Ellie Holcomb – Roads Unknown

CCM: You’ve faced a lot of impossible situations this year, particularly with your dad, that must have had a profound impact on your writing.
EH: Yes, I wrote a lot of these songs in the wake of a cancer diagnosis for my dad. I will never forget. It was a year ago, on my mom’s birthday, when they got the diagnosis. Nobody is ever ready for that or prepared, but my mom and dad wanted to have a praise and worship night at their house. I’ll never forget watching them run into all the unknown and darkness. It was the most unnatural response I’ve ever seen. In the same breath it was irresistible. Their posture was one of hope; not one that skirts its way around or ignores suffering, but one that faces it head-on and refuses to believe that it’s the end of the story had arrived. Philippians 4:4-7 says, “Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say again, rejoice.”

That’s a hard command, especially in the gut-wrenching things that life can throw at you. But there was a palpable presence of God that night. It’s marked me forever.

CCM: How could it not? Wow. So how does one come to a place where praise in the midst of despair is possible?
EH: There is a line in one of the songs that says, “You’re asking us to lay our worry down and sing a song instead…” That’s a radical ask. It doesn’t add up. It’s a mystery to be suffering and told to go ahead and rejoice and sing.

But knowing the guarantee of the nearness of God gives me a song to sing. It makes me want to sing and proclaim and share that hope. It’s not just a hope that God is good; it’s a hope that is grounded in an empty grave. It’s not rose-colored glasses. Look at the cross. Hope and light came from brutal suffering.

CLICK “4” TO ADVANCE