(this space for rent)

One morning after church, one of the members of the congregation approached me.

Y’see, I sing in the worship team, the group that leads the singing during the worship service. It’s a nice little band – the pastor sings and plays electric piano, we have drums, electric guitar, and occasionally bass. I play my acoustic 12-string guitar and sing, along with two to four other singers, but I am about the only one singing harmony vocals. We perform a mix of traditional hymns and contemporary praise songs, and I thoroughly enjoy being a part of this.

So this fella greets me after the service and asks me if I give guitar lessons. He goes on to tell me how impressed he is with my playing and just what he likes about it.

I hem and haw for a moment, and tell him I will have to think about it.

For anyone who knows me well, they know my opinion of my own playing. For the rest, I have long maintained that I am a singer who can also play guitar, that I play just good enough to accompany myself. There are times that I can recognize certain things that I do well, but ultimately I do not see myself as much of a guitarist.

But apparently other people see it differently.

While I try to be self-aware and objective in how I view myself, I have struggled with a low self-image most of my life. The last 3-4 years in particular have been tough, and my belief in myself has been battered.

However, this one request made me question my view of my skills as opposed to how this other person (or any other person) views my skills. If he thought I could teach him to play guitar, then why couldn’t I think the same? This opened the door for me to look at my self-esteem. I realized how many opportunities I had lost because I did not have the nerve, the self-confidence to reach out. I looked at how far I had come, how many risks I had taken to get to the point I was at with my music, but how fear of failure had kept me from doing more.

I don’t want my life to be run by fear any more, and only I can make the change.

More on this next time.