The story behind “This is Home”

Every couple of days for the next 2 weeks or so, I’m going to write a post about one of the songs from the CD that we’ll be releasing soon. I wrote all but one of the songs on the record, and I really hope you’ll be moved by them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

THIS IS HOME

When I was growing up, I was pretty tight with my great-grandma Hilda. She would watch me when I was pretty little. She and my great-grandpa lived in an apartment about 5 minutes from my house. I used to love to go there because she had some killer toys. She had this toy rotary phone that was see-through and I used to love to watch the gears crank inside it when I’d turn the numbers. I wonder what ever happened to that thing…

Anyway, besides the fact that I used to like hanging out at their place, she was also an incredible example of how to live a full life and how to be like Jesus. Even up to the very day she died, she was always excited about what she was learning in her Bible, or the book she was reading, or something new she heard.

Towards the end of her life, she lived in a nursing home about 15 minutes from my parents’ house. I was in school in NC at the time. My great-grandpa had died about a year-and-a-half before, and she was ready to go be with him and with Jesus. There was one time that she had a mild stroke, and they took her to the hospital. She was mad at them for treating her! She told them if it happened again to just let her go! She wasn’t afraid to die, and she was looking forward to her rest and reward.

Every time I came home from school I would go see her, and she never said “goodbye” to me. She’d say, “See you later.” She used to say, “It’s not goodbye, I’ll see you again.” But we all knew she was ready to go. She had pictures next to her bed on a bulletin board, and she would lay there and look at a picture of her with my great-grandpa for the longest time.

The last time I saw her, I was home for a short break from school. I went to see her as I always did, and we spent about an hour talking. She had the best sense of humor. I miss laughing with her. When the time came for me to go, I said, “See you later Grandma.” She looked at me and smiled and said, “I love you. Goodbye.” As I walked to my car, something in me knew that I wouldn’t see her again.

I went back to NC to school. Within a couple of weeks, I got a call from my dad. He told me she had passed away. She was finally where she wanted to be: home. The home she had dreamt of and waited for.

I drove home right away to be with family and be at the visiting hours and funeral. When I’m dealing with something, I’m not very good at expressing emotion other than by writing songs, so that’s what I did. I started to write two or three songs, but they were slow, sad, tearjerkers about how much I already missed her, but I knew that if I finished one of those songs, she would find a way to come down here and kick my butt.

So instead, I started writing a song about the home she was so excited to go to, and where I know she is now. Healthy, happy, complete. I wrote about what she used to talk about, all the things she looked forward to, and all the things that I know are waiting for me. I wrote about the hope, about the peace, about the happiness and fullness of being with God in the place He’s prepared.

What resulted is “This is Home,” the first single from the new Mercy Rising record. Listen to the complete song below, and leave a comment to let me know what you think. I hope it is a source of comfort to other people who are missing someone as well.