Crowd

It is Friday.  Another Five Minute Friday blogging day. A good day for a five minute blog because it is one of those busy days we all have now and then, and I am not sure when I will find the time to sit and write today if I don’t do it now.

Today’s word is CROWD:

Growing up, I was petrified to speak in front of large crowds.  I took everything in  me to just stand up in class and read aloud to the rest of them. My teachers would prompt and plead with me to “speak up” and raise my hand more.  It was always written as a comment on my report cards.  It lasted through college.  Presentations were so difficult.  It took all I could muster to just get up in front of all of them.

Many people who know me now, might be surprised to hear this, because today, I am quite different.  Although I might feel butterflies right before I have to speak in front of a large crowd, I actually have begun to enjoy it.  Maybe it is nearly twenty years of practice in front of a classroom.  Although, an audience of children is far less intimidating than one of my peers…most of the time!!

I had assumed that getting up to speak at my mother’s funeral as I read her eulogy was going to be nearly impossible for me.  Yet, as I stood in front a packed church in front of hundreds of mourners, I saw faces, filled with compassion and all of those fears left me.   I actually made it through the whole thing without my nerves getting the best of me.  When my voice began breaking towards the end, it wasn’t because of nerves, but because of the incredible love that was radiating through the church.  I know that my mom would have been proud.