Haiti

I think all of you know that I am going to Haiti this Summer, but for those of you who don't I just wanted to let you know that I am. Ok, now that we have that out of the way let me get to what this post is about. Two weeks ago every one who is going on a missions trip (doesn't matter where) met together after church. Jesse Jarvis was heading up the meeting and he was basically just getting us all up to speed on what's going on, what has gone on, and what needs to go on. There was a lot of discussion on fund-raising and all that goes into it, Jesse gave us some details on the Daytona missions trip and how that is all working out, and then at the end he asked for some volunteers to share about where they are going for Mission X and why they wanted to go. When I say share I mean share with the WHOLE church. My first thought was "Ha, funny....I'll let someone else volunteer for this one", but almost as soon as I had finished thinking that thought God really convicted me for being such a coward, because that is exactly what I was being. I was letting my fear of public speaking get in the way of something that God wanted me to do. So, after fighting with myself for a few minutes I got the nerve to volunteer. I was supposed to share last Sunday, but it got postponed to next week. Anyway, throughout the last week I had some pretty mixed feelings about sharing. For the first 20 minutes after I volunteered I was like "yeah, this is great I can do this" then I was struck with the horrifying thought of "What if I mess up?!" For the rest of the week I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, even after I had gotten a whole little outline of what I was going to say written down. The entire thing is only going to be about 5 minutes or less, but I still found myself worrying about it. I even had the thought of calling Jesse and telling him I would not be able to do it, because something "totally unexpected" had come up. I continued being anxious and nervous until God led me to Matthew 6:25-31 where Jesus tells us "not to be anxious about our lives" and he asks "which one of you can add a single hour to his life by worrying?".  The truth of that passage sunk in almost immediately and I realized how stupid I was being by letting my anxieties get the best of me. As far as I know I am not the only one that has this "fear" of speaking in front of large groups (thank God I am not alone). So, I would like to pose the question to all of you who are reading: Why do YOU think that people have this "fear" or "uneasiness" with speaking in front of large groups of people? I sincerely would like to know what you all think, so just leave your answer in the comment area and let me know. I hope you enjoyed this post and for those of you who are like me and are prone to be nervous and anxious I hope that you will look into Matthew 6:25-29. Thanks for reading.