Full Circle

For those of you who know me, you know that music is the thing that brings me the greatest joy. My love of music began when I was young and was nurtured by my grandmother. Grandma would play songs on her piano and we would sing at the top of our lungs. When I was about 5, I told Grandma that she needed to be quiet so that I could sing by myself! My earliest memory of church going is sitting on the front pew while Grandma played the piano for the church...we were singing "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and the only part of the song I really knew was the chorus. So, I would mumble through the verses but as soon as we got to the chorus I would stand up tall and sing at the top of my lungs! I am sure that I sang like most small children...slightly off key...but I just remember the joy I felt at praising the Lord in song.

Tonight at choir practice I found out that I will be singing a duet in the Easter program with one of the guys. I am very excited about it. Not only because I love to sing and I am honored that our director would allow me to sing this particular song...but also because I feel that I have come full circle in some ways. The last time I sang in church was Easter Sunday, 1994. I was 18 yrs old and so unfaithful to my Lord. I had gone out with friends the night before, gotten tanked, and barely made it to church. I got up on the stage to sing and for the first time in my life knew that I would be singing the song alone. Not alone as in no other person with me...I mean alone as in the presence of the Lord was not there. I felt the aloneness that one who turns their back on the Lord feels...and it was miserable. The opportunity to sing again in church, to praise the Lord with the gift that He gave me, leaves me with a feeling I cannot describe. I am nervous because it has been so long and there will be a lot of people there...but I am elated because I know that this is God's will...and this is God's way of saying it is time.

The song that Mark and I are singing is titled "A Love That Will Not Let Me Go." I screw up daily as a Christian and the one thing that gets me through some days is the knowledge that no matter what my Lord loves me and He is holding me. I also know that He is not going to let me go. So...this song is very appropriate for where I am in my life. Isn't funny how the Lord works?

--Jessica