Episode 22: Ginny Owens: Finding Your Song in the Dark
Transcript
Patsy: Hi, I’m Patsy Clairmont, and I’m a Boomer.
Andrew: And I’m Andrew Greer, and I’m a Millennial.
Patsy: And you are listening to Bridges.
Andrew: Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations
Patsy: One of the things I like about Bridges is it leads you places that give you an opportunity to meet new people, people you wouldn’t have met if the bridge wasn’t there, and we have a good friend standing on the other side of this bridge for our listening audience because she’s someone we already know really well.
Andrew: She sure is.
Patsy: Yeah, she connected to our hearts in a number of ways, and we’ve had lots of opportunity to have conversations together, but now we get to do it right here. Tell them who that is.
Andrew: It is Miss Ginny Owens, a phenomenal, wonderful songwriter and artist and now author. In fact, we got to write our first book — it was both of our first books together — but she has authored her own book, a new book called Singing in the Dark.
And we’re excited to talk about that as well as this is the first of a series of special Bridges episodes that are centered around a new project that David C Cook, Integrity Music, and Compassion International have partnered together to bring us, and it is called FAITHFUL, and it traces the role of women throughout the history of the story of God all the way to today. Ginny is a part of that along with a lot of our good friends like Ann Voskamp, Kelly Needham, Lisa Harper, Trillia Newbell.
We are so excited about this project, and we are so very excited to be talking to Ginny, so listen up.
Patsy: I love having conversations, and you know I always loop into a bridge somewhere. This time the bridge is in Jackson, Mississippi, and it is a swinging bridge that was built initially by the people to benefit the farmers. Well, eventually it benefitted all of them too because whatever the farmers raised they filled their pantries with, so they put that swinging bridge in — 20 feet wide, 360 feet long. But today it’s a walking bridge, and it’s also a bridge for lovers because they go out and put locks on the chains on the cables with their names on it, and it’s a sign of love that can’t be broken.
And that’s the kind of love that I have for our guest today who just happens to be from Jackson, Mississippi.
Andrew: Very good, Patsy.
Patsy: Born April the 22nd, which is a really important date in our home because that is Jason, my youngest son’s, birthday as well.
Our guest has sung her way through her life and into all of our hearts, and it is not only an award-winning singer — three Doves, hello, sprout wings and fly — not only award-winning, but she is award-winning to us because she’s our dear friend and one that you have known for quite a long time. Talk to me about that, Andrew.
Andrew: That’s right. Ginny Owens, who is our guest today. Wow, Ginny. I was thinking on our way here — we’ve known each other I think more than half of my life now, so that makes lifelong friends, right? So we have known each other since I was in college and you were just out of high school.
Ginny: Yes.
Andrew: Is that how it works?
Ginny: That’s how that works, yeah.
Andrew: And I tell you, what I was thinking also is you are one of our favorite friends who moved the furthest away.
Ginny: I did. I was trying to get far away from that bridge in Jackson, Mississippi, which I’ve never heard of by the way. What in the world? I’ve got to go.
Patsy: It’s called Byram. Does that ring a bell?
Ginny: Oh yeah, Byram, of course. I don’t know about that bridge though. There’s a city, like a little suburb of Jackson, called Byram, so I’m going to check into that bridge and bring back a full report on how many locks are there and whether it’s still up and running.
Andrew: Yeah, I love that it’s a bridge for lovers and it’s swinging, you know, it’s shaky, it’s not steady.
Ginny: Oh, wow. There’s a sermon in that somewhere. I love it.
Patsy: It’s blocked off from car traffic because of what it would take to keep it in that shape, but it’s foot traffic.
Andrew: Well, Ginny, we are thrilled you are here with us today. You are truly one of my dearest friends. We have walked through a lot of life together. We’ve been able to experience a lot of life together, both personally and professionally, which few people can maneuver those two at different times or simultaneously, and we have, so I feel like we…
Ginny: And we’ve watched a lot of ridiculous bad movies and documentaries together.
Andrew: It’s true.
