*Note - I have been all over the place this morning with this post. I started somewhere in the middle then finished it, then went back to the beginning. Forgive my non-linear thinking this morning!*
Psalm 150
Psalm 150
"Praise the Lord. Praise God in
his sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens. Praise Him for his acts of
power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness. Praise Him with the sounding of
the trumpet, praise Him with the harp and lyre, praise Him with tambourine and
dancing, praise Him with the strings and flute, praise Him with the clash of
cymbals, praise Him with the resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath
praise the Lord. Praise the Lord."
I want to sing. No, scratch that, I already sing. I’m in the choir (Alto4Life) and I love that.
But I think I want to be a lounge singer or something. I know this
sounds weird, bear with me J
Whenever I’m around live music (gospel and secular), there’s something
in me that awakens, a desire to ad lib and vocalize and just go for it. There’s
an obstacle, though. ..
Psalm 95:1-2
"Come, let us sing for joy to the
Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him
with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song."
Singing isn’t one of my “latent” gifts. Matter of fact, I didn’t even start
to recognize that I could carry a tune until late high school and even then, I just
did what I was told. I didn’t have a voice. College was the place I found my voice,
figuratively and literally. In college, I learned how to speak my mind. College
made me a leader`. College is where I stretched musically while singing in
gospel choir. I learned how to breathe and how to posture myself. I learned how
to reach crazy high notes. I was
assigned solos so I had to literally find my voice. After graduation, I came
back home and eventually made my way back to my home church. I played around
with the idea of joining the choir, but at the time, it wasn’t a good fit for
me. I started helping out with the youth choir and before you know it, I was
singing again. I was stretching again and it felt awesome. Then youth choir
went away. It wasn’t until last year that I finally joined the adult choir, in
a way, taking my mom’s place and I’m so glad I did. There’s just something about
singing that calls to me, but as much as
I love to sing, the very thought of singing a solo brings me to my knees….
"Psalm 34:1-3
I will extol the Lord at all
times; His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt His
name together."
Singing by myself in front of other people terrifies me. Singing a solo
literally makes my heart pound and my teeth chatter and my legs shake. Last
week, we were practicing a song where pastor wanted us to just vocalize
individually in the breaks while we sang. We were all doing it at the same
time. We were all worshipping and it was awesome, but that didn’t stop my body
from physiologically freaking out.
Psalm 146:1-2
"Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord,
O my soul. I will praise the Lord all my life. I will sing praise to my God as
long as I live."
So, if my mind is afraid of it and my body reacts negatively to it, then
what is it in me that actually wants to do it? I think it’s my soul and that
while my kneejerk response in worship is movement and miming, my other response
is to sing. It builds up inside of me until I release it and I believe that
singing may be my sacrificial praise, because it costs me something to do it.
Hebrews 13:15
"Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually
offer to God a sacrifice of praise – the fruit of lips that confess His name."
Alas, it is time to shower etc… Got a bus to catch!
Have a wonderful day everyone!
And just for the fun of it, here's a cartoon song that I used to love.
And just for the fun of it, here's a cartoon song that I used to love.
No comments:
Post a Comment