"You need some WD-40 for that squeak?" the young girl on the pew behind me whispered in my ear before she and her best friend erupted in giggles, earning a stern look from her mom.
I can't remember if my mouth instantly closed, if I continued mouthing the words of the hymn, or if I began to simply hum along. All I remember is my chest tightening and stomach aching and counting down the next 45 minutes until the service ended so I could go home and lock myself in my bedroom.
I felt humiliated. As an insecure 13-year-old girl, having a girl I had known all my life and thought was my friend say something so hurtful destroyed part of me. At 13, I had yet to learn that friends are very fickle and few really care about you at all, so I felt as though everyone was laughing at me and making fun of me when I wasn't looking. Around the same time is when another girl from school who visited our church a couple of times turned her nose up in the parking lot after a Wednesday night service and insulted my shirt for being bought at Wal-Mart. (I now think it's ridiculous how much money people like that girl spend on their clothes at designer shops and feel sorry for them for throwing their money away!)
Neither girl probably remembers saying those hurtful comments to me. In fact, she may even read this and wonder who I'm talking about, but it doesn't matter. Those hurtful words changed me. Before that Sunday night service, I loved to sing!! I had been singing solos since I was old enough to talk, and singing ran in my family. My dad was the song leader, for goodness sake!
But after that night, I didn't want to make a sound. It wasn't until more than 10 years later, when I heard a recording of myself singing with my brother (who is an amazing vocalist, by the way - majoring in music in college and already following in Daddy's footsteps as a song director at a local church and planning big things for his musical career) that I began to overcome my insecurities.
She was wrong. I didn't need WD-40. But I let her words stop me from doing something I loved to do for much of the next decade.
She needed to feel better by putting someone down, and that unfortunate someone happened to be me on that particular night. And after the comment about my clothes coming from Wal-Mart, I eventually quit trying to dress cute at school and adorned my plain t-shirt and jeans nearly every day until graduation because I'd rather look like I didn't care about my clothes than to look like I was trying to fit in and fail.
Moral of the story, your words leave a lasting impression on the people around you, so choose them carefully. Don't take your frustrations or insecurities out on someone else, no matter how insignificant your comments may seem to you.
If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all!
By the way, I love to sing now and smile to myself when people tell me how stylish I am! I've even become the go-to person for beauty and fashion advice for so many of my Avon customers!! No matter what someone has said about you in the past, don't let their words stop you from being whoever you want to be. If you want to wear t-shirts and jeans every day, fine; but don't do it for the sake of blending in. Sing to the top of your lungs if singing is what YOU want to do. This is your life!! Don't let someone else's meaningless words dictate your actions.
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