Constant

The constancy of God is the theme of this record. He is holy, He is true, and He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is faithful and just, merciful and compassionate. He continues to forgive, teach, rebuke, love and capture our hearts over and over. When it came time for this record, the word "constant" just kept coming to my heart. Just as God is holy and constant, we must strive for holiness and constancy in our own lives through Jesus. Just as He is constant in His pursuit of us, we need to be constant in our pursuit of Him. We wanted this song to express how we can experience true life when we lose our "cause" here on earth, and we take up the cross of Jesus and follow after His heart.


Seek Me

Deuteronomy 4:29 says, "But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find Him if you look for Him with all your heart and with all your soul." This song expresses the heart of God constantly urging us to pursue Him back. Sometimes because of the wounds that we bear from sin and shame we distance ourselves from our heavenly Father. The idea for the verses originated from a sermon that my dad used to preach out of 2 Samuel 9: 1-13. It is the story of David and Mephibosheth. After Jonathon and Saul’s deaths, David asked if there was anyone still left of the house of Saul that he could show kindness to for Jonathon’s sake. There was still one son of Jonathon, his name was Mephibosheth and he was crippled in both feet. David sent for him and his family. When Mephibosheth came to David, he bowed down and said, "What is your servant that you should notice a dead dog like me?" David said, "Don’t be afraid, for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathon. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table." This is such an incredible picture of God’s kindness and compassion. The table represents to me, the grace of God.


Friend For Life

This song took us a little by surprise. When we recorded it in the studio, we were all physically and emotionally exhausted. We left unsure of what it was that we really had on tape. Shortly after that, Nathan and I went on tour, and we decided to put the "rough" of the song in the CD player and make a decision on it. When we heard it, we were so moved. We both think now that it was better that we didn’t realize then what we got on tape… we weren’t supposed to analyze it anymore, and we needed to let it just be what it is. Besides it being just about our favorite song on the album, we feel that this song truly expresses the meaning of our name, "Watermark." Both lyrically and musically it reminds us of the living water that has powerfully left a mark on our lives. This same "flood" has made us passionate about leaving this mark wherever we go. A "friend for life" is a supporter forever and a supporter who continually bears the weight of another. We desperately long to wholly lean on Jesus and the cleansing flood of His presence.


Holy

This song, from Revelation 4, is one of the ways that we chose to focus in on the constancy of God. Worship is not a new concept—it has been happening day and night as long as God has been on His throne. There is an awesome fear and admiration of God around these writings in Revelation. I can truly imagine why John "fell to the ground as though dead" (Rev.1:17). We wanted to capture this lyrically and musically as though we were there by imagining the sights and sounds of the throne room of God. It is a powerful, awesome passage, and it causes us both to realize how very little we truly know about worship. The truth is, all of our lives, through every moment in our history and the history of mankind, the four living creatures day and night have never stopped saying, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come." That is true worship and we wanted to write about it…somehow.


No Idea

Psalm 139 is so beautiful. David says, "O Lord, You have searched me and You know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue You know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before; You have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain." This song came from these verses, just realizing how very little I truly understand about the attributes of God. In the second verse it explores the idea of actually seeing Him for the first time and knowing full well that on this earth I really had "no idea." We co-wrote this song with Wayne Kirkpatrick who is a friend and label mate from Rocketown Records, and of course, a legendary songwriter for our generation.


Made For You

This is a very vulnerable song for us… much like "Glory Baby" from our last record. It’s vulnerable for many reasons but mainly because it stirs up conversation about intimate things of the heart. We pray that this song would be an encouragement to many couples as they too learn to communicate on a daily basis and open up their hearts to each other. We’ve found that communication is the key for us to have a healthy, Godly marriage. When we sat down to talk through the concept of the song, we immediately started talking about the different ways that we both communicate to each other. Nathan talks a lot about how sometimes men in general associate "opening up" and being emotional with weakness. I began to share about how women, for the most part, long to see their husbands show emotion and that it really represents strength to us. The truth is, when we open up to each other in any way, shape, or form, we are allowing each other to re-connect again and again with all the reasons that we first fell in love. When we "see" and "hear" the other’s heart, we realize that no matter what may come, our heart was made for this person forever.


Noah's Song

We started out wanting to write a lullaby song for Noah, but this ended up being more like a life song for Noah and us. When I was writing this lyric, I was amazed to find all of the wonderful references in the New Testament about children. Matthew 18:3 says, "And He said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’" What a beautiful picture of the value of precious children in our lives. They are gifts that are given to help us return to that simple faith, hope and love that they hold because of their innocence and trust. We have all ready seen, in just 18 months of Noah’s life, that he has helped to transform places in our hearts that felt as if they had somehow fallen asleep in our 28 years. We were awakened to memories of our own childhood, and the Father-child relationship with our heavenly Father has deepened in the process. We understand so much more about the love He has for us and that there is nothing we could do to make Him love us any more or any less. Obedience makes so much more sense as we’ve started teaching it to our son… we realize we cannot ask obedience from him, if we ourselves are not being obedient to God. We are compelled to see and love this world again as we show him God’s creatures and the many colors and wonders of this life. We have been captured and taken back, by surprise, to a place of simplicity and freedom in so many ways through this precious child. We just couldn’t help but write about it.


Carry You

We wrote this song in Noah’s playroom. We like to say that this song is everything you’d want to say to your child on his or her first day of school… symbolizing that first tiny step into the real world. As I wrote this lyric, things kept coming back to me from my childhood, things that made an impact on me. I remember my parents and my youth pastor always making a big deal about the armor of God and how we are never truly alone when we walk out into this big world. I can still remember feeling so protected by that when I’d walk through the halls of my junior high school. This may sound kind of silly, but I remember once seeing a big policeman riding before a huge, wide-load vehicle on the highway. He was forcefully waving this flag at everyone so we would know what was coming. I imagined God going before me with this huge banner saying, "Here comes My child!"…claiming me as His own.


Remember

This song speaks of both the simple and monumental moments of life and how God makes Himself known in each one. It causes me to think back to my childhood, and all throughout my life, of things that moved me… places I went, people that I knew and the events of my heart that caused me to believe in an eternal Love. The journey this song took me on was beautiful for me. God is in every laugh, every tear, and every memory. Praise Him who gives to life its purpose and meaning.


Still

Ecclesiastes 5:1-2 says, "Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth; do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven, and you are on earth, so let your words be few." This song comes from some child-like craving in my life for discipline. I am too often too quick to "busy" myself for God instead of sitting still before Him. So many things so easily inspire me that sometimes my passion for life keeps me just busy instead of truly moved. When I do answer the cry in my heart for solitude, I realize again and again that I’m never truly alone. It is in those times that God’s whispering can be heard, and I discover that the longing for solitude in my life was really God longing to be with me.