The music a child hears early in life is vitally important to that child’s spiritual development and sense of truth. We cannot take lightly the words we put in a child’s heart and mind. Music stays in our memories and becomes the soundtrack of our lives.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about the music that shaped my faith as a child. It could be because I’m fostering a baby girl who loves to sing, reminiscent of my own childhood. I’m thinking often about what kinds of words all of the children in my home are putting in their hearts and minds. Even more so, I think I’m beginning to notice the lyrics that are stored away in my own heart. I’ve been reflecting on the ways those songs, in my earliest years, shaped my theology and my view of God.

The past two years have been emotionally taxing in ways that have tested my beliefs about myself, caused me to cry out to Jesus, and have pushed my own spiritual growth in good ways through excruciatingly hard moments. Do you know what has come to the surface when I’ve battled against overwhelm, darkness, and a few miserable rounds of depression? I’ll tell you.

In my hardest moments, the music from my childhood has reminded me of the truth of Jesus and the foundation of who I am in Christ. Jesus has used it to rescue me.

I grew up as a very musical little girl. Before the truths of scripture resonated in my heart, I memorized songs based upon Biblical truths. I remember standing on my front porch on Redbird Lane, singing along to my favorite cassette, Sandy Patty and the Friendship Company when my mom exclaimed, “Courtney, you’re harmonizing!” I had to be told what that word meant, but let’s note that I knew that cassette tape well enough to pick out the harmony and that certainly speaks to the amount I’d listened to that little tape on my cassette player.

Around that same year and listening to that very same cassette tape, I was battling a terrible case of the Chicken Pox when I told my mom that I wanted to “be saved,” my six-year-old way of saying in my 1990s evangelical terminology that I wanted to follow Jesus with my life. I can still remember my white, lacy bedspread and my Precious Moments diary where my mom and grandma both wrote down the details of the days that followed while I continued battling Chicken Pox and learning about Jesus in between oatmeal baths while only eating applesauce due to the pox sores inside my mouth. I still have scars on my eyebrows from those itchy chicken pox, and it’s safe to say those aren’t the only lasting effects of that time. The Holy Spirit spoke to me through that cassette tape as Sandy Patty led the children in a Sunday School medley that included the lyrics, “If you’re saved and you know it, say ‘Amen!’” My entire life began to change through the process of sanctification and my walk with Jesus was just beginning.

That same album offered my first duet in church with my older cousin, Rhianna who was seven years older than me. To say she was my role model would be an understatement. I was on cloud nine to sing with her. I still remember she and my mom teaching me to sing correctly as we prepared for our duet. One sticky-hot summer night, we sang, “Love Makes a Friend be a Friend Like You,” at an outdoor Family Fellowship at the First Baptist Church of Desloge.

“Why would you always try to be there when I really, really need you there to care? You’re always willing to share. Love makes a friend be a friend like you. Love takes a friendship and turns it into something to last your whole life through. Love makes a friend be a friend like you.”

I sang the simple melody that a six year old could carry while my thirteen year old cousin harmonized and sang the more challenging parts of the duet. These moments with that early cassette tape began to shape me, who I would become, and how I would worship my Savior.

While other households were finding their musical stride with MTV and New Kids on the Block, I was completely enamored by the music of Point of Grace. Those cassette tapes were played every Saturday morning while my mom and I cleaned the house. They were played in my bedroom where I made up dances. They were the soundtrack of my summers as I listened to them on my Walkman on the way to every vacation destination. I clearly remember my parents and grandparents asking me to give the singing a rest for a bit on every vacation because I was content to sing, “Keep the Candle Burning,” and, “Circle of Friends,” across state lines while listening on my headphones. Listen, I’ve never claimed that I was a cool kid. You know what I was, though? I was happy. I had the happiest childhood and I think that’s, in no small part, because of the joyful and truth-filled soundtrack that accompanied my childhood days.

As I got older, I attended church camp and grew closer to the slightly older girls, a few grades ahead of me, at my church who also really, really loved music and singing. We harmonized from our children’s choir to Bates Creek Church Camp where I fell absolutely in love with the music from Songs from the Loft. If you grew up attending church camp during the 1990s, you know that this album was the…I think my teen boys would call it “the OG” or “the GOAT” or something. It was epic. Church camp also introduced me to other CCM artists like Carmen who sang a very cool tune called, “Who’s in the House?” Did you just do the sign language to JC? Maybe this was a thing? Maybe it was just us. Who can say for certain?