Ginny: If you stay friends through doing that, then wow.
Patsy: And you two wrote a book together.
Andrew: We sure did. It was both ours first book. We co-wrote a book together. It was our first venture into the book world, which of course Ginny is now venturing into over and over again.
So the first thing I want to know though, before we get into information about your new book, I want to know why you moved to New York City.
Patsy: Why’d you leave us?
Ginny: Why not? Because New York City’s so fun. Well, I do miss you guys, and I will say if I didn’t get to come back to Nashville so often, it would be pretty tough to live in New York.
I’ve always loved New York City. I remember it was always one of the first trips I took as a new artist when I was traveling. We used to play a program that they would actually have on Moody Radio called “Live at the Lamb’s.” The Lamb’s Theatre, which is in midtown Manhattan, is an old church, just beautiful. And so we got to go there I think just after my first album released, and I fell in love with the city and just have always thought maybe I would live there one day. I don’t know, a few years ago, I was like, You know, I think it’s time.
I also have always wanted to attend seminary, and a seminary I wanted to go to was in New York City. For me, as a person who can’t see, New York is very easy to get around because it’s a grid pattern, at least the city is a grid pattern, so it makes it a lot easier to just think about to find whatever I’m looking for. So I can walk places, I can take the train, so just getting around ends up being a lot easier, unless it’s a really rainy day and then it’s just not fun at all. I try to stay in the house on those days.
But yeah, I love it. It’s a lot, but I really have a great time and have had fun learning to connect in a brand new place. It’s good.
Patsy: How many hours in a week do you spend in seminary hours?
Ginny: A lot. I’m a pretty slow learner, so I have to read and take notes and think about it.
With the book release, it’s been pretty fun because it’s like, oh, there are really not enough hours in the week to do it all. But I’m getting close. I think I’ll finish in December if all goes well.
Patsy: Congratulations.
Andrew: What first drew you to seminary? What made you think about seminary? What was the draw to seminary? What was going on in your head when you were like, I think I definitely want to go back to school?
Ginny: So when I first started traveling and doing music, I had enrolled in seminary. I was taking a few classes online. But back then, it was still like you’d get the CDs in the mail and you listen and then you kind of fill in your courses and send it via email to somewhere.
I started, and it was too much. But I always knew I wanted to learn more about the Bible, and because I’m so, I don’t know, ADD in a certain way, I wanted it to be structured learning. Like I wanted somebody to challenge me and to have some accountability there so that I would keep going in that direction. Everybody doesn’t need school for that; I think I did.
So it was not the time, so I took a couple classes and then stopped, just because being on the road was a little too crazy. But I’ve just always had it in the back of my mind. I’m kind of a nerd, so a lot of times… Like when I’d be ready to fall asleep at night, instead of watching a TV show or listening to a book, I’d be like, Oh, let’s listen to a seminary class. I thought that was fun. It’s such a weird thing.
I love Scripture, and I have wanted to learn more about it and learn to love it more. And obviously, I love the Lord and wanted to know more about what does this mean and how do I help other people to know and experience God and who he is and Christ and what it means to trust him.
So seminary has been amazing. It’s so hard. It’s very academic on a certain level. I mean, 20-page papers — I’ve never written those. I was a music major in college, and we didn’t have a whole lot of 20-page papers due. So it’s been a new and different experience, but it’s been wonderful. I have enjoyed every minute of it, truly.
Andrew: You are a unique person in that your interest in seminary, I think a lot of people who end up in seminary, of course it’s through a kind of spiritual motivation, but they’re very academic. They love book studies, which I think you are very studious. When we wrote our book together, which incorporated some elements of Old Testament and New Testament Scripture, you were the one who could compile the Scriptures, bring them to the surface of what we should use really quickly. But you’re also extremely artistic, you’re extremely engaging, you have feelings — you’re not just by the book.
So that’s a very unique combination of person, someone who both wants to dive in deep on an academic study level but then I think has a more likelihood, maybe like a pastor but in an even more musical, inspirational way, to apply that, to help people apply that to their real lives.
