Comfort at Speaking?

I’m fairly a nervous person when it comes to public speaking. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy speaking in public, but typically it involves my stomach turning inside out, my blood pressure going up about 10 points, and sweat just pouring from my forehead.

It typically doesn’t matter if I’m speaking to a large group of people doing a long talk or just speaking to a smaller group of people. Informal things, such as leading Sunday School, has never really bothered me.

Where the nerves have really came out is when reading the liturgy at church. Now, this is one of my favorite ways to serve God - reading His word in front of the church. To me, though, it’s also one of my most nervous moments. You don’t want to mess up and miss a line or say the wrong word or stumble over one of the many long words in Acts. With that, I add some pressure - unneeded pressure - to myself which causes the sweating, nervousness and shock when people tell me how well I read up there.

Something was different today. I wasn’t nervous. There was no sweating. No heavy breathing before hand. No need for prayers for calm. It was just reading God’s word in a way that I’ve never been able to read it before in front of a group of people.

Simply, I believe it was a gained confidence that came from a week in service with Christ and 35 other middle school students for a week. That confidence in leadership was priceless as it made me confident in who I am, today, and most importantly what God has called me to be in the future.

A friend told me Thursday he could see a pulpit in front of me after a small talk I gave to some students. Today, I could really see that pulpit.

And that doesn’t make me nervous, only ready to go.

The Gift of Football

Two days last week my mission team worked at a center for autistic and mentally handicapped children and adults. In the morning hours, we would work with little children ranging from infants to six and seven year olds. (I worked mostly with the six and seven year olds, who often reminded me of a family member … I had practice going into the service).

In the afternoons, we would move over and work with the adults helping learn life skills, dance with some of the adults, or just sit and talk.

That is where, on Wednesday, I met a man who was sitting in a corner doing a puzzle. He was a fascinating man. This man was talkative and wanted to talk about the one thing outside of faith, politics, and my family that can get me talking for hours - football.

I had a feeling this man liked football based on his lanyard he wore that said “football.” We would talk and he asked whom my favorite team was - this day I was wearing one of my WVU shirts - and I said West Virginia. It was amazing, the man knew a little about the Mountaineers, mainly the fact that the Mountaineer shoots his gun before the start of every game.

We kept talking about football for what seemed to be minutes, but it was easily two hours. The next day we talked some more. We talked about the coach, Rich Rodriguez, how to be a football player, and everything about the game. We even did a mock kickoff formation using puzzle pieces Thursday afternoon.

God has a great and interesting way of bringing joy to a person’s heart. For that man, it was having someone sit and talk to him for a few hours about something he enjoyed. For me, it was being able to bring that smile to that man’s face and make a friend in the process.

You’ve got to love how God works.