My Journey of Song

I started singing when I was a small child. My mom tells me she could harmonize with me when I was three years old. I don’t have any recollection of this, but she swears it’s true. I was named after my aunt with no other reason than to honor her, but I truly believe my name choice was providential as Carol means song and I’ve always loved to sing.

I began choral singing in middle school, and this continued through high school at which time I also tacked on drama club to my list of artsy pursuits. This then led to my love for musical theater, public singing and performing. I dreamed of someday doing something significant with my talent, but wasn’t sure what that something was.

When I was 17 years old, I became a Christian, and this changed my life in more ways than one. As I gradually began to transform from the inside out in my new identity as a Christ follower, simultaneously I was beginning to develop new likes, namely contemporary Christian music. The very first time I heard music that sounded in every way like popular music but had lyrics about Jesus, I was hooked.

I pursued music in college, earning both a bachelor and master’s degree. While I was in graduate school, I began working part time as a church choir director and soloist. Simultaneously, I started performing in local churches and this paved the way to a concert ministry and this led to monthly appearances on Christian television as a guest artist. Following graduate school, I was offered a job as a vocal instructor at a Christian college where I taught private instruction and led a women’s choir. During my teaching career, I began writing music, completed a recording project, and placed second in a national competition for Christian artists held in Estes Park Colorado.

When my first child was born, I stepped down from my position at the college and accepted my first full time position as a church music director, leading a praise team, directing a choir and overseeing large scale musicals for seasonal holidays. The absolute highlight of my ministry career was singing in Calcutta India as the guest artist at Songs of the Season, a three-night city wide outreach to the beautiful people of India.

After 25 years of working in church music, I was eventually led to step down from vocational ministry for all the right reasons. Working in ministry was a rich, wonderful and rewarding season of my life. I will forever treasure the experiences I had, the memories I made and the relationships I formed.

I still sing, just not vocationally, on a platform or behind a microphone. Now I sing praise songs alone on my porch in the early morning, with a couple of private students during the week, and my most treasured singing experience these days is singing congregationally together with my husband in church every Sunday!

I’d like to close by sharing a beautiful experience I had many years ago as an attendee at a music director’s conference held at the Brooklyn Tabernacle church in NYC. The grand finale of this three-day event was singing together with other music directors and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir during their Sunday morning service. At the scheduled time, our mass choir assembled onto the platform and took our places on the risers. Once we were all in position, the music promptly began, and the director, Carol Cymbala, lifted her hands motioning for the choir to sing. Suddenly hundreds of voices joined together in unified worship filling the church with glorious praise, and I literally became undone. The sound was so incredibly beautiful, I just couldn’t form the words to sing. So I ceased trying, and instead just stood silently listening to the extraordinary worship all around me as gratitude filled my heart and tears of joy flowed down my cheeks. It was truly an amazing experience I will never forget.

As I reflected upon this experience, I realized that this is merely a glimpse of where my song journey will ultimately one day end, gathered together with people from every tribe, tongue and nation, lifting my voice in unified praise with a countless multitude of others, and singing songs of worship in honor and praise to God.