In the midst of my trial I chose to Listen and to SING!!! by Jessica Warren

On the way home I remembered I was supposed to lead worship for my church that Sunday. I picked up my phone and wrote out a text to my Pastor letting him know I just couldn’t do it. My finger hovered over the send button. Why am I not ok pushing the send button? You just got horrible news. The last thing you’re going to feel like doing is getting up and leading a congregation into His presence…and that’s if you can hold it together, My thoughts said to me. I pushed cancel and not 2 seconds later Reba texted me. Her text said “This must be from God because I don’t fully understand it. I feel like God is telling me to tell you to SING.” I sat there frozen. Wow…Ok. I guess I was going to practice that night. Fast forwarding 2 days and I found myself getting up at 6:30am on a Sunday morning. I looked in the mirror at my swollen eyes and hair that had not been washed in days. This was dumb. My sub-conscious scolded me. We could be sleeping but instead we have to try and get YOU presentable to go smile all morning. I shushed my thoughts and jumped in the shower. Thankfully my sister was coming with me. She had decided to sing with me last min and we also decided to change the worship set last min. I also knew she would be my guard dog. I didn’t want to answer questions and I certainly didn’t want to hug anybody. I had a mission that I had to finish. And once the water works started there was no stopping them. We made it through first service with no tears!! I was amazed at how well we held it together. One of the songs we were singing was “The Great I am”. It was one of our favorites. And during second service as we sang the bridge I felt something break inside me. The words are “The Mountains shake before You, the demons run and flee at the mention of Your name King of Majesty. There is no power in Hell or any who can stand before the power and the presence of the Great I AM!” As we built up the bridge and were moving into the chorus I felt my sister’s strength back me up. And as we sang those words I felt for the first time in days like I could breathe. I felt my lungs fill with air and it was refreshing. It didn’t feel stale, it felt new. I let myself surrender to the power I began to feel and told God, as I was singing, to help me remember who I serve. I serve the Great I AM, therefore I have NOTHING to fear! When we finished I was happy, even excited. And then we got in the car to go home and life was real again. I didn’t know how to hold onto that. And I simply told myself to be ok with the fact that I wasn’t always gonna feel like tackling this battle head on. There were gonna be days I wouldn’t want to get out of bed, or make dinner, or just smile. There were gonna be days I was mad at God and would ask Him what He was thinking. I had to become ok that this was my life right now and the last thing I wanted to do was put un-realistic expectations on myself. I knew God was there. It was just going to be a daily battle of reminding myself. But this was a start! God had showed me he was on the scene!