I came very close to just backing out and quitting.

I lived with envy and jealousy all of my life in the church, from the time I was 6 years old. I never understood it.

I sang from my heart, I loved Jesus and I always gave him the very best. I knew I had a special talent and God gave it to me.

Much I inherited from my father, but there was something extra, a special presence when I sang and I knew it was the Holy Ghost and I knew it came from God. It was some years as a child before I realized some people resented me for it.

This is to help someone…. It’s not for attention and not for anyone to feel sorry for me.

I don’t need pity. It’s about how cold some of us have become.

I haven’t played the piano or sung in church for 15 years and rarely ever played or sung at all anywhere.

I had a couple of bad head injuries some years ago, I admit, my own wrong doing. Had some chemo for Hepatitis-C five years back and lost part of my memory.

All I’m saying, is that trying to start over at age sixty, with half the devils in hell fighting you ain’t easy. I knew from the beginning that if I pulled this off, it was only God helping me.

I wanted to sing for Him again. I just had to. I felt like I was going to die or rather be dead if I couldn’t.

I saved my money, bought a used piano and borrowed a small camera. I want to tell all of you that every song was done only through His strength. I simply did not have the strength mentally or physically to do it.

I have no health problems, no blood related issues of any kind now, and that is a miracle all within itself. I will say this once. God, preserved my music and talent. I lost everything in my life and I thought often times that I had lost that also.

Actually, I was surprised in days gone by. I would sometimes sing without music when no one else was around and I was amazed at the strength I still had.

But life takes a hard toll on us sometimes and I am more tired in spirit and mind than ever before in my life. I was so happy that my meager attempts to make a video, which I had never done in my life, came out as well as it did.

I never had a chance over the the years to see or hear myself on tape much. The few times I did, I did not really recognize the person on the tape. This person looked very different than the person I felt on the inside.

Although I had the intense desire to sing and play again, it did not come easy at all. Just trying to do everything at once now was one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced.

I’ve listened to these songs I put on Facebook and YouTube. I will tell you something I never thought I would say. I have felt the presence of The LORD and wept and spoken in tongues and The LORD has blessed me so greatly as I listened.

Some of you have been very kind and have let me know you appreciated my singing and playing. I am very grateful for God allowing me to do this. I almost can’t believe what I am hearing on these tapes.

I’m listening to a man with a very nice voice who is putting his heart into it and even though he sounds a bit rusty on the piano and the old piano still isn’t exactly in tune, he has an unusual style and something in his voice makes me want to cry and I feel the real presence of The LORD. Every time I hear it. I was a good teacher. But now I am a bit confused.

Starting my Facebook account, I chose a lot of singers and musicians for my list, in fact, many. Some I had sung with years ago and we had a nice chat about the old days and wished we could sing together.

Some on my list are very professional and well known artists. I’m trying to watch my spirit right here. Almost none of these people could even bother to say one nice single word to me.

Some I know have read at least a little of my posts and know I am trying to start over again. Not a word from most of them.

Don’t tell me I’m just doing this for compliments. I’ve prayed too hard about this. I am telling you how hard-hearted some of us have become.

Envy and jealousy was rampant in the pentecostal Church before I left years ago. It is more so now and competition is crushing.

I’m sorry to say that. I’m telling you how serious I have become. Before I play and sing today, I get down on my knees first by that piano bench and ask God to anoint me and let me sing for His Honor and Glory and for His People and I have learned to say yes, and let me enjoy it too.

Several times I told God I didn’t want to sing today, I just don’t have it. The LORD would speak to me and say do it anyway, do your best and I will help you.

I taught music all over the south and I am no slouch. I was a gentleman and I was known for encouraging others. I didn’t have the musical training that so many of you have, but I had natural born talent and the blessing of listening and emulating the very best musicians and singers in Pentecost.

And I learned how to depend on the Holy Ghost first and foremost, no matter what. I have been honest about failing God and I have been honest about having a long way to go even now.

I don’t care if someone has failed or how they live their life, whether I agree or not, I am called to be a gentleman no matter what and as someone who claims to know Christ, the very least I can do is say a kind word to someone.

When I was in Church, I never in my life acted the way these people act. I thought I was past being hurt by Church people but it cut me to the bone.

