The Great Unknown

Jayme Salvati

I met Jayme Salvati my freshman year at Shepherd College. I was involved with a Christian organization on campus called Common Ground and she was one of the lead vocals in the Common Ground band that played worship songs at the meetings every Wednesday night. I still remember when she sang this song and I heard it for the first time, it sent a chill down my spine and I have never forgotten it since then. This song was on one of the Common Ground CD’s that the group gave away for free to anyone that wanted one as part of its ministry on the campus. For me, this song marks the transition between high school and college, between living at home and being away from home, between being surrounded by the familiar and comfortable to stepping into new territory, new faces, a new routine and in essence, a new way of life. It served as an encouragement for me to go forward in life knowing that God is behind me all the way and that by having my faith as my backbone, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13).

Leave a message cause I’m not home
I’ve gone to conquer the great unknown

With God behind me I’m on my way
All I gotta do is hope and pray, today

Cause if I fall, He’s gonna pick me up
And if I make a mistake, He’s gonna forgive me
And even if I deny His love, He’s gonna help me see the truth
In Him, in Him.

So forget about my fate and forget about my destiny
Cause it’s all about His plan and what He’s got in store for me

Cause if I fall, He’s gonna pick me up
And if I make a mistake, He’s gonna forgive me
And even if I deny His love, He’s gonna help me see the truth
In Him, in Him.

So, leave a message cause I’m not home
I’ve gone to conquer the great unknown

Wide Open Spaces

Dixie Chicks

This was one of the first country songs that I got into. Prior to the Dixie Chicks and Deanna Carter I hated country music altogether. My sister introduced my to the song “Strawberry Wine” by Deanna Carter and then this song from the Dixie Chicks and that was the beginning of my love for country music. I relate to the need to go out and explore life on one’s own, especially since I had always been dependent on my parents or nurses to guide me through life. As I became more independent through breathing on my own during the daytime and not needing daytime nurses anymore, as well as getting a service dog, this song became one of several that encouraged me to go out and be brave and see what life had in store for me. The fact that I grew up out west also forms a connection with me as well.

Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about?
Who’s never left home, who’s never struck out,
To find a dream and a life of their own,
A place in the clouds a foundation of stone?

Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dreams no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her she hasn’t guessed yet

She needs, wide open spaces
Room to make the big mistakes
She needs, new faces
She knows the highest stakes

She traveled this road as a child
Wide-eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won’t be coming back with the rest
If these are life’s lessons she’ll take this test

She needed, wide open spaces
Room to make the big mistakes
She needs, new faces
She knows the highest stakes

As her folks drive away her dad yells, “Check the oil”
Mom stares out the window and says, “I’m leaving, my girl”
She said, “It didn’t seem like I left long ago”
When she stood there and let her own folks go

She needed, wide open spaces
Room to make the big mistakes
She needs, new faces
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes (repeat)

Who I Am

Jessica Andrews

I can relate to this song in several ways. For one, I am the spitting image of my father, and I have been known, all too often, to be clueless and clumsy. My grandmother’s name is not Rosemary, instead they are Jane and Marion, but the chorus does describe some of the things that make me “who I am” as the song states. It’s important to know who you are and where you stand, especially in a world that is constantly trying to define that for you. I know, at the end of the day, no matter what happens that I’ll always have my faith, my family and my friends who love me for who I am and no less. I may not have a ton of friends, but I have a few close friends that I know I can depend on. Truthfully, I prefer it that way. I don’t need to be popular, I just need to be who I am in Christ and to be content with that. As a teenager in high school this song helped me to establish that foundation and in turn, to hold on to my faith, my morals and my dreams.

If I live to be a hundred and never see the seven wonders
That’ll be alright
I don’t make it to the Big Leagues, if I never win a Grammy
That’ll be just fine
Cause I know exactly who I am

I am Rosemary’s granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done my mama’s still my biggest fan
Sometimes I’m clueless and I’m clumsy
But I’ve got friends that love me
And they know just where I stand
It’s all a part of me, and that’s who I am

So when I make a big mistake, when I fall flat on my face
I know I’ll be alright
Should my tender heart be broken, I will cry those tear drops knowing
I will be just fine
Cause nothing changes who I am

I am Rosemary’s granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done my mama’s still my biggest fan
Sometimes I’m clueless and I’m clumsy
But I’ve got friends that love me
And they know just where I stand
It’s all a part of me, and that’s who I am

