I grew up extremely shy.

In fact, I was flat-out terrified of speaking up. At school, my classmates and teachers would try asking me questions or make conversation with me and I would freeze. It wasn’t due to lack of interest either. I wanted to speak, but I was scared. As a result, I didn’t engage much with my classmates or participate in school activities. I did like playing guitar, though. Fingerstyle guitar was my genre of choice as it allowed me to express myself without requiring my voice. I even played at a few performances, but I couldn’t help feeling that I was holding back by not contributing my voice. More than that, I felt extraordinarily drawn to sing. I just could not get over the self-consciousness and anxiety that this caused me. So I continued to avoid it.

Fast forward to 2016, I chose to go to World Youth Day in Poland with a group from my parish. One of the events I was looking forward to the most  was a concert featuring Matt Maher, Audrey Assad, and a singing priest, all capped off with a talk given by Bishop Barron. During the concert, some of the members of my group began asking why I wasn’t enjoying myself. Because, unlike them, I wasn’t jumping around and singing along. I hate having my quietness pointed out, and so I began mouthing the words to the song that was being played. Naturally the event finished off with more upbeat music and, I don’t know if it was the energy in the room or a sudden burst of grace, but I felt invited to sing more than I ever had before. 

This was a big deal for me! I never sing. Not in front of others, not among family or friends, or even when I am completely alone. However, I felt safe enough to attempt it being enveloped by thousands of other voices. Once the chorus for the song, “All the People Said Amen” started, I threw my voice out there. It was so loud that I didn’t have any good sense of whether I sounded good or not. I just let it out and it felt... amazing. Perhaps it was just a cathartic release of anxiety, but, looking back, I cannot deny God’s hand working in this moment.

A few months later, I was invited to attend a World Youth Day reunion event. Now, this new singing revelation hadn’t exactly taken off right away, as a new school semester began to dominate my thoughts. To my surprise, it turned out that Father Rob Galea, the singing priest from the concert I attended in Poland, was hosting the event. He kept repeating one simple phrase during the night: “Do it scared”. He shared that he never performs in front of a crowd without feeling anxiety, whether it was in front of 12 or 400,000 people. Despite the anxiety, he continuously chooses to step up.

I knew that was the kind of thing I wanted to be capable of. I knew I was not satisfied in holding back a part of myself that I felt was trying to emerge. As someone who has always chosen the path of “Don’t do it because you’re scared,” I was touched remarkably. He then started playing “All the People Said Amen” by Matt Maher, the first song I had ever sung, and there was no way I was going to shy away from singing.

Years later, singing has become one of the greatest joys in my life. 

One year after attending World Youth Day, I led Praise and Worship for the first time at my parish. That first event was mediocre at best. In fact, there was a moment during the evening where I totally blundered a note and laughed, very awkwardly, directly into the microphone. Truth be told, I was devastated at that moment. As far as I was concerned, I had just nullified everything I thought God was trying to tell me through my experience at  World Youth Day. But, more opportunities to lead worship came and, as scared as I was, I was drawn to it. More blunders came, but so too came moments of grace and excellence.

God gave me the desire to sing for a reason. At first, it seemed a painful reminder of what I couldn’t do: what I was too scared to do. Then it became something that I was often too anxious to do, too tired to do, or too inadequate to do. More importantly, it became something that I was called to do. Regardless of the negative emotions that arose (and continue to arise), God’s grace has carried me through and allowed me to sing for Him with all delight.


Johnathan Kerssens is a DevOps Engineer at Safe Software and a parishioner at All Saints Parish in Coquitlam, BC.


#WeAreProclaim is a story campaign by the Proclaim Movement. Inspired by Humans of New York and the Archdiocese of Detroit’s I am Here campaign, it will showcase missionary conversion stories of people from the Archdiocese of Vancouver. Check out the rest of the campaign on Facebook and Instagram at @weareproclaim.