new to pally(ing?)Follow

My main is a hunter, and to be honest never paid much attention to info on paladins, but i've been impressed as of late on how well a prot pally can do.
So, I started a blood elf pally, the dream being to eventually have a prot tank for use because the server I am on (Dalvengyr) has a horribly low amount of tanks (and healers).
I'm currently only level 24, and I'm fully spec'd as ret right now thinking thats the best for leveling. I have done the quest for the polearm, blood soaked rancour, have some of the tranquillien gear (man i wish all rep was that easy to become exalted), and of course am hunting down better gear.
While looking for a group the other day to do SFK for the one pally quest part in there, when we could'nt find a healer I was asked if I wanted to heal. Having never healed anything before, aside from my hunter pets, I reluctantly agreed. The first comment out of the mage we lated picked up was "he's not even holy!", anyways things went well (warrior tank did a good job), and except for a stupid move by the mage getting himself killed, it went flawless.
One of the other members commented later "wow, ret pally's can heal!". Made me feel good, all I really did was spam flash anyways.
Anyways, looking forward to progressing with this little fella'.

At lower levels you don't have much gear or talent points to work with so there isn't much difference between the specs. As you get higher level it becomes more and more difficult to try to pull off a function you're not specced for.