Sparks and Shadows

This song is probably a little more esoteric than some of the others I've written. The idea behind it is that the faithfulness of God and His constant presence in our lives is found in and through and underneath all of life's circumstances. There's the line that says, "When night falls and my thoughts wander, you stay." It's just the idea that sometimes we are not completely faithful. Our hearts betray us, and we give in to fear or doubt or selfishness. Through all of those things, God is still constant and is still calling us back."


God of Miracles

"God of Miracles" talks about those times in our lives that really show us we are always in desperate need of God. We can't make it on our own. My sister, Starla, had a baby a year before me, and at only 2-days-old, Mikey had to be flown to Little Rock for surgery. He stayed in the hospital for a month. He couldn't eat, couldn't cry. The doctors gently told Mike and Starla they needed to prepare themselves for the idea that he may not get better. Thankfully, Mikey is healthy now. When he was 3-months old, they took him for a check-up. The doctor actually had a group of students in the room where Mikey and his parents were and started telling them about Mikey's recovery. "We don't really know why he suddenly started getting better," the doctor said. About then, my sister piped up, "We do." She told the room that God healed him, that Mikey was better because God heard the prayers of families and friends and worked a miracle. I just wanted to use real-life examples to illustrate that we need God to come and work a miracle. I've always known this in my head, but I'm finally starting to finally get it - that in Christ are all the answers for everything in our lives, every need and every question.


Faithful Father

"Faithful Father" illustrates another one of those basic truths: God's faithfulness inspires our faithfulness. Sometimes, He has to discipline us to get us to follow Him. Often, if we choose to let him work this way, His goodness and faithfulness will inspire us to follow Him into obedience. I don't always have to know exactly why He does something. I can just obey however He chooses to speak to me.


God is All Around Us

That’s one of my favorites on the project, actually. It uses a lot of illustrations from nature to just point out, especially to a small child, all of these things that God has made and what He’s in control of. The first verse just says, God knows best and the second verse says, He is good and the last one says He is love. And it’s just all these things that illustrate those different principles. But it’s kind of a fun song—more than being really deep.


Jewels

“Jewels” is an old children’s hymn that I used to sing when I was a little girl. Ever since then, I just loved that song and I thought that other people would too. It’s just so beautiful and what it says is such a beautiful concept. I remember being four years old and singing that song and I didn’t completely understand it, but having some sense that I could literally be like a jewel or a gem in Jesus’ crown. That just really appealed to me, wanting to please Him and bring Him joy. Those are the things that if we get a hold of before we really cognitively completely understand it, then as our understanding grows, we continue to understand more and more…what a gift to give to children.


My Delight

This song is from the scripture, Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. It’s a fun little song. We call it our up-tempo song on the album because it’s just a tiny bit, well; it’s got a bit more motion in the track than all of the other—which are totally geared toward making you fall asleep- it’s just a little more up and fun. And basically it addresses that concept of delighting yourself in the Lord, which is why I wanted it to be a little bit fun. I think that’s something that the younger we learn the better, because it’s not some kind of chore, or a duty, our relationship with God, but it should be fun and exciting.


Perfect Peace

This song is from the scripture; He will keep you in perfect peace if your mind is stayed on Him. And I just was thinking about the fact that kids a lot of times get a little afraid or don’t want to be in bed or don’t want to be in the dark. They want to be in there with their parents. It seems to start very young. And once again, I know it’s not something that at three months old you can quite understand, but you can when you’re a little bit older. And the music is very peaceful and very calming. But just that, think about Jesus, think about the fact that there are angels guarding you and He is always right with you and that even if you whisper a prayer, He can hear you. You may be in here alone, by yourself, but if you just whisper the tiniest prayer…And once again there was a line in there that was inspired by my nephew because I wrote this when he was in the hospital. He couldn’t cry, he couldn’t make a sound. So there’s a line that says, whisper it and he will hear you. But I thought, of course that relates to everyone--and even to those of us who are in our twenties or thirties or forties! . .


My Best Friend

This was one of the earliest songs written. It’s a really short little song and it just basically talks about how Jesus is my best friend. I can always go to Him and tell Him everything I am dreaming of, my friend Jesus who I love. And then there’s another little verse that changes the lyrics. It’s just a real simple little song that I think serves as a reminder for those of us who are older but also introduces that concept of Jesus being the friend who sticks closer than a brother. The very best friend you’ll ever have.


