Thank God I'm Not A Rockstar! Series

thank god, i’m not a rock star

1 Cor. 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am…”

I remember when I was eight years old, sitting in my house and I had a song come into my head. I had somewhat recently gotten into rock music and the lyrics that came were, “And the old man died.” Those were not lyrics from a song I knew but lyrics that rose up in my head from my heart. It was in that moment, I realized my child hood dream was to become a rock star. That was perfect for me since I had been falling in love with hair bands lie Warrant, Poison, Guns-N-Roses, Skid Row and Motely Crue, just to name a few. In my mind, I was ahead of the game!

While I would continue to love rock music through the years, finding the time to play an instrument would become one of the greatest challenges in my life. I was given small opportunities through the school system to learn the piano, the guitar and percussion. I was never really able to do a great job at any of them. The only thing I could do was write lyrics-that was something that came to me only after my conversion to the faith.

I finally had my so called “big break” while I was a senior in high school. I met another guy, Dan Heroy, who was at that time a freshman or sophomore, and he played guitar. We were able to begin discussing the idea of starting a band at a concert we went to-it featured two local bands, one band which went to our small school. To me, this was my dream becoming fulfilled.

Over the next several months, Dan and I would rehearse and practice and cultivate our sound together. I would write lyrics and hand them over to him and he would put give the song life by turning it into an actual song. Dan played the guitar and vocals while I played the drums and had a few spots of singing, but not much.

Dan and I were given the opportunity to showcase our talent at small gathering for his dads work. Other than that, we really didn’t go anywhere. We just continued to play our music and work on our sound but nothing really came out of that.

School had ended and I continued to play with Dan throughout the summer months but I realized I needed to begin thinking about the future. I knew at this point in time college wasn’t all that interesting to me and through conversations I had with others, the armed forces became an opportunity.

I struggled with the idea of leaving behind the band, even though it was just Dan and I, because I thought this was God’s way of giving me my dream. I felt like I had to protect it at all costs but the harder I tried to do that, the more I realized that this was not something that would pan out in the end. With a heavy heart, I discussed my future plans with Dan of enlisting in the US Air Force and had to leave the band. Dan was very understanding and simply wanted the opportunity to record the few songs we had managed to put together.

While I was in the Armed Forces, I had a small part to play in a church worship band, serving as a backup drummer, if needed and a background vocalist. While I enjoyed my short time with the worship band, I was not under the impression it was something that would take off. Each member of the band was already serving in the armed forces and we all knew we could be deployed in a moment’s notice. Once again, I found myself leaving the band behind.

I would continue to write lyrics here and there and I often wondered where God really wanted me. These thoughts became more active and real after I left the Armed Forces and had to, once again, think about my future. I grew up with the idea that I wanted to be a rock star. That dream didn’t seem to become a reality to me. Truth be told, I was getting older and had no real concrete plans for myself. The doors of opportunity were few and far between and most of the time, didn’t lead to greater opportunities.

Something I don’t discuss often is a new love I discovered while serving in the US Air Force. Due to the nature of my job, I was constantly training and reviewing my job expectations and reviewing the checklists I had to go through. I began falling in love with the idea of teaching and training others and once again it didn’t happen often but when it did occur, I felt right at home. I felt comfortable and I felt like I was just doing something right.