“Will you be the one
To answer to His call
And will you stand
When those around you fall
Will you be the one
To take His light
Into a darkened world
Tell me will you be the one?” ~Al Denson Here’s looking at you, first ever youth group mission trip to Marshall, Arkansas. This trip gave me the heart for missions that I still have today.

We grew older and sang together in the youth choir where we set out to sing on mission trips from Marshall, Arkansas to Abilene, Kansas to Chicago, Illinois. I’ll never forget sitting with my youth group in the lobby of University of Illinois Chicago rehearsing verses of, “Cast All Your Cares Upon Jesus,” to prepare for a choir performance that evening. We began singing at a church in Chicago that evening, a bunch of lightly colored teens in Hunter green polo shirts contrasting in many ways with our new friends. We sang a couple of verses with as much soul as we could muster before the church band picked up the tune and played with us. Let’s just say that they gave the song new life! I may be underestimating the time when I recall that we sang that chorus for five or ten more minutes accompanied by our new friends who needed no preparation to join in. It went on and on with such excitement! Just when I thought the song was almost over, the instrumentalists would change keys and we’d follow them to another verse, more enthusiastic than the last! As a fourteen year old child, it was pretty thrilling to sing in a room filled with some of my best friends and also new brothers and sisters in Christ. My view of corporate worship was being reconstructed as I caught that brief glimpse of Heaven, worshipping Jesus with fellow believers who worshipped differently than my church family back home. My worldview was still small but it was broadening.

“Cast all your cares. Cast all your cares. Cast all your cares upon Jesus. He is truly able, so just leave them there. Cast all your cares upon Him.” -Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir and also the FBCD youth choir, of course.

In middle school, I was the President of the North County Middle School Christian Club where I began leading weekly prayer at the flagpole every Wednesday. I’m a zealous person. If other schools could pray at the flagpole once a year, then I was inviting kids to be there every week. All. Year. Long. God bless Mr. Poston and Mrs. Whaley who stood quietly with us week after week to supervise our safety while I led the middle schoolers in loud renditions of, “Lord, I Lift Your Name on High,” and, “Our God is an Awesome God!” I remember a boy named David telling me in math class that his dad said, “There’s that loud mouth again at the flagpole.” To be fair to David’s dad, he wasn’t wrong. I was indeed loudly frequenting the flagpole.

Those middle school friends in the Christian Club were on board for singing with me whether we were Christmas Caroling or planning out performances of, “For Future Generations,” by 4Him. It’s funny how memories work. For the life of me, I don’t actually remember that performance coming to fruition, but I still remember which lyrics I had assigned to Casey Gwartney. Speaking of which, it was around this same time that I began running middle school track and adopted, “The Great Adventure,” by Steven Curtis Chapman as my running jam. Listen, I don’t know what other kids were singing as their running jams, but it was not a song in which the lyrics began, “Saddle Up Your Horses! We’ve got a trail to blaze.” For clarity, I sang these lyrics out loud while I ran. In case you’re wondering, I was the President of the Christian Club but I didn’t make the Student Council until my Senior Year of High School and that was due to a teacher nomination. I. Was. Not. Cool. My soul was on fire for Jesus, though, and I was content to sing about him out loud while running the 800. It was sweet of Casey to join in although she was from the Freewill Baptist church and I was from the Southern Baptist church. In my 8th grade mind, this was an important denominational distinction. I was both uncool and slightly legalistic, apparently.

When I was old enough to be added to my church’s highly esteemed solo rotation in late middle school, I began picking out my own CD accompaniment at Guardian Angel Bookstore in a nearby town. The selection was small but I always found something to sing. My earliest songs were, “My Father’s Eyes,” by Amy Grant, “The Warrior is a Child,” by Twila Paris, “If You Want Me To,” by Ginny Owens, and, “Legacy,” by Nichole Nordeman. In retrospect, none of those songs is the best suited for vertical worship, that is music that leads us to directly worship God, but the selection in that bookstore was limited. Still, I suppose each of those songs was an opportunity for me to sing more about the life of a Christian, reflecting on my own early experiences as a believer. Those songs weren’t wasted. They were just limited. Thankfully, the Oasis Christian Bookstore opened when I was in high school and the accompaniment selection grew quite a bit with the newer and bigger bookstore.

“They don’t know that I go running home when I fall down. They don’t know Who picks me up when no one is around. I drop my sword and look up for His smile, ‘cause deep inside this armor, the warrior is a child.” ~Twila Paris

Later in high school, I began facing bigger moral issues as I became acquainted with upperclassmen, extracurricular opportunities such as cheerleading, and boys. For the first time in my life, it was getting kind of difficult to be both a people pleaser and also a follower of Jesus. My faith hadn’t ever really been tested until I knew mean girls, gossip, and peer pressure. Around this time, my intuitive youth choir leader, Patti brought me a song and said, “I want you to sing this one next time you’re up on the solo rotation.” The song was called, “Live What I Believe,” and the timing of that song in my life wasn’t lost on me.

