God's Still in America
I wrote "God's Still in America" with Craig Headen and Richie McDonald (Lonestar). This header photo (circa 2008) of our daughter and son, holding the CD the song was released on, captures a moment in time when our kids were still little bitty! The studio photo, below, is a sweet reminder of our daughter's little-girl voice being among the children singing (along with Richie's kids) at the end of the song.
Shortly after Richie recorded it, I was in New York City and visited “Ground Zero”. Standing at the wall of names whose lives were lost on that terrible September day, I was overwhelmed with emotion. These were not just names on a wall… they were very real people, with dreams and hopes and futures cut short by unfathomable hate. People with families and loved ones forever mourning and missing them. I remember calling Richie on my cell phone, while standing on that spot in New York City, and tearfully declaring, “Now more than ever, this world needs hope that overcomes hate! This world needs the love of God, and that’s what this song is about!”
I then visited New Orleans with my husband, and I’ll never forget the feeling I had as we took a bus tour around the city, which was still undergoing reconstruction in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina’s massive destruction. We could literally see the water line on the buildings not yet renovated…like a tattoo of the horror that had taken place there. As the bus rounded a corner in one area of town, a billboard came into view just outside my window. I grabbed my husband’s arm and exclaimed,
“Look! It’s just like that line in our song!”
The billboard depicted a large set of hands, as if reaching straight down from heaven, with the words “HELPING HANDS REBUILDING”. We both felt goosebumps. This song is not ours, it God’s. His message was flowing through us when we wrote it: “I AM STILL HERE.”
Click for song: