Revolutionaries

Peer pressure is not experienced just as a teenager. There is a press on everyone, no matter what age, to think a certain way, act a certain way, believe a certain way. This song is about not settling for less just because the majority is content to do so. It’s a call to leave behind the masses, popularity, and human praise in search of that narrow path of which the Scriptures speak. It’s a song about paying the price to pave the way. It’s about reaching beyond our grasp—having a vision and pursuing it. I wrote it to encourage other people to dream big, and to not put God in a box or attempt to fit Him into the preconceived ideas we have of Him. He has proved over and over to me that He is the God of the Possible. I see in the Bible He is often the God of the revolutionaries, but rarely the God of the Status Quo and never the God of our formulas. This song is an invitation for you to jump off the bandwagon, shake the dust from your feet, and take on all the labels and criticism you’ll receive for being someone who sees God in that light and dares to dream His dreams.


Great Big Mystery

From the very first time I heard the rawness of the music to this song, I knew I wanted to say something that would rightly embody it. The wildness of God was the first concept that came to mind. Often, we think of God as someone who is tame and subdued when the truth is the very opposite! We knew what we wanted to say, but getting the lyric laid down, one that really got at the heart of the matter, was a whole other thing. After wrestling with this song for almost six months, Ed Cash suggested one night that I write down who God is to me. So Ed busied himself in the studio and I wrote down everything in my heart and mind. The pages were quickly filled with thoughts, quotes, and words: “God is bigger than our desires, he’s bigger than our mistakes… He chooses to love us in the midst of our failures.” I left the studio that night and it was hard to imagine how we’d get a complete song from three pages of my heart scribbled out in messy handwriting. I arrived at the studio the next morning and the bulk of the song was written! The original theme—the wildness of God— is evident even though the song is now centered on the mystery of God. The mystery and the wildness of God draw us to Him when we see depth of our need. It takes a reckless and free God to love humanity. And that in part is the great mystery. “The way you keep on loving me is changing everything I see/ it’s a great big mystery.”


Beautiful

I wrote this song following a series of talks with my youth group about what it is to be a woman—how we reflect God’s glory and what our hearts desire most. “Beautiful” was both easy and tough to write. Easy because I fight those battles almost every second—“Am I enough? Do they think I’m beautiful?” – tough because it was almost shameful to admit those are often my thoughts and fears. Though it’s not something neatly packaged that I can cure, my heart is deeply burdened to just be in the struggle alongside women… to feel vulnerable together… to win the battles together… to finally come to understand that we are intensely pursued by the Strong and Rescuing Jesus—what we have wanted all along.


Move Forward

My name is Foreigner/From a far away land/My feet are covered in earth/They’ve been here and back again.”

I feel like I have even a hint of this theme weaved into everything I write: we are not meant for this world. The times when I have felt most disheartened are when I start thinking this is all there is. But, the heroes of our faith had it settled in their hearts that faith is the assurance of what is not seen; and who hopes for what he already has?

I want to shed a new light on this matter—there is joy in leaving everything behind. It’s not a grievous thing to live for something other than you! Believe me, I’ve felt the tension with being “in not of” … the clash between this world and the next. But I take heart in knowing that I shouldn’t fit, and at times, I’m called to be alone. So, I’m pushing every hindrance, distraction and temptation aside, forgetting what is behind me, and moving forward to what I can only hope in now.

“…All these faithful ones died without receiving what God had promised them, but they saw it from a distance and welcomed the promises of God. They agreed that they were no more than foreigners and nomads here on earth. And obviously people who talk like that are looking forward to a country they can call their own… they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland.” Hebrews 11: 13-16


For My Love

It’s deeply rooted in every woman- the question, “Do I stand out in a crowd?” The vision of someone walking across a room and asking me to dance plays over and over in my mind; out of the whole room, I was chosen. I’ll be honest, I’m fifteen… I have crushes… but more than whimsical feelings and fickle emotion, I really do want to be fought for. I long to be recklessly pursued. I’m looking for true love, something honest and untainted, with no hidden agenda but that it wants to chase after me.

I love Psalm 45: “Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say. Forget your people and your homeland far away. For your royal husband delights in your beauty.” That’s it! That’s what every chick flick revolves around, that’s what every romance novel is written about, those are the exact words that made me want to be a princess when I was younger.

The sad reality is, though, that women often aren’t validated and reassured that they’re worth that kind of affection. It scars us in the deepest places and causes us to cover our mouths when we smile and hide who we truly are. But, that’s what I love about Jesus—he’s a husband to the widow, the freer of a captive heart.


