Overcoming Hurdles or Just a Loser?

I was a voice student at Point Loma Nazarene University. Nobody likes to get sick, but for a voice major, it's horrifying. And the problem is that it happens all the time. It almost seemed as if we spent more time learning how to keep our voices working in the midst of debilitating illness than we did learning how to sing. There's tea and steam therapy, vitamin supplements, raw ginger root (no correlation to yours truly) and other ginger snacks, exercises and stretches, and dogged determination not to get sick. One of the biggest rules for us singers, however, was to never apologize for being sick before a performance.

I think there are a plethora of reasons not to declare how deathly feeble you've become before singing in front of a crowd, but the main reason is that it is giving oneself the excuse to sing poorly. You're not supposed to sing poorly and nobody's supposed to want to. If I had the choice between singing poorly and singing well, I'd choose singing well. And as we would learn, a performer can have no idea how well the performance is going to go until after it's done. Basic psychology dictates that if you set yourself up for failure, you're gonna have a bad time.

It's amazing how many times I've surprised myself. Thinking that I had too much mucus in my system to possibly make a good sound, I would stand in the curve of the piano during vocal forum and deliver a spectacular vocal performance and then return to my seat coughing and wheezing while wondering how I was able to sing at all. My voice teachers and coaches would comment, "Where did that come from? That was incredibly good!" I'd respond, "I didn't think I was gonna make it through the song, so... uh. Yea. I dunno." Very rarely do I choke on my own snot globs like I was expecting.

 

Under the Influence of Laziness

 

Overcoming mental hurdles is a recurring topic in my writing on this blog. It's a big part of my life and I'm certain that I'm not the only one who deals with the same things with which I struggle on a daily basis. Things were placed in my life without my expressed consent but because they are the cards I was dealt, I do the best I can with them. Unfortunately, most of my challenges look a lot more like character flaws than handicaps to the outside world. 

I don't like being scolded for not finding the three feather dusters that were sitting in plain view in the cabinet I checked in twice. I get really upset when I'm accused of not looking when I just spent the last 10 minutes on a feather duster hunt! I keep my mouth shut, though. There's a name for dyslexia and tourettes. People who can't tell the difference between green and blue aren't stupid: they're color blind and there's scientific backing to prove that it's a real thing. But there's no official name for what this is. There's no treatment that I know of for what I've heard referred to as "object blindness": the inability to find something you are actively seeking that happens to be in plain view. But when these incidents occur and I'm getting heat for something like that, I stop defending myself because some people will never understand what I'm experiencing if they haven't lived in my brain. 

Derailed train-of-thought and involuntary space-outs are also a regular occurrence in my daily life. They happen more frequently during times of high stress or hurried pace, but I'm susceptible to them at almost any time. I would give anything to not have the gears in my brain jam like someone threw a wrench into them. It's embarrassing being caught staring into space or pacing aimlessly while I try to reboot my brain. Sometimes, I'd rather my boss think I was being lazy than think that I have an incurable case of incompetence. I'll let supervisors spend a few seconds trying to motivate me while I formulate ways to cope with my setbacks. That way, I'll look like their coaching broke through and I'm worthy of their keeping in the labor force.

 

Playing Pretend

 

I fear myself and thus play pretend at job interviews. I'm adored by small churches who can only pay me a small stipend at best or mid-sized churches with no open positions, but positions that could afford me an above-poverty and independent lifestyle have always eluded me. I want church leaders to see how smart, capable, and insightful I am but I can't let them know that I'm also absolutely loco en la cabesa. People like me shouldn't be spiritual leaders! I have a disgusting mind and those who know me well are very aware of that fact. Even my own family wonders how my humor can be so inappropriate and often dark while I hold aspirations to be a worship pastor. 

I know that I'm unfit for spiritual leadership due to my multitude of spiritual shortcomings and the fact that I generally can't seem to act like a Christian. I'm just a good musician who passionately loves serving Christ's church body with his musical gifts. I love being a worship leader even though I'm far from exemplary, both as a worshiper and as a leader. And yet, even now, I'm still armpit-deep in this brown-nosing game of trying to make the pastors at the big churches want me enough to put between the high end of five digits and the low end of six digits (pre-decimal) in my bank account annually. If there's corruption in the church that I hate, I'm a prime example of it.

Despite the fact that I am morally corrupt and basically evil; I am, for some reason, overwhelmed by evidence that God has called me to ministry. I've been commanded to be His ambassador and I could never formulate an explanation that would conclude otherwise. I am an embarrassment to the Christian faith, but I've been summoned. I'm a man of unclean lips, but I've been commissioned to testify. So like a cracked vessel, I'll be the instrument of God who waters the flowers along the path where He leads me. It seems that God is amazing at having His way through even the most screwed up followers.

 

Here Lies "Failure"

 

Almost a year ago, I laid to rest my determination to be what I thought women looked for in a man. I had adopted a fairly short haircut and kept my beard shortly trimmed. But for a reason that I just can't explain, it just wasn't me. My hair and beard are much longer now and I somehow feel more "right." Why this is, I don't know. But after breaking off a very shallow and brief romance, I learned something about myself. Who am I to not be who God created me to be? I was not born to be normal: I was born to be extraordinary. This is not my call to non-conformism because clearly, I look now like I belong on the show "Duck Dynasty." I did not plan it this way: there's only so many kinds of looks in this world.

But I'm finding more and more each day that success is not defined by finding love, marrying, and having kids like I've wanted all my life. I don't want it any less now than I used to, but it no longer seems such a huge loss to end my days never having my own family because I'm learning to love this man that God created me to be.  If the greatest thing we could ever know is to love and be loved, I've already reached the highest success. 

Romans 8:38-39 says, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I've abandoned my formerly unfaltering determination to be a family man because I may go my whole life and never find that love. And if I die at a ripe old age with a heart filled with regret that I never built a family of my own, I can at least know now that while I can't control whether I'll ever find love, I can make the decision every day to positively impact the people in my life. The wise Dan Nelson once told me, "God doesn't give a rat's ass who you marry, as long as you are worshiping Him with your life." Jesus summed it up all of the law into two commands: 1) Love God, 2) Love people. 

I may never taste the lips or feel the gentle caress of a woman who will never leave my side for as long as we both shall live and I may never be financially successful enough to live a comfortable and independent lifestyle. I may never be recognized as a significant musical artist and forever be a "nobody." I may never own a new car, my own house, or that collection of guitars I'm always lusting about, but God made a beautiful thing when he made me. I may be forever shackled by addiction and loneliness until the day I die and possibly even succumb to devastating mental illness, but nothing will break me loose from the love of God I have through my faith in Jesus. I am God's masterpiece and I cannot love God without loving myself. The worst that I could ever be is to always look like a loser and a failure; but in Christ, I have the comfort that I will never be a loser or a failure.