Ginny: Yeah. I mean, I definitely hope… Well, I can already tell you that just even the classes I’ve taken have helped me to read and view the Bible differently, and it’s definitely directly transferred to thinking through songs as I’m writing them. Just thinking about how do I capture this idea, this concept, and share it in a song, either that I would sing to people or a song that I would write for them to sing.
Patsy: You have a new book coming out, and it’s just in time to be an early birthday present for you and for everyone who loves you, and for those who have not yet heard you, they’re in for a real treat. And you have written your book on singing in the dark, which is so suited to your life experience. Tell me when you decided on the title and how.
Ginny: It was a bit of an evolution. Although, it was one of those evolutions where I was like, I think the title is Singing in the Dark. And then I was like, Hmm, I’m not sure that’s the title. So there was six months of deciding, asking people, thinking through it, deciding whether that was the a title that made sense.
And really the reason for the title is just the idea, of course, for me, I live in literal darkness as someone who can’t see. The subtitle of the book is Finding Hope in the Songs of Scripture, so in a sense, what is it like to find hope in a world that I can’t see?
But then also I feel like all of us know something of darkness. Whether we’re living with grief or loss, whether we’re living with sort of a chronic illness, whether we are living in a difficult marriage. Because we live this side of heaven, we can’t see our way clearly. There are things we just don’t understand about life. We don’t see God face-to-face to commune with him. So on some level, everyone knows something of darkness, and so the book looks at different songs of Scripture to kind of talk about how do we walk through that darkness. How do we see what people in the past did as they were walking through that darkness? How did they sort of sing to God, as it were, through their different difficult experiences and find him in the midst of those?
So yeah, that’s essentially in a nutshell what it’s about.
“Everyone knows something of darkness.”
Patsy: It couldn’t have come at a better season in the world. Not just in an individual life but in the entire world, we’re having to learn how to make a harmony out of a cacophony because of all the things that are coming at us, so I’m very excited about the book and the topic and that it comes out of your heart.
Ginny Owens singing “Be Thou My Vision”
Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart
Naught be all else to me, save that thou art
Thou my best thought, by day or by night
Waking or sleeping, thy presence my light
I will lift up my eyes, to my help and my peace
Till my faith becomes sight, be my light and my strength
Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise
Thou mine inheritance, now and always
Thou and thou only first in my heart
High King of heaven, my treasure thou art
High King of heaven, my victory won
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heaven's sun
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall
Still be my vision, O ruler of all
I will lift up my eyes, to my help and my peace
Till my faith becomes sight, be my light and my strength
I will lift up my eyes, to my help and my peace
Till my faith becomes sight, be my light and my strength
The FAITHFUL Project
Patsy: Andrew, what I have loved through the years of my life is that God has sent women to me in just the right moments to help me bridge a lot of my misunderstanding about what it means to be a woman of God, what it means to be a woman for heaven’s sake. Girlfriends help each other in those ways in personal issues. My husband was so grateful — “Oh my goodness, go talk to your girlfriends about that. I don’t know anything about it.” There’s just some things that women need other women to speak life into them about.
So I’m thrilled that this group called FAITHFUL has been brought together because it’s full of such quality ladies talking about women in Scripture in ways that are meaningful, that are going to bring hope to other gals who are out there questioning.
And when I say quality women, we’re talking about gals like Amy Grant, who you and I both adore her. She is just so lovely at the very core of her being and so peace-giving and gracious. I love Amy Grant, and she kind of embraces all these women in this circle of faithfulness. I like that a lot.
Lisa Harper is in there. I’ve known Lisa for 30 years, and she is a bundle of energy and insight. She’s smart, she’s witty, and she’s wild, honey. She’s got more energy than anyone I know.
We’re just barely scratching the surface of what’s happening. I think FAITHFUL has all the potential for legacy because they’ve got a book, they’ve got music, they’ve got gathering. I mean, hello. We’re talking about a full circle waiting to happen for the good of gals. I like that.
