The time arrived too quickly. The tools she’d been given helped her to prepare her speech well. There are four speakers ahead of her before it is her turn. She still couldn’t believe that she enrolled in a public speaking class, not after what happened ten years earlier. Her thoughts traveled back to a time when the thought of speaking in public wasn’t ever going to happen again.
Her kids were finally in bed; she called her friend.
“Are you ready to go walking?” she asked.
Her friend responded, “Yeah, I will meet you in five minutes.”
“O.K., I will see you in five, bye!” she replied, and then hung up the phone.
She stepped outside to wait, and started stretching to warm up for their power walk. Her shoulder length, brown hair was pulled tightly back in a ponytail; she wore her usual walking attire, a worn out tank top and shorts with her good walking shoes. At the time, she was a mother of four children, three boys and one girl. She stayed home with her children; it was a full time job all in itself. She and her friend tried to go walking every evening as long as everything worked out that way. She was a little more dedicated to walking than her friend was. The warm night air, with a slight breeze, surrounded her as she looked up at the stars, and took a deep breath.
Her friend broke the silence, “I’m ready; let’s go!”
Off the two of them started, pumping their arms, swinging their hips with each step they took. They put one foot directly in front of the other as if they were walking on a tight rope. They held their stomachs tight and walked on. They talked, what they could, in between the heavy breaths.
The friend, always a phone call away, became one of her dear friends from their walking together so often. Her friend was a good seamstress that worked out of her garage to try and help make ends meet for their family. Her friend had six kids, four of them being the same ages as her kids. The aroma that came from her friend’s home belonged to their dogs and soiled diapers. Her friend was diligent in all that she did, and always seemed to be around whenever she was needed; she helped her feel more strength, and gave her adult interaction.
The two of them walked around the same block eight times every night. This block contained homes that seemed to be only ten feet away from the next one. They were taller homes, multi-levels, condensed into a little neighborhood like sardines in a can. Her being in the neighborhood always made her feel claustrophobic. There were cars parked along the street, which forced them to walk in the middle.
As they passed by her home-teacher’s house; she saw her home-teacher standing there as if he was waiting for someone. Sure enough, he was waiting for her. He asked if he could talk to her for a minute. She didn’t think much about it. She agreed, and walked over there.
Her home teacher gave lessons for the children, when he came to visit her family. He spoke calmly, and told stories which the kids enjoyed. His eyes were sparkly and his smile pleasant. He helped them many times, and gave her kids rides in his nice cars, which he bought and sold. He managed his own computer repair business. He also held the title of second councilor in the Bishopric.
They said their pleasantries and then he asked her the dreaded question that she feared the most from the second councilor, “Will you and your husband speak this Sunday?”
She tried to get out of it. She told him of her fears, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. She wished that she would have stayed home that night, but it was too late.
She and her friend continued their walking. They still needed to go around four more times. The thoughts going through her head were ones of fear. Her hands and body were cold as ice at the thought of speaking. Her friend tried to encourage her with positive comments, but it was to no avail. They finished their walk and went into their separate homes.
She went in and told her husband what happened. His jaw dropped as he sat there listening like a lump on a log. He thought he would never see the day when she would get up and speak. Her husband is about five foot ten, brown hair and a wonderful smile; he is kind and hardworking. He makes sure that they all have what they need. She feels comforted around him and loved.
She worked on her talk throughout the week, determined to try and do her best. The anxiety built day by day. Saturday night was upon her. She needed to put the finishing touches on her talk. She pulled up her file on the computer, and finished writing her talk; she saved it. She remembered she had forgotten something that she wanted to share; she pulled the file up one more time. This time, it didn’t load on to the computer. She tried over and over. The file had crashed. She knew this was an omen; something bad was going to happen tomorrow. She frantically tried to rewrite the talk. She printed it out; in fear the talk would disappear again. She worried all through the night, wondering what happened to the file and what was going to happen when she gave her talk. The night rolled on slowly. Every time she looked at the clock only a few minutes had passed. Around three a.m. she finally drifted off to sleep.