I’m a saint and I’m a sinner
I’m a loser, I’m a winner
I am steady and I’m stable
I’m young but I am able

I am Rosemary’s granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done my mama’s still my biggest fan
Sometimes I’m clueless and I’m clumsy
But I’ve got friends that love me
And they know where I stand
It’s all a part of me, and that’s who I am
That’s who I am

Hands

Jewel

The movie Ever After with Drew Barrymore, which came out back in 1998, is what makes this song so relevant to the period of my life when I was in high school. I loved this movie from the moment it was advertised as postcards in the Seventeen magazines that I liked to read. It quickly became my favorite movie and some of my favorite memories are of me and my friend Lauren watching the movie a million times and going on Lewis and Clark expeditions in the woods during our summer vacations. Therefore, the stanza starting with, “poverty stole your golden shoe” through “ but I knew it wasn’t ever after” holds a special meaning to me. In addition though, this song was one of my favorites (specifically during my freshman and sophomore years of high school). It aided in me continuing to hold strongly to my faith and to never give up on my dreams.

If I could tell the world just one thing it would be:
That we’re all OK
And not to worry ‘cause worry is wasteful and useless in times like these
I won’t be made useless
I won’t be idle with despair
I’ll gather myself around my faith
For light does the darkness most fear

My hands are small I know
But they’re not yours they are my own
But they’re not yours they are my own, and
I am never broken

Poverty stole your golden shoe
It didn’t steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
But I knew it wasn’t ever after
We’ll fight not out of spite
But someone must stand up for what’s right
Cause where there’s a man who has no voice
There I shall go singing

My hands are small I know
But they’re not yours they are my own
But they’re not yours they are my own, and
I am never broken

In the end, only kindness matters
In the end, only kindness matters
I will get down on my knees and I will pray
I will get down on my knees and I will pray
I will get down on my knees and I will pray

My hands are small I know
But they’re not yours they are my own
But they’re not yours they are my own, and
I am never broken
We are never broken
We are God’s eyes, God’s hands, God’s heart (repeat)

Love Song For A Savior

Jars of Clay

I love this song because it not only describes where I’ve been but where, in a lot of ways, I still am in my walk with God. If I had to pinpoint a specific period of my life that I could attribute this song to it would be 8th grade through the beginning of high school in terms of when I really started exploring my faith and beliefs and what I wanted, what it was all supposed to mean to me. Eighth grade was when I set out to actually start reading my Bible on my own and start really thinking about my beliefs and how I could make them more real and personal to me. However, the reality is simply that I still have that simplistic child-like mindset when it comes to my viewpoint on God and Jesus and my relationship with Him. At the heart of me I am still like a child that just wants to sit at her Father’s feet and gaze up at His loving face and just fall in love with Him over and over again. Being in love with Jesus is what sustains me and is the central core of what makes me who I am.

In open fields of wild flowers, she breathes the air and fly’s away
She thanks her Jesus for the daisies and the roses
For no simple language, someday she’ll understand
The meaning of it all

He’s more than the laughter, or the stars in the heavens
As close as a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she’ll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday she’ll call Him and He will come running
Fall in His arms, the tears will fall down and she’ll pray

I want to fall in love with You
I want to fall in love with You
I want to fall in love with You
I want to fall in love with You

Sitting silent wearing Sunday best
The sermon echoes through the walls
A great salvation through it
Goes to the people who stare into nowhere
Can’t feel the chains on their souls

He’s more than the laughter, or the stars in the heavens
As close as a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday we’ll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He’ll call us, we will come running
Fall in His arms, the tears will fall down and we’ll pray

I want to fall in love with You
I want to fall in love with You
I want to fall in love with You
I want to fall in love with You

Seems too easy to call You Savior
Not close enough to call You God
So as I sit and think of the words I didn’t mention
To show my devotion

I want to fall in love with You (repeat)

