Value

  About a month after I moved to Ventura I spent a weekend at my parents house. They brought me home and even visited church with me. Its been over a year and something about it still irritates and frustrates me. I always just chalked it up to my parents not actually seeing who I am, but this morning I realized it was something deeper.
  At some point during the drive up or maybe even earlier in the weekend my dad asked me if I "told them I could sing yet". He meant had I gone the worship leader or Pastor and told them I wanted to be on the worship team. When I told him No, he seemed puzzled, but the conversation didn't go much further. Like I said, I've been irritated at this exchange for over a year, its just another example of how well my parents pay attention to their children. If your child hasn't been in church regularly or on a worship team regularly for almost 2 years what makes you think they're going to jump on the one at their new church within a month? Anyway, as I was gathering my lunch this morning when it hit me (not my lunch). What really got me about the exchange, the real reason why I have been upset about it wasn't actually them not "getting it" it was that this is the only value they see in me.
   I've written a lot about both my parents and my relationship with each. I've written mostly (if not all) negatives about them. My parents didn't instill any type of value of myself in me, just the opposite. Being around my parents, even now, is filled with put-downs and pot-shots. I can never get a "good job", its always a "well, this was wrong". Even when other people say something positive my parents have a way of turning it into a negative and throwing it back....except when I sing. I've written a couple of times about how my mother likes the admiration she gets from people when I sing. But I'm now starting to realize that my parents are two sides of the same coin. That my father, not just my mother likes when people tell him they like my singing. To them, that's my value.
  To them my singing voice is all I've got going for me. Overweight, not particularly attractive, too loud, too opinionated, not where they think I should be in my life they see me as a failure, a burden but I can sing and people like that and tell them they are great because of the talent God gave me and they enjoy hearing it. They want that! So there is my value. My father probably thought he'd walk into my new church and have people say "oh, you're Melanie's father, she so great she has such a great voice and he'd smile and have his dose of prestige from me" (that's exactly what happened at Marina). That did not happen at my new church...well, actually it did. He met Randy and Jacquie and they told them just that, except without the singing part. I'm awesome, they are excited to have me up here and they love me...but those things were dismissed because that's not where he sees my value.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I have completely missed the mark on this, but this is what I see.
  Every time I say I'm going to visit Marina (and its always because of them never because I want to) the first question is "are you singing?", when I was still at Marina the questions were always "why aren't you singing?" and upon going to my new church the first question wasn't whats it like, what do they teach, how do they believe, have you met the Pastor...it was "have you told them you can sing"
  Now, you tell me....am I wrong?

  Until Next Time,

  ~m