Little people, BIG World

Hello. My name is Tara Jackson, and I am a Southern Gospel artist. And most of you in the world, have no idea who I am.

And I'm totally cool with that.

It hit me the other day how small our individual worlds are, but how BIG the real world is. Make sense? Living here in Nashville it is very easy to get caught up in the industry of it all. Everyone is trying to impress someone who is trying to impress the next person up and so on and so forth. Think about it...in my genre of music, the big dogs are The Hoppers, Bill Gaither, The Booth Brothers, etc. There is an "all powerful" board of NQC (National Quartet Convention) that decides who goes on the sought after main stage. There are websites posting the press releases of the various artists within the genre. But...outside of our little world...no one has a clue who any of us are. Someone could see Bill Gaither walking around some airport (though I doubt that happens much anymore b/c he has his own plane) and would have no clue who he is. They wouldn't know that he wrote "He Touched Me" or "Because He Lives".

But the thing is is that the same can be said of almost any industry. The tech industry looks at Steve Jobs & Bill Gates as gods. The comic book industry (ComiCon anyone?) looks to the creators of X-Men, Spiderman, Superman, etc. as industry leaders. I went to visit a friend at the bluegrass convention in downtown earlier this week, and I walked in not knowing a soul in there. Yet, when I walked up to meet him, there was a crowd around some guy and a girl having a mandolin jam session. People were enthralled. They were taking pictures, video, and practically drooling. And I was standing there with absolutely no idea who any of these people were. But to the people at this convention, it was a BIG deal. And it's the same way at GMA week...or CRS...or whatever major convention is taking place.

Within any industry, there are people that are higher up on the chain than others. But what I think we (and many times, those people) forget is that we all still put our pants on the same way. And many of those people that are in those higher positions in their industry now, had to start out at the very bottom to get where they are today.

I don't know if any of this makes sense. I just felt like lately that God has been reminding me to not get ahead of myself. And if my talent is not immediately recognized, respected, or revered by people in higher positions, that it is totally fine. They aren't God. I feel like we all get caught up in a "who's who" game, trying to impress the ones that we feel need impressing. We unintentionally give people power due to the "need" to impress them. It's just like it was in high school. There were the popular kids, and if you weren't in that click, you tried desperately to fit in.

Really and truly, I'm just here to do what God wants me to do. If my ministry soars to the heights of massive crowds and spotlights and stages, hit singles, awards...then so be it. But if God has me fly under the radar, that's totally cool too! I know that I am somebody to my God and Creator. I don't have to try hard to impress Him to get ahead. He loves me just the way I am, quirks and all.

(Hope this post makes sense. I was typing as the thoughts came, so it's not like I thought this out in advance. Just something that's been on my heart & mind recently.)