I was approached by
Matt, our worship pastor, who asked me where I disappeared to during this
period. I told him that I went off to my flute lesson and he seemed surprised,
claiming “I didn’t know that you played the flute Lois”. He then asked me for
some more information, so I told him my small history of how I taught myself to
play the flute when I was 14, but I could never read music, so I never
progressed. However, when I started university last year, I decided to start
having flute lessons and to take exams, and I absolutely love it so far.
He seemed inspired and said to me
“That’s amazing Lois! It must take real musical talent, and to sing and play
the guitar too. I’m really impressed Lois”. My friend Tog then said that I was
basically “A musical prodigy” and then they seemed even more impressed when I
told them that I play in an orchestra too, even if I am behind for someone of
my age, but it is still so much fun. They were then claiming that there seems
to be “Nothing that I can’t do because I seem to be good at everything”, which
I know is certainly not true, especially since at a younger age, I always felt
that I could never find anything that I excelled in, and it was sometimes quite
disheartening. As a result, to have people really believe in me was so
encouraging.
I feel that, especially at
university, people often hide parts of themselves that they don’t feel
confident in sharing. For example, I had a conversation with my flatmate a few
weeks after moving in about my orchestra. She seemed really interested in the
fact that I played the flute and the guitar, and then told me that back home in
Northern Ireland, she used to play the piano and the cello in an orchestra but
has given them up now. A friend on my Maths course also told me that she
learned to play the piano when she was 12 and would really like to start
playing again, and possibly even start learning the guitar. However, none of
these people would have shared this information with me had I not started the
conversation with instruments that I play.
To be perfectly honest, I can
completely empathise with them when it comes to sharing information that you
are slightly self-conscious about, in this case because it involves playing an
instrument, something that requires a lot of skill and confidence when it comes
to having to volunteer your services with this skill. Back when Debs was
worship pastor at church, I mentioned that I played the flute so that I could
join the Christmas orchestra at church, but never once did I mention that I
played the guitar and that I had become a worship leader at my Christian Union.
Looking back, it seems completely ridiculous; she was the one person who could
guide me the most, but I was too shy to offer my services in worship at the
time, and it was only because my friend Simon deciding to spill the beans about
me before I was able to openly chat to her about worship and receive support
from her.
Back onto the topic of getting to
know people, our current worship pastor Matt seemed to realise that there was
more to me than I let on. Now I can see that after my first appearance in
church when he told be that “This was just the beginning” and that “The best is
yet to come”, he knows that as much as there is still so much for me to learn
and improve on, he somehow sees potential. When he first asked me if I would
attend their worship leader and potential worship leader meetings, I deemed the
idea as crazy, because of course I would never have it in me to lead worship at
church, but now I know that even just attending these meetings would enable me
to get to know the stories of the entire team, which will help us to function
as one body of Christ!
“For even as the body is one and
yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many,
are one body, so also is Christ” 1 Corinthians 12:12
Lois
No comments:
Post a Comment