Boldly and Courageously Speaking. The Issue (Part 1)

Glossophobia is the issue, when it comes to speaking up to people or in front of people. Statistically 75% of people have glossophobia. Thankfully this actually isn't a permanent problem. It's just a choice.

Why do this many people have a fear of speaking up? Fear. Fear of what others will feel, think, do, or say because of what you stood up and said. When I was 4 years old my dad taught me the verse Hosea 6:3. We had all these magnificent motions to go along with the words. I loved saying this verse for my parents because, they would clap and cheer for me. One Sunday morning my dad was talking about this verse. Spontaneously he asked me, a little doe eyed 4 year old to come up and say my verse in front of 100 people. Having never said it to anybody but, my parents I was terrified. I remember staring into blank stares as I slowly with allot of help from my dad, said the simple 4 little lines. 

Starting at age 4 I was learning how to conquer the fear of speaking up. I moved through school being 100% fine with speaking in front of and to people. I was part of a speech competition where I moved to the finals. I went on missions trips where you have to speak to lots of people with lots of language barriers. Growing up as a pastors daughter meant that I would meet all kinds of people who I would have to be able to speak to without any fear. I was in plays. I had interviews. I had jobs. I'm not going to lie and say that I was never nervous but, once I started talking all of that disappeared and I would remember why I wasn't afraid to speak. Of course at age 4 my mom did get a little upset with my dad for making me speak in front of lots of people and I got an apology. Although now I am totally glad that I was given that experience at age 4 instead of age 9 or 10. 

This past year I lost allot of things. Friends, family, home, jobs, sports, school. Pretty much everything that matters to a person was gone in one short summer. With the loss of everything came the fear of everything. Most of these fears have been replaced with peace now that I have had time to work through them. The other day I caught myself being afraid of speaking my mind. I realized that I don't want to lose anything that I have gained back. I started looking through my past year and realized that I have hidden parts of me that are important to me for the sake of acceptance and the feeling of comfort. 

I realized that once again my issue was fear. So I asked myself what's the worst that could happen, if I spoke about what is truly important to me? I realized my fear wasn't completely irrational. I could quite possibly lose friends, family, jobs, etc. I quickly asked myself another question. What will happen if I don't speak up about what is truly important to me? More fear, guilt, desperation, confidence issues. The list could go on and on and on. 

So like the homeschooled freak I am I talked to myself and told myself that I better figure out what I needed to do to fix this issue. There is a story about two men. One is the Ruler and Creator of everything and the other is an extremely close friend of his. The Creator tells his friend that he is going to die for him and that he is doing it out of love. His close friends gets frustrated and tells him no way is that happening, he would much rather die in his place. I can just see the Creator (Jesus) smirk at his friend (Peter) as he says. "Really?! You would die in my place?!" Since of course he knows everything I can just hear the pain as he tells Peter this. "Well guess what, you will not even acknowledge that you know me 3 times before tomorrow morning." He tells Peter this as they are eating dinner together. 

I honestly don't know how I would feel if my best friend told me that she was going to die for me because, she loved me so much and than the next thing she tells me is that I am going to deny our friendship not once but 3 times over for my own selfish sake. That would be painful. I know part of me would get this smart alec response going. I would probably take it as a bet and say something like. "Yah right. I bet I can make it till tomorrow morning without just completely dissing you once!" 

Sadly enough 5 chapters later in John 18 Peter completely denies Jesus 3 times over. He tells the people he is with that he doesn't even know the man. Peter is filled with shame and regret. He just denied that he even knew his closest friend. His friend that was about to go die for him. Why did he do it? He did it because, he was afraid for his own life, he wanted acceptance, he was grieving. There were allot of things stacked up against him. Why do we do it? I bet I could come up with a hundred excuses for why I don't speak my mind about hundreds of different issues. Excuses don't get us anywhere though because, we all always have a choice about everything that we do.

Plus there is this great thing called forgiveness....