God gave me a song once again and I do not intend to let some arrogant, stuck-up, ego-tripping person or self-righteous, envious snit of a person take it from me. How dare some of you!

We didn’t use to be like this. I can tell you straight out I know what I’m saying. We sung together, encouraged one another, lifted each other up and we had the best voices and music this side of heaven, not only because we were flat good but we had been taught by our elders to put the Holy Ghost first in our music or it was not fit to listen to.

I have surfed the internet for hours at a time over the last 7 years listening to every kind of church music there is. I can tell you that some of the deepest and most spiritual music is no longer in the fellowships many of us are in, or once were in.

The Holy Ghost in many places has moved over into some of the other denominational Churches that we used to ridicule and make fun of and began to anoint those people.

Some of the most beautiful harmony and deeply anointed singing is coming from those we shunned and denied membership in the body of Christ. While we got arrogant they got hungry and they began to experience what we took for granted.

You can stone me if you want, but it won’t be the first time. The Holy Ghost will not sing with self. He don’t have to.

I’ve already said too much, so I might as well finish it.

I did not intend to write on here. I don’t claim to be anything. We are all just a bag of bones with some air and not promised tomorrow and the fact that we have escaped some failures or avoided disaster in our lives, is only by the grace of God and not on our goodness.

We are called to help others…. period! If we have failed and God is gracious enough to spare our lives, then we are indebted to help others who have failed also.

To think that some would come onto my meager attempts to say what I thought the good Lord might allow me to say and snip at me with their remarks, or try to distract or take away from the words I was trying to say to help someone, didn’t occur to me.

You see, I’ve been away from a lot of that for a long time and had forgotten just how rotten some people could be. I got a rude awakening real fast. I took some people off my list and then put them back on because I felt guilty and hoped I didn’t have the wrong spirit.

I used my clicker. And I will use it again. I took off a whole bunch of singers and musicians who do not have the right spirit.

I do not need these people in my life, not on Facebook, not nowhere! I took off some ministers and will take off some more if I have to.

You people stomped on us for years while we were doing our very best to live for God and you’re part of the reason why some of us have no desire whatsoever to be a part of your Fellowship or Church.

God has made a way for many of us to find our way back and find a place of worship, where we can love Him and others once again.

Some of us are still wandering, lost and can’t find a place to fit in but we don’t need you or your kind. There truly are some real scriptures that say there are times when it is right to avoid certain people.

For years you avoided us and now we have the right to avoid you. We can love you but we don’t have to live with you. You know, you’re like the elder brother and the Prodigal son. God blessed you. You remained in the Father’s house and lived with his protection and enjoyed worshiping and kept your positions in the choir and Sunday School and on the instruments and had so much.

You can hate me, talk about me, it doesn’t matter. I don’t hate you anymore, I feel sorry for you.

You don’t know what’s coming down the road for you if you don’t soften your heart. And some people who left the church, fell in the pit, made it back by the skin of their teeth and the grace of God, and you dare be haughty or cold to someone who is still struggling? I feel sorry for you the most.

Last word….

I’m just going to find some other people to sing to. There are a lot of people who would appreciate hearing someone sing their best unto The LORD. There’s a whole world out here that is hungry for what we say we have. Tons.

They know who real people are. I intend to keep searching for them even on Facebook if I stay. I want to be their friends.

Others who want to play the same old, tired, boring game, hear the sound of “click.” There is an old saying I converted to fit me. It says, “If the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.”

If you don’t want to hear what I have to say, or listen to me, then your clicker works the same way as mine. But I won’t let you hurt me or anyone I care about with your unkind or distracting remarks.

There are too many hurting, lonely people who care more about what you have in your heart than what you look like. They need music, real soul stirring music and they need a word, a good word, a kind word and the love that goes with it.

I’m too old now and my time is getting shorter. I have to make the most of what I have left. I can’t do anything without Him. And maybe for the first time in my life, I have absolutely no desire to try.

I may fall down and I may yet make some mistakes, but I only have to hold out a little while longer.

You can push me out of your music show if you want but there is one choir I’m gonna sing in that has a place waiting for me. And I’m gonna have my own robe too. Just you wait and see.

To all the sweet people, I love you, I always will…….

First published: August 10, 2010.

~ Robert Blackburn

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Robert Blackburn

 

 

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