My church hosted Exaltfest 09 last night. This is a picture of my friend Tasha and I just before our last sound check before the concert. Our Praise Team "P.A.G. Band" was asked to open for the concert. I know.. P.A.G. doesn't sound like a great name but it does grow on you. I promise! PAG stands for Praise Assembly of God. What an experience we had. I wish we had gotten a picture of the whole band but we were missing two of our guys and the rest were running around like chickens with their heads cut off!
I now understand why people love to get on stage. It's not something I can put into words but found that all of us had the same experience once we had a second to compare notes. You never know what God is going to do with you when you let Him have control.
Singing has always been something I have wanted to do. I used to write songs about Snoopy when I was 6. They were comforting to me and cute for a 6 year old. My mom still has the Reel's she and my daddy recorded me on (this is what was out before 8 tracks).
I'm not old, technology has just caught up to us really fast!! But it wasn't until I got older that I knew I wanted to sing for God. It's a desire that has burned in me since I sang my first song at age 10 for my home church in Milton FL. After this they asked me to sing ever Sunday night. I learned the Hymns fast because this is all I had. Contemporary Christian music hadn't hit the scene yet and hymns was it. I learned to hear harmony by ear at very early age by singing with my Daddy at my Granpap's church in Pensacola Fl. He was the Pastor and they loved to sing every song they could think of and I'm not kidding when I say every song. They would ask us grand kids up to the platform to sing with them. There were many of us and we made a loud noise! My cousin Little Eddie (we are such a county family. There are more, Little Doo, Little Alvin, ok I'll stop here.) could sing rings around all Elvis impersonators.. He was good, but then we were young so what did we know. :o)
I think my brother Jeff and I are the only ones who continued to sing in our Adult lives. I went to collage on a vocal scholarship and he joined the Army and continued to teach himself to play the instruments he loves so much. God opened doors for both of us to sing and play on our praise teams. Jeff was even given the honor to lead worship for quite a few different church's at Camp Liberty in Iraq recently while deployed there.
We started writing music together when we were in our teen years, country songs mostly, about loosing the one you love and of course your dog dieing.. We were a sad bunch back then.. We laugh about it now. These days, I'm happy to say we have grown in our gifts. Each time we are together we have jam sessions. We play every Hymn and Contemporary song we can think of. Jeff plays the guitar and my son Bobby plays the drums when he's with us. When we run out of songs Jeff and I start to play and sing what ever is on our hearts. No rhyme or reason to it really we just sing to our Lord and what comes out is usually quite beautiful. Our Daddy and step mom join in with harmony and we have a grand old time! Daddy's desire has always been to see us on the platform one day as the Booth Family.
Maybe we will find our selves there together sharing our testimonies and love for God as the Booths but for now, sharing the platform with P.A.G. Band is enough for me. What a humbling experience it is worshiping with them. It's a sweet joy to be able to lead the body of Christ into God's presence with an amazing team of people who truly love our Lord and want to bring Him glory through the gifts He so freely gives each of us!
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