What I Should Have Said to Amy Grant

Dear Amy-

I've listened to your music since I was in my momma's belly. I don't say that to make you feel old; only to let you know that you have been a part of my story since my story was written.

Yes, I loved everything you did in the 90's. What sixth grade girl didn't sing and dance their heart out to the tracks on Heart in Motion? But I am talking about before then. Songs like Old Man's Rubble, on your first album, songs penned and performed before I was even born. These were the words sung over me as a little tiny baby.

Some babies don't get songs sung over them. How lucky I was to have parents who whispered "she's got her father's eyes" over me as they rocked me to sleep.

How lucky I was that a young girl named Amy Grant was singing songs of beauty and truth to the world.

On my hardest days, when I wage the most intense battles for my soul, my marriage, my daughter, my career, my ministry... your voice and your lyrics guide me gently and fearlessly to Jesus. These are the lines that come without fail, to my heart each time

I will not forget, your love for me and yet, my heart forever is wandering. Jesus be my guide, and hold me to Your side, and I will love you to the end.

Carry on through the night, when the road is hard to find. 

I'm raining on the inside; my heart wells up with tears that start to pour. I'm raining on the inside, but then Your cries of love break through, And I fall in love with You once more.

Voices like thunder in a mighty roar. Cry to the Lord. 

Lead me on, lead me on. To a place where the river runs into your keeping. Lead me on, lead me on. The awaited deliverance comforts the seeking.

In a little while we'll be with the Father, can't you see Him smile?

Songs like Giggle and Fat Baby still make me smile.

And my favorite songs ever- of all time- are still Arms of Love and Doubly Good to You.

How many countless times have I played Doubly Good to You in the midst of absolute hell and cried and sang out to Jesus who has reminded me of the things He's yet to do...

innumerable.

And we're still in the 1980's. I haven't even worked my way up to the profound impact the music you wrote and performed in the 1990's had on me. Or your newest albums over the past decade.

'Love has made me unafraid' are the words I now whisper and sing over my own little girl. Ok, and sometimes I cave and tell her she has her Father's eyes. And when she's afraid? El Shaddai.

Should I tell you that I was heartbroken when, in the 5th grade, I saw a girl on the Mickey Mouse Club go to your farm and studio on career day? She had written about wanting to be a singer and her dream day was working with you. I sat on my living room floor and cried, "Why wasn't I smart enough to think of this???" I spent the next three years trying to get on the Mickey Mouse Club Career Day so I could come to your farm.

Or should I tell you that my publisher- and dear friend- knows how much my writing partner (Ali Rogers) and I love your music and how he sent us to the Amy-Smitty Reunion tour at the Ryman and we sat on the second row and sang at the top of our lungs all night, while simultaneously tearing up every time you would play our really-really-really favorite song. Two mom's singing our hearts out like giddy little girls.

It's not that we are star-struck. But let's be honest, we are star-struck. It's that music has the profound ability to speak life or death into someone's soul. And for as long as I can remember, literally my entire journey on this earth, your voice has been tucked away in the corners of my soul speaking life; your voice etched in my memory like a binkie, a worn-blanket that feels so familiar and so dear and so permanent.

I recently finished recording my first solo project after five albums with my band Addison Road. As I drove away from Nashville, headed back home to Dallas- back home to my little girl and my husband and all things familiar- I was struck by an overwhelming voice that seemed to whisper "Everything is changing."

I don't like change. And in the dark stretch of lonely highway, I felt so lost and so scared.

I pulled over and opened up my computer, searched through my music, knowing exactly what I needed to hear. And for the next two hours you and I sang-cried-laughed-smiled and drove through lonely stretches of highway, completely un-alone.

So when I was standing in the line for Thunder Mountain at Disney World this weekend and I turned my head and saw you one tiny foot behind me- imagine the whirlwind of thoughts. Giddy? Yes. But there was my friend. My confidant. There were the lyrics that walked me through hell and back. And the words whispered over me since I was a baby. And the songs that helped me dance, sing and love my way through the terribly awkward years of junior high. And the person that goes down lonely- terrifying highway roads with me when everything is changing.

