The other night, I was watching America’s Got Talent All-Stars and who appears but Terry Fator. He’s a ventriloquist, in case you have not heard of him, but that’s not what got my attention. You see I’ve done puppet ministry at my former church and my favorite puppet is a turtle named Theodore. (Don’t tell him I said that. He hates being called a puppet.) One day I was watching the show and there on the stage is Theodore, with Terry Fator. Well, Terry calls him Winston the imitating turtle. Terry Fator not only performed on the show. He won, and he went on to sign a five year $100 million dollar Vegas performing contract, not one, not two, but three times, for a ventriloquist??? You see, years before I met Theodore, I was a ventriloquist, as a matter of fact, the first thing ever received a pay check for was a ventriloquist show in my home town when I was seven or eight years old. It was for a dollar but it was still a thrill. I really enjoyed doing it, and I seemed to do pretty well with it, but I was a human target kid, and around the time I hit puberty some people I love and who were trying to protect me, pushed me hard to quit. They thought it was the right things to do and it probably was, after all, who can make a living as a ventriloquist? Oh wait…
Now, please don’t get me wrong. Terry Fator does things as a ventriloquist that I could never touch, and I was certainly never on that level, but sometimes I wonder what might have been. Now to be sure, I am very happy. I have found my calling. I love my ministry and all that I get to do, and somehow I get the idea that those early experiences paved the way for what I do today. That being said, when you have a gift, you need to put it to work in faithfulness and see what happens, trusting God to take you where you need to be. Giving up ventriloquism may have been the right move or maybe not, I don’t know. What I do know is the reason why I gave it up is pretty lame. Of course, we can’t give up on something just because someone gives us a hard time, even if it’s a lot of people. We need to trust God and move forward in our gifts.
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