“I’m gonna live what I believe.
I’m gonna walk that line
If it costs me everything
I’m gonna stand for what is right.
So that everyone can see
It’s Jesus that they need!
I’m gonna live what I believe.”~Russ Lee

I think most of the kids from high school would have said I was a Christian and even a pretty good girl, but I was lukewarm in contrast to my middle school days. My life was confusing for me and it must have been pretty confusing for everyone else around me. I sang the solo at my baccalaureate service when I graduated high school with my mortar board leaning sideways on my head because of course it was. It’s kind of on brand for me to have a solo while also having a leaning mortar board. My friend, Stephanie tried to alert me to the thing falling off my head while my friend, Camille sobbed on the front row telling me later, “I realized it was the last time I’d ever see you sing on this stage.” I still get a lump in my throat when I occasionally hear, “Who Am I,” by Casting Crowns because it was pretty fitting for that season of my life.

“I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind. Still You hear me when I’m calling. Lord, You catch me when I’m falling and You’ve told me who I am. I am Yours.” I’m not completely sure what I was doing or what God was doing in that season of my life, but He held me close through my struggles with sin and identity in Christ. I didn’t really know who I was or who God planned for me to be, but I can look back and see His loving kindness, grace, forgiveness, and constant provision. God knew what He had in store.

I graduated with an A plus grant, attended community college for two years, and worked in daycare. I was highly involved in teaching Vacation Bible School and even more involved in musical theater. Those two worlds contrasted each other in every imaginable way. I missed church often and began using a vocabulary that made my mom highly concerned about my future at the Christian University of which I longed to transfer, “They are going to kick you out of SBU as soon as you get there, young lady.” And all the while I was still singing on the church solo rotation. The Lord used our church music leaders Jim and Patti Perryman to keep pulling me back in. They gave me CDs for the church Christmas cantatas and gave me a free pass to miss all cantata rehearsals because they knew I had play practice at the college every night. They gave me ample opportunities to keep singing at church. They made sure I was plugged in to lead the closing rally at VBS. I wasn’t ever a mean person. I had some unshakable morals, I’m sure. But goodness. I was living two lives. I can still remember standing backstage one night during a performance of which I will not name at the community college and thinking, “I don’t think sin bothers me much anymore.” If alarm bells went off in your head when you read that sentence, rest assured. They should. In fact, I heard the alarm bells (ahem, the Holy Spirit) the second I had that thought that night in the wings of my community theater.

There are some tough memories woven into that lukewarm, nearly prodigal era of my life. I remember that my close friend’s dad died and he had asked me to sing at his funeral right before he lost his very long battle with cancer. I sang at the funeral standing in the back, trying not to cry, and becoming an adult just a little bit more. I remember that one of my coworker friends at daycare had a miscarriage and another close friend’s dad also passed away right before I sang, “Held,” by Natalie Grant at church.

“This is what it is to be loved and to know that the Promise was when everything fell, we’d be held.” ~Natalie Grant

When I finally finished those two years at community college, I transferred to the private Christian college of my dreams. You remember Rhianna from the first duet? She had gone to Southwest Baptist University and as a little girl, I liked to do pretty much exactly what she did, so I had unwaveringly been planning on that same university from the sixth grade on.

I had a life back home with some strings attached. I made a few of my closest friends the very first day at college, but I also felt a little bit more secular than the faithful Christian kids surrounding me in my new environment. My welcome week leader became my good friend and I remember confiding in him. I’ll never forget the words he said to me over chips and salsa in our local Mexican restaurant, El Rodeo, “Just because you’ve been living that way doesn’t mean you have to keep living that way.” I think back on this quote and also repeat it to people often because my welcome week leader eventually became my husband and I think those may be some of the wisest words I’ve ever heard in my life. Those words broke chains for me. I often tell children struggling with behavioral choices, “Just because you’ve been living this way doesn’t mean you have to keep living this way.” We can always turn around.

I continued singing in the church solo rotation on Christmas breaks and I struggled to make it through when I sang the words, “We are the reason that He gave His life. We are the reason that He suffered and died. To a world that was lost He gave all He could give to show us the reason to live.” My life was now marked by repentance, forgiveness, and I knew grace for the first time in a new way. I began knowing grace as something I poured out to others just as Jesus lavished grace upon me.

