Every good relationship, especially marriage, is based on respect. If it's not based on respect, nothing that appears to be good will last very long.
— Amy Grant
Come Christmas Eve, we usually go to my mom and dad's. Everybody brings one gift and then we play that game when we all steal it from each other. Some are really cool, others are useful and some are a bit out there.
But my experience is that people who have been through painful, difficult times are filled with compassion.
If you went to your closet today, would you pull out the same outfit you wore 10 or 15 years ago? You wear feelings and faith differently as well.
For me, the backdrop of half the experiences of life includes music.
Do I think all contemporary Christian music is good? No.
But to make a holiday record that involves favorite American songs and then also get to sing about Jesus birth, it just seemed like a real easy, subtle way to combine a couple of things that I love.
Anybody who's ever gone through a hard time - any outsider's perception, no matter how much information they're given, they have no idea what the person's life is like.
I'm frustrated by something, it's my fault for exposing myself to it in the first place. The rumor mill always seemed like a grass fire to me. Why walk out in the middle of the field, it's just going to flame out and go away just like everything else does?
Depending on what day of the week it is and what time of the month it is, I'm a good friend or not a good friend. I'm more or less a good mom or not a good mom, more or less a good mate or not a good mate. That's just life, whether or not you're public.
But now it's kind of a given that a 15-year-old would have a record deal and sell a quarter of a million records. No one's expecting her to answer any deep theological questions. And I'll tell you, I was asked some deep theological questions from the git-go.
Life goes by really fast, and it seems that there are times when you're burying a lot of friends and family. And then there are times that feel really precious and everybody is doing okay. This is one of those times.
I can look at the future with anticipation. And it's comforting to know that someday, as Christians, we'll be able to look back and have a little more clarity on why certain things in life happened.
