Articles

I’d like to share two experiences that forever changed the way I view and understand what true worship is. The first is this: my grandparents on my dad’s side lived in South Carolina for most of my childhood. When my grandpa passed away in 2013, my grandma MaryLee continued to live in their big house in the woods all by herself. Several years later, the conversation came up between my parents about trying to convince her to move in with us so we could look after her. Now, I know for a fact it was the power of God moving in mighty ways that got her to move in with us because not soon after she moved, a global pandemic we all know as Covid-19 hit and I know it was God’s provision for her to have family to take care of her. I also know it must have been the power of God moving because who in their right mind would move from warm and sunny South Carolina to the -20º weather of Chicagoland? After only a few months of having her in the house with us, she had her first seizure. Her health declined and my parents and I knew that this had just become a lot more than a normal family stay. Throughout the next year or so, me and my parents became caretakers. My grandma slowly started forgetting who certain people were and she started becoming less and less of the grandma I knew. I remember the day I could no longer see my grandma MaryLee in her eyes and I could see that she no longer knew who I was. That was the day I started to mourn. That season of life was probably the hardest season I’ve ever gone through and it was very difficult on my parents as well. It was hard on our relationships with each other and yes, it was absolutely hard on our relationships with the Lord. There were days where I didn’t know where my bible was. Days where I felt completely numb. I found myself praying the words “Lord, if you can hear me, I need you to come and find me because I can’t find you and I don’t have the strength to look for you right now.” My parents have their own experiences to tell of what the Lord did during that season but for me, I had to learn what it was like to feel like screaming at God and still choosing to say “Lord, you’re good”. To say “Thank you Jesus for another day” when honestly, I didn’t want to go through another day of the same pain. It was hard to form the words, but I’ve learned that when you’re brought to your knees, you’re in the prime position to raise your hands in worship. The second experience would actually be the story of when I first started leading the worship team at Crossroads. When I had first joined that worship team, it was under the leadership of a good friend of mine, Andrew Romanowitz. For about two years, I was under his leadership and learned a lot from him. At some point, I had this bazaar thought that said “What if I ended up leading the worship team some day?”. It seemed so out of reach that I dismissed the thought almost immediately but then something told me to start praying about it, so I did. Well, that “Some day” came a lot sooner than I had expected. About two weeks later, I got a call from Andy and he said he wanted me to start praying about something. He asked if I would be at all interested in taking over leading the worship team at some point and if I was, to be praying about it and see what the Lord says. As awkward as it felt to tell the worship leader that I had already been praying about it, we both recognized it as confirmation from the Lord and felt confident in stepping in that direction. Keep in mind, this was still a “some day” thing to me. I never thought it would be the following week that Andy would announce that he was leaving! Being so young and having never led a whole team before, I was scared out of my mind. Still, it was pretty clear that it was all orchestrated by the Lord so I had to trust that He knew best. You’d think that things would start looking up at this point, but no. I should mention, we had a team of six people when Andy was leading. And when I took over, one by one, people started leaving. Now, this had nothing to do with me. These were all people who were leaving for college or had opportunities in sports and so they left to pursue it. But still, to a young girl who just stepped up as the new worship leader, that was quite discouraging. Within about two weeks, just about everybody had left. This one particular Wednesday night, it was just me and Luke Flex who played the cajon. I was stuck playing an electric piano that was somehow out of tune, I had never led by myself before (that is, myself plus a cajon), and I seem to recall, we were having some issues with the sound system. In the midst of the chaos, when I wanted to burst into tears and cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, that’s when the Lord spoke something that would forever change my view of worship. What God did that day was He asked me a question. He asked “If the sound system were taken away, If you didn’t have any instruments, not even the out of tune keyboard and cajon. If you had only your voice left, would you still find me worthy of worship?” I then realized that I was so used to what worship had always looked like to me, that I hadn’t allowed the Lord to show me what worship looked like to Him. He’s not after the sound system, or the instruments. He’s not looking for what we see as “perfect”. He’s after our hearts. That ended up being one of the best nights of worship because when I shared that with the students, it stirred up a genuineness in them that I hadn’t seen. It caused everyone in the room to feel the weight of the Lord’s presence and praise Him, not because the music sounded good, not because we liked the songs that were sung, but because He’s worthy to be praised. You see, what David displays throughout the Psalms is not some “keep it together” kind of attitude. He’s not trying to fool God into thinking that he’s alright when he’s not. What he shows is a genuine heart offered to the Lord because honestly, what else do we have to offer? When God said he wanted your heart, did you think that meant He only wanted it when you “have it all together”? Did you think that He only wanted your heart when you’ve been good at reading your bible every day? Not at all. He wants your whole heart. Whatever that looks like and whatever that comes with.