Sept. 19, 2022 I've always loved music and admired people who can do it well, never counting myself among them. About a year ago, while asking the Lord what He thinks about me during an assignment in my Agape School of Supernatural Ministry, I was surprised to hear Him say, "You are a worshiper" and knew that He meant musically. Since my friend Doug taught me how to play chords on the piano about a year and a half ago, I had been finding much joy and fulfillment in my personal worship time. I would often go to the church in the middle of the night and fill it with worship, but never in front of people, because I was still living in the shame and embarrassment of believing the lie that I couldn't do it. It's true that I can't do it as well as the great ones, but I CAN do it.
God has been slowly growing me by baby steps. I took a few singing lessons from my friend Andrea, who helped me, but I quit because I didn't believe I had enough natural gifting to make any more progress. My first bold step (inspired by an SSM assignment) was to post a video of one of my private late-night worship sessions on Facebook. The positive comments from that gave me just enough confidence to invite a couple friends over to my house to sing with me. Karen has a strong voice that I can easily hide mine under, and Harriet sings sweet harmony and brought her guitar. It was so fun and made me hungry for more.
The next step was not something I planned, but I'm sure God did. I was at church on the evening of Father's Day, because our regular Sunday night gathering was canceled, so I knew nobody would be there. I was working on a new song that God had given me. I saw someone pull into the parking lot, so I went out to meet her. It was someone I had never met, and she was disappointed that there was no meeting because she wanted prayer. So I let her in and listened to her and prayed for her and gave her a prophetic word. God told me to play and sing for her the song He'd just given me. The whole thing gave me an idea. Our church doesn't have a Saturday night service on the fifth Saturday of the month, but a handful of people usually forget and show up and are disappointed to discover the doors locked. There was a fifth Saturday coming up, so I decided I would have my personal worship time at the time of our usual service, and if anyone showed up, they could join me. There ended up being six of us that first night, and we could feel God's spirit there with us. One of the guys even said he saw an angel sitting on top of the piano listening to our songs.
The next step was doing worship for my friend Paula's Wednesday night women's group. It's only about nine women, and my friend Marcy leads the singing, so I can hide behind her as I fumble along. One night I felt like it went so badly that they would be better off going back to YouTube worship, so I asked Paula to feel out the members of her group and determine if they would rather do that. She said that they love having live worship and really wanted me to keep doing it.
The next step was a big one, and I was so terrified about it that I couldn't eat or sleep for several days before it. Last week at SSM, the teacher said something that I wrote down in my notes: "I will not say no. I want to grow." Five minutes later during break, the usual worship leader told me she was going on vacation and asked if I would lead worship next week. Everything inside me screamed NOOOOOOOOOOO but my mouth opened and said yes. I asked Doug to help me figure out the logistics of what I would need for sound equipment, because this was a group of 20 people in a big room that would require microphones and speakers, and there was no piano, so I would have to borrow a keyboard. On the way home, I was having a panicked conversation with God (which involved my threatening Him with something like, "You better help me!") and He clearly told me to ask Karen to sing with me. She excitedly said yes, because people with powerful, beautiful voices actually like being asked to sing. We practiced several times last week, and last night we did it.
We got there an hour early to get everything set up and tested and run through our six songs. I felt strangely calm and confident, and I realized that the microphone gave me boldness. Usually people don't hear me when I speak, but when I spoke in the microphone, people listened! I could feel the anointing all through, but I was finally getting in the groove by the fifth song. The last song had three verses, and on the third verse, I finally found the harmony. I was starting to have fun when the song was ending, so I said "Let's do the first verse again" and everybody sang the first verse again! Then everyone clapped and hooted and hollered because most of them knew how far out of my comfort zone I was. One lady in my group said to me afterwards, "I want to thank you for your worship today. You had such a sweet anointing. You brought me in to the presence of the Lord and it is not gone yet. We discussed so much and He healed so much, and I thank you for your time and your service to the Lord for doing this." I'm hooked now. That's all I want--to usher people into the glorious presence of the Lord.
11/16/22 update: Tonight I led worship without another human for the first time. Marcy wasn't feeling well, so it was just the Holy Spirit and I. It went ok, but it's better with Marcy.
12/11/22 update: Tonight I led worship without another human for the first time in front of my whole class at Agape SSM. I had a quick out-of-body experience during which I looked at myself and thought, "Who is this person playing the piano alone in front of people and singing a song she wrote?" I am not the same person I was a couple years ago, or even a year ago. I'm still mousy and not as free and confident as I want to be, but I'm getting braver.
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