Fill Me Up was the first song idea I had in 2004, although I didn’t even think to notate it until four years later after starting two other songs first. The chorus came to me while I was on a prayer walk. During that season in my life, I was really struggling with my identity in Christ and it was an incredibly dry time for me spiritually. For so many years, I had been defining my relationship with Jesus by what I was doing for Him in ministry, instead of basing it on His unconditional love for me.

The first song I actually notated was My Champion. A good friend of mine was going through one of the most difficult times in her life and I wrote it in honor of her. Peace to you, sister. He is able.

My second song came to me after we agreed to “store” a friend’s inherited grand piano in our basement until they’d have room for it! The day the piano arrived, I started doodling around and kept coming back to the opening riff of what would become Only Believe. After living with the first four bars for a couple days, I realized that I wanted it to be a song in honor of my family. When I gave my life to Christ back in 1990, I used every tactic I could, except Christ’s love and grace, to win them over. My “witness” was passing judgement on them and trying to force my opinion. Not only did I cause severe damage to our relationships, but I also falsely represented who Christ is. Its taken us years to come to a place of mutual respect and honor, and I’m so thankful for their forgiveness.

Crowded was written during a season in my life when I was completely burnt out with ministry. I kept asking God “If You’ve called me to do all this stuff for you, why is it so difficult?” And of course His reply was, “I haven’t called you to do all that stuff for me!” I’ve finally come to a place in my life where I don’t feel guilty for saying “no” if someone asks for volunteers!

Extraordinary was so fun to write! I’ve often thought how peculiar it is that we use some of our language out of context….word definitions mutating to the point of being completely disconnected from their original meaning. I started making a list of adjectives that we use to describe the mundane and our Creator. Things got really interesting when I started to look for rhythmic patterns in the words and tried to group the words in chunks that would fit in my melodic line.

Just Do It was conceived while I was driving on my way to meet a dog we were interested in adopting. It dawned on me that I hadn’t even prayed about getting this dog! I knew that becoming a dog owner would take up more of my precious time, and I started to think about how many decisions I’ve made in life without consulting God first.

I chose Red Light, Green Light as the title track because it’s really what the whole thing has been about. For years, I’ve been asking God, “Can I focus on my music career NOW?” He kept telling me to be patient and focus on my career as a domestic engineer. Every time I’d ask, “Now?”, He’d say, “Not yet!”. The green light came when my youngest child entered kindergarten and I had the house to myself for the first time in my life! I think I was the only mom who didn’t cry when the kindergarten bus pulled away that first day! Even though I’m thrilled with the green light, I struggle a lot with fear about it all. Am I too old to try? What if the songs don’t come? Will it be “good enough”? I like to think of Red Light, Green Light as a cheerleading song to myself!

Vanity Insanity is a declaration of war against the media’s definition of beauty! The older I get, the more I fear not being able to measure up to that definition. I wonder if I’ll ever be completely free of that?

At 3:00 a.m. on Christmas morning of ’08, I woke up singing the first phrase of From Here To There and immediately crept into our basement recording closet and whispered it into my voice recorder, afraid I’d lose it if I waited until the rest of the house was awake.