Hello again! Here's a sweet testimony of what happened in class this past week.

First, here's a little bit of background information. Despite having a degree in music I've struggled with the performing aspects of music, especially playing keyboards in the worship band. I'm not as confident on keyboards as I am on clarinet, and I came from a pretty critical musical background. I grew up with a family of musicians which led me to an intensely competitive high school band program, and then a critical music program in college. To me, it seemed that everyone had a very critical opinion on music. It was either you play well, or don't play at all. It's no quincetance that I've been "dragged" into playing keyboards for at least three different worship bands (this story is for another date) while at the same time felt that I was never confident as a keyboard player. I have also struggled as a singer. I use to have a talent in singing when I was much younger, but when my voice changed I lost my confidence in singing. To this day people notice that my voice is unusually deeper then most females, and I sing in very low registers. To make a long story short, due to my insecurities and fear of man I avoided all opportunities to sing and play keyboards infront of people.

This includes leading worship. The problem? I really feel that God has called me to lead worship. And unfortunately, this requires singing and playing an instrument that isn't the clarinet.

The topic for this week was the Holy Spirit. When class started on Monday, the teacher asked if there were any worship leaders in the class. I felt a little nudge inside my soul. I thought, I'm not a worship leader. I've never led worship in my life! The class called out various names of people who either sing or play guitar, and no one mentioned my name. Okay God. No one is saying my name, so that means I don't have to lead! Finally, someone from DTS staff stepped up and played guitar.

But then I felt guilty. We have classes in the worship room, and a keyboard was sitting right there, plugged in, ready to be played on. I realized that I should have went up there to lead, because the Holy Spirit prompted me to go up there. But because of my fear, I didn't go because I didn't think I was good enough. I didn't beat myself up too much about it, because that's not what God does. But I did realize that I was disobedient. Shortly after worship, the teacher described the feelings of disobedience to the Holy Spirit.

"Ever get that feeling?" he asked, "when you disobey the Spirit? You feel this heaviness inside you, and you know you should have done what He had told you."

Um, yeah. Thanks. I'm feeling it RIGHT NOW!

So I asked God for another opportunity. That came two days later.

The DTS staffer who lead worship before wasn't there, so the teacher asked if any of us were worship leaders. I immediately popped up. I disobeyed before, and I didn't want to miss out on this opportunity again. Some people were surprised. They knew that I played keyboards, but I never mentioned to anyone about leading worship in a corporate setting. When I sat behind the keyboard, I was a nervous wreck. My hands were shacking, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I banged out a D chord, and then hurriedly flipped through the worship book that was left from that morning's worship time. It seemed like it took forever for me to find a song. I finally found "Here I Am To Worship", and then I thought came to mind. Oh crap! I have to sing! How will people know when to come in if I don't sing? Then I realized that the song was in E, and I was playing a D chord, so I had to modulate. And THEN I realized that E is not one of my comfortable keys, and I thought that the song was too high for me.

Needless to say, I was freaking out. But I did it anyway. Somehow I started singing, and playing at the same time. Somehow I didn't screw up. Somehow I was leading people to worship. Somehow I came up with some creative melodies and harmonies while the teacher was praying over people. Somehow I managed to save face while my nose was running, and there was no tissue in sight. Somehow, it all worked out. When it was over, I ran straight to the bathroom and grabbed a tissue. I was totally stoked! I couldn't believe what just happened. Afterwards, people were saying how bold I was to step up to lead worship. One of the staff members was actually praying that a student would lead worship for that day.

The fact is that this wasn't from me at all. I can't explain it, but God truly interceded for me that moment. My hands were moving on the keyboards, but it wasn't me playing. I believe that since I obeyed Him, He came and totally rescued me from making a complete fool of myself. "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (2 Corinthians 4:7, emphasis added). Paul is talking to those who are in the ministry of reconcilation (chapter 3), and because of God's mercy we do not lose hope. But we show people, through this ministry we show God's power through ourselves. And we're merely just jars of clay.

So that was my experience with Holy Spirit week. I will update later on in the week on outreach preparation for Brazil, along with a whole slew of prayer requests and praises.