Maybe There's A Loving God

Sara Groves

This song reminds me of where I was at developmentally/spiritually from about 4th grade through 6th or 7th grade. The song talks about “lying on my back in the middle of a field.” Well, for me, it was more like, “lying on my back high up in a tree.” When I hear this song a picture comes to my mind of our house in Albuquerque, NM and I am in the backyard having climbed either the big oak tree or the apple tree and it is evening time. The stars are just starting to come out, but there is still some light in the sky and I am staring up at the sky just content to be in my own little world. Even when confined to the ventilator (when, for example, my pacers would break), I would still find a way to climb up those trees. My parents actually have a picture of me laying in the apple tree, the ventilator tubing traveling up the tree trunk, my machine sitting on the ground below me, I’m engulfed reading a book, and our family Labrador retriever, Bobbie (R.I. P. 2001), is right below me happily looking at the camera. I was in a very contemplative state then and was very much caught up in my own world, which included having imaginary friends. I tended to be very spaced out most of the time, and I remember more than once my mother becoming frustrated with my detached behavior. Paying attention in class tended to be a struggle, and along with that came a struggle with grades as well. For this reason, the second stanza in the song starting with “I have another meeting today…”, rings very true. Spiritually I was content in believing what my parents had taught me to believe and didn’t spend much time questioning it or pondering it, though as I grew older I began to try to explore and to understand what it was all supposed to mean to me.

I’m trying to work things out, I’m trying to comprehend
Am I the chance result of some great accident?
I hear a rhythm call me, the echo of a grand design
I spend all night in the backyard
Staring up at the stars in the sky

I have another meeting today with my new counselor
My mom will cry and say, “I don’t know what to do with her.
She’s so unresponsive, I just cannot break through.
She spends all night in the backyard
Staring up at the stars and the moon.”

They have a chart and graph of my despondency
They want to chart a path for self-recovery
They want to know what I’m thinking, what motivates my mood
To spend all night in the backyard
Staring up at the stars and the moon

Maybe this was made for me
For lying on my back in the middle of a field
Maybe that’s a selfish thought
Or maybe there’s a loving God

Maybe I was made this way
To think and reason and question and pray
And I have never prayed a lot

But maybe there’s a loving God

Sister On Trial

Brian Joseph

I first heard this song at a house concert in Rockville, MD. Brian Joseph was performing at the neighbors, Scott and Paula Moore, Moore Music house concert that they hosted every month. It so happened that it coincided with my spring break my freshman year at Shepherd College. I went to the house concert with my parents and my sister Rebecca who was also home for the same weekend that I was. Prior to going the house concert I had confessed to my sister some feelings I had been having of depression, though I assured her it wasn’t anything to where I was seriously depressed, I had just been going through a small period where I had been feeling kind of down and out though I wasn’t exactly sure why. I was just trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing and I think mainly I was just scared. Anyway, that night we went to this house concert and when Brian Joseph sung this song, it hit me like a ton of bricks. When he sung the last verse, my sister looked at me, and I looked at her and we both smiled and stifled a smirk. I knew what she was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing myself. I was that sister on trial. If ever a song could be sung to paint a portrait of my family and my position in it growing up, this would be the one. The verse that says “when I get up to testify on my own behalf, and tell all the truths I have always known everyone starts to laugh”, describes how it is for me when I try to be serious about something, or try to voice a concern. Generally, whenever I have tried to do this, I have gotten literally laughed at. I know it isn’t because my family (or husband, even) is trying to be mean or condescending, I suppose it’s just that it comes across as so contrary to my personality or nature, that I come across more as “cute” than as serious. Frustrating, but at the same time understandable I guess…

They never took her away with her hands in cuffs
They never read her her rights
And she never had to sit on the witness stand to defend her life
And I wouldn’t claim that I could explain
My sister’s crime
But she says she’s on trial in the courtroom in her mind

It’s kinda like a family reunion she says, all of the family is there
Dad is the bailiff, but he’s fallin’ asleep in the bailiff’s chair
And there’s lots of waiting and I get scared and then we all stand
And mom comes in with a gavel in her hand

True, there have been days of hiding
But who doesn’t have secrets in their heart
Once in awhile?
Sister, sister on trial

She says when I get up to testify on my own behalf
And tell all the truths I have always known, everyone starts to laugh
And the judge doesn’t pay attention, she just polishes my P.H.D.
And the bailiff sleeps through everything and I can never leave

True, there have been days of hiding
But who doesn’t have secrets in their heart
Once in awhile?
Sister, sister on trial

After she told me this story I looked at my sister for awhile
And I said, how does it end, what happens in the trial?
She said the scariest part of the whole damn thing
Just between me and you
Is they’ll always find me guilty, cause I’m the jury too

Long ago when we were kids and I’d be making waves
My sister was a good girl, she knew how to behave
And I would always find myself in trouble of every kind
But I never knew she was the one on trial in her mind

True, there have been days of hiding
But who doesn’t have secrets in their hearts
Once in awhile?
Sister, sister on trial
Oh, sister.