“I want to be a scientist when I grow up.” I said with all the enthusiasm of a six year old. “Scientists are geniuses,” was the reply. “You’re smart, but you’re not a genius.” And so ended my desire to be a scientist.
I was in music college where I was attending as a vocal major. I enrolled as such because my voice was the weakest area of my musical abilities. One time a faculty member sat me down and tried to talk me into changing my major. Another time it was the dean of the school with the same message. In fairness to them, I was an awful singer at the time. But I didn’t give up. I’m still not a great singer, but eventually I got to a place of being an OKAY singer…most of the time.
I was out to lunch with a family member a few years ago and I was talking with them about my struggles to make progress towards my musical goals. “Why don’t you just stop?” was the response. Stop? I can’t stop! This is a part of me. A year later my song You Are Loved unexpectedly started showing up on the Christian radio charts where it stayed for several months.
Just last night I mentioned to someone that it would fun to cover Luke Cyrus’ Stormed the Walls but in a different style. A patronizing chuckle followed with “They’re professionals. You’re good, but they’re on another level.” This one was especially ironic considering the opening lines of the song:
You’ll never succeed he would whisper in my ear
Son of Adam you’re a failure in disguise
How is it that we spend our whole lives with people telling us we’re not good enough? That we need to give up? I think there can come a time when you need to course correct. When the path you’ve been on no longer aligns with where God would have you be and then yes, its time to make a change. That’s not where I’m at though. The spark of music that God placed in my heart as a teenager still burns bright. It’s 2024 and I’m not quitting yet.