Surrounded

So, I did a thing a couple weekends ago. I don’t want to make it into a bigger deal than it was, but it was honestly nothing short of a miracle for me! I am still trying to process it and feel like so many years of struggle and confusion have all led up to that particular weekend and fallen perfectly into place.

God has been asking me to be on worship teams since I was 15 (that’s 12 YEARS), and he’s been asking me to lead worship for about four years. I’ve led a song here or there within the last four years but due to years of rejection, pain, and spiritual warfare surrounding my voice, I was disobedient in this area of my life and refused to lead. There were not enough voice lessons or encouragement from others that seemed to penetrate the anxiety that surrounded my voice. I eventually got to a point where I was praying God would take music from me, take my ability to sing, or take away the call he has for me. It’s funny though; God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, so he doesn’t change his mind (Hebrews 13:8). A little over a year ago, I had some extensive prayer time with friends who know their stuff and was set free from so many terrible things (one of which being in agreement with lies about my voice.)

About two weeks ago, I was given the opportunity to lead Surrounded (by Upper Room) at church. Anxiety started to creep in before leaving my house for practice Thursday evening but on my way to church I just made up my mind that even if I only sang in practice, I was just going to be grateful to have the opportunity to sing for Jesus. Whenever I had the opportunity to lead even a verse, let alone an entire song, I worried about what would happen and what if I messed up and what if I sounded bad and would never get to lead again (dramatic, but that’s how I had always felt.) I would even almost threaten God out of my fear that “this better be perfect”, “I was being obedient so He’d better show up”, as if He owed me. So sad! Instead, I was able to carry gratitude into our weekend services and honestly just felt so blessed to have the opportunity to sing. Also, I had a killer sore throat all weekend! But I just decided broken voice and all, my only time leading, or the first of many, I would just worry about worshipping Jesus and asked the Holy Spirit would show up.

In the days leading up to that weekend, I had three different people on the team tell me what a great song this was for me to sing because of the lyrics “I know you [God] have overcome” and “my weapons are praise and thanksgiving,” and to be able to sing this in victory over every demon that has ever stood in my way (paraphrasing because when someone from the Freeman family speaks over you, it’s mind blowing, impactful, and I somehow can never remember it word for word!). But it wasn’t until I was about to start the song that I was just telling Jesus how good He is and I looked up at the screen in the back of the sanctuary with the lyrics on it and realized the first verse was exactly what God was doing in that moment. “There’s a table that you prepared for me, In the presence of my enemies.” How overwhelmingly good is my God! I couldn’t help but get teary-eyed (which probably did not help my voice but I don’t even care). What an honor it was to sing not only to Jesus, not only for my church, not only with the incredible people on the worship team, but also in front of the devil and any demonic spirit that had me convinced I would never lead, it would never happen, and even God was not big enough to overcome the anxiety surrounding my voice. There’s something about complete surrender to God, proclaiming his goodness and authority, and spitting in the devil’s face all at the same time that is so freeing!

I am not thankful for the demonic oppression over my voice, and I do not believe that was part of God’s plan, but for the first time ever, I am so thankful for all the rejection, all the harsh comments, and pain in my experience with music. I am thankful for the season of life I am in where so much of what I thought I knew and who I thought I was have been stripped away. I don’t think the planner and perfectionist in me would have ever been able to be so vulnerable and surrendered that I didn’t care what I sounded like, or what happened, but just showed up to sing to Jesus. Because that’s all He really wanted, and that’s all my heart should have wanted from the start. It was not perfect; nothing ever is, but it was victorious and miraculous for me.

Hoping my story can encourage you, if there is something in your life surrounding you and you feel certain you cannot overcome. God’s got you, he has freedom for you, and HE is surrounding you.