12.

Cause and effect.

If my father hadn't dragged me on the mission trip in 2004 because he wanted "family time" I probably wouldn't have met Lianne. If I hadn't met Lianne, I probably wouldn't have been okay with her going with us to Africa end 2007. If I hadn't spent time with her on that trip, I wouldn't have let myself be comfortable with her. If I hadn't let my guard down, we wouldn't be such good friends now.

New, but related, thread.

If my laptop hadn't crashed yesterday, I wouldn't have needed a new one. If I didn't need a new laptop, I wouldn't have asked Lianne to go get a new laptop with me Friday, Thursday night. If all the above hadn't happened, I wouldn't have asked her to come with me. If I hadn't asked her, she wouldn't have called me back to say she had worship but why don't I come along since I have nothing to do. If she hadn't invited me to worship practice, I wouldn't have gone.

And because I went, I strangely wound up singing. Which I normally never do. Acting I can do, because it's not me. It's my character. Piano, I'm behind a keyboard. But stuff like interviews, vivas, testimonies, SINGING. That's me. I can't stand behind anything and that scares the crap out of me. (Not literally.) With singing, it's my voice. It's not the character I'm playing, or the keyboard I'm playing that's in the forefront. It's... well, me. And while I'm happy to sit at home and boarderline yell-sing, standing in front of people I know but am not necessarily comfortable with is very different. In my mind anyways.

But, yeah. I have no idea what the heck I was doing. I have no idea why I asked. It doesn't fit. It's out of character. But I did it anyways and I don't know. I feel awkwardly comfortable. Like, and I hope this doesn't come out sounding pretentious, I've done something God planned to happen. 5 hours. AHH, I don't know. It's very difficult to explain. I don't share my feelings very often so I'm very unused to this. But this is so overwhelming. I don't know. (I've said that a lot tonight. "I don't know.") I think what it is is the realisation of the fact that I had strayed away. Realisation that what I started getting comfortable with and what I thought was believing and being in the presence of God, when really all it was was being empty.

I feel like laughing to myself because it's was so simple it was almost ridiculous. 5 hours ago I was like meh, whatever (very comprehensive expression. I know.) and now I just feel like all I ever want to do with the rest of my life is to worship Him and stay in His presence. Which I know I knew in theory before but when you feel like songs of worship and words of praise are just about brimming from your lips it's something else. To experience Him is something else. As a point of interest, it's also interesting how the last 5 hours have just drawn my attention away from certain distractions... *raises eyebrow at Lianne, that maybe have been distracting me from really focusing on God. 3 songs later... okay, still distracted. Haha. But at the same time I'm incredibly at peace with myself. And I find myself totally and utterly sure of the fact (another odd thing. I'm never sure of anything. I'm an insecure teenager. Sue me.) that I'm doing this to worship God. Not to impress Randall so he'll let me join his little band. Not to compete with Lianne, because she's so involved in church. Not to appease my mother who has been asking me to pleeeease do SOMETHING with my life. For God. Not all the other distractions at church. But out of wonderment and thanksgiving. Which is a super super big comfort to know, because I know then that I'm NOT distracted. Complicated as that sounds. Those "distractions" at church, then, are a seperate thing from me wanting to go to church. I can know that I have my priorities straight and that I'm am utterly focused on God. And while I'm not a rock, I'm not letting my personal short-term interests interfer with my relationship with God. And it's not even funny how long I've struggled with that.

So, alright. At the end of the day I'm just so glad for today. I'm glad for not being tone deaf. I'm glad for Lianne. I'm glad for Jason and Randall and Kegan. I can't even sleep, I'm like that excited. It wasn't a logical revelation or a rational epiphany of anything. All it was was me singing, and suddenly feeling right. And I really thank and praise God for that. Because while cause and effect rationally explains all that happen, it could have happened any other way. And while that can be non-religiously attributed to conincidence, that's a lot of coincidences that led to me even getting to that worship practice.

For the first time in a long while I feel like I have God in my heart again. :]