When we were married, I walked down the aisle to Sara Grove’s “He’s Always Been Faithful,” a modern rendition of “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”

“God has been faithful. He will be again. His loving compassion knows no end. All I have need of, His hand will provide. He’s always been faithful to me.”

If you’ve been reading the blog for any amount of time, you probably know that I married a Worship Pastor. The Lord knew that the little girl jamming to Point of Grace was going to marry a minister of music. That’s kind of funny, right? My husband ministers to people through church music on a weekly basis. I’ve had the shared responsibility to pick out music for children’s choirs and music camps for the past sixteen years. I don’t take it lightly to find lyrics with Biblical truth for children. Those songs will bubble to the surface when those children are grownups who need scriptural truths and when they’ve forgotten that their identity is in Christ.

The songs that shaped my faith were written by imperfect sinners in need of a Savior and imperfectly following Jesus much like me. They have imperfect stories and I haven’t cancelled any of them because you know who else had an imperfect story? David who was a man after God’s own heart and wrote the Psalms. You know who else? Peter who Jesus called the rock on which He would build His church. Some people have stopped listening to Sandy Patti and Amy Grant but I know God has used them in the lives of His followers just as He used David to write the Psalms. These are just some of the lyrics that I’ve held onto from my childhood:

“Without the love of Jesus, the stars wouldn’t shine. Rivers wouldn’t run. Hearts beat out of time. Without the love of Jesus tell me where would we be? Lost on a lonely sea without the love of Jesus.” (This Point of Grace song from my childhood cassette became my internal theme song for my first year of teaching.)

“I said I belong to You but in a secret room, I kept a secret list.
I said, “Anything for You”
“Anything but this, anything but this”
You knew it all along.
You knew it very well.
You knew the sturdy walls I hid behind
were nothing but a prison cell. I am not afraid anymore. You have opened all the windows
opened all the doors. I am not afraid anymore
I feel the wind of freedom like I never did before. The light is filling up the corners
and dancing on the floor. I am not afraid anymore.” (This song that I can remember first hearing as a preschooler in my childhood best friend, Jessica Edgar’s minivan in the late 1980s suddenly had new meaning in 2014 after an anxiety disorder diagnosis and my first international mission trip to Haiti. Suddenly, I was singing this all the time.)

“God loves people more than anything. God loves people more than anything and more than anything, He wants them to know He’d rather die than let them go, ‘cause God loves people more than anything.” ~Point of Grace Loving people is a core value of mine. I mean, it’s also a big chunk of the commandments. This song has always been one of those songs I sing to myself in the grocery store.

“I know You know just what I need
I know You have a plan for me
So I’m gonna take your lead
And I won’t worry what the future holds
‘Cause I know You know.” ~Sierra

“In a little while, we’ll be with the Father. Can’t you see Him smile? In a little while, we’ll be home forever in a while. We’re just here to learn to love Him. We’ll be home in just a little while.” ~Amy Grant

“Every simple act of mercy, every step to Kingdom come. Every hope in every heart will speak what love has done. For as long as I shall live, I will testify to love. I’ll be in a witness in the silences when words are not enough. with every breath I take, I will give thanks to God above for as long as I shall live, I will testify to love.” ~Avalon (or Winona if you grew up watching Touched by an Angel and you remember that sweet episode. When I met my husband, we discovered that we both loved Avalon in our childhood miles across the river from one another. Sweet, right?)

“This day is fragile – soon it will end
And once it has vanished, it will not come again
So let us love with a love pure and strong
Before this day is gone.” ~Point of Grace I sang this song at my cousin, Dustin’s deacon ordination with his wife, Lindsay and our friend, Kathy (also my former children’s choir teacher) and the final verse was my solo and has become really special to me but it has an even stronger memory in my mind now. On my last day as a teacher in a small Christian school where I had bonded deeply with students and their families as though they were family members, God placed this song from my childhood on my heart. I mentally sang it all day as I said goodbye to those sweet children that I had taught for two years in a multi-grade classroom. What a reminder that our days are fragile and fleeting. We must love others with the love of Jesus while we have them to love.

“He is the Lord. Forever His truth shall reign. Heaven and Earth rejoice in His holy name. He is exalted, the King is exalted on high.” Do you know that I remember my church congregation singing this minutes before I was baptized? I was six years old. When I hear this song today, I’m always moved to worship the Lord as though I am standing before His throne. Forever His truth shall reign. ~Twila Paris and every church congregation in 1991.

