Hearty warm greetings to all beautiful hivers out there. Welcome to a new week.
Decisions, decisions, decisions!!!
We make decisions either small or big on a daily basis. Sometimes some decisions are made carefully while some are made impulsively and we tend to regret it later when the effect rises to slap us in the face.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to confess a time when I made an impulsive decision that I felt was pretty easy, as easy as ABC I thought at the initial point but as soon as I got down to executing it, I got nearly wet my pants.
Want to know more?, Then read on...
It happened about seven years ago during a youth program in my church where I served as the Youth General Secretary. I was very good at what I was doing because no complaints ever arose. If I had known, I would have stuck to it but something in me wanted to explore and that was how I found myself volunteering to be the speaker during the program.
βIt's not hard naβ, I thought. After all, I knew the Bible and I could teach boldly as I worked as a teacher. So what could be hard in it. But then, when the topic of the program was given to me to prepare, I found myself shaking like an ewedu leaf in harmattan.*
I managed to draft something down in line with the chosen theme of the program and all was well. The D-Day came and for some unknown reason, I started feeling butterflies in my belly, literally. I was even sweating under the air conditioner.
My friend asked me what was wrong, seeing the way that I was fidgeting with my pen but I couldn't give her a sound reply. All I could say was βehβ¦em..em ..emβ¦nothingβ like a fish in hot water.
βChai, papa God what have I gotten myself into?β I murmured to myself and just then, the person moderating asked the entire church to give a standing ovation as the guest speaker walked up the podium.
Shoot, that was my cue to walk elegantly and confidently like Moses who spent 49 days and nights alone with God. Others were shouting with joy as I took one slow un-confident step towards the podium. In their mind, they must think that I was charged with fire but only I knew that I was charged with headache.
The only elegant thing about me was my outfit. Besides that, I was shaking in my boots. I looked at my executive team and some were giving me two thumbs up with a subtle "You've got thisβ. But only I knew that I got nothing.
Well, I did the first and most important thing which was to pray and then I started teaching. My voice which normally sounds thick and strong turned out sounding feminish and soprano-like. I was allocated forty-five minutes but I ended up using only twenty minutes because of fright.
Others thought I was simply a time conscious speaker and hailed me for not wasting their time but they didn't know that I rushed my laid down points in order not to do something embarrassing like fainting on stage.
The program ended successfully and that was when I released a sigh of relief. That day, I told myself not to impulsively volunteer for something that I had not yet practiced or gotten skillful at. I was happy the youth program wasn't a disaster because that would have added fire to the flames of my embarrassment.
Thank you all for reading.πππ
First two images are mine
Third image generated with Meta Ai.