I've been helping to fill in as BYG praise leader for Edmund whenever I know that I can make it to church on Sundays. Ideally, I would practice the songs at home during the week, especially the newer ones that I've never played before. This was made difficult by the fact that I had no instrumental accompaniment. I had to resort to plinking away on an online virtual piano just to hear the chord changes.

When I was a sophomore in high school I started learning how to play the guitar at church. My parents decided that, though it wasn't for the piano or the violin, any musical interest was better than none, and bought me a guitar. The label said it was made in Korea and it came in one of those cardboard cases. The action was so high that I could only play it for fifteen minutes before the grooves in my finger callouses made pressing down on the strings an exercise in futility. And I would still play for hours.

I never actually got very good at the guitar. I can play chords well enough to get by, but all the fancy stuff is beyond me. And this old dog is okay with sitting and staying and occasionally rolling over.

But my old guitar is buried somewhere at my parents' house and I felt like it was time to upgrade after all these years, so I bought myself a new one. It was one of the cheaper ones I could find, and it's definitely not gold-plated, but it sounds fine and it plays pretty painlessly.

It's been great. I've brought out old praise song sheets and probably annoyed my neighbors. I had forgotten what it feels like when your voice and the strings are singing and harmonizing and building on top of each other and every breath you draw is Hallelujah.