Phone Phobia

I have this problem where I hate to place phone calls. Receiving calls is okay. The burden of trying to explain who is calling is not on me. I will go out of my way to avoid making calls. Thank God for email, snail mail, voice mail, text messaging, instant messaging, answering machines, and smoke signals. I've looked at this psychological problem, and I think that it goes back to my high school days when I tried to talk to girls on the phone. I was not too successful in these endeavors. A typical conversation might have gone like this:

"Hi, (girl's name)?"
"Yes, who is this?"
"It's Donn."
"Who?"
"You know, Donn from your math class. I sit a couple of rows behind you."
"Oh, Dan. Hi."
"Not Dan. Donn."
"Who?"

You see, it is not my fault.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a flyer in the church bulletin asking for help in our capital campaign. It asked for help in database entry. I can do this. I'm pretty handy with the computer. I really want to contribute to the success of our remodel. I happened to see the person in charge, Robert, outside of church. I told him that I'd like to help out. Only to find out that this job entails making hundreds of phone calls to parishioners to update the church database. Ugh...

I will help.

In order to grow, we all must learn to go outside of our comfort zone. Especially if we are giving of ourselves in the service to others and to our community. I challenge you to go outside of your comfort zone, too.