This week my pastor came to record me telling my story for the video he’s planning to share at the Easter Service tomorrow. I have no doubt he will perform a little magic in making what he took with him into an inspiring video, but I gotta say it was more difficult than I had envisioned.

For anyone who has done a Facebook live video or recorded video to share with others, you can appreciate that for many people it’s intimidating just getting in front of a camera.

I am confident I’m not alone in that. And I’ve gotten quite a bit more comfortable since Covid doing the videos and live feeds as I, like many people, had to switch some of my interactions with others to virtual, whether it be through Zoom meetings and calls or putting myself live on Facebook.

But this was different. For one thing, I wanted to control the narrative. I knew what I wanted to share about my Jesus. But making a video to share my story with others would, for obvious reasons, not go well if I’m just reading a script.

Pastor Paul had to do multiple recordings as I continued to struggle. On one take, he encouraged me to try and  forget the script and just share my story, from my heart. But I became acutely aware of how uncomfortable I felt with my own awkwardness. Because of my anxiety, I was unable to keep my thoughts very coherent. I was forgetting important things I wanted to share. Then I’d look back down at the script, and I knew I was creating video content he wouldn’t be able to use.

At that point I felt an intense failure for not being able to do this one simple thing. I projected that my husband was disappointed in my inability to share this story, and I feel that disappointment acutely, just as I always did with my dad. (Incidentally, Rick was not disappointed. That was all in my own head.)

And I had prayed beforehand, assuring God that I knew His Spirit would guide me as to what to say. So, why was I screwing this up so badly??

Again, I’m sure Pastor Paul will make something wonderful out of what little I was able to give. But it generated questions within me about these intense insecurities I’ve struggled with most of my life. Insecurities that led me to drink, since that loosened up some of my inhibitions.

Where did all of this come from? God has done significant emotional healing in my life, but just about the time I feel like I’ve “arrived”, He reveals more healing that needs to be dealt with.

Funny how that works.

Our childhood memories say a lot about who we are today. I have one memory that remains vivid from around 6 or 7 years old when I had an opportunity to be on TV. It was a local program over the lunch hour called The Floppy Show. The host was Duane Ellet, and Floppy was a Beagle dog puppet he had carved himself that he would speak through using ventriloquism. Kids could interact with Floppy by asking riddles and beeping his nose between old episodes of Looney Tunes cartoons. It was customary for classes from Des Moines area elementary schools to take field trips to the WHO-TV studios and be part of an episode.

I distinctly remember sitting with that group of classmates when the camera panned in on my face. And I remember turning my head around so that my face wouldn’t be seen on that little screen.

Why? What made me so fearful of being seen briefly on a TV screen?

I also remember my mom chastising me later that afternoon because she had naturally watched it. She believed that I was starstruck and turned to tell my friends to look at me on the screen. She was completely off in her assessment, and I never corrected her.

My insecurities clearly go back a long way. Was it just childhood shyness, or was it something deeper? The fact that I still remember that childhood scene nearly 50 years later makes me think it was something deeper. And the troubles I had this past week shooting that video seem to confirm that in my head.

So I will draw near to Jesus and see what healing He has in store for me now.

Have a blessed celebration of the resurrection of our Savior!