Let's Call It A...........Learning Opportunity

You know that commandment that says "thou shalt not covet", well I have sinned. My entire life I have always wanted to sing and have been very jealous of those who can. I can carry a tune, and I have a good enough ear to know when I am off but I can't do anything fancy with my voice. So about 2 weeks ago I was getting ready to leave and my mind was wandering as it does most of the time. I started thinking about learning something new. I love learning! So I began thinking "if I could take a class to develop a talent what would I take". Almost immediately I thought it would be so fun to take voice lessons. Not because I ever expect to be a great soloist but just to develop some confidence in an area I am very insecure about. That is as long as the thought lasted so I never expected what came next....

A week ago Sunday I was at church when a sweet sister came up and put her around me. This was our conversation;

Her "Geri, do you sing?"

Me "Nope!"

Her "Really? I am trying to put this number together for next week and I felt prompted to ask for your help."

Me "hahahahahaha, I can carry a tune but I can't solo, sorry"

Her (with her arm around my shoulders) "What a wonderful opportunity to learn!"

Me "WHAT!?!

Next thing I knew she was handing me music and pointing at a soprano part. On the way home there was some hysterical laughing on my part and some confusion on the part of my husband. He sweetly pointed out, "You know you don't have to say yes, you can tell her no." I told him I wanted to try and from there on he was completely supportive.

So after a week of practicing over the phone with my Sister-In-Law, and my Mother I started to feel really good about the opportunity. I had the entire song memorised and was hitting the notes. Remember I was doing anything fancy with the notes but I was hitting them and that was exciting. In this beautiful song I sing the first half by myself, then a man and another woman sing in the middle together and at the end we all come in together. So the three of us got together the Saturday before our scheduled performance. We rehearsed for an hour and all of us were feeling really good about it. So we invited our spouses to come in from the hallway to listen.

We sang.

Then the other woman's husband opened his big trap.

He said, "The first part was really rough. Is there anyway all of you can sing together? The ending sounds really good but the first part was really rough."

(reminder: I sing the first half by myself)

I could not shake it off. It bothered all day long. Me. I don't usually care what anyone thinks but because it was singing it really shook me up.

Sunday morning came and I stood up there in front of those women. Before the music even started I began to shake. It was terrible! I got through the song but not much more than that. I missed a few of the notes and went really flat a couple times. I was mortified. All because I allowed those words to mess with my head. That is the most frustrating part!

It is several days later and I can't stop thinking about it. I want a do-over.

I guess that is what they call a Learning Opportunity. If you ask my Mom she would call it a Character Building Moment. I thought I had plenty of character but apparently Heavenly Father thought I needed a little more. So someday I will try again and when I do nobody is allowed at rehearsal! :-)