Andrew: I love the creative side of it, what you’ve mentioned already — names of authors and musicians — and the multigenerational relationship that is represented in this book, which of course we love here on Bridges.
Some of my generation, some of the names I love seeing in there are people like Sandra McCracken, who’s an amazing singer-songwriter, podcaster, author herself. Ellie Holcomb, an amazing songwriter and just communicator. Her expressions of faith are so poignant. I think of our good friend Ginny Owens. Everyone loves Ginny. She’s like an Amy, right? Can’t get enough of her. So I love that there’s that multigenerational aspect as these women…
The creative side of it I wanted to mention was that there are authors who are co-writing songs — you know a little bit about that — and then there’s songwriters who are authoring chapters, again, all about the integral role of women in the Bible.
I see this as an empowering thing. That word sometimes can have a lot of layers to it, but what I feel is empowering about this book, for women or for anyone who happens to trace the words on these pages, is that it is showing how God sees women and how he has continually through time, beginning in the beginning of time through the pages of Scripture, and I think is an indicator of how God is still using women today to tell his story through the ages. I think that’s faithful.
Patsy: It is, it is. And the book is lovely. It’s hardcover, it’s well designed, and it’s full of photographs. I love to go through people’s mail, and photographs is one of the ways we can do that. We can see what’s going on, what their outfit looks like, who they’re talking to, imagine what they’re saying one to another. I can tell you this much: There’s a lot of cheerleading going on from one heart to another.
Andrew: And isn’t that important not just among women with women but today to see people who are across generational lines, who have different life experiences, different influences coming together around the same purpose. And of course, that’s what I believe the Spirit of God is about. It’s about unity, and these women are representing that on these pages. And you can find your copy of The FAITHFUL Project book format, music format, whatever you want, at faithfulproject.com.
Andrew: We’re back with our guest of the hour and our favorite person...I was going to say of the year but really of all time.
Patsy: I would say it’s been a mighty long season of realizing the treasure we have here.
Andrew: See how she does that so well?
Ginny: That is so sweet. I’m just going to call you everyday when I need encouragement. Is that okay?
Patsy: Please do, please do.
Ginny: Perfect.
Andrew: We were talking about your new book, Ginny — Singing in the Dark. Finding Hope in the Songs of Scripture is the subtitle for it, but you know, I want to ask you what does it mean to draw close to God in the dark. How do we do that when we can’t see our way, when our spiritual eyes are blinded by our circumstances and our challenges?
Ginny: Right, yeah. It’s a good question. I think the answer is maybe simpler than we think but not easy. I do think ultimately it’s about intimacy with God. It’s about coming to him with everything.
You don’t hear the psalmists ever singing polite, polite songs to God, you know. They don’t pray polite prayers. They pray very honestly. They pray out of their frustration, out of their joy, out of their anger, out of their pain. They lament before God. But they always engage him. They always ask him to come and be in the middle of it or come and be with them in the middle of their pain.
And so I think ultimately it is about doing the same thing, following what we’ve seen there and laying it all out before God. I mean, he knows anyway. So laying out where we are and continuing to engage him.
It’s not unlike our dearest friends on this planet. In order to remain close to them, in order to allow their voices to mean things in our lives, we have to engage them, we have to be vulnerable with them, to be honest with them, tell them what is really going on. And if they’re truly trusted friends, we then ask for their advice, ask for their thoughts.
It’s different with God in that he is the all-knowing, all-powerful God, but it’s not different in that we show up and we talk to him in the same way. I think it’s very important that we pursue him, we hear him speaking back to us through his words, specifically in places like the Psalms but in his words throughout Scripture.
I think it’s a dialogue that continues, and the more that we’re willing to have it, the more that he can speak to us and we can hear and be changed.
Patsy: Ginny, you know my husband Les and what a fun-loving guy he is in his own spunky way on a regular basis, but he is an amputee and he’s a diabetic and he’s a heart patient, and he just lost his vision in one eye and has compromised vision in the other one. His existence, the way he functions in a day, has become darker. It’s become more difficult. It’s become something that he has to constantly work on his mindset to make his way through, and one of the ways he does that is by singing and ridiculous jokes.
