I'm at work..."working," so I decided to blog...

BLU21!!!

Ok...so I haven't written a blog about Blu21 in quite some time. Well here's one.

We've been playing at churches in neighboring towns, birthday parties, and even in random parks in Jamaica. Were we nervous for any of those....not really. I mean you have those small pre-performance jitters, but nothing too big. Well let me tell ya, I had my first case of serious performance anxiety for the first time in a REALLY long time. I know you're wondering..."Anjelica, where were you playin that caused you such anxiety? A packed arena? The White House? Some record exec's office?" No, no, and nope. Ladies and gentlemen, we played for our home church. EEKKK!

It's not like I hadn't figured that this day would come sooner or later. The leadership in the church is working to get the young adults more involved. So the day came. I got the e-mail last week..."Anjelica, we would like you and Jessica to playing during service on Sunday...etc etc etc" HOLD UP. PUMP THE FREAKIN BRAKES!!! sssssssscccccrrrrrrrrrrrrr......

Of course we said yes...yes we would love to play. But you wanna know something? Whenever I come across an opportunity that may stretch me beyond my comfort zone, I automatically want to say no, but I hurry up and say yes before I can say "no, thanks though." So there we were, about to play at the home church for the first time in just a few days. I can't really speak for Jessica, but Anjelica was scared the first day. The second day...still nervous. The third day...kinda nervous. The day before...it's whatever. We're doing it, so let just do it. We practiced late. We tried to perfect our sounds and I tried to remember the order of the words and chords. Then the day came.

We loaded our guitars in the cars, got in, and made our way to church. I prayed almost the entire time!!! lol I was like...."Lord Jesus...I'm scared. BUT Ima get up there and worship you and that's all. So please let them hear the words." And then I began to ask God, what the HECK are we gonna say. It takes a few seconds for our mics to be set up and we always need something to say during time. And neither of us ever want to talk. I was PRAYING that Jessica would have something to say...LOL, and I'm sure she was praying the same. Well..she won (??? Is that correct to say someone won, prayer against prayer? lol) Anywho...God did give me something to say. I just talked about how the song was simple, but all God wants in a pure heart that desire Him. That it doesn't matter how simple the song is, but it's what is behind those simple words that matters. Those weren't my exact words, but I can't remember them. It was a freakin blur. So it was something to that effect.

We struck the first chords. I heard Stix project extremely well (that girl don't need to guitar pick man). We were on it. Then I opened my mouth for the first words. CRACK!!! I cracked on the FIRST note. LOL SOOO EMBARRASSING. But once that happened I was like..."Lord, now this is REALLY for you cuz I do NOT want to think about what everything else is thinking!!" LMBO So I kept singing, closed my eyes, listened to the guitar sick-wit-it-ness of Stix, and dedicated every word to God.

And there you have it. We ministered. We worshiped. We played for our church family.

Sidenote: Why is it always so hard to play for the folks you know real well?? Its strange really. Shouldn't they be those people that you have no fear to play in front of? My philosophy? Nope. I can play all day in front of random crowds because I don't know them folks. I probably won't ever see them again (at least that's what I tell myself). But when its at home...its a different story. You will see them next week! It really didn't help when Sophie was like..."you need to be prepared, cuz they will 'critique the mess outta you'." No she didn't actually say "critique", but you get the idea. We needed to be on point.

Ladies and gents, we did well. I'm very proud of our performance. I am very grateful that I was able to concentrate on God during that song instead of the people. Then after service several people came to us and told us how well we did. There was one lady in particular who I had never seen before. She was one of our fair skinned sisters in the Lord (lol) and she saw me walking out the front door. She stopped and said "y'all did so well." I told her thanks, then she looked at me with his super intense look and was like..."no. seriously. Thank you! Thank you for your words and your worship. Thank you" I didn't know exactly what to say. I hugged her, smiled, and walked away. I was floored that this simple song could touch someone like that.

We played during second service as well. I COMPLETELY changed the words around, changing the order of thangs, added some stuff, deleted some stuff..oops But Stix was right there, ready to play and catch whatever was being tossed out. I was pleased with both performances.

What's next?

Stix wisely said on the way home..."we need more songs." LOL and I couldn't agree more. We can't keep playing the same ones. We've got like 7 oringal songs total, 3 or 4 strong ones, and then a few covers. Soo...yup, we need to get to writin.

All in all...Sunday was a very long, long, and satisfying day.


*God doesn't need some grandiose production. But just our pure hearts focused on Him, giving of ourselves unselfishly*

I also have 2 REALLY big opportunities in the horizon that would get me out of this sameness of everyday. They both came out of nowhere, could get me out of the routine that I've grown accustomed to, and involved working with some really great people. Both opportunities would fulfill separate dreams of mine. I can't wait to blog about them, but of course, I'll wait until they're official. I love God.

~Jelly~