CONFIDENCE

   
     Confidence! It does take time! I will have to share that I have had to gain new confidence in myself in the last 7 years. Due to my resignation and a rough season in my life, my confidence level went from a 9 to a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. I had to gain confidence in a few areas. My own personal life, in my ministry to children, as a ventriloquist, as a parent and in day to day activities. Confidence does take time!

     Going back to my childhood, I had many opportunities to gain confidence. The two that come to mind are riding a bicycle and playing baseball. I do remember having training wheels on my bicycle and strolling down North Hillside Avenue in Chatham, New Jersey. It took me quite a while before those training wheels came off. When I was ready and had confidence, my Dad took the training wheels off and for the first time. With my Dad running behind me holding onto my bike, he eventually let go and I was on my own riding my bicycle all by myself. It would be the first of many bike rides in my childhood. Imagine if I tried riding my bike for the first time and bypassing the idea of training wheels? I would probably get many concussions! Yet through it all, I gained confidence. When I was 8 years old, I played for the very first time Little League baseball. The name of my team was the Darts. We wore orange shirts with white numbers on the back. Truthfully I was terrible! My only memory that first year was getting a huge hit when...I closed my eyes before I swung the bat! Let's just say I was not a very confident baseball player. My family and I always joke about my first year baseball experience. In that Little League if you were good, you got promoted to the next level and would play for the Dodgers. I did not play my second year because my family moved to Long Island. There was a kid I played with on the Darts named Barry Gray who saw me in "The Park" thinking I stilled lived in New Jersey. He yelled over to me "Hi Harff, how's the Darts?" I guess he wasn't very observant. It took me some time to gain confidence playing baseball. I loved playing Little League and eventually learned how to play catcher. Now please understand I was never that good of a player to eventually play for the New York Mets! Confidence does take time!

         Confidence would be something I would need to gain throughout my entire life. I would gain it as a young Children's Pastor, as a Team member at Chick Fil-A learning the register. As a new manager at Chick Fil-A. As a salesman at Tru-Green learning how to sell lawn care products. Now lately as an Associate at Home Depot working in the Garden Department. I have realized that becoming confident at any task, learning a trade or playing a sport well does take practice as well as a lot of time. Even though my confidence has been struggling these last few years, I do feel lately that I am truthfully on the road back to being very confident in my life. I have always had a lack of respect for people who are "Over confident" but that's another blog way down the road. I hope that whatever you are striving to do, you are doing it with a lot of confidence!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK FRIENDS!