Phew!

My talk is over and I am so glad! I didn't realise when I put my hand up for the job that I would be so nervous about speaking in front of an audience of 50-60 people. It was an emotional roller-coaster and I now have a lot more empathy for what Jeff does preaching to 70+ people (and often twice that at our previous church). It was a lot more daunting than teaching 25 twelth-graders Business Mathematics or Biology!

I think my internal voice goes into overdrive in situations like this, where the back of my mind is saying “oops! stuffed that up”, “how do I fix this?” and “phew, glad that bit went okay” (all within 60 seconds) even as my mouth is calmly and clearly taking me through the planned material. There was one guy in his early 20s or so slouching in an aisle seat and every time I looked up for eye contact I seemed to focus on him and thought, “Is he even interested at all? Why did he choose to come to my talk if he wasn’t?” but fortunately there were other people in the audience nodding and responding positively, so I just kept forging ahead. There were half a dozen people in the audience from my new church, so that made things that bit more scary as well.

When I finished, and headed up the aisle, a fellow student of Jeff's from Theol college told me it had been a very “polished” presentation so I felt chuffed at that as I think he could be quite finicky – and he is now working as a music/youth pastor, so he should actually know a fair bit about the topic as well. I had a few other encouraging comments, so was pleased that I had at least helped some people. And now it’s over so I can relax!

Except that I have agreed to speak at the Women's Breakfast at church the day before Mother's Day. Aargh! No, actually, I'm quite looking forward to that one, once I have a chance to think about what I might say. The topic is mothers, of course, so I have a wee bit of experience to draw upon.

There's also the weekly Women's Gatherings starting after Easter...