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I
just love your I Am Unbreakable site.
Honestly, we never
dreamed we would have this kind of response. We thought we would launch
a website where we can have more imagery and really help people
understand where we’re coming from with this record as well as feature
the video there and have a place for people to share their stories. It’s
unbelievable what that little place to share their stories has become.
It’s a total God thing.
I
think, Dawn, there are so many people who are aching to share their
stories, hungry to read other stories, just embracing those moments to
see God in action.
There are also a lot of unbelievers out there who are in situations
where something isn’t working in their lives and they’ve gone here or
there for the answers and they’re still empty. So they see your video
or they visit the site and the answer is right there.
It’s just
phenomenal. I feel it’s like a place just as the church, where we need
to grow. We tend to hide our faults and hide our problems from each
other in the corporate structure of the church and it becomes this sad
situation because instead of helping each other we continually declare
that we’re fine, there’s nothing wrong, but then we go home and we cry
ourselves to sleep.
One thing that
Wendy said that really spoke to me is trials and troubles we face, are
they ever really worth it unless we use them to help someone else? I
mean that’s really where we learn from ourselves, but until you’re able
to help someone else with it, what was it for?
And I think that’s
one thing we kind of do with our songs, is we try to face our fears, try
to face the walls that stand up in front of us and we write a song about
it and we try to leave a trail of breadcrumbs for someone to be inspired
to do the same.
Unbreakable Video
Let’s go back to when you had problems with your vocal chords because
that seems to be most intense process you have ever faced, if not
personally then professionally. What did you go through and what did
you take away from the situation?
It was very
overwhelming. The week before I was scheduled to begin recording my
part on the album, I went to work with a vocal coach in my town to just
kind of get prepared for the album because I sang a lot higher than I
have in a long time – since choir in high school. When you sing a
certain way for a long time you kind of get into old habits and bad
habits and things like that, so I went in and talked with a vocal coach
and he showed me some different ways like I wasn’t holding my head right
and I was straining my voice certain ways so he showed me how to fix
that. But he also said that he thought there might be something wrong
with my voice so he set me up with an ear nose and throat expert in our
area and he was able to get me in the next day to see the doctor who put
a camera down my throat and told me that I had blisters on my vocal
chords.
There a condition
called nodules that singers get and basically nodules are like
calluses. Blisters are the first step to nodules and once you get
nodules they’ll never go away on their own, they’ll never heal, they’re
little bumps on your vocal chords and they keep them from closing so you
can’t hit high notes, it just messes up your voice.
I had blisters and
if they continued to progress they might become nodules and they could
only be fixed by surgery.
This was a Friday
that I was diagnosed and Monday I was scheduled to go in the studio to
begin to record for the second album. It floored me.
So going into the
studio I was using these new techniques the coach showed me. We just
put so much prayer on it. I wasn’t allowed to talk at all except for
when I was in the studio recording.
Even though I was
in the worst vocal health in my life, I sang better than I ever sung in
my entire life. I just remember looking up to heaven and saying, ‘Thank
you, God!’
We went on the road
for 24 shows with Disciple and I wasn’t allowed to talk except for the
time I was on stage. So I carried a little dry erase board around with
me which wasn’t fun; I was away from my husband so the only way we could
talk was through IM’s on computer whenever we could find internet on the
road. It was a very difficult time.
There was a
horrible storm that came through my town about three minutes away from
my parents house about five minutes from my house and I had to have
Wendy call for me the next morning to make sure everyone else was okay
because I couldn’t talk on the phone.
I was on complete
vocal rest for four months. It was a really hard time for me especially
when you’re dealing with health issues, because you feel like you have
it pretty much black and white as to what’s going on based by what the
doctor has told you.
They still thought
I would have to have surgery, but when I went in for my surgery consult
they said, ‘Man, you’re so much better than you were, we don’t think
you’re going to need surgery.’
So it was kind of
like a little yo-yo thing going on, but here recently God’s really been
teaching me to lean not on my own understanding, that I can’t look at my
circumstances and decide how things are going to be, I have to look to
God and the facts aren’t the facts anymore when you have the Creator of
the Universe on your side, and that’s what I’ve learned.
What was
unbelievable is time and time again people would come up and share with
me how God had healed them.
There was a young
girl who I’ll never forget. She shared with me one of the most
heartbreaking stories I ever heard. She was abused as a young child and
then diagnosed with HIV. She was 13 when she talked with me and 6
months earlier they could no longer find the HIV in her system. She
came to me with tears in her eyes and she said, ‘God wants me to tell
you you’re going to be ok, don’t you worry.’
God has just always
been there the whole time and He’s really teaching me to rely on Him.
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