. I eased into the jacket of amateur orator, once again, as my entire soul remembered I actually did have something that I wanted to say.
Of course, it wasn't always like this. Seven years ago, I began my speaking career in front of a bottle of Windex. At the time, I had a two-year-old, a new baby, and a partially-finished college degree. Out of necessity, I had chosen to temporarily postpone my diploma, but I decided not to put my brain on a shelf in the meantime.
Determined to continue my education, I visited the library every week. I can still see the grimace of the librarian peering at me through her spectacles when I walked through the door. Apparently, a woman with a two-year-old and a two-month-old, both boys of the restless male variety, was not her favorite library patron.
I would stuff my backpack so full of books that I'd resort to tucking the last ones between the bottles in the diaper bag to get them all home. I soon discovered that I could wash dishes and read, make dinner and read, even do the laundry and read at the same time. When people tell me that they don't have time in their life for learning, my response is - integrate.
Obtaining knowledge lit a gentle fire that ran through my veins and infused my life with excitement and deeper purpose. When I was not reading, I would make up speeches about what I had learned, and then I would give presentations to dirty window panes, bottles of Windex, and rolls of paper towels, which played the part of an enduring audience.
A drive to teach others soon welled within me, and after a few months of speaking secretly in my living room, I mentioned to the youth leader in our church that I had done some speaking in the past, and I'd be interested in presenting at a youth event. Thankfully, she didn't ask the details of my experience. I doubt that a few college presentations and "speaking while vacuuming" would have been very impressive.
She called. (They do that when you offer.) She asked me to speak at a youth conference, which both terrified and thrilled me at the same time. I prepared for several weeks, and when I arrived, I peered into the room and saw 100 effervescent teenage faces that filled me with terror. My chest tightened with intimidation and my hands trembled with fear - teenagers are not the most forgiving crowd of listeners. I escaped into the restroom to look in the mirror and manufacture as much confidence as one very scared woman could fabricate. I walked out of the room and onto the stage, and I gave my presentation on living a life of high moral standards.
It was terrible.
I knew it right away. The material was incomplete, the humor wasn't funny, and the delivery lacked luster. When it was over, I sat quietly in my seat, and a very unexpected thing happened. A small, vibrant feeling of happiness took residence within me and began to swell until it finally filled me completely. A part of me was coming alive, and I knew that my small world had become bigger than just myself, even if for just one hour and even if that hour happened to be quite painful. Something inanimate, but real, was pulling me to become a spiritual teacher.
I continued to seek speaking opportunities in local church groups, mostly to the youth and women's organizations, but the next few presentations were arduous, well - terminal. Publicly, I tried to portray confidence, but a current of fear always ran below my efforts. I didn't feel I had true permission to follow such a course, and I was afraid that I'd never be good enough. Even though I worked at it, progress was slow.
It was during this time that I gave another youth workshop, and a man I knew happened to be in the audience. When it was over, I asked for his opinion and he said, "To be honest..."
All right, stop right there, I thought. Women know that nothing positive will follow the phrase "to be honest." Obviously, he had not been aware of the fundamental course of nature entitled "When Males Relate to Females" as he began that statement. Most women do appreciate honesty, but men must learn how to use it properly. Beginning any sentence with "to be honest" is not one of those ways. ("To be honest, you do look fat in those jeans.... To be honest, this is the worst meal I've ever eaten.") "To be honest," he said that my lecture wasn't very compelling, and then proceeded to tell me why.
I went home, and despite my efforts to hold them back, tears flowed freely down my cheeks and pooled onto my pillow. I lay there dejectedly. "I must be crazy. Who am I to think that I could do this?" I questioned myself.
Suddenly, a voice in my head responded, Who are you not to?
I wiped my eyes. Something was speaking to me and at that moment, I was ready to listen. Why me? You always question in the back of your mind. Why not you? Leave your feelings of inadequacy behind you. There is a work you need to accomplish, and you will never be able to do it until you believe in it.
I sat up and dried my eyes. Why not me? I had constantly feared that I wasn't good enough, but if I always agreed to feel so small, then I always would be. If I was the one who created my own feelings of inadequacy, I knew I had the power to create my own certainty.
All of me, down to the cells in my body, knew that teaching was a path I should follow. Now that, of course, didn't make much sense at the time. There was little evidence to support it - in fact, quite the contrary. Despite that, my belief in it could no longer be diminished. From that time on, I refused to fail.
