a complete blessing

Wow. That is all I can say. WoW!

Alright, so tonight I helped lead worship with the Youth Band and God answered my prayer for the night. My prayer is that I would be stretched, and that God would show himself to me in another light than what I'm used to; that I wouldn't put worship in this little box that I felt was the only way for me to worship. So... the night went on. My voice gave out.. but thats all good.

We were singing "Exalt the Lord" and I felt the need to look up the word exalt, because I want to know what I'm singing and I didn't know the exact meaning of it. The word exalt means to to raise in rank, honor, power, character, quality, etc; to praise, extol; to elate, as with pride or joy. Who knew that we were supposed to feel that way about God? That we were supposed to raise him up like that? As I was reading out the definition of exalt, I made the connection to how during a soccer game or football game that the MVP is raised up on the shoulders of the players and gets cheered for because of the great game he played, because he was the MOST valuable player. Thats how we are supposed to treat God. He has done so many wonderful things for us, and instead of treating him as the MVP we treat him as someone who sat the game out on the bench. That is not how he should be treated. So I had them sing the song again as if they were giving credit to the MVP after a game; the correct amount of recognition that he is due, and it was wonderful.... The connection was there, the power was there, and I feel like God was finally recognized the right way for once.

The set ended after many more words, songs, and prayers and than a friend of mine came up to me and truly blessed me. He told me that it was a blessing to sing with me, that just through my singing the presence of God comes, and that he can feel the presence even if im not connecting with the song; that just my singing brings God into wherever we are at the time. He than said that I walk around with God's presence around me all the time; that as he was walking up to me to tell me this, he could sense God around me. Also, that there was an angel that follows me around and when I sing he sings with me and is just always there with me, guarding me. And this led to him saying that it was as if there was a spot light on me, that was the path of God's gaze, that it was singled out on me, and that he was full of joy and saying "thats my Cat! Look at her go!" It was everything that I could do to not cry because that was something I had been worried about and dealing with by myself (refer to the last post). I didn't want my singing to glorify me. I wanted it to glorify the person who made me and blessed me with it. I think that finally came across tonight, and it led me to tears knowing that someone else felt that too.