[WEEP AND HOWL!]

"I see Your face in every sunrise,
The colours of the morning are inside Your eyes
The world awakens at the light of the day,
I look up to the sky and say 'You're Beautiful.'
Oh, Oh, You're Beautiful, Oh, Oh."

"Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good
All you people, all you saints, all you children of the King...
Gloria, gloria, gloria, gloria."

"Lily of the valley, bright and morning star
Fairest of ten thousand, you are, you are.
How can I perceive your beauty,
I long to see your face,
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus."

"In Your Word,
In Your Heart,
By Your Blood,
Lord, You're our Refuge."

These are the sounds of my happiness.

Yup, definitely still awake. At this point (and because my alarm is going to go off in t-minus 2 hours and 53 minutes... not a good night's sleep at all), I'm pretty much in this for the long haul.

So, whenever I think of these songs which are listed in (my favourite) bits and pieces above, the voice in my mind is that of one of the girls from my church. Anyone who goes to The Gate will know who I'm talking about, because there's really only three girls who sing on worship teams, and two of us are on the same team (and have only ever done one of those songs since I've been on the team). Anywho, now that we've established that it's the girl on the team with the synthesizer (and have I mentioned my newfound LOVE of the synthesizer?), it's a good segue into my newfound love of the syth. Since first going to The Gate (Well, since my first recollection of a service... which is probably late August 2010. Even though I'd been attending off and on for almost three years by that point. More on that later, though.) and seeing GE's team lead worship, my mind has been blown nearly every time they're up there. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that my mind has been blown every single time they're all there. Sure, I love the acoustic sets, but there's nothing like being able to feel the music. That's why I loved going to the bar; the feeling deep in your chest when the bass is so loud that you feel it. And now that I can get that at church, I'm all about drums and thumping bass during worship.

...aaaaand all the old folks at my church in RD just collectively gasped at the scandal. "Drums in church? Why, I never!" Which would be why they only got drums about 7 years ago, when all the really old ones started to lose their hearing. Which would also be why I liked the youth-geared services more than the organ-driven Sunday morning service (not that there's anything wrong with organs, per se...) when I regularly attended BBC; they would allow drums. If you haven't picked it up yet, I LOVE BASS. (Not Lance, former BSB. Oh crap, did I just age myself? Although I really don't have anything against the man, that's not what I meant.) I love music that's so loud you can feel it. I LOVE BASS. And synths, apparently.

I hope each and every one of you who reads this (and those who don't, too) finds some kind of music/muse/passion/inspiration/bit of insanity that drives you toward happiness. I found happiness in 2010, and will never give it up now that I've seen 'life on the other side of the fence.' I found happiness when I laughed so hard I cried. I saw happiness watching the children running around, just happy being alive and together. I found happiness in inside jokes with my new friends and attending the most perfect worship service I've ever seen. I found happiness talking of hallucinagenic drugs, the primal cuts on a side of beef, and prairie oysters with my pastor. I found happiness in serving others, even though it meant going almost three days without sleep to prepare for it. I found happiness in common goals, beliefs, and ex-bfs with people I never would have met if it wasn't for The Gate. I found true happiness, for the first time in my life, at The Gate.





And God found me at The Gate.