Article March 9, 1998 Issue

Performing in public—without fear

How I overcame stage fright.

By Pauline D. Jenner

I started studying piano as a child. I continued on as a teenager and passed all examinations up to academy entrance level. They said I had considerable ability. But when I tried to perform in public, I froze with fear. I thought a musical career was out of the question.

I had to turn down many opportunities. Sometimes I felt like the children of Israel standing at the threshold of the Promised Land but unwilling to go in. The Bible says that they sent a scouting party ahead to check out the land God had promised them, and one member of the party, Caleb, said: "Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it" (Num. 13:30). His trust in God made him confident and fearless. But the majority of the scouting party, and those who listened to them, weren't able to see the possibilities before them. All they could see was big walled cities and strong people—giants! The other scouts said, "We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight" (Num. 13:33).

My "giants" were fears—of criticism, making mistakes, not being good enough, letting other people down, looking ridiculous. The children of Israel saw themselves as helpless, instead of loved and provided for by God, as His children. They wandered in the wilderness a total of forty years, learning from experience more about themselves and God, before they trusted Him enough to go into the land He had prepared for them. For me it wasn't forty years—only ten—before I took up music again.

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