just me, God, and ocean breeze conditioner

I know. It's late. I have to wake up early tomorrow so I can rush to school and do some late homework and pretend like I practiced for guitar class. But something amazing just happened to me.

I've been super stressed out lately. And by lately I mean this school year. I've been thrown this way and that, desperately trying to keep my head above water so I'm still on good terms with my teachers. Learning three instruments and learning a ~new~ kind of math (it's music theory but it feels like math so much) and trying to write a few papers in between has been a little bit crazy. Fortunately, I also am a little bit crazy. So I'm making it work.

This one song I've been learning has totally thrown me for a loop. I'm not even sure why. Maybe it's because it can't decide what key it's in. Maybe it's because Bach plays his singers like violins. Maybe it's because I can't breathe. Take your pick.

In between taming the monster that is this song, I've missed lesson after lesson because my voice teacher has a life (wow, I wish I knew what that was like) and also is apparently susceptible to illnesses. Turns out you don't gain an immunity superpower once you reach Adulthood (TM). I've also had to switch accompanists for this song. Woo-hoo.

Did I mention I'm singing this song in a recital next week?

Anyways.

My stress has had a noticeable effect on my mood. I usually at least have some semblance of togetherness, and my classmates have noted to me that they've noticed my life falling apart. That's cool. I'm also unable to form conversations without complaining, as you may have noticed from, well, this post. Literally today I was chatting with a friend and the whole time I was thinking "don't complain, don't complain, don't complain." It didn't exactly work. The negative things in my life are having a stronger effect on me than the positive things in my life. Gotta fix that, too, while I'm trying to string my life back together.

Back to that song.

I was practicing a few minutes ago in the shower. Yeah, singers do that too. I'm singing the words "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis." Translated: "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us." I consider myself pretty good at text connection (that is, portraying the emotion of the song I'm singing), but with this song, I'm super focused on singing it correctly, slowly, more breath support, this note here, this beat here, ect, and I'm never thinking about what the words mean. I think I wrote some bull in my voice notebook about how I imagine that I'm singing it to Jesus (technically true because I sing all my songs for Jesus), but I don't think it counts as singing to Jesus if Jesus can't even see me because my face is buried in my imaginary score.

All of the sudden, during my shower practice session, God started controlling me.

It was weird.

Suddenly, without warning, the breath support just happened. All by itself. My notes were coming out, all by themselves. I felt God telling my body exactly how to do all of this stuff I had struggled so long to get, and I heard Him.

Look at Me, he said. Sing this to Me.

And I did.

It was wild.

I could feel Him with me. I sang to Him.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, who takes away the sins, the sins of the world, have mercy on us, have mercy on us. Have mercy on us, who takes away the sins of the world, the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.

And the words made sense and I wasn't reading them off an imaginary score anymore and the words were mine and I was the words. It was just me and God, quite literally.

Just me, God, and ocean breeze conditioner.

I ended the song, breathless, my stomach aching from the sick ab workout that is proper singing. (Haha, but for real.)

I hugged my towel and pressed my face against it, wishing I could hug Him for real, saying, "Thank You, thank You, thank You for making this song mine."

I hated that song. Now it's mine and I don't hate it anymore.

I just hope my voice teacher likes it, now.