The high point of the era of the compact disc was the hidden track. Whoever invented the hidden track was a genius. The first question though is probably why? If the song is good enough to put on the record, just put it on the record. But that defeats the purpose of it. It’s like a hidden treasure, a bonus song that you didn’t know you were getting when you bought the record. And it rewards the patience and lunacy of someone who notices that the CD is still “playing” long after the last track has “ended”.

I believe it was early in my junior year at Virginia Tech that Daniel’s family moved. It wasn’t a far move, still within town. I don’t quite remember how the house came to get its name, but somewhere along the way Daniel’s mom Lesa called it The Lighthouse. It was a fitting title.

I was walking down Washington Street toward the BSU when I saw my friend Daniel Whited on the other side of the street. I hollered at him from across the street, and he responded that he was headed home for the break. I yelled back, “Tell Carolina I said hello!”. I chuckled to myself at first, then started writing a song. What a perfect line!

The good news was that Daniel’s feet had taken him back to where he belonged. He was the joyful person I had remembered from our early days in high school when I first met him. Like David pleaded for in the Psalms, God had restored the joy of salvation to Daniel. And it was reflective in almost every aspect of his life. While it was a joy to see it and experience it with him, it made the tragedy of his death that much harder to bear.

It wasn’t long after writing “One Foot In The Door” that I wrote “Mary On My Mind”. The title states the obvious. I had fallen hard, for sure.

When I tell this story, I think most people who hear it believe there’s no way that it’s true. Looking back on it, I am the lucky one, for sure.

My freshman year at Tech, it snowed on October 1st. I grew up and lived only 2 hours away from Blacksburg, but it was a completely different climate. I was waiting for the bus to get back to campus from the Math Emporium one Friday, and it was so windy and cold that I went into the Volume 2 Bookstore and bought a hooded sweatshirt. My mom wasn’t happy that I used my credit card.

I started writing this song when we returned to Sarasota from the trip to Mexico. In part, I was overcome with a sense that I was where I belonged. I had answered a call that God had put on my heart, and I felt at peace working, serving and living in Sarasota for the summer. And as I thought about the heartbreak I had left behind, it was a welcome change.