Ginny: He does. He does do some ridiculous jokes. I love them so much. I miss the Les jokes. They’re so good.
Andrew: Well, Ginny, I think people who know you well and people who are around you a lot, humor is something that is a part of your life and one of your avenues, I think, to hope and expressing hope to others.
You said the word lament in talking about the book, in talking about drawing closer to God in the dark. I think a lot of people when they hear that word they think maybe we’re talking about despair or giving over to depression. But what does lament look like to you? What does it mean to you? How do we lament?
Ginny: Oh, I think the difference in despair and lament is an invitation to God to come and be in the middle of it.
To despair, I look back at my journals of places where I’ve just been in a season where I would say despair, and I’m just praying at God, complaining at God about all the things. He can handle that.
But I think lament would be to say, “God, this is happening and I do not understand it and it is breaking my heart and it is painful,” or whatever it is we need to say, but asking him to come and be in the middle of it. Asking him to change things and knowing that whether he changes those circumstances or not, that he will ultimately, as he’s promised, work all things together for good. He will somehow bring good, even if we don’t see till eternity, out of whatever difficulty we might be facing.
And that is certainly not an easy thing to trust him, but I do think lament is going with our sorrow, not pretending. I think we’re so uncomfortable with the idea of lament in our country. It’s like let’s block it out, let’s watch Netflix, let’s get on social media, let’s just turn up the noise so that we don’t have to feel pain. But lament is going to God with that pain, I feel like, and saying, “This is real. This is here. Show me where you are in this.”
I think a really practical example of that would be thinking about the story of Jesus when he heals Lazarus. When Mary comes to him and she is just a wreck, he knows what he’s about to do. He’s already told the disciples what he’s about to do. He’s going to heal him. And yet, when he sees Mary, he breaks down. He cries with her because death is a terrible thing. And suffering and pain are terrible things, and he does not want them to exist anymore than we do. Of course, he feels that far greater than we do in a certain sense because he can see the whole world and he can see all the pain.
And so I think remembering that, that we are not crying out to a God who is distant but we’re crying out to a holy God who also is wholly acquainted with our pain, and I think that is when we can lament knowing…
Almost every lament in the Psalms, not every one but nearly every one of them, ends with praise. It ends with the psalmist coming out on the other side with either anticipation of what is going to happen, like the good that they know is going to come, or maybe they’ve actually experienced God’s presence in the midst of it and so they can praise, but it’s almost that idea of just even saying as we’re pouring out our sorrow to God, “Even though I don’t exactly know what is going to happen, I’m going to speak what my mind knows is true until my heart finally catches up, until I actually can finally just feel this and experience this.” And I may not feel it now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t talk to God and pour it out before him.
“The difference in despair and lament is an invitation to God to come and be in the middle of it.”
Andrew: I mean, when we go to God with pain — I was thinking about this as you were saying that — if we’re willing to go to God with pain, and not turn up the noise but be still and quiet and submit ourselves and surrender to God, isn’t that then when we are actually sincerely, authentically, truly able to be with others in their pain?
It’s funny because we live in a world driven by wanting to relate to everybody’s pain. We have a lot of attention on how people are suffering, and I think that’s important to be aware of that, but I think if we aren’t quiet and giving God our own pain, we really can’t identify with others’ pain.
“If we aren’t quiet and giving God our own pain, we really can’t identify with others’ pain.”
Ginny: No, we can’t, and we’re uncomfortable with it. Yeah, I think in order to be able to embrace others where they are and walk alongside them we have to, in a certain sense, be comfortable with our own suffering. Maybe comfortable’s the wrong word, but be able to know how to manage that suffering and take it to God and walk in it honestly.
Patsy: I think problems and pain, while a really tough curriculum, is where we learn best. It’s where we lean in and listen the closest because we’re to the point we need to hear the answer.
