From a very young age I had a desire to perform. My older sister capitalized on that desire and the fact that I could sing. She brought me around the neighborhood, knocked on doors and had me sing for the neighbors. I made up songs about nature and dogs and sang to my heart’s content.
My sister watched me sing, half laughing and half admiring my courage and my talent. At least one neighbor regularly rewarded us with homemade cookies, a treat we didn’t get at home. At Christmas time, I led the door to door carolling and the neighbors added hot chocolate to those rewards.
On my first visit to New York City to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, I decided that I wanted to be a performer on Broadway and make my life in the City lights. My Mom discouraged me and scared me with stories of violence. My Dad told me that I should focus on learning how to use a typewriter so I could work in an office for a company that paid benefits. I failed typing, twice. Thank God.
As I grew older, I honed my acting and singing ability with the strong leadership of excellent choir and theatre directors. They worked with me in groups and individually to refine my talents for singing and acting.
My most loved vocal instructor, a Jewish woman with a tremendous faith, was the first person to tie these talents to my faith.
She told me that my vocal abilities and the ability to connect with an audience was truly a gift from God which was given to me for a greater purpose. My instructor told me that she would pray for me, as she winked at me and said “because I speak God’s language.”
All through high school, I enjoyed performing in plays, choral concerts and variety shows. But it wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I truly understood what my voice teacher meant about having a gift from God to serve a greater purpose.
The end of my junior year was kind of a tumultuous one, even though I had recently renewed my commitment to Christ. I chose to perform the song “The Rose.” I knew that the song held a deeper meaning of faith and triumph emerging from the struggle.
Though I knew the deeper meaning of the song, I could only think of winning back the affections of a boyfriend, as I prepared to go on stage. I imagined that a powerful performance would remind him of my beauty and cause him to come running back to me.
I was more than a little dramatic.
The first night of the performance, the stage was dark except for the one spotlight on me. The piano accompanied me as I sang. But a few stanzas into the song, I realized there was no sound.
All the audience heard was the sound of a soft piano. I continued on, as I had been trained to do and just kept singing. The director apologized for the sound glitch, as they covered the next few moments with improvisations to try and fix the system. The rest of the show went smoothly. I laughed to myself at the irony of thinking I was going to woo back a highschool guy with a dramatic song, and then there was no sound.
My voice teacher’s words also ran through my brain. She’s the one who taught me to keep going when a problem happens on stage and to remember that my voice was a gift of God to serve a higher purpose.
The next night of the variety show was a performance that changed my life and my view on how God wanted me to use the gifts He had given me. As I sat in the hallway behind the stage, alone, I prayed. I thanked the Lord for the gifts I’d been given and I promised to use those gifts to serve God’s purposes in my life.
That night, I sang “The Rose” as a prayer and that experience forever changed the way I looked at God’s gifts in my life and how I use them.
Though I never did sing on Broadway and I stopped theater once I left high school, I’ve sung in churches all over the U.S. and a few in Canada. It’s been a joy to minister to others using the gifts God has given me.
In over 30 years that I’ve been singing for Jesus, there have been numerous sound issues and embarrassing moments from forgetting the words to a song to singing off-key.
There was even a period, when I had a large tumor removed from my neck, that I couldn’t sing. My vocals cords were stretched out from the tumor and the surgery and I needed time to heal. That experience was another grace-filled time where God taught me about the value of the gifts He had given and the need to use them for a purpose.
“Each of you should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms.” (1 Peter 4:10)
Over the years, the Lord has helped me to see other gifts of compassion and mercy, communication, advocacy and writing, that He has given me to serve others. Rather than focusing on the gifts I have been given, I know I can focus on the Lord and the people He calls me to serve.
Each of our gifts have a purpose. When we discover that purpose, the gifts multiply and our passion to use the gifts increases too. Remember the story of the multiplication of loaves and fishes when Jesus fed thousands? It all began when someone offered the gifts they had back to the Lord in the service of others.
For me, it’s been rewarding to serve others with my gifts. But the best use of my gifts have been here at home and for my own family. I’ve sung in some pretty churches, but none can compare to the singing my daughter to sleep in the operating room or advocating for the needs of my family. Home is at the heart of my purpose.
Whether at home or in the world outside our front door, God will use all the gifts He has given us so that we can live our lives to serve with greater purpose.
Eileen Benthal is a writer, speaker and wellness coach with a B.A. in Theology from Franciscan University. She is the author of Breathing Underwater: A Caregiver’s Journey of Hope.
Eileen and her husband Steve live in Jamesport and have four young adult children. Their youngest, Johanna, is a teenager with special needs.
Eileen can be reached at CareforaCaregiver.com.
