Day 110: Outside the Box

Today was pretty good overall. We had a morning session on Personal Leadership, specifically on optimizing our time. It was great insight. Later, we had chapel, and since I was rostered on Front of House, I had work to do. I got to work primary communications, which was super cool. The afternoon was pretty much talking with my family; that's when the negative energy made it's move. Since tonight was the Box, I was planning on practicing to make sure I had the song down, but when I was talking with my family, I accidentally slammed the door on my finger; it completely destroyed my ability to play normally. After the good talk, I spent the next 2 hours trying to find some way to play with the other 4 fingers, but it proved to be way too hard; as you could imagine, I was devastated. I was stuck in a hard place, and the only thing I felt I could do was pray over it; I prayed in complete confidence that God would heal, if not ease the pain. Even my flatmates prayed over the situation after I explained it to them. When I got there, I was filled with worry and doubt; yet throughout the afternoon, I just kept saying to myself, "this performance, this opportunity is NOT about me, but about He who brought me here." I wanted to make sure that my mind would be in the right place, whether or not my prayer would be answered. Then the time finally came for my part; I was opening the student section after our special guests, Chasing Bailey, opened the event. When I think about it, it was a combination of pressure, lack of complete confidence in myself, AND not praying before the actual song that I feel messed me up big time. I feel embarrassed thinking about the performance; when I messed up, I messed up BIG. Whether it was the microphone not working through the first verse, my voice losing it's strength halfway through the chorus, or the fact that my finger's nerve endings were numb, I just felt horrible when the song was over. I gave it my best, but it wasn't enough to really salvage it, and compared to how amazing the other bands were, I just feel like it was an extremely forgettable set. One thing I do praise God for is that He did answer the prayer: from the beginning to the end of the song, the pain was light enough for me to play with it. If anything, that's what made the disaster of my performance worth it; that even at my lowest point, He proved Himself faithful to his promises. He also used a few people to reassure me that it's okay; obviously, everyone makes mistakes. It just sucks that of all days for me to mess up, it had to be my very first real performance outside of high school. But I'm at peace with it; I'm still disappointed about how I did, but I gave it my all for God. That's what I can proudly say.

God bless,
Steven