All I Need
It’s one of the simplest things I’ve ever written, but it is such a powerful claim to make: “You are all I need when I’m surrounded/ You are all I need if I’m by myself.” Who would have ever thought that you could experience so much joy when you forget about every other “pressing” matter and cling to Jesus? Every morning I wake up to the promise that everything is fresh and new… that his mercy is ready to pour over me once again. There are so many other things that are vying for my attention, but when I quiet myself and hush all of the voices that are shouting out my name just so I can hear his gentle voice, I hear him say, “I’m with you.”


Aimless

Mel Gibson said once in an interview, “I’ve been at the height of success… I had money, looks, fame, talent… but it only made me emptier. It’s like, the more you have the emptier you get.” I think that’s a universal feeling; no matter how much we own, how many people like us, how well we’re known, there’s always that emptiness left in us, begging for an explanation.

I remember every moment writing this song. From the time I hummed it out back in my room, it’s been very dear to me. Every word of it is telling my story and communicating my heart, but for some reason it felt right to have actual characters in it to embrace.

“Aimless” is about that frustrating truth. That while we live in this world, it isn’t the home we are looking for desperately. Crack open your Bible and read for a bit, and you’ll see what I mean.

Something responds in us when we hear of the hope of glory, a heaven, a truly just and compassionate God. We long to see what we have not yet seen and yearn to grasp what is beyond us. Yet… there’s freedom to be found. Nothing in this world will ever fit or fill us and that leads us to the conclusion there must be something other than this. I think the last lines of this song sum it up pretty well—“They’ve always known this wasn’t home.”


Lead Me On

Early on in the making of this record, Josh Moore asked me what I thought about doing a cover song. One day he showed me this song by Amy Grant that I’d never heard of (note that I was born the year it came out) and I flipped! What an incredible creation.

I remember sitting in the studio with all of the musicians the day we recorded it, listening over and over to the original version of this song. It already was so dynamic, we knew there was no way to add to it or take away from it, but we were all so excited to try and create something new out of it!

What I love most about “Lead Me On” is that you can sink your teeth into it--- the imagery in the lyrics, “Bitter cold terrain/Echoes of a slamming door/Chambers made for sleeping/Forever/Voices like thunder in a mighty war” is so rich and beautiful.

It is such an honor to have covered this song—it brings so much to the record.


Exodus

“For it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

Exodus 15 is the song that Moses and Miriam sang after the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, parted right before their eyes. I read that passage again at church camp in the summer of 2003, but it was like I had read it for the first time. I remember sitting on that unbearably hot bench, staring out into a cornfield (there are a lot of those in Ohio) and letting my imagination go; thinking about the celebration of that day. The Israelites for generations had been in bondage, it was all that some of them had ever known. They had grown used to the oppression and the abuse and perhaps had started to question the value even of being the “children of God”. And then God sends a deliverer to His people and brings them out of their oppression only to destroy their enemies right before their eyes! I was totally caught up in it…

“Exodus” means to leave… so this song is about leaving everything behind, but not necessarily forgetting it. We’ve all been released from what used to hold us back; we are the freedmen, and every day we get closer to the Promised Land. Our enemies are defeated and we find ourselves without chains. We look back at the Sea behind us, rushing and alive, as a symbol of the separation God has made between our shackles and us. True thankfulness fills our hearts until all we can do is move our feet and dance before our deliverer and sing “Lead Lord with unfailing love those that You have ransomed. We will sing out as we go on ‘our God is faithful; our God is faithful’.”


Why

I’m not sure if I’ll ever wrap my mind around those verses in Romans 8, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God.”

What a breathtaking truth! No matter how human I am, or how many are against me, I’ll never be severed from the love of God.

“Why” is about those times when I ignore His love; either out of shame, stupidity or stubbornness. But when I’ve dwelt in the darkness of doubt for bit—when I’ve gone and made a mess of everything—something pulls me out of the pigsty of my rebelliousness and leads me home, where He waits. I think the thing that amazes me the most about Him is that He is never too big to save me or too holy to forgive me. God isn’t a stern, hard man that has no room for grace. He knows well the depth of our humanity, but decides to be with us anyway. His love is too fierce; it just can’t be taken away from us.


A Voice Calling Out

This is a vision for my generation. Every word is a battle cry, ushering in the brave but few, that would choose to be a light blazing in the darkness. Whenever I sing this song, the word freedom is at the forefront of my mind. “The Kingdom of God is forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.” I hope this song wakes up the sleeper and is an encouragement to go beyond and rise up. It’s so hard to look past all that’s around me and shake off that surreal, mystical idea in my head of the Kingdom and the King himself. But, rest assured, there is more beneath the surface—and this song only scratches the surface of what I’m talking about. And if you strain enough to hear it, you’ll find out that what once “was a whisper is now a voice calling out.”