It is those lessons I think that have deepened my own personal walk. And even in this pandemic season of life, I have found that being still on a regular basis puts me in a position of having to live with choices I’ve made that have become a habit pattern that aren’t in my best interest. But when I am alone and still, that comes up as an opportunity for me to own it, confess it, and to live differently. That has been, while uncomfortable, it has been very illuminating.
So this path in the dark, the song we find there, may have some anguish in it, but it may need some anguish in it.
“Problems and pain, while a really tough curriculum, is where we learn best.”
Ginny: Absolutely, absolutely.
Andrew: You know, one thing I think about that, Ginny, you and I have talked about before is in Scripture oftentimes musicians led the way in battle in the Old Testament, which people don’t always know or they don’t always think about because I think musicians can often be seen as a little flighty, that we not lead them into battle but into the middle of the ocean or whatever.
But in the challenges of life, the darker, hard-to-see, perilous places, for me personally that makes sense because music has also led the way to help me face those challenges head on with hope. And you’ve recorded a new batch of songs that goes along with the book and it’s content, and that record title is Singing Hope in the Darkness. Tell us about that music.
Ginny: Yeah. So the title track is actually called “Sing in the Darkness,” which is kind of like the book. I think we have several options when it comes to darkness, as we’ve talked about already. You can block it out. You can turn up the noise. You can pretend it doesn’t exist. Or you can be angry. Or you can find your way to singing through it, whether that song is a lament or a song of joy or whatever.
People go, “Well, what does that mean to sing in the dark?” If you like music at all, it’s kind of a whole-body experience, right. It’s something that when you’re in the car, you can roll the windows down and celebrate your favorite song. Or it’s running on repeat in your mind, the tune keeps coming into your head. And so the idea of singing in the darkness is having something on repeat that brings our heart into a place of hope no matter what the circumstance is.
And so learning to respond by actually declaring our faith, by declaring what we believe even when we don’t feel it, whatever those things are, it’s kind of an all-in, full-body response to that pain.
Anyway, every song is kind of about that. What does it mean to sing in the darkness, and how do we work that out? Sing Hope in the Darkness is a worship album that is pretty much all focused on what do we sing about. Here’s some ideas for what we would sing in our darkest seasons, or even in our joyful seasons.
Patsy: How many of those songs did you write or were a part of writing?
Ginny: I wrote all of them, except “Be Thou My Vision.” I didn’t write that. That’s been around a bit. But we did write a little chorus for it that I wrote. So yeah, I wrote or co-wrote all of them.
Andrew: And you know, the Psalms were original to David or whoever the author was in that time that we continue to write new songs for the church to sing together corporately as well as in our own personal times of worship. Talk about that. That’s important, right, that we continue to birth new songs to be sung together in the church.
Ginny: It is. It is absolutely important. I think we forget, because we think about hymns as having this… I mean, many of them are just beautiful, rich poetry, often written by people that were just in ultimate darkness, just knowing that their lives would end soon because they had some kind of illness that they didn’t know what it was or maybe they did.
So they’re writing these brilliant colors and language, and they’re then passing away at 28 or whatever, and you just think, Wow, this is such a different time. But they knew the love of Christ and they trusted God in what they were facing, and the way that they poured that out was in their songs.
But what we also forget is a lot of the songs were to the tunes of popular melodies, like maybe bar melodies of the time, favorite bar songs of the time. And so when we think of our generation, it is important to write about the things that we’re learning, that God is speaking to us through Scripture, and singing those to each other, helping each other sing those ideas. And even if they sound like popular songs of the day sometimes, I think that’s okay.
But I do think it is important to remember as we’re writing songs, and one thing I’ve really aimed to do is to create songs that have a lot to say. Because we do remember songs, because they do resonate long after we’ve sung them, I always want those songs, those words, to tell us truth, to speak back to our hearts truth that we need to hear. So you know, instead of just kind of saying over and over that God is good, maybe the song talks about how God is good and the ways that we can unpack that for ourselves.
So my hope in worship writing and the thing that I always try to encourage others in is just the idea of speaking truth that you would want to sing in your darkness and that would truly bring you hope in your darkness if you’re singing it. So that’s always my aim.