You were right there.

And I wanted to smile and scream and hug you and thank you and a million other things and I blabbed my way through,

"I- I- oh my gosh- I'm like a kid in a candy store- I have loved your music my whole life- I'm like a huge fan- all the way back to Fat Baby!"

Really- who the heck says that Jenny? Fat Baby? It's like the cheesiest song you ever did. And not only did I reference your cheesiest song, I picked one that made you feel old! Blah.

I wish I could have told you everything I said in this letter. But sometimes our words just don't come out. And that's tragic, because you should know-

When you walked through your own seasons of hell- you did so with dignity. You didn't quit and that taught me how to do this thing called the Christian Music Industry. It taught me how to do ministry. It taught me how to do this thing called life.

When you penned songs with Kathy Troccoli, Michael, Brown, Rich, Wayne- they changed my life. They became my anthems. My prayers. My friends.

When you grew as an artist- always changing- always re-inventing and following the voice inside of you that led you this way and that, you set the road-map for longevity and commitment to your craft. You showed us what was possible.

If there is a soundtrack to my life- and there is- it can be pieced together from the dozen or so albums that have your name- your voice- your honesty- your simplicity and authenticity attached to them.

I should have said thank-you.

I wish I could have conveyed gratitude instead of crazed fan. I wish you could fully know what your music has meant to me. I look forward to the day when God allows you to fully see the profound impact you have left on this world, Amy.

Until then just know there are girls like me- full of questions, doubts, fears, anticipations, joys-

who pull over on dark highways when life doesn't make sense and pull out the one voice we have always known-

and we sing out alongside of you-

Somewhere down the road There'll be answers to the questions Somewhere down the road Though we cannot see it now Somewhere down the road You will find mighty arms reaching for you And they will hold the answers at the end of the road

thank you amy-

jenny

I wish we all could know...

A few weeks ago I was in Terminal D at DFW airport. Terminal D is the international terminal here in Dallas. It's not flashy- like Detroit Metro- with beautiful fountains, leather lounge chairs, and an indoor tram; but it's not dinky either. It has rather lofty ceilings, fabulous restaurants, and enough flat screens to remind you that, although spread out and enormous (like everything in Texas) it is still modern and trendy. Mostly, terminal D seems to be a hub for wealthy travelers and more business men and women than I ever, ever care to deal with. They are everywhere. All huffy and puffy and rushed and sipping their lattes and making business deals on their laptops while talking on their ear pieces to someone else- all while trying to pay for their lattes. You get the point. It's the business elite and the people hopping on planes to amazing places like Paris and San Paulo and Beijing.

You go to Terminal D to people watch- and then you try to stay out of the people's way!

I tell you all of this to tell you that when the whole of terminal D was frozen in place the other day for what seemed to be fifteen minutes... I thought the worst. Perhaps the airport had lost cell signal or some other terrible, natural catastrophe had occurred.

But then I saw an older gentleman looking up.

There were tears streaming down his face.

And there, above our heads, encased behind a glass wall, coming out of the international arrival doors, hundreds of our men and women returning from Afghanistan began to file through the doors.

The gentleman in front of me drew to attention- you could almost here his 80 year old bones snap into place-  and put his hand to his head in the most beautiful salute I have ever seen.

He stayed like that, at attention, saluting, for 15 minutes.

His wife rose from her wheelchair and steadying herself against him, she began to clap.

Aall the huffy, puffy, busy business folks set their briefcases down and began to clap too. All through terminal D people stopped. Frozen in time. Cheering and clapping. Giving thumbs up and mouthing the words thank you. Wiping tears and not breaking our gaze- we stood there, scattered throughout Terminal D, craining our necks upward, knowing we were a part of a moment that was incredibly significant.

Whether you believe in war or not. Whether you believe in this war or not. You gotta believe in these men, women, and their families.

Some of the men and women in uniform wiped tears from their eyes as we cheered them on. Some of them threw their hands in the air like Rocky- telling us they did it, they made it home. Some of them nodded, and as straight as a soldier who has seen death, walked with purpose down that hall as a man and woman who comes home with honor should. Some smiled. Other men stopped to hug each other and buried their faces in the camouflage of another. One girl started dancing. Their reactions were all different, but all beautiful.