There is a vast difference between trying hard and refusing to fail. If I reach my arm forward and try to pick up the glass of water in front of me, my hand might still be empty after fifteen attempts. Either I pick up the glass or I don't. Refusing to fail is to enter a deeper dimension of commitment that produces a purer quality of work.
My reading, writing, and teaching were soon transformed by the energy that exploded within me. With equal, or perhaps greater fervor, I began to ask God for help. I was human and very flawed; I had marginal knowledge and was constantly confronted by my limitations. Unless I could obtain more than what I had at the time, I'd never have anything worthwhile to offer, so I continued to bang on the doors of Heaven asking for more.
Slowly, Heaven answered. Over time, I learned how to reach deeper channels of knowledge that would grant me access when I met the conditions of vigorous study and absolute faith. I learned how to insert my whole self into what I was teaching until as a person, I disappeared completely. I discovered a better way to tell stories. I found more alluring ways to begin presentations and more memorable ways to end them. I understood when to speak and when to let silence be the teacher. I became so comfortable in front of a crowd and I had gained such a conviction of the precepts I taught that the words fell from my lips with sincerity.
Considering that public speaking is the number one fear in America - second only to death (go figure), I found many new opportunities to teach and to grow. Eventually, I started giving presentations to larger groups of people, and on one particular morning, I spoke to some Christian missionaries in Pennsylvania about self-esteem. Afterwards, a woman in her sixties confessed, with tear-filled eyes, that if she had heard that message thirty years ago, her life might have been incredibly different.
Her words humbled me more deeply than any other statement possibly could, because a critical truth I had not yet fully understood suddenly became absolutely clear. This venture wasn't really about me. It included me, yes, but it was actually about God reaching other people with His truths. I was a tiny player in the process, but I wasn't the main character - and I never would be.
I was liberated by that fact as I intentionally began to work for God and not for myself. When I wasn't concerned about making a certain impression or even being good enough, I was free. I was free to labor for the One who had called me and to trust Him more fully. I was free to love the work and the people it included and give them the liberty to take or leave whatever they desired.
It has now been several years since I dampened my pillow one evening with defeat, and then in turn refused to be defeated. I will never forget the terrified woman whose palms once shook and voice once cracked in front of a handful of people. I keep her in a mental catalog of evidence that God can change anyone through His grace and power. No matter how much we lack, He can always transform us - of course, we are the ones who must knock and ask to be changed. The only thing that terrifies me more than public speaking once did is the fact that my fear and self-doubt almost caused me to abandon this path. Today, besides my family, teaching means more to me than any other work I have ever pursued.
In one of his parables, Jesus Christ told the story of a group of men who were each given talents. Two of the men multiplied their talents, but the last man took the one talent that was given to him and buried it in the ground. When his day of accountability came, he declared his motivation for doing so; it was fear (see Matthew 25:15-29).
Each person has been given specific endowments by our Eternal Father, and we were meant to offer these things to the world around us. If we retract ourselves because of fear, these contributions will never be presented, and the possibility of them being received is removed completely. If we have gifts but don't use them, they may just as well be buried under a giant mound of soil. However, when we claim our gifts and use them for the intended purpose of blessing the world, we glorify the Giver more than we will ever glorify ourselves.
Even though our talents were meant to bless others, our carnal presence may seek to contaminate the process. As always, the ego will attach an agenda to anything that can cause a temporary inflation of itself. When we work only for the sake of the work, or simply for the sake of others, we purify the use of our gifts. Instead of seeking a temporary ego flare - which only perpetuates our bondage in scarcity and falsehood - we create a life that is filled with deeper purpose. We then seek to become genuinely connected to others and not elevated above them.
Every contribution made on the earth was at first only a seed inside one man's mind or a dream inside of one woman's head. Once these people gave themselves permission to receive the talents they were given, they began to donate them as their own humble offerings to life. Each person has an endowment to make; this is certain. However, will every person choose to make it?
Each person holds unique gifts, and though they may be small, they are ours and ours alone to give to the world. It is the world that we wake up in, the world where our children grow, and the world where our posterity will thrive long after we have left. Considering the vastness of the globe, the places we will go are relatively few. Yet even though we live on an enormous planet, everyone's hands reach somewhere.
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