Andrew: I always liked that hymn that was to the tune of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”
Ginny: Oh my gosh. I don’t know that one. I missed that one.
Andrew: Okay, I’ll send it to you later.
Ginny: Please do.
Andrew: Well, you’ve been listening to Bridges with our dear friend, Ginny Owens, and you are…
Patsy: Patsy Clairmont, the Boomer.
Andrew: I’m Andrew Greer, the Millennial, and we’ll be right back with Ginny.
The FAITHFUL Project
Patsy: When women come together to support other women, things happen and lives change. And in the FAITHFUL group, we have an array of women like Amy Grant and Ann Voskamp and Ginny Owens and Kelly Minter, and on and on the names go. Women who are rich in understanding of who God is and are willing to impart it to others. So ladies, let’s make sure that we arm ourself with this faithful information, both in printed form and song.
Andrew: So hear the voices of authors and artists come together to tell the story of God’s faithfulness in and through the women of the Bible on The FAITHFUL Project. Get yours today at faithfulproject.com.
Patsy: This is Patsy Clairmont, and I’m with my buddy and co-host Andrew Greer, and we’re having the delightful opportunity to talk with Ginny Owens, who is about to take a real step into an involvement about women and more women, by women, for women.
Ginny: All the women things.
Patsy: All the women stuff. And it is for the purpose of strengthening our hearts, and you’re doing it with a list. It’s a starlit list. It’s just amazing. Amy Grant and Lisa Harper…
Andrew: Ellie Holcomb, Sandra McCracken.
Patsy: Well, yes. There’s a whole list of people who have done a great deal to bring light into dark places. So on this FAITHFUL voyage that you’re on, tell us how did this all happen, and aren’t you involved with Hannah in that book?
Ginny: I am, yes. I do love Hannah. I love her story so much.
Well, the fun thing, the very beginning of the story actually is my manager, David, and I were having a meeting one day, and we were just dreaming about the future. And an idea that we came up with was what if we got a bunch of women together to do, at that point, we were thinking a multi-artist kind of project, where we would sing together, do maybe worship together, share that with the world.
David shared that with a few friends, and that ended up becoming, Oh, what if we also included authors in that? What if there were albums and books and all kinds of things? So then it grew into FAITHFUL, and it’s been so much fun to see it come into fruition over the last year, I guess maybe year and a half now. But it’s come together so quickly. It’s been really, really special.
Patsy: It’s exciting because everything I read about it I think, Oh, that’s cool. Oh, that’s wonderful.
Ginny: It’s so much fun. What we did was get together and write a lot. We wrote songs together, authors and artists in the same room just kind of working it out and hashing it out, and ended up with such fun songs.
At the end of each day of songwriting, we would get together and kind of do a mini little writers’ concert where we would play the songs that we had written that day, and it’s just astounding. It was pretty sweet.
But the other thing that we did was write a book about some of the women who were faithful in the Bible, either because God led them to be faithful or maybe they started out that way. It’s just all over the map.
One of the women that we explore is Hannah, and I got to write a chapter about Hannah. And one of the things I love about Hannah is Hannah was a true victim in every way. She’s the other wife that can’t have kids. In the ancient Near East, if a woman couldn’t have kids, she just had no value whatsoever. And her husband had taken on another wife, which is always problematic. That never works out well in any situation, and certainly not in Bible times, which we see over and over again. And yet, her husband’s like, “Well, don’t you love me? I’m so good to you.” I mean, he doesn’t understand her pain.
But it’s just everything’s going wrong. She’s being picked on by the other wife. I mean, it really is kind of a good reality TV show or something. But she truly is in a dark place, but what she does is take that and pour it out to God. So I write really about her song and what it took for her to sing her song to God in 1 Samuel, chapter 2, where she is not only celebrating her son but really she has given her son Samuel back to God for his lifetime of service.
But she’s still singing, she’s still joyful, she’s still hopeful, even though that has happened. And so to just watch how she prays to the Lord and he fills her heart with himself, and just the beauty and power of that image and that story is so moving to me that I was excited to get to write the chapter about it.