Our airport does an amazing job at welcoming home troops, but it never happens in Terminal D. It happens in another terminal. The USO is set up in a smaller terminal with plenty of room for families to cheer... and no glass walls. So I suppose this group was headed to the other terminal. I suppose the sight of them surprised the Terminal D kind of folks. I suppose people had places to get to and phone calls to make and business deals to secure and... and.. and...

but in that moment, the whole world stood still.  And these men and women stole our hearts. And we gave them ours.

I wish the whole world could have seen it.

We- the collective we- we were so proud of them. So grateful. So humbled.

***

I was deeply touched by the stories of your friends, family, and personal experiences regarding deployment. Thank you to all the blog readers who shared your stories with us. I wish I could repeat them all here. I wish I could tell people your story so that we could ALL have a better grasp on what it truly means to sacrifice.

I wish we could know the feeling a mother has when watching her 20 year old baby boy leave for the foreign desert of Afghanistan.

I wish we could know the feeling of giving birth to a baby while a best friend holds the computer and dad watches on skype from a desert laced with war.

I wish we could know what it feels like to leave our children and husband behind, wondering if they will still be there, if the marriage will still be there, when we return.

I wish we could know the feeling of  keeping it together, day in and day out, taking care of children, bills, family health issues, and the simple chores of getting kids ready for school and holidays, while our spouse has been deployed for the fourth time.

I wish we could all, for just a brief moment, experience these things so that we might not only appreciate the sacrifice, but that we might also be drawn to a place of action on behalf of our military families. Like everything in life, once we see it with our own eyes; once we walk through it with our own family; once we put ourselves in the shoes of another... it is no longer a foreign concept, it is a person, a family, a child, a shared moment that- try as we may- we cannot seem to rid our minds of.

The result?

Once we experience the shoes of another, we move beyond cursory words of sympathy and we move into empathy. A deep feeling of truly sharing and carrying another's burden or pain. Sympathy is the broadest form we can relate to someone who is hurting. Then comes empathy, which allows us to actually put ourselves in the person's shoes. Then comes compassion, a mixture of both sympathy and empathy marked by a propensity to alleviate the suffering of the person who has suffered. Sympathy is easy. Empathy requires "knowing what it feels like" or at least allowing ourselves to imagine what it must feel like. And once we feel it? We- as humans- are more times than not, driven to compassion.

Sympathy. Empathy. Compassion.

So yes. I wish for each of us that we may, in some way, understand the hardships of another so that we might move well beyond sympathy and into empathy and acts of compassion.  This week specifically, I hope to encourage you- whoever you are- to be moved to compassion on behalf of the men, women, and families who sacrificially serve in the military.

***

At the very least, we can pray prayers of peace over those we know who are currently deployed and serving during war time.

But I hope you and I become inspired to do more than just that!  This week I will introduce you to several organizations that you can partner with in big and small ways to show our troops and their families compassion. Be looking for those on Wednesday.

Please print this list out and join me in praying for those who are currently deployed and their families:

Ashley Barnhill

Josh Barnhill

Ashley Miller

Joe Gilling

Tim, wife, son

Treylyn Smith, wife, son Karsyn

Orlando, wife

John, his father and sister Lori

Parker and Ellen

Matt Emmon's brother, wife, two children

Serrell Livingston, wife, son, and step daughter

Robert Tepera

Andrew Baptiste

Thomas Jones

Michael Payne

Chris Davidson

Sarah Bleything

A family that my sister is close with just said goodbye to their husband/daddy as he was sent off to Iraq, again.

A young couple who are moving in two months, and their third baby is due in one month.

A young female soldier who volunteers at my youth group is currently deployed.

Jeanna B and her husband who is currently deployed

Jared, wife, and three children

Colin Kerrigan, wife, and three children

Chris Sikes

Ashley Sanders

Jon-Micheal Cason

Michelle Davis (currently deployed) husband, and two children

Tim Benedict, Melissa, and the little baby in her tummy

Katie's cousin in Afghanistan