As a way to introduce the new records, I am writing blog posts going song by song to give you some insight into the writing, recording, production and story of each of the songs. Here is the final installment of the series.
Song By Song – Samuel’s Song (The Lord Heard Our Prayer)
The miscarriage before we had Elijah was hard, compounded by the fact that we had announced Mary’s pregnancy to our families. With the issues related to that miscarriage discovered and rectified so quickly when Mary got pregnant later that year with Elijah, we assumed that having a second child would not be problematic. We were very wrong.
We waited a couple of years to get Elijah close to being potty trained to start trying for a second child. It made sense to us as far as what Mary and I thought we could handle. But things did not go well. We had a very difficult time getting pregnant again. What comes with that is a ton of guilt and shame and disappointment. To say it was a struggle is to put it lightly. We weren’t getting any younger, and we desperately had hoped for Elijah to have a sibling close to his age to grow up with. But it appeared as if it was not meant to be.
We started seeing a doctor at Mary’s OB practice who dealt more with fertility. She recommended we try the IUI procedure which was essentially the last step before IVF. The procedures timed Mary’s egg production and implanted the sperm directly to the egg with the goal being to take the guesswork out of the process. We had done that procedure a couple of times as I recall, and we were nearing the point where we would exhaust the attempts at the IUI. We had one scheduled for the first Monday in February. Right before that, I took a trip to Kansas City, MO for a training with the American Public Works Association. It was actually in the heart of the polar vortex. I remember the pilot giving the weather report as we approached Kansas City that the temperature was 3 degrees with light snow. It was incredibly cold!!!!
On the plane ride back to Raleigh the Friday before the scheduled IUI, I started writing this song. Like “Son Of Adam” that I wrote before we knew Elijah was a boy, I took it even further this time and wrote this before Mary was even pregnant, long before we knew Samuel was a boy. Once again, the name just kind of came to me, inspired from the story of Hannah, her prayer, and the Hebrew meaning of the name. Hannah’s story of praying so earnestly for a child resonated with me and Mary during this season. We too were begging the Lord for mercy, for another blessing of a child for our family. So, I wrote this song with expectant hope. A bit foolhardy, I suppose, but with a heart that believed God would answer that prayer in one way or another.
Mary had the IUI done that Monday. That evening, we both got a nasty stomach virus that floored us. Turns out we apparently passed a bit more than the peace that previous day at church as several folks got sick. We were so out of it that we called my dad that Tuesday morning and told him to come get Elijah. We couldn’t care for him because it had knocked us out so bad. As sick as we were, I certainly thought the IUI was a wasted attempt – that there was simply no way the procedure would have worked. Once again, God has a sense of humor. A few weeks later, Mary was pregnant, and Samuel was born that October.
The reality is that there are a lot of stories like ours that do not end this way. We are fortunate and blessed to have been given another child. For those who might be reading this whose story did not end this way, I am incredibly sorry. I don’t know why the Lord does what He does. I don’t know why He tarries to make all things new and right. I don’t know why the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous. It isn’t fair; it doesn’t make sense. But this is why community is so vital. We cannot and should not attempt to navigate these waters alone!!! Looking back on our struggle, the love and support we received was nothing short of amazing, a balm that sustained us through some very difficult times. Mary and I were willing to be vulnerable about our struggle because we had a connection with a community that we knew loved us. Seek out such a community because it’s what we all are made for.
Welcome Matt Keifer to the records! Matt is a very talented violinist who I met through Redeemer. Matt has a wonderful heart for worship and how music plays an integral part of the believer’s experience in worship. It was a joy to have him record a violin track for this song. Matt was on the worship team the Sunday we were scheduled to baptize Samuel, so we rehearsed this song with him. Then Samuel got sick, so we had to punt a couple of weeks when Matt wasn’t scheduled to play. So, it was great to have him be a part of the record since he missed out on the first live performance at Samuel’s baptism. One other anecdote about this tune. You have to remember that all of the instruments were tracked independently. We workshopped the songs together, but most of the parts were recorded individually by each musician. When John sent me the upright string parts, he played a very interesting chord over top of my G-minor chord in the bridge. Having not heard John’s string parts, Kinchen played the exact same chord in his piano part. I look no further than that to know the Spirit was moving in every part of these records. And I am so blessed to have been able to experience this and give this gift to all of you.
Thank you so much for sharing in these stories! I do hope you’ve enjoyed reading them as much as I have enjoyed writing them. Stay tuned as I plan to keep posting on the blog from time to time.
