I grew up in the church. I knew I was supposed to love God and obey Him, but I never really understood that he wanted a relationship with me. My junior year in high school I started to help lead the worship in my Youth Group. I have sang and played instruments my whole life, but it was always about sounding perfect for me. I don't know that I ever really enjoyed singing or playing, other than that people seemed to like when I did. So my idea of being on the worship team was to be in the background singing harmony so that no one would ever have to hear if I really messed up. But God always has other plans for us, and by the end of my junior year, our youth pastor and worship leader left, leaving me to lead. I wanted to run and hide! But I knew that if I did not do it, there would be no one left to lead. I started to learn to play the guitar, and alone in my room I learned what worship really was. As I practiced singing and playing the songs I liked the most, I had a new connection with the words I was singing. I desperately wanted to mean every word I sang. I began to pour my heart out to God through song, giving him my fears and insecurities. I began to love to sing and play music because it was an overflow of my heart. It was a way for me to truly express what I felt and believed.
As l lead worship over the next year, it became my passion. I changed. I started to want to live my life as worship to God, not just following a list of rules. I decided to go to Music School school to increase my knowledge of music and enhance my abilities. I was offered a scholarship to Texas State University. The day I received the letter of acceptance into the music school was the day that I went into the hospital with viral meningitis. I started having seizures and could not control any part of my body. I could not walk, talk, or control my eyes. But I knew God was there. He gave me a supernatural peace when everyone else around me feared the worst. I began to recover after a few weeks, but the one thing that remained unchanged was my voice. I could not sing. I could force out a few measly notes here and there, but I had absolutely no control over what came out of my mouth.
I wasn't too worried... at first. But as months went by and nothing changed, and my doctors telling me that I might never sing again, the reality began to sink in. My voice, my primary way of expressing my heart to God, what I felt called to use to glorify Him, was gone. I had to go to Music School as a vocal major not able to string three notes together smoothly. By God's grace, they let me stay, but it was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. I would practice and practice, but nothing changed. Time and again, professors would tell me that I was a bright girl, and should do something else. But I couldn't. I couldn't give up on what I knew God had called me to do.
When it came time to practice for my final recital, my vocal teacher, seeing how frustrated I was, told me to close my eyes and just sing it to God, from my heart. I sang, "It's all about you, Jesus. And all this is for you, for your glory and your fame. It's not about me, as if you should do things my way. You alone are God and I surrender, to your ways." In that moment, I surrendered what I loved most, what I thought God wanted for me, and just told him that I wanted Him more than I wanted my voice back. I promised that I would worship and follow him with my life. When I opened my eyes, my teacher just stared at me. I could hear my mom crying in the other room. My teacher asked me what just happened, because as I sang the song, everything seemed to come back. I could sing! But not with the soft, sweet, yet controlled voice as before, but with depth and passion. God restored my voice, even gave me a new one. I know now that my voice is not my own. It does not belong to me for my own will or my own glory. It is God's to be used how He desires. My heart is to give my all to Him, trusting him no matter what he brings my way, worshipping through it all.
