"I will sing to the Lord, I will sing praise to my God as long as I live."
- Psalm 105:33
Sometimes when people ask me what my first memories would be, my mind would jog to random points of my childhood as I force my brain to somehow squeeze the earliest smidgen of any kind of recollection my head could muster. Apart from vividly recalling how my tiny fingernails clawed at the sill of the nursery viewing window as I strained to see what my then-infant sister looked like at birth (the red, squirmy thing), I could remember being about three or four, standing on the aisle of the church I used to attend with my family, all ready to sing with my older cousins Apple and Maya in the church choir. All I remember was it was nerve-wracking and I tried not to show it. I wasn't sure what my thoughts were at that time but they probably had something to do with telling myself how far I had come, compared to my earliest stints of singing until my face turned blue on top of the kitchen table. In fact, Manang Apple would later tell me it was like I had an automatic switch. The minute she would haul my little derriere atop the table, I'd bust my lungs out, threatening to crack the kitchen walls with my wailing.
Music and I have always gone together. I often refer to her in the feminine, harkening to the usual correlation with the muse. Though she has always been my Plan B, my backburner buddy, so to speak, music has remained to be my chosen avenue in worshipping my Lord and Savior. Perhaps it had to do with all the days in Sunday School and choir, or my eventual fondness for the book of Psalms which were written by the musically-inclined King David. There was always something about music which made me realize how much God loved me and how blessed I was to experience that love.
A couple of years ago, I talked to one of the pastors of my home church in Manila when I lived there for a considerable number of years. He mentioned that he had a recording of me singing this one song during a cantata, a particular song which he gave him encouragement. The song was "On My Knees" by Jaci Velasquez.
When he mentioned that song (and that he had a recording of it), I cringed and almost swallowed my tongue. I am not exactly a pro with singing and all but I whatever difficulty I encounter is usually ironed out after repetitions. That song, however, was unquestionably the toughest hurdle I ever had to endure and no amount of repetition could hide the kinks. When I first studied that song, I was quite contended singing backup. Eventually I had to take on the solo and the first time I sang it for rehearsal, my sister told me I was as white as a sheet and I looked like I was going to collapse any minute. Apart from the fact that the song was inherently demanding, I woke up on the day of the performance and realized I could not do any of the runs required in the song because my throat was spontaneously closing up. It was what singing contest judges would usually label "just all over the place" and I could not understand what was happening. About half an hour into my day, I realized that I could not sing anymore.
That morning, for reasons I could not completely fathom, I had been stripped of the one thing I had been doing naturally ever since I was four. I was not sure if it was due to an anxiety attack but that automatic switch from the girl on the kitchen table had simply short-circuited. I literally could not make a pleasing sound come out of my throat. At that moment, I felt naked, vulnerable, inconsequential and insignificant. Whatever little hint of confidence had been practically drained from me. I kept on repeating, pleading with God, "Just bring my runs back, please. Just bring them back." After all, I thought, the song was all about the runs.
I pleaded with Ate Kathy over phone to let someone else do the song, telling her what was happening to me. Ate Kathy told me to breathe and sit down. She told me that she was going to pray for me and that I should do the same. I pushed my phone aside and, in a bid to somehow get myself to sing "On My Knees" again, I literally went down on my knees and prayed to God, asking Him to use me as He would, sans runs and all.
I went on to sing that song in three stagings, including the performance scheduled in the afternoon of the same day when I could not coax any pleasant sound to emerge from my vocal chords. It was interesting to note that God never did steady my voice and he did not bring my runs back. But I was able to sing the song and somehow, it came out well. I came to realize then that I had been gunning up to hurdle this song with the wrong premise: I had my head focused on getting the runs well because, after all, I was telling myself that this was what the song was about. On the other hand, I conveniently forgot that the runs were inconsequential; the song was supposed to be about Him. I had to be reminded that everything was for God's glory, not technicalities or abilities. I re-learned another valuable lesson that day: I had to be stripped of whatever strength I had until I had no crutches to lean on, not even a single one, except God. God then proceeded to show me that despite the fact that the supposed strengths I had relied on were gone, He could still use me and use me well. It was after I deeply understood this thought that I was able to truly sing the song from my heart.
In all these years up to today, God has repeatedly broken me down, taken away whatever it was I relied on, all at a snap of a finger, just so I would see how He would work in me at every low point in my life. The words of the song I greatly fear perfectly capture this posture of submission and humility to the One who made all things possible. So I would like to give God back that glory once again by somehow reliving that time when He came to me at my point of utmost need, at that juncture when I needed Him in the midst of my desperation. After all, I really "don't know how, but there's power when I'm on my knees."
