Since I moved to New York City from Poplar Grove, Arkansas, my life has had many ups and downs. Coming from a small rural town and having big dreams of being a music artist has caused me many heartaches and pains. There was a time in my life when I asked God to take the dream away from me so that the desire would stop, but He did not.
The following is an example of one occasion in my life in which I wanted to give up on my dreams. I released an EP which had good reviews. I was performing in tours around the New England area. People were following my music, asking for my autograph and loved my songs. Also, my songs were being played on radio stations. I was performing at different venues in New York City and invited to different church events to perform. People were saying how touched they were by my songs. I even performed in festivals here in New York City and in Springfield, Connecticut. I also performed at SOB’s for SolVillage and was 2nd runner up in a contest for a radio station here in New York City. Because I thought my music career was about to take off I decided to quit my job. It did not happen the way I hoped it would be.
Proverbs 13:12 says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. My hope in having a music career began to fade. I remember being so discouraged and so disappointed that God did not allow this dream of mine to happen. I began to doubt that performing and entertaining people was my calling. I had had the taste of what it felt like to have a career as an artist, but it did not become my reality. I felt so defeated and thought about moving back home to Arkansas. It would be easy then and I would have no troubles. Also, I returned back to teaching and was contemplating on pursuing steps to remain in the profession. This was tangible, something that would be easy to do. I could also go back to school and get my master’s in education and become a principal or something. All these alternative options were more straight forward. Honestly, I loved teaching math and I loved my students, but I knew that the classroom was not where I belonged. That was just a scapegoat.
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