It's Real!

I was driving to Bloomington yesterday for a performance, and a surge of memories from the last seven years came rushing over me as I approached the north side of town. As I pondered what it was about driving into Bloomington that made me so emotional, I realized that it brought back traces of comfort. Of home. After all, I lived there for seven years, after only having lived in one other place my whole life (at my parents' in Logansport, IN).

Oh how I long for comforts. And I think this longing for comfort is much of the reason I am nervous about my upcoming trip to the Netherlands for the TROMP International Percussion Competition.

I leave Monday, Nov. 8 for two weeks of percussion competition and festival. Many unknowns still lie ahead, and that makes me very uncomfortable.

I can think of many other times in my life when an important even was approaching that made me a bit anxious, and how I almost always want to come up with a reason NOT to go forward with that event. Whether it was the first year I marched drum corps, or before my first recital. Can't I postpone it a week or two? Surely I'll be ready then.


Similar feelings for the current event. When it stands far off, a month or two or six, it appears from a distance to be this shiny dream with all sorts of great things packed into it. It's not real. It's still 3 months away in the distant month of November. Yeah, it might be a little unsettling, but from far off, all I can see are all the wonderful things that will come out of this experience.

Now only five days away from hitting the road (and the air and the rails), it's starting to feel real. That shakes me up a bit, but as I remind myself to focus on all the reasons I wanted to do this in the first place, I begin to get more excited and less scared. Sure, I don't know any of the other competitors or anyone involved in the festival (including the host family who is putting me up during my stay). Sure, I've never traveled overseas by myself. Sure, I feel pretty unprepared on some of the repertoire. But this experience will nonetheless be one I will never forget, and already I can list several positives that just the preparation has created; I can only imagine what I'll say after the whole thing is over!

And as a couple of my close friends have reminded me, no matter what happens in Holland, whether I blow up in the first round or make it to the finals, I am a child accepted fully by God, through the grace and sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ. How can I not be joyful when I remember that?