Losing some of My Fear

BLOGGING ABOUT WHATEVER

ENTRY - 23

TITLE: "Losing some of My Fear"

AUTHOR: J. William Bell

DATE POSTED: 2026-06-04

A question that nobody asks me is:

"Why do you keep going to church?"

If I did answer that question, I'd start by saying:

"I have many reasons. And; one of those reasons is that I lost my fear of public-speaking in church. And, God replaced my fear with courage and confidence in my voice."

It is then possible at this particular juncture that the quizzing person would want more information; and being in a generous/storytelling state of mind and spirit; I would tell them this:

When I was younger; I noticably stammered more than I do now. Back then, I stammered because I was bullied, a lot; within and outside of my home. At the time that I am writing this; I usually only stammer when I am surprised, or trying with great effort not to yell at someone (even though there are plenty of people who do deserve a small and mostly harmless demonstration of my wrath). It is a sad and tragic thing to have little to no confidence in your own voice. This lack of confidence gave birth to a small-but-persistent fear of public speaking.

Then I became a teenager, who was very aware of the fact that soon the world expected me to deal with my problems like a man. I recognized my stammer and fear of public speaking were problems that had to be dealt with, but how?

The answer to that query was found in the church my family attended. One of the traditions of the Sunday Service was the function of The Scripture Reader; any member of the congregation was welcomed and encouraged to volunteer to come up before the church, and read a passage from The Holy Bible, before the Minister gave their sermon that day (the passage was usually thematically relevant to the sermon). So, I volunteerd to be The Scripture Reader. My reasoning was that if I spoke words that were written or exalted by God, I could and would lose my fear.

I did the reading, and I thought that was going to be the end of it. I had proven to myself, and a significant number of witnesses, that I could functionally and effectively speak in public; and be confident in my voice. But then; divintiy, irony, and a little comedy happened to me. The elderly members of the church told me that they enjoyed hearing my voice as I read to them God's words; and, they asked when I would do it again?

Suddenly, and obviously not by my design; I was back doing the Reader's job by continuous popular demand. To ward off any more requests, I got into the habit of performing the Reader's function an average of once a month; from the age of 15, until a short time after my graduation from high-school.

I still do the Scripture Reader's job, but not as often. There are plenty of other youngsters out there who are in the process of finding their voice. Possibly with God's help; directly or indirectly.

Excelsior!