I was in grade six, trying to be cool, hanging in the back of the classroom with Terry, Randy Mary Dawn and Rhonda. It was a Friday lunch time, prior to being released from lunch when Terry asked Rhonda if she saw Alice Copper on TV the night before.

“Oh ya, it was great”, as she beamed. She had been waiting all the day before for it.

“How bout you Carl, did you see Alice last night?” Of course I hadn’t, but for the sake of coolness, I simply lied to my crew.

“O ya man”, I grinned. “She was great!”

She? Laughter rolled throughout our little corner, as everyone realized I how much of a dweeb I really was. At that moment, something snapped in me, something deep down that said no one would ever catch me in musical ignorance again!

For the remainder of grade school, through high school and into college, I spent nights and weekends learning about music, about the famous bands, about the obscure bands, about the up and coming bands, of the bands that everyone knew of and the bands no-one knew of. I became an LP junkie, spending any money I could find on the new album by some artist I had heard on Magic FM 94. I eventually became the go-to guy for music at the weekend parties, providing cases of music cassettes to play.

Cassettes? Cassettes were my form of media, for every album I bought, I recorded it once, and never pulled it out of the album cover again. I was (and am) a bit anal about some things! But I digress.

Peer pressure, or peer acceptance is a powerful motivator.

It was just last week when my wife and I were on the way home from a trip, listening to the last part of Matthew, when the narrator spoke of the disciples reactions in the garden. Wifey looked over at me and said we would have done the same.

And Alice came to mind.

I recalled the time when circumstances around me changed my life, creating a certain mindset in a 11 year old boy. When my friends laughed, I heated up and I walked away. I curled up a little bit inside and began to pull away from “hanging” with my friends. It was just one circumstance, and I should have laughed it off with my friends, but the pride of life was lurking in my heart, and it bit me hard. So hard that it would impact my entire life.

Similarly, the disciples fell into a crucible of pressure that forced them to react, and to run, only moments after they had committed their undying love for the Master.

As my wife has said, we all would have done the same.

My reaction to the Alice guffaw was to dedicate the next decade of my life to the unfulfilling quest of musical knowledge. If only I had simply picked up an instrument to learn to play it, but alas, I took the easy way out. But my dedication to this goal was defined in my life within a moment, in the back of the classroom, with four of my friends and a bunch of laughter ringing in my ears.

For the disciples, it was a much more serious circumstance. Their Master was being hauled off by the authorities, with one of the crew being the betrayer. Yes – one of them showed some bravery, lopping off one of the mighty enemies ear. It might have looked better if he didn’t whack off a poor servant’s ear, for his sward skill certainly needed improving. What a dweeb! But the shame, the failure, the embarrassment, the abandonment – the pain they walked through that night must have dwelled deep in the core of these men.

For years and years the disciples had to live with this failure, but it produced in them a devotion that drew them closer to the Master, closer to the truth, and farther from their pride.

Have you let your failures, your times of embarrassment or periods of shame become a motivator to know Him better, to realize He is the One who knows our weakness’s and still loves us?

Every difficult time we experience, we can learn from, sharing our weakness with others. It is so detrimental for us to try hiding our failures from those we know! As we share, as we allow some of our own weakness to be exposed to those around us, we find they gravitate to that reality.

But beyond living a truthful lifestyle, we begin to understand that Jesus is the Only One who knows us, accepts us, and loves us anyway.

Even if we think Alice was a girl!

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