Your Whole Life Long

“Your Whole Life Long,” was a concept that the president of Sparrow Records actually suggested to me when I was in the process of writing. He said, “what if you were a parent praying over your child, what would you pray for him, what prayer would you pray for him as you were going to sleep at night?” And it just instantly sparked this whole song. And as I was singing these vocals in the studio this was the one I struggled a little bit with, with getting emotional Because now as I’m singing it I’m thinking well, I know this is a little boy and in a little over three months he’ll be born! The closer it comes you start to get really anxious to meet them and think about their lives. And I’ve been praying ever since I knew and well before I knew it was a boy, I began to pray every day for this baby. Just all the things we all pray for, for health and all that, but praying too, that God would begin even now to draw this child to him and that he would come to know the Lord early and walk with Him all of his life. And so you think about all those things and you try to sing this song! And I think from the parents that I’ve talked to who have heard it they’ve said that it inspires similar feelings in them. I think all Christian parents, more than anything they can pray for their child, you pray that they would follow Christ all their lives. That’s the number one prayer.


His Beloved

My dad told me, years ago, you know, a lot of times, God speaks to me when I’m sleeping. I think he was talking about the fact that he didn’t lay awake worrying at night. And he said, “if I have something that’s worrying me I’ll pray about it right before I go to sleep and commit it to the Lord and ask him for the answer and often I wake up the next morning with the answer. I just wake up with it.” And I thought, wow, that’s neat. So that’s really the idea that song was born from: that God gives to us, ministers to us peace and even wisdom while we’re sleeping—to trust in Him.


More Than I Can Say

The chorus is just He loves you more than I can say. He is always taking care of you. He loves you more than I can say. And more than I can say, he hopes you’ll love Him too. The songs talks about how God places us in families so we can begin to get an understanding of how much He loves us from our parents and those people around us when we’re very young. But I began to think about how even in Christian circles so many kids are in single parent homes. So this song addresses that. There’s even a line that says if you don’t have a mother, He’ll sing you a lullaby. And then in the second verse, if you don’t have a Daddy, he’ll be your father. And I thought that was good obviously for the single parent, and for the kids in those homes, but also for the kids who have a wonderful mom and dad to once again begin to have a little awareness that God has blessed them very specially. I wanted them to recognize that and be grateful and to begin to feel empathy and compassion to pray for people who are in different circumstances.


There is Only One

“There Is Only One” basically addresses self-image and self-esteem. It says that there is only one person like you and God created you to be you exactly. Whether you're black or white or whatever shape or size you are, it talks about how much your mom and dad love you. Then at the end it says, but there’s only one person who loves you more than that and that’s God. So it’s once again just really reinforcing that message of who you are created to be and your position in Christ.


Bedtime Prayer

I started out writing this song with the classic thing you think of when little kids get down to pray. God bless mom and dad and grandpa and grandma and my dog and my cat, blah, blah, blah, and at the end, God bless me. And so that’s what I was going to write—just all these cute little things for God to bless and then God bless me at the end of each verse. And when I got there, it just kind of turned on me and I realized that what I wanted to do was not to say God bless me but to say at the end, and thank you for all the ways that you bless me. Instead of asking for something, ask for these things for other people and then say, thank you and I know that you bless me. Not that it’s not okay to ask, but in this particular song, I wanted to be able to begin to teach that lesson of gratitude and compassion for other people. There are lines in the song that talk about people who don’t know God, and who maybe some day I can go and tell them and love them. It’s just planting little thoughts to open this giving.


See You Tomorrow

That’s a song that was meant to inspire worship. It just talks about when I wake up in the morning the first thing I do is thank the Lord for the day. And I think about how I want to make him happy during the day. The chorus is really just a little worship chorus that says, you are my father and I love you, you’re my God and I praise you, I’m glad you made the sky so blue, I’m glad you made me too. Then the second verse talks about the evening. Just before I go to bed I’m going to say goodnight and talk to the Lord again, ask forgiveness for anything I did wrong during the day and say goodnight. The title comes from the last line of the song that says see you tomorrow.


Blessing

I wrote “Blessing,” taking the well known, probably the best-known blessing in Scripture, May the Lord bless and keep you and cause His face to shine upon you, that we hear so often in church. My younger brother got married this past year and I actually wrote that for his wedding and my two sisters and I sang it during communion as a blessing over their new home. But as soon as I wrote it, (because I was in the process of writing songs for this project), I was like, oh my goodness, this has to be on the Lullaby album! What parents wouldn’t want to sing that same blessing over their child? And then my little nephew had some problems and had to be flown to Children’s Hospital and have surgery when he was two days old. He was in neonatal intensive care for a month and couldn’t cry and was really not doing well for the first part of his life. And everyone really praying for him, of course, and he turned a corner at right about one month, and is perfectly fine now. But during those days when he was in intensive care, my sister and her husband, told me, that every night—because she had learned this song a month earlier for the wedding and she knew it—every night they would sing it to him as they left him in the hospital.