Sitting in a coffeeshop I've never been to, I'm about to order a pretzel with queso (because Texas), when suddenly, It pings up on my phone.
The email.
The worship team email.
I tap on the notification, away from the digital menu I've been perusing. And as I'm quickly scanning the text, my eyes almost immediately fall on the word "unfortunately."
Oh.
Okay.
A strange feeling blossoms in my chest, akin to disappointment, but I know in my head I'm not disappointed. To be totally honest, worship music and being on a church's worship team has been a journey fraught with drama, exhaustion, and copious amounts of toxic behavior. I am more than okay with taking a break. It's more like there's a gray little blob in the back of my head, mouthing a word at me over and over, voicelessly. And I, new to the self-compassion game and to listening to myself, begin to strain my inner ear to make it out.
After an hour of working, eating a mediocre pretzel, and generally not knowing how I feel, the little gray blob's voice comes through on the last pretzel bite.
MEDIOCRE.
That's what I'm afraid of. Being unremarkable. Six months into my time in Texas, I'm still unmoored, unsure, and wobbly as a newborn horse. Not sure where I belong or who I belong to, I find myself wrestling with my usual desire for others' affirmation, this time fighting it and trying to affirm myself instead. This little email experience shouldn't rattle me, but it does. I remember all the auditions I've played, all the short stories and poems I've submitted to contests and publishing houses, all the relationships I've poured into and tried to maintain. I think about my ability to speak Spanish-- I understand it and can read it, but the words won't quite form in my mouth. I'm worried of getting it wrong. I'm worried that the people who have taken a chance on me and my skills were wrong about me or that they just wanted someone, not specifically me, a body to fill a seat.
I think of the bouldering stint that I've just started, and suddenly all of it, all the new things I've tried, feel pointless, useless. What's the point of doing something if I can't do it well? If I'm just mediocre at singing, piano, writing-- what's the point?
And I know the pat answer to this is just to do the thing for the thing's own sake. Which is great. I have my hobbies, my activities that fulfill that purpose-- knitting, doodling, even this blog. But singing, playing the piano, and writing are all things that I thought were mine. I thought I was good at them, and what if I was wrong?
Being mediocre is not about my skill or lack or skill. In this case, it ties back to my ability to trust myself.
So in this moment, in this coffeeshop, as I'm typing out paragraph by paragraph to myself on Messenger, let's practice some self-compassion.
Feel free to eavesdrop on this conversation, to steal these words and make them yours.
Friend,
You are not right about you.
You may already know that your failures do not define you. It is very American to pull yourself up by your bootstraps in spite of your failures, making them the antagonist to fight against. But you may not know that your ordinariness does not define you either.
Just because the skills you love do not fit in one place doesn't mean that they never will fit.
It doesn't mean that they and you are not extraordinary.
And is the goal really being extraordinary? No. The goal is trusting yourself. You know that there is something special about your words, your song, the way your fingers travel up and down ivory keys. And you want other people to notice, to prove what you suspect but are afraid to believe. You suspect that you are great, that you are capable of greatness, of doing something that makes you and the people you love proud. But what you believe is a different story. You believe that you are small, fighting to be big. You believe that you are dull, fighting to be beautiful. You believe that one day you'll make it, but that today, all your faithfulness and hard work and skill is just not enough. And in spite of all that, mediocrity is all you have to show for it.
Ask yourself: did you really want what this opportunity was offering? Or did you want what it would prove about you?
Friend, you are not right about you.
You can trust what you suspect. You are enough today. And what you have to offer the world matters.
Jesus is right about you. He is not talking down to you. He knows exactly what you're capable of and calls you to the challenge-- to the shore, to the desert, to the wilderness, away from this provincial life. He knows you're extraordinary.
He says you are big and beautiful and capable today, both because he says so and because he gave you the skill.
So eat your mediocre pretzel, and know that you and the pretzel have nothing in common.
Photo by Mark Zanzig on Unsplash