Somehow it took me 26 years of my life to figure out that doesn't work for me. I get to the end of the year and realize I can't even find my list let alone remember what was on it. So I was determined to make 2018 different. I was hesitant to become one of those, "choose a word for the year" people because it looked like a corny/trendy thing to do, but after a heart-felt prayer about how to tackle my new year goals I felt STRONGLY to choose one word for the year and the word should be, "Develop."
Develop?
I think God really enjoys confusing me and waiting to see what I will do. Lucky for Him, I am determined to figure Him out so I went with it. Pretty quickly I realized that "Develop" was the perfect word for me. I was supposed to develop into a better version of Jessica and the way I was supposed to do that was to focus on my talents and put myself in UNCOMFORTABLE situations and USE THEM in order to Develop them! I was pretty excited at the beginning of the year about getting started, but let me tell you... it was definitely uncomfortable!
The first thing I did was learned the accompaniment to the youth theme song for our church on the piano for the year. The song was called, "Peace in Christ." As I started to practice it at the very end of 2017, I started to mentally give up. I had never ever learned an accompaniment piece before, let alone played the piano for people to sing to (minus a few random hymns in church and seminary) and Satan jumped at the chance to fill my brain with ALL SORTS of doubts. Stupid thoughts like, "there is a mp3 version and you can just press play, why are you going to all this trouble" or "you are never going to get this right" "you will be too nervous to even play it anyway" he even had the gall to give me the thought "you are ignoring your kids just to learn a song someone else can play better"
Oooohhhh he is goooooooood, that Satan.
I was pathetically stumbling through the piece on my piano at home while all those thoughts were swirling around in my head. That last thought just struck a chord and with tears of frustration in my eyes I stopped playing and closed my eyes for a prayer. In desperation I told Heavenly Father that I just wanted to learn this song. PLEASE help me learn this song! After only a moment, peace filled my body as I was assured that alllll of those nasty thoughts were from Satan and I could do it if I kept working at it! I looked up and immediately commenced with the plunking and missing notes.
After about 3 weeks, I had it. I had it MEMORIZED even. I was so excited to play it for the young women to practice for our upcoming program where they would sing it, but as I sat down to play it for them just in our classroom (mind you, there were only about 12 people in the room.. maybe even less) I found myself in a state of pure nervousness. My heart was pounding, palms sweaty, and my hands were shaking like some sort of tremor was happening in my bones that wouldn't stop! I made it through but it wasn't pretty.
Throughout the year I had the opportunity to play it multiple times in front of small and large congregations. I think the best part of it though, was that the girls memorized the words. Words that talk about exactly the peace that washed over me when I said my desperate prayer from months earlier. I hope they at least never forget the message of that beautiful song!
I did MANY other uncomfortable things with my talents through the year that I was going to write about, but I feel like this next story sums up what I want the message of this post to be. And it's probalby my favorite experience with this song that I learned.
Early in the year, I went to a Stake Young Women Leaders meeting where all of the leaders from around my area got together to go over the theme for the new year and make sure we were all on the same page. One of the Stake leaders wanted us all to sing the theme song together. She realized she hadn't downloaded the music to her phone and hadn't asked anyone to come prepared to play it on the piano. Most people in the room had never even heard it yet. One of the other leaders offered to quickly pull it up on her phone but of course the internet wasn't working very well in the church building. My heart was pounding because there was a piano in the room and I had the very music she desired to have memorized.... I had never played the song purely from memorization in front of anyone before and had always had the sheet music as back up! After a few moments of internal panic I said, probably very quietly, "I can play it?" The woman looked at me hopeful but said sadly, "I don't have the sheet music though."
I didn't want to, but with some heat in my cheeks I told her I had it memorized. It was a long walk to the piano but I played the song (still shaking) and made it through and sat back down in my chair. (being sure to sit on my hands so no one would see my shaking hands) Everyone seemed a little shocked I just did that and the woman leading the discussion thanked me and the meeting moved on.
But what I learned from that experience was that I was so afraid of my talent! So afraid to share it! Just because I was afraid of making a mistake and feeling nervous and uncomfortable! And after it was all over I was so proud of myself and felt so valuable to that meeting and couldn't wait to be useful again!
It all seems so silly now. I can play that song without shaking and I'm never afraid to offer to play the piano for any occasion and I feel this way with most of my talents now! But what a great word for the year.
Develop.
I truly did develop my talents and myself! The best thing I learned from the whole year and my challenge to whoever reads this is to SEEK OUT situations that might make you feel uncomfortable, vulnerable, or nervous. (note to my husband and other thrill seekers: I did not say dangerous or life-threatening) Those are the situations that will help us grow the most!
