There are plenty of people who are never nervous speaking to a crowd.
I am not one of them.
Speaking to an audience is always nerve-wracking, no matter how many times I’ve spoken or how large a crowd I’ve spoken to before.
First, every crowd is different. The way people connect back and respond is often unpredictable. I’ve said things which I thought would surely make people laugh, but brought on tears instead. I’ve said things I was deadpan serious about which brought on full-on guffaws.
Second, to borrow Brene Brown’s words, speaking is vulnerable. While I spend plenty of time preparing for a message, I don’t memorize lines or stick to a script. “Effective speaking,” she says, “is about the unpredictable and uncontrollable art of connection.”
I never know if we will make the connection, if you and I will experience the surge together.
The truth is, after my first debut as a regular speaker at church, I got feedback that I shouldn’t have spoken on a Sunday because I am a woman. And women preachers should not be allowed to preach Sundays. The second time I preached, I was sent a video of another speaker and advised to “preach like that next time.”
Speaking is vulnerable.
Tomorrow will mark the beginning of a stint of speaking three Sundays in a row, on different messages. I could pump myself up and tell myself: You are enough. You are the best. You are awesome.
But I will not, because the opposite is true.
The truth is- we are not enough, never will be for the world’s standards.
There will always be someone else better than us.
We are not awesome- God is.
And I am learning- that that is okay. God doesn’t require perfection, He requires that we show up, obediently, courageously, authentically.
It was my pastor who told me, “Understand your armor.”
I understood that to be- don’t wear someone else’s suit. Just show up as you are.
So I will. I will show up as an unarmored young woman who often hears a thousand voices in the week that there’s nothing worthwhile that can be said by her because it is not what I say that counts, but my faithfulness to steward the message given to me that does.
If you’re battling something in your head right now, know that it’s okay not to get it perfect.
You can show up, even with nothing more than five stones and a makeshift slingshot.
