"You Never Know": I wrote this song with a friend of mine named Natalie Hemby who is an amazing singer and songwriter. During the writing of this song we learned more and more about each other and not coincidentally we came across some major similarities in our own recent life struggles. We talked about how chaotic life can get in this world and how alone someone can feel when the emotions get so high. There is a breaking point where you really just have to say to yourself, “You never know when life will turn around,” and just accept it and be okay with it. Whether you choose to let God direct and design your life or not ultimately will determine how you plow through the obstacles in your life. Give God the control to lead your life because he has a plan for each one of us; we just need to obey and follow Him.
“When I Fall”: This song represents one of the biggest lessons I have learned in the last year. I feel it is a pivotal point on the record both in the message and the music. What is really important about this song is its honesty and vulnerability. There is no reality in the belief that Christians don’t make mistakes. Too often I feel like we are afraid to open up about our mistakes and struggles and we decide to shut down and keep to ourselves when we are faced with them. What we often forget though, is that we have a choice. We can decide to let the bad times take us down and keep us there or we can decide to let God break our fall and even make something of our pain. This song is about the better option.
"No Other One": This song has been written and rewritten more times than I think I have ever seen a song rewritten, but I really always felt like this was an important song that needed to be just right. Our thought when writing this song was to write a worship song that went somewhere no other worship song went, but in my attempt to be profound, it only came out a little overdone. How do you write a love song to God? There aren’t enough beautiful words to describe such a love, let alone then try to squeeze them into a four minute song! I decided to ask myself what I thought about worship overall and realized that it was so simple. Worship goes beyond big words and music; it is an intimate encounter with God. An encounter that is just honest and real. I think the fact that I couldn’t find strong enough words makes me even more in awe of how big He is and I think that’s how He intended for it to be. So I sat down with my producer, Tommy, and we wrote exactly what came to our minds when we thought about speaking to God. It was the truest way we could do it even in all its simplicity.
"All this Time": It’s about the journey that someone takes as they realize there is a difference between knowing what you should believe and then actually truly believing it. It talks about feeling buried beneath questions that you thought had already been answered through fundamentals that you’ve heard all your life. In the chorus, it finally comes around to accepting that the significance of religious knowledge is dead unless you have truly taken the step of encountering God with your whole heart and letting Him be alive in you.
"Being Alive": This song came from conversations I have had with people in my life that are very close to me. I’ve found that most people, some more than others, have days where they feel like they are barely surviving through the day and barely getting by. When I think of being alive, I see more than just having a heart beat and skin and bones but more as seeing life for all that God has made it to be. All the clichés about living life to the fullest and making the most of every day had to mean something at one point, why not go back to that pure thought every once in a while? If we love our lives, the people around us, and our God, I believe that encompasses living, because all of those things are worth living for.
"Good Life": We wrote this song from the perspective of a person who wants to see someone that is close to them, come to know a life of loving the Lord. We wanted it to be upbeat and real because I think that that is how it feels when you are introduced to God. You feel lifted and different, like you really have stepped into a new life, the “good” life. It is the biggest decision anyone can make in their lifetime and there are lots of people in my life that I would love to see make this decistion for themselves. I think it’s an important song because coming to know Christ shouldn’t be a scary thing, but a joyous thing.
"Honest": I wrote this as an honest and vulnerable person coming to grips with the fact that I really just can’t make it through life without God. Some days I look back and say, “How did I get here?” And many times I realize that I got myself stuck because I forgot to pay attention to the God in my heart. I just kept right on going, doing whatever I needed to do without checking in to see if it was what He needed me to do. It makes you think about the fact that if God loves us enough to give us direction that we don’t even know we need, then just imagine what He will do when we surrender our will and pray for His will in our lives.
“Room For Me”: I started these lyrics a long time ago while I was out on tour. It’s about feeling inadequate and almost unworthy of the privilege of prayer. It was the first time I stood back and gained perspective on how big the world and its problems are compared to me and my issues. At times I have felt like my prayers were not nearly as important as others’ and I know that I am not alone in feeling this way. But I do know that God holds the plans for every life on this earth, so He is seeing things through a bigger scope than I could ever see. And what an awesome God, that He is concerned with my concerns. I will never doubt that God isn’t listening, because He made room for me in this world and I am so in awe of Him.
“Rubber House”: The concept behind this song is imagining a house made of rubber where everyone fits and belongs. No matter how different we all are, the house will bend for us. Even it if appears that the house will overflow, the house can stretch and there is always room for another. I believe that is how God meant for us to accept others and love them as ourselves. To look for a way to embrace others and affirm that they fit in no matter how they stand out. What an amazing place the world would be if we could just love each other first before we start judging and looking for things we don’t like. A rubber house can exist in our hearts, our schools, virtually everywhere.
“The Art”: This is, by far, the most personal song on the record. I actually taught myself how to play the piano so I could write this song. It’s just a bundle of emotions on paper that I have added to over the past year about my experience as an 18–year-old girl in a house with a mom, dad, two brothers and a sister. It’s as simple as that, but as most of us know, it is not simple at all. It’s hard to really sum up the last year on a single sheet of paper, but let’s just say it was an eventful year. We are all vulnerable and we are constantly growing and learning through our life experiences. I have learned a great deal about coping with pain and sadness and reaching out to God. I have hope in God, and pray knowing He will not waste our pain. Life is precious and worth holding on to. One thing I have seen more of in the past year than I will ever want to experience again is suicide. I have seen all sides of it. I know survivors and have said goodbye to ones who lost their battles to suicide and honestly neither side makes sense. God never promised us an easy life. If everything was so easy then nothing would be a challenge. We would have no passion or ambition because everything would be so easy. Being alive is to be in wonder of the things that we can and cannot do and that is something that all humans share.
“Outrageous”: This song is about those times where we find ourselves full of self-pity. I will be the first to admit that I often forget how simply but enormously blessed I really am. We all have goals and ambitions that just sort of sit still because of lack of ambition or our fear of inadequacy. The thing is that the God who is capable of creating the universe is just as capable of picking us up out of our easy chair recliner to go do what we know we should do. We are more equipped than we give ourselves credit for. So, just be encouraged. Everybody needs a little push every once in awhile!
