How I Lost My Voice To Listen

If you spend pretty much any amount of time with me, you’ll soon realize that I never really stop singing. Here in georgia, I pretty much always have a song in my head that i sing throughout the day. Between worship sessions and just a daily song, I have been pretty hoarse for probably about 3 weeks off and on. It has been really, really hard for me because I LOVE worship & all things music. 

This past week, my squad and I were in louisiana for disaster relief. On friday night, during share time, one of the leaders at samaritan’s purse bought us girls crowns to remind us of our identity in the Father. There weren’t enough for everyone, so we were taking turns (this is important for later ;)) The volunteers asked if we would like to lead worship, and of coarse, we said YES! Our worship team decides on some songs to lead! We all sit and stand on the stage ready to worship. We get about three songs in and I hear God saying, “shh, don’t sing” and I’m like… “what, are you for real?”. In my head, I’m thinking about how I am literally worshipping Him, so I don’t understand why He’s asking me to be quiet. Then I hear Him say, “watch your brothers and sisters.” this is also weird for me to understand, because I usually worship with my eyes closed.

After a few moments of wrestling, I decided to trust and obey. I opened my eyes. As I am watching, I see people sitting and people standing; people praying over other and people receiving prayer; people singing and people being quiet; people doing push-ups and people crying; people with their crown falling off and people replacing falling crowns. The song “How He Loves” consumed the background of my scene. If you don’t know it, it talks about God’s unconditional love for us. While I watch, tears begin streaming down my face. I just felt so covered in His presence and His love. I noticed His love flowing through each person and not because of how they were uniformly worshiping, because they weren’t. He reminded me that He loves my brothers and sisters just because. How SWEET is that? 

As I embrace this feeling, a girl on my squad comes up to me, places a crown on my lap, and says, “I just wanted to give this to you because you are my SISTER in Christ.” I sit back and the only think I can think is, “wow, God. time and time again.” 

How often do you find yourself standing in worship singing or raising your hands because it’s “right”? Worshiping isn’t a performance to prove how much you love God. I feel like, in certain settings, it’s easy to fall into what looks right. I challenge you to step out of the uniform worship “comfort zone” and seek how you can worship God in a new, unique way. Thank you for reading and following this journey with me! 

lots of love, 

Kaylin 🙂