Church would be at eleven. When she and her husband arrived at the church they took their seat on the stand. She sang the songs and listened to the two youth speakers before her. In anticipation of her turn, her hands became sweaty; her skin was cold to the touch, and her body trembled. The time had come; she stood up to walk over to the pulpit. From this moment on, everything felt like she was trapped in a slow motion horror movie. She stood at the pulpit; someone adjusted it to her height. She adjusted the microphone, and put her papers down so she could see them. She started out, “I will be speaking on the importance of temples in our day.” She rolled her eyes upwards to the audience to look at them. They were staring at her, talking with one another, and some were even sleeping. Seeing the audience faces, and their eyes brought her fear to the surface; she stood there, looking at them, for what seemed like an eternity. She tried to roll her eyes back down to the talk. She could feel her heart beating so hard; she felt the embarrassment and the fear start to overtake her. When she got her eyes to her paper the words were gone, she couldn’t see them; it was just like the night before when the file crashed, so had her words crashed. She tried to see them, but they weren’t to be found. Her face went pale, her hands and body trembled more violently, she kept searching; tears filled her eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. The silence was deafening as all eyes fell upon her. She looked upward one more time, and saw all the eyes in the audience, turned slowly and said to her home teacher, “I can’t do this.” With her head bent down, she walked to her seat and sat down. She quickly covered her face with her hands; she didn’t want to be seen by anyone. The tears wouldn’t stop, nor the trembling. She felt humiliation, embarrassment, and betrayal. She had prayed that she would be able to do this, and asked her Heavenly Father to stand by her and to help. She didn’t feel like he was there with her.
Her husband, seeing the dilemma, got up so he could fill the void, and draw the attention away from her. As her husband talked, she felt like as if everyone still stared at her. She tried to calm down, but the sweaty, trembling hands, and the tears just kept coming. She searched deep within for strength to rid herself of this embarrassment.
She did not know why, but when her husband finished, she stood up and headed to the podium once more. On her way up she told her husband she would give it one more try, before he started on her talk. This time, she did not look up. She asked the audience to forgive her; she told them that she would not be able to look at them, or it would happen again. Her voice trembled, and the tears slowly dropped from her eyes. Her legs shook to the point she thought they would collapse on her. Will this never end she thought to herself? Finally, the end was coming; she was almost done. She made it through the talk, but could not take being in the chapel any longer, and walked out.
She went outside to sit on the lawn and broke down in tears.
Her friend came out after a few minutes. She wiped away the tears before her friend could see them. Her friend tried to cheer her up, and told her it took a lot of courage to get up and finish. Her friend asked if she would be alright, and then she went back in the church to teach her class.
She walked home; she had to get away from there, fighting back the tears the whole way. She made her way up to her bedroom, and cowered into the corner. She was safe now to let out all of the emotions from the last, dreadful, never ending hour. Her worst fear had come true, failure in front of many friends, family, and strangers. The torment she was putting herself through was worse than being picked on by the biggest bully in the neighborhood. She felt as if she needed to wither away like a weed that withers in the heat of the sun.
She continued to do this to herself for a couple of hours, until her family came home. She tried to put on a better face, but she didn’t want to be seen by them. Her husband came in and just hugged her. He brought out the strong points, and related to her the positive comments from the audience.
Her eyes were puffy, red, and tired. She looked at him with a little bit of gratitude for being there with her.
The baby needed a diaper change, and the rest of the family was famished. She had to move on with her daily responsibilities, vowing to herself that she would never speak in public again.
The teacher called her name, which brought her back to the present moment. The time is here for her to step out of her comfort zone and give her speech. She walked up there with confidence, because she practiced the speech over and over. She’s familiar with the topic that she chose. As she started her talk she smiled, looked at her audience and made eye contact. She still trembled, but the tools she had been given to bring her to this point were amazingly quite helpful. She scored high on her speech, and felt exceptionally good about herself. She did it, and she did it well!
She realized, at this moment, her Heavenly Father gave her the strength to get up and finish that talk ten years ago, and that he helped her get to this point where she could overcome this weakness in her life. There are many things in life that will hold us back from progressing if we let them. Any fear or obstacle in someone’s life can be overcome. Sometimes we just need the right tools, or we need to learn more about our fears. Other times, we may just need to do it, having faith that it will all work out.
--Written from a true story in my life