Just Do It!

That Nike phrase still hits home. Most of my life I've been a coward. Fearful of failure. I've needed to feel successful, I guess, so never really took any risks, always staying on the safe side where I knew I could succeed at what I did. There have been several things in my life that I have really wanted to try. When I was in college, I really wanted to audition for a nationally known singing-touring group. I do believe I was good enough and all my friends urged me to do it. The commitment was for 1 year, very little, if any, pay, and I would be putting school on hold while traveling all over the country ministering the gospel message. When I approached my parents with the idea, they were skeptical to say the least. Every negative that could be imagined was thrown at me. They were not supportive at all, thought the whole idea was crazy and that I would be another year later graduating. And wasn't that the whole idea behind college? Working hard, graduating, getting a job, and supporting yourself? Summer was for working and saving enough money for next school year. I was the first in my family to ever go to college and they looked at it as a stepping stone to financial security rather than a platform for experiencing life lessons.  So, being the goody-two-shoes daughter I was, I 'honored my parents' and put my dream up on the back shelf where it is still collecting dust. That summer I worked in a factory and cut my finger off (doctors were able to reattach. Doubt I'd have been using a ban saw if I was singing!) I've grown over the last 35 years, and I have always regretted that decision. Not the honoring my parents part, but the following your heart part. I'll never know if I could have done it because I was too afraid my parents were right.  I decided when my children were born that I would give them every opportunity and support to 'follow their heart' regardless of how i felt about it--- (as long as it was relatively safe and didn't threaten their lives!!) Both of them have stepped out and accomplished more than I could have ever hoped at this point in their lives. I hope they have no regrets.