“Sometimes He calms the storm
with a whispered, “Peace be still.”
He can settle any sea but it doesn’t mean He will. Sometimes He holds us close
And lets the wind and waves go wild
Sometimes He calms the storm
And other times He calms His child” ~Scott Krippayne: I mentioned above that I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I cannot even count the amount of times the Holy Spirit has laid this song from my childhood on my heart in my adulthood, sometimes driving through literal storms which has always been hard for me. God is so faithful to calm me as His child. This song is among the many songs and scriptures that have helped me to move forward and to do hard things even as a frightened child of God. Joshua 1:9

“But His favorite song of all
Is the song of the redeemed
When lost sinners now made clean
Lift their voices loud and strong
When those purchased by His blood
Lift to Him a song of love
There’s nothin’ more He’d rather hear
Nor so pleasin’ to His ear
As His favorite song of all” ~Phillips, Craig, and Dean Okay, friends. You’re not going to believe this story. So, one of my favorite families in the world sang this song often during my childhood. To say that I was close to the Perryman family would be an understatement. They were and still are so special to me. I was friends with the parents and all four children. I used to joke that I wanted to be a Perryman, so imagine my surprise when I married into a family that also sang this song together. I was shocked. God has a sense of humor. He saw that coming, but I most certainly did not.

“You are the answer and the meaning of life to hearts in darkness. You’re the source of the light. As we walk this human road, every question will find, You are the answer.” ~Point of Grace

“Right now you may be troubled
but everything will work out fine
for the Spirit knows before you speak
what is on your heart and mind.
So I’ll be interceding
’til you’re standing strong again
the peace that passes understanding
is gonna be yours, but until then. I’ll be standing in the gap for you. Just remember someone somewhere is praying for you. Calling out your name, praying for your strength. I’ll be standing in the gap for you.” ~Babbie Mason I remember a quartet of women that I love singing this when I was little. I was so thrilled to get to sing along with friends from church once I was a grown up. Thank you, Patti, Karen, Amy, Tara, and Kelly Jo for allowing that song to have a little revival circa 2006ish. I’m still standing in the gap for each of you.

As I reflect on what I learned from those lyrics typed above with no small dose of nostalgia, I see reoccurring truths: God is faithful. God loves me. God loves the people He created. God has a plan for my life. God is to be exalted. God smiles at our worship. God loves the songs we sing to Him. God protects us and calms us. We were created to worship God. We are called to love His people. In those lyrics, I was getting the right messages. The Holy Spirit has used each of these songs and more that you can listen to here on Spotify, The Music that Shaped my Faith to refocus my heart time and time again with these songs full of scriptural truths. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. This music taught me early on to put my trust in Him. The Holy Spirit has put this playlist on repeat in my heart and I am abundantly thankful for that gift.

This extremely long and nostalgic post is dedicated with a grateful heart to the people who allowed me to love music and allowed it to be a vessel to know the truth of Jesus through singing: my mom who found the best cassette tapes and created a joyful home full of singing, my dad who always told me I sang beautifully before every race that I shouldn’t have been running in the first place (because I can sing, but an athlete I am not!), my cousin, Rhianna who was my vocal music role model and a musical legend in both our home church and our high school, my children’s choir teachers: Jane, Joan, Liz, and Kathy, the FBCD youth group girls especially Amy, Kelly, Tara, Mandy, Erica, and Sarah, and I should probably give a shout out to Andy for keeping me alive in Chicago and being my youth group big brother always, the FBCD church choir of the late 80s to early 2000s, Scott, Jim, Patti, and the whole Perryman crew. Joni and Stacibeth, you’ve always been the best Christmas concert/Billy Graham crusade/Women of Faith/whatever was happening in St. Louis concert going friends. Stacie and Amy, thanks for standing beside me while I told Point of Grace that I was their biggest fan. They didn’t know how true that was! Keith, thank you for driving us to so many events in the church van and being my second dad. I know you’re worshipping at the throne of Jesus and won’t really read these words, but thank you for loving me and standing in the gap for our youth group when we needed you most. FBCD, we weren’t perfect. We had big ups and big downs in the 1990s like any family but you taught me about Jesus and you loved me so well in every season. Thank you all for pointing me to Jesus in ways that taught me to point others to Him. I pour from a very full cup because of all of you. Bret, I’m so glad that the rest of my life with be filled with music (with even better theology than the music of the 1990s) because marrying my forever worship pastor was God’s greatest surprise to me. Your music ministry is the only one that could ever top my memories from the 1990s at FBCD. God is faithful.

From my heart to yours,

~Courtney