Zitat des Tages von Amy Grant:
I was taught a lot of Bible at home and had a voracious appetite for reading the Bible.
I'm not anxious to be anywhere other than where I am right now.
I can look back at different times in my life when I felt I could not find my way out of whatever it was. I'm not necessarily talking about marriage, but I wanted to pack it in. I wanted to disappear. A lot of that has to do with being in the public eye.
But my experience is that people who have been through painful, difficult times are filled with compassion.
I just think people should find the music that helps them through the day and enjoy that. I've never felt like, if somebody does or doesn't like what I'm doing, it's a morality issue.
There's a beauty to wisdom and experience that cannot be faked. It's impossible to be mature without having lived.
The people I've been exposed to have been people of amazing integrity.
Get outside. Watch the sunrise. Watch the sunset. How does that make you feel? Does it make you feel big or tiny? Because there's something good about feeling both.
Anybody who's ever gone through a hard time - any outsider's perception, no matter how much information they're given, they have no idea what the person's life is like.
I did the best I could, and in some arenas, my best was not good enough. I've made some bad choices.
You have to treat people gently because we're all in a process. What might seem like a good idea to somebody at 21 is probably not going to seem like a good idea at 50, but you don't know that until you get there.
For me, the backdrop of half the experiences of life includes music.
Real relationship is gritty and earthy, the stuff that life is made of.
But to make a holiday record that involves favorite American songs and then also get to sing about Jesus birth, it just seemed like a real easy, subtle way to combine a couple of things that I love.
In the past, when I'd recorded during a break in a tour, it was so easy to sing, because I felt strong. Also, like so many new mothers, I wasn't getting a lot of sleep, and sleeping is such a huge part of being able to sing.
I feel a part of the congregation. I've never had to do special music. The kids sing in the choir. It's just normal. We're treated like everybody else.
Everybody's entitled to think whatever they want and to express that, but my personal day-to-day experience does not come into contact with any of those people.
Depending on what day of the week it is and what time of the month it is, I'm a good friend or not a good friend. I'm more or less a good mom or not a good mom, more or less a good mate or not a good mate. That's just life, whether or not you're public.
Every good relationship, especially marriage, is based on respect. If it's not based on respect, nothing that appears to be good will last very long.
I write about everything, but I just - how faith filters through all that and colors your opinion of other people and life and all that.
I can look at the future with anticipation. And it's comforting to know that someday, as Christians, we'll be able to look back and have a little more clarity on why certain things in life happened.
The fact of the matter is, when I'm on tour, I'm juggling so hard to keep all the balls in the air that I don't often get to really enjoy what I'm out there doing.
Do I think all contemporary Christian music is good? No.
But now it's kind of a given that a 15-year-old would have a record deal and sell a quarter of a million records. No one's expecting her to answer any deep theological questions. And I'll tell you, I was asked some deep theological questions from the git-go.
I think for a woman, the hardest thing about growing old is becoming invisible. There's something very front and center about being young.
Life goes by really fast, and it seems that there are times when you're burying a lot of friends and family. And then there are times that feel really precious and everybody is doing okay. This is one of those times.
The most consistent musical experience I had growing up was church music.
Since I travel so much, it's always great to be home. There's nothing like getting to raid my own refrigerator at two in the morning.
I've found that music allows years to fold like an accordion over each other, so I guess you don't feel the passage of time as much.
I love being with my children. They're fascinating people.
When I look back at the pictures of our blended family the day Vince and I married, he and I are smiling, and all the children are frowning.
How we absorb music is unique. I know what I do. When I'm listening to music, I tend to find myself in a song. That's what really makes you connect is if you feel what that song is saying.
To me, the real thrill is in making the music, and then I just trust it to find its own audience, and at times it's big and at times it's small, but that's beyond my control.
I never thought getting older would be so great. But when it comes to depression, I have experienced less the older I've gotten.
Faith is salted and peppered through everything at Christmas. And I love at least one night by the Christmas tree to sing and feel the quiet holiness of that time that's set apart to celebrate love, friendship, and God's gift of the Christ child.
I think that if my kids are completely convinced of God's unfailing love for them, whether they fail or not, they'll have confidence to persevere in life.