My Father Goes To A Bad Concert

I’ve had a chance to write two awesome posts about my father, or as you know him, Ol’ Steve.

Now, it’s time to tell the most important one.

When I finished high school all those many, many years ago (which was just in 2005), I had one last summer in my hometown before I moved away to college (which was 10 miles away).

After working at a summer camp, the final month home was spent primarily practicing with some of my closest friends in a band we started up for fun. We weren’t especially good (well, I wasn’t, at least), but we were doing it just because this was our last chance to get together and jam.

Basically, we weren’t serious about it in any way. We named the band after the failed attempt by Germany to forge an alliance with Mexico against the U.S.

We were named The Zimmerman Telegram, we were awesome.We only played one show, the night before all of us went to college. I asked Ol’ Steve if I could borrow one of his cameras in order to film it. I had my own camera, but wanted one of his to get a different angle.

Ol’ Steve does some videography as a side job. Mostly weddings. Though it is a side job, he takes pride in it because it is fun for him and he is good at it.

And because of that, he had good equipment that he was VERY protective of. Needless to say, I was pretty nervous about asking him to borrow any of it.

Ol’ Steve agreed to this idea, though, and he said that he would bring it to the show, so I could focus on the music (like the superstar that I am).

When he showed up, however, he did something that I never would have expected. I looked up from setting things up on stage and my mind was blown. He brought all of his equipment (including both of his cameras, so 3 total), set all of it up himself (I offered to help, he said he didn’t need it), and stuck around to film the entire crappy show.

If I had ever doubted before that my father loved me, those doubts were removed.

You see, Ol’ Steve may not be good at verbally expressing, but that doesn’t mean he can’t express at all. He’s not great at verbally communicating, but he finds other ways.

I learned something about myself then too. Being the son of Steve Craven, I also have these problems, though I am a talker. I can say a whole lot of things without actually expressing myself. I learned the importance of sacrifice as a way of expression.

And you may be like that too. You may be really bad at verbally expressing yourself. For a lot of people, we’re frustrating to deal with. Which is hard on us, because we DO the things that we cannot SAY.

It could be the simple sacrifice of our time, whether to film a bad concert for someone or just to listen to them. It could be going distances for people, whether to help them move things around or to travel miles away to visit.

We’re not expressionless. We just do it differently.

When other people can notice that, it’s invaluable. When we find people who can see how we express that we care, we are more motivated to care.

I will never be able to properly say the things that I often want to say. I realize that. I will try to awkwardly say them. And I will try to work on getting better at it.

But at the same time, I will work to my strengths. I will go out of my way to prove what I just can’t always say.

Because I know that Ol’ Steve would do that for me. And I know my Heavenly Father did.

When you’re not good at verbally expressing, you find another way. This is what happens.

How do you express best? And if you can express well verbally….what’s it like?