I'm a work at home mom with nine kids (six boys and three girls) and five grandkids (four girls and one boy) who has loved to sing since I was old enough to make noise. I put together a couple of CD's primarily as a mother's day gift for my mom and those CD's blossomed into a type of ministry that just spread among family and friends. 

Back in high school I tried to sign up for voice lessons, but the voice teacher discouraged that, saying I didn't have what it takes to be a soloist and probably never would. But churches kept inviting me to sing so I kept singing.  When I was 24, I was praying about an invitation a church had given me to do a concert.  This was a big deal. I'd sung special music all at churches all around Maryland for years, even sang for a couple of weddings and a funeral or two.  But singing all by myself for an hour for a group of people was just plain intimidating. I didn't have a great voice. I wasn't a Streisand or a Karen Carpenter or a Sandi Patti.  Anyone could put up with a special music they didn't care for, it's only about three minutes.  But to come out especially to hear me sing for an hour or more? Who would come? And what would I sing?

I went to the Lord and begged Him to "fix" my voice, to make it beautiful.  Not because I wanted to glorify myself, but because I didn't want to dishonor Him with what I did.  Finally His answer came. "The gift you have is not in having a spectacular voice. You have a simple voice that doesn't get in the way of My message. And that's what Christian music is all about: communicating the message."

So with that, I just let go of worrying about my "sound" and focused on communicating the message in song. What I hope for after every performance is to have someone say, "That song really touched me. The Lord gave you that song just to bless me..." and that's all I want to hear.