Brave…at last!

video first…story below…Alex is on the bottom left in the white button-down shirt:

Ever since his first time being on stage for a program, Alex hasn’t dealt with it well.  Like his mama, he HATES the spotlight.  He can’t stand the thought of anyone looking at him. 

As a result, he chooses to NOT sing.  When he goes to Story Hour (a children’s Bible program) during my weekly Bible study, when he’s singing with the VBS kids at church, when he’s in a program, even sitting in church and singing praise songs during morning worship time…wherever he is, he will NOT sing in a group.

Then he comes home, and he sings EVERY word of EVERY song.  He sings on and off throughout the day – in the car, while he’s playing,  and along with his bedtime CD when he’s supposed to be falling asleep.

You see, Alex really enjoys singing.  He just doesn’t want to be the center of attention.  He doesn’t want to sing for fear of people looking at him.  I can relate!  I can also, however, be logical enough to realize that standing there, stiff as a board and refusing to sing, can make people look at me even more.

This past Sunday, the Love Notes kids choir was singing a song together with the praise team during our morning worship time.  They did a quick run-through before church, and Alex wouldn’t sing.  He stood there and ‘chewed on air’ while the rest of the kids happily sang. 

I have the video to prove it, but I won’t embarrass him by putting that one on the blog.  We took a video of Alex during practice, and after the practice, I showed it to Alex.  He saw how silly he looked, and he realized how NOT singing was actually drawing more attention to himself than SINGING would!

We really didn’t expect it to change his mind, and he hesitantly walked up to the stage with the other kids during the church service.  I started the camera, just in case he sang, and HE DID!!!

While Alex didn’t do a single hand motion, he SANG the whole song!  I know that it took every ounce of courage he had to stand there and sing!  I wish that I hadn’t stopped the video when I did.  At the very end, you can seeing him running off the stage.  What you don’t see is my sweet Alex running straight to me, with a big grin on his face, ready for a hug, SO PROUD of himself for DOING IT!

Then on Tuesday, he SANG with the kids at Story Hour during their music time.  His Wednesday night teachers said he SANG with the other kids during Love Notes choir practice!

We’ll see what happens when his Story Hour and Love Notes Christmas programs take place, but we are SO PROUD of our boy for working up the courage to TRY!!!  GOOD JOB, ALEX!!