Music is one of the things I love most in life. Voices singing acapella especially stir me right to the very core. There is nothing greater than hearing a voice hit true tones without any other sounds to distract. Multiple voices harmonizing together to sound like one instrument often make my arm hairs stand on end from the goose pimples. One thing my thirteen year old daughter and I share a bond over is acapella music. There is one group in particular that we both are fans of. She is always excited to share a new recording found on I-tunes with me. There is a vulnerability that comes with singing acapella and singing in front of others period. So often my own moments of true worship at home are times I can just sing praises to God with no one else around and often my prayers have to be presented in song. It is funny how God had placed the thought of my love for acapella music on my mind this afternoon and then our pastor’s sermon was on true worship this evening at church. One of my greatest fears actually is singing in front of people. At the age of twenty I finally asked my mother to listen to me sing. I had our family room door shut and my back to her. After the song she looked at me with tear-welled eyes and asked “You have been able to sing this whole time?” It took years of singing specials at church for my dress to stop shaking giving away my nerves. Even twenty one years later before the music starts to a song my heart feels like it will explode from my chest. Every solo, every worship set with our praise team, and with choir I have to ask God for strength. Within my soul I have to cry out “Lord I can’t do this please sing through me!” It is still a fear and vulnerability that I have and at the completion of every song there is another victory for Jesus! Writing has become a second passion to me actually birthing from the same sense of fear and vulnerability. For the last twenty years as a nurse I have had to learn to chart in incomplete sentences and now with the computer age charting mostly requires just the click of the mouse. All that I know to write about are my own experiences and what God teaches me through them in this journey through life. There is such vulnerability with the transparency of my life and soul being exposed. It has become my prayer to ask God what He wants me to write each day. Sometimes a thought has to develop over the course of a few days. As I sit at the keyboard my prayer is Lord I have no idea, I cannot do this, please write through me. Now anything He allows me to write is yet another victory for Jesus. The two things I am actually most fearful of God gives me the most peace while doing. These are times I am completely reliant on His strength and wisdom. When reflecting on my life the two things that seem to have somehow helped someone else the most have been a song or writing. As far reaching as God is through me I will definitely not know during my lifetime. What I do know is that the greatest sense of fulfillment, joy, and peace I have comes when I am completely surrendered to Him and allowing Him to work through my simple life. 2 Corinthians 12:9 “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”