Andrew: You know, diving into these stories of these women in the Scripture, as a woman yourself, did that give you any new perspective about the importance of women to God or the way that God has used women, not only throughout history but is continuing to use women today in the story of God lived out through us.
Ginny: Yeah. I think realizing again just how creative God is and also how he always sees the unseen. For the most part in the Bible, he does this with men as well, but women were mostly unseen.
Andrew: Culturally speaking.
Ginny: Yeah, culturally speaking, they were unseen, and a lot of times even by their communities, and yet God always saw them. He always was engaging them in his work and always had plans for them to be part of the bigger story.
You think of not only Hannah, who’s prayer led to the birth of a prophet who would anoint King David, so in a sense, her prayer sort of changed history. God used her.
But then you think of Rahab, who was a prostitute who helped the Israelites. You think of all these different women that God saw. Even someone like Hagar, who was pulled into this situation that she, again, two wives, never a good idea, and she’s then hated by Sarah, Abraham’s first wife. It’s drama, but even as she goes into the desert and sort of starts her new life, she is seen by God. She is taken care of. She is cared for. She’s loved.
I just love seeing that again and again. God is never like, Oops, I lost that one. He always has these beautiful roles for people to play. And then I love that we get to read about those. Obviously, they’re important enough to be included in Scripture, so they were important enough for us to know about.
So yes, going through those stories and just seeing again how God has used and can use any of us is so just life-giving and empowering.
Andrew: We talk so much culturally today in our society about discrimination, equality, and achieving equality among all kinds of people, that we would begin to see each other as equals. All it takes is a step into God’s character to see where true equality begins. It levels the playing field. We all submit to God, and God is creating within us, because we were created in his image, worthiness, which puts us all on the same playing field.
It shows to me over and over again the importance of our spiritual lives in helping us relate to one another, and that’s what I hear when you talk about God’s role not only in Hannah’s life but as The FAITHFUL Project explores God’s role in women’s lives and women’s role in the story of God throughout history. It’s a beautiful, beautiful thing. And you are a beautiful, beautiful person to us.
Ginny: Aw, you guys are beautiful to me.
Patsy: You’re a joy, honey. I’m crazy about you, and I know Andrew holds your friendship as one of the very special ones in his life. So thank you for being with us and for being a woman who knows how to sing in the dark, that you never give up that song about him, and for being a faithful woman who continues to invest yourself in his Word so what you have to give is so rich and relevant. Thank you so much.
Ginny: Well, thank you. I have to say that I very clearly remember a few years ago when I got to be involved, Patsy, in one of your writing… What did you call those that we would have at your house? Like writing workshop.
Patsy: Yeah
Ginny: Talk about a faithful woman who taught me so much even just in that season about being faithful and about writing of God’s faithfulness and about being unafraid to do that. So thank you for just the life that you’ve poured in and your faithfulness to so many women and to God over your wonderful season of ministry. I just am so appreciative of how you’ve been faithful to my life.
And Andrew too, even though he’s not a woman. Couldn’t do it without Andrew.
Andrew: Yes, thank you for being faithful to men who like women.
Ginny: Wow
Andrew: I was trying to just tie the dots back to women. I was trying to bolster the women.
Patsy: Nice try
Andrew: Thank you.
Well, you’ve been listening, on that note, to Bridges with…
Patsy: Patsy Clairmont, the Boomer.
Andrew: Andrew Greer, the Millennial. Spiritual Connections Through Generational Conversations.
Thank you, Jenny, for being with us. We’ll see you next time.
Patsy: Bridges is co-produced by Andrew Greer and myself, Patsy Clairmont.
Andrew: And our podcast is recorded and mixed by Jesse Phillips at the Arcade in Franklin, Tennessee.
Patsy: Remember, don’t forget to leave us a rating, a review, or a comment. It all helps our little show get going.
Andrew: To find out more about my co-host Patsy Clairmont or myself, Andrew Greer, or to read transcripts of our show, simply go to bridgesshow.com.