I’d often heard it said that seeing is believing. I’ve also learned in the Kingdom of God quite the opposite to be true–believe and see. Many of those beliefs I’d already switched out, but my journey on Concept Crossing revealed a couple more from my childhood. Tracing where these old beliefs were first formed and how they had shaped my life brought me to places in Graceville I hadn’t been before. It took some courage to go there, but it turned out to be fun.
Oddly, it was something my new eye doctor said that began my journey to Concept Crossing. During my first visit with him, while examining my eyes, he remarked that the vision in my left eye was significantly different than in my right eye. Yes, I told him, my left eye has been weak all my life. That’s when he said something that fascinated me. He said, “Your left eye is only weak because your brain thinks it is.”
That thought had never before entered my mind, and now it was all I could think about. Was it true, I wondered. It seemed reasonable, after all, my brain tells my body how to function, right? The concept was undoubtedly worth exploring, especially coming from a doctor. I remembered as a child, an eye doctor saying that my left eye was weak. Was that when the belief first started? I wore corrective glasses for a while, but they didn’t seem to help. My right eye was strong, which made up for the weakness in the left eye, so I just accepted that was the way I was. Now I was wondering if I’d accepted it unnecessarily. Could changing how my brain thinks about it really improve the vision in that eye?
Applying the concept to improve my vision made me wonder what else I had accepted because of what someone said about me. I thought about being told by an elementary school teacher that I couldn’t sing. I accepted it at the time, assuming some can sing, and some can’t. But could it be that I can’t sing because my brain thinks I can’t sing because of what that teacher said? It’s not surprising that a seven-year-old would believe what her teacher told her, but was it true?
Just for fun, I decided to do some investigating. I sent an email to the worship leader at Bible study asking if she was born with a nice singing voice or did she learn to sing. She quickly wrote back saying she’d been singing since she was a child but that it can certainly be learned. She included the phone number of one of the women she sings with, saying what a good voice teacher she is. I stared at that phone number and laughed. I told Jim about it, but he didn’t think it was so funny. He actually encouraged me to call her. No, no, no, I told him, taking singing lessons would be like getting naked in front of a stranger, and there’s no way I could do that!
God has a funny way of encouraging me too. I did another book signing at my cousin’s church, and there just happened to be a former Worship Pastor as guest speaker that week. After service, my cousin invited Jim and I to lunch with them and the worship pastor. During lunch, the pastor asked if we had any questions he could answer. I couldn’t help but ask the same question I asked my Bible study worship leader, “Can singing be learned, or is it a gift some are born with?” Before answering, he asked me to sing a little following along with him. Though he said, it could be learned the expression on his face after I sang told me it wasn’t for everyone. So I decided to give up the idea.
The next Sunday at our church, the sermon was on the Last Supper. My pastor went on and on, describing how Jesus undressed himself to wash the disciples’ feet. Jim nudged me and whispered in my ear, “I know what you’re thinking.” At that moment, I knew there was no denying that God wanted me to take singing lessons. So, when we got home from church, I contacted the voice teacher my worship friend had recommended.
If somehow I could still think the events that led me to surrender to singing lessons were only a string of coincidences, what happened next put that notion to rest. I couldn’t believe my ears when one of the location options to meet for my lessons was at my church! The voice teacher turned out to be the music teacher at the Christian Middle School, located at our church. That blew me away! How much more obvious can it get? The only way out of these lessons would be to say “no” to God, and that would be even harder to do. We decided to meet during her lunch hour at church–so amazing!
In preparation for my first lesson, my teacher asked for a list of songs I wanted to learn. Throughout my life, I’d been uncomfortable having to sing even simple songs like Happy Birthday, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and Jingle Bells. Not to mention all the worship songs once I started attending church. Even not singing was uncomfortable at church, thinking others were noticing I wasn’t singing. I would intentionally come late to avoid singing. When we became greeters, being outside during worship solved all those problems. Along with the list of songs, I was asked to bring a device to record my sessions so I could play them back during the week and practice in between lessons.
Vulnerable, humbling, and weird might be some words to describe how I felt before the first lesson. Besides, I figured God must be up to something considering all He did to get me there. The lessons began with some exercises to test out my voice. To measure my range, she had me scream as loud as I could, which comes easy for me. She also said she could hear my range in my laugh, something else that comes easy. Holding my breath as long as I could wasn’t hard either since I’ve always been a relatively good swimmer. Then came the part I’d feared for so long, but the courage I needed came. She played the piano, and together we sang songs from my list, and before I knew it, our time was up. She said we could meet the next week again, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to every week. So, we decided on every other week and went from there.
We went at that pace for a couple of times. I learned some worship songs I was used to hearing at church and Bible study. It was challenging, but my voice was coming along, and it was starting to be fun. And then something happened that speeded up the whole process. I’ll tell you about that next time.
To be continued . . . see Singing-Place
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