Ledger – 2 Beats, 1 Song

CCM: How did it feel to step out and play these songs for the first time?
JL: It was so surreal, honestly. This sounds so cheesy, but it’s just the truth—it felt like destiny. It felt like my life has been leading up to this. You know what’s been weirdly freeing and strange at the same time? There are certain things I thought God would line up better. That sounds terrible to say out loud, but I thought that my nerves would have gone away completely. I thought I’d find singing on stage much easier. It became clear over the last year that those things aren’t going away. God is not giving me a brand new voice. He’s not making it easy for me to go out on stage.

But what’s freeing is that God chooses the weak so He can shame the strong. He chooses the foolish to shame the wise. He calls things into being that are not. So I’ve been really freed by the fact that God uses people who aren’t perfect, that He uses our weaknesses to show himself strong. I’m out there on stage and can feel my heart beating through my chest I’m trying to calm my breath so you can’t hear the shaking in my voice. But I’m also thinking, “God has brought me here so clearly and He can use anything to display His glory.”

It’s realizing that it has so little to do with me and everything to do with Him. He’s the one that makes the music impact someone. He’s the God of the impossible, so it’s resting in the fact that He led me here, He made me for this, and He knows the good work. I had to choose to think of those things because when I faced the crowd, I realized, “Oh, my gosh, this is me. There’s no John Cooper in front of me.” However, it was super exciting too. These songs have been a part of my heart for so long now, so finally to have people hear them was thrilling. It was as thrilling as it was stretching.

CCM: Do you remember the very first attempt at writing a song?
JL: I remember writing songs when I was a kid. The funny thing is that I can remember some of them that I wrote when I was ten years or less. However, the first song I wrote for Ledger that I showed to John and Korey [Cooper]… I mean they’ve sold millions, so here’s me, a nineteen-year old drummer-girl saying, “Hey, look at what I made in GarageBand.” I remember they actually liked it and I was on a high for days. I remember physically sweating when I first showed them because I was so incredibly intimidated. Then afterward, they said, “Hey, that’s good.” I thought it was so exciting!

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