Today's Revelation

I'm not sure this is completely true about myself, but let me toss this out there:

I can be insecure about my talents and abilities. Or at least, I thought I could. But now I'm wondering if it's not my talents I'm unsure of. What I really doubt is that my talent will get me anywhere.

Certainly no one felt they owed me or my talent anything when I was trying to make my way as a freelance musician. No one offered anything I didn't cry out for or demand. I'm not much of a Cryer or Demander. And here's the kicker: I don't want to be. It's not how I'm wired, and while I do see the need for more boldness and less knee-jerk apology in myself, I don't expect I'll ever be comfortable wrangling favors out of people that they are unwilling to give freely, either professionally or personally.

Thus my talent stayed where it was, shut up in my apartment where no one could hear it.

My fear is that it doesn't matter whether I was a kick-butt trombone player, whether I have monster verbal skills or charisma on stage. I do wonderfully when I'm on a track laid out by other people, but I'm not a bushwhacker; if I wasn't able to carve out a career for myself when I had the proven skills, training and degrees, then why on earth would I be able to do it when I'm just a dillettante? And if no one "discovers" me or gives me an opportunity, where does that leave me?

Believe it or not, I'm not despairing over these questions. (Been there and done that already.) I'm in more of a "I'll just be myself and see what God does with that" stage. I actually hadn't meant to get so negative; my aim was to share that I don't think I'm as insecure as I may have led everyone, including myself, to believe. I'm just afraid that talent alone -- or even talent plus character -- doesn't carry the promise of ... well, of anything.

My hope is that, while talent promises nothing, God actually promises a LOT. I'm trusting that if God made me the way He made me, then He must also have some idea how it's supposed to work. I'm even beginning to place eggs in a risky basket: the idea that not only is there work out there that suits me, but there's a way to go about finding it that will suit me as well. I'm not entrepreneurial, but I'm social. I'm not administrative, but I'm communicative. I'm not aggressive, but I'm amusing and good with kids. I'm banking on the idea that I can get where I need to go without enduring a process that's completely antithetical to my nature. Maybe occasionally antithetical, but not completely. That would suck, and I no longer have the self-defeating appetite for suckiness that I once did.