Out of all my years in school, from Pre-K to now graduate school, middle school was probably the worst time of my life. I found myself constantly on the outs with a friend, a teacher, my family or whoever. I struggled in sixth grade especially, when I was made fun of in my reading class for a speech impediment I had. That entire experience made me not like to read for a while, and I found myself going to every teacher I had asking them not to call on me during my class. I was so scared I was going to mess up and I didn't want to be laughed at. I didn't care if my participation grade lowered, I just didn't want to bear the brunt of possibly getting embarrassed. This made things hard for me a while, and I found myself having a lot of anxiety, which caused myself to be depressed and not be myself. At the time, the only real outlet I had was concert band. If you were in concert band, you had weekly lessons that you had to attend. Even though I'm no Mozart, being in band was a huge outlet for me.
I would spend 40 minutes in the band room practicing and playing whatever I wanted. At that time, I wasn't afraid of what I sounded like and what people thought. It was 40 minutes during the week that I had where everything seemed to go away. I could be myself, and I wasn't afraid to make a mistake; it was almost like I was in my own little world. I was close with my band teacher at the time, and she was a huge support system for me as well. I felt so free when I was in band, as it was such a positive environment too.
Once I got to college, I noticed my relationship with God getting a lot stronger. One of the first clubs I joined at my undergrad was the bible study. That bible study kind of took the place of band in middle school. I had an hour a week where all of my worries and anxieties went away. I was able to focus on the scripture and nothing else. I was able to openly talk about my interpretations of the verses and was able to bring up any prayer requests I had. I had the same feeling I did when I was in those band lessons in middle school. However, my focus was different. I was focusing on God which made everything worth it. I wasn't able to continue band when I got to college, but I was able to continue growing my faith, which was pretty worthwhile. I also found myself reading the bible and praying outside of bible study even more, and found myself learning more about Christianity. One of the things I thought about was how different my middle school experience might have been if I was closer to God back then. And who knows? Maybe I would've had more than one outlet. The only difference would be one would be temporary, and the other would be lifelong. God's love is everlasting and it's something that you can be surrounded with for more than 40 minutes a week. All you have to is accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and live like Him. There's no practicing, or knowing scales, or knowing the difference between a bass and a treble clef.
That seems like a pretty good deal if you ask me. An eternal outlet filled with love and encouragement? Pretty sweet right?
"Cast all your cares on Him, for he cares for you," - 1 Peter 5:7