Recording artist found working on ‘Hurricane’ was ‘like therapy’ after enduring darkness of post-partum depression

Five-time Dove Award-winning Female Vocalist of the Year Natalie Grant has been through a personal storm and now brings her experience to what she calls her “most personal record to date.” Curb Records (Word Distribution) releases Hurricane, Grant’s first project in three years, Oct. 15.

As a mother of three, Grant suffered with post-partum depression following the birth of her youngest daughter. Still touring, she struggled in that darkness for nearly two years until she began the creative process for the new release. 

With her initial plan to record 10 songs selected by her record company, she found herself inspired again. 

“It completely switched around and I ended up writing more,” she told Christian Retailing. “It’s just like the Lord when I planned it one way and it went the opposite, like a creative dam broke. This record was like therapy for me.”

Title track “Hurricane” was inspired by Grant’s personal life as well as the story of Jesus walking on the water in the storm. The single was released in May and has become the fastest-rising single of Grant’s career, striking a chord with listeners looking for hope while facing their own storms. 

Since her debut release in 1999, Grant has been consistent in her music projects and touring. Fourteen years later, she is still focused on making an impact on the culture in which her three young girls will be raised. 

“This is a time when it could be easy for anyone to (stop and) say, ‘It’s been a great career,’ ” she said. “As a mom to three young girls, one of the reasons I want fresh music and relevant messages is because of them. They’re going to be looking to the girls I’m impacting right now.”

Although many of the songs are weighty, Hurricane is still upbeat in outlook and tempo. As a self-described “pop-music junkie,” Grant wanted “fresh, relevant” songs for today’s listeners.

“I wasn’t trying to reinvent myself, but right now I’m more sure of who I am than ever before,” she said. “Mostly, I was overwhelmed and in a dark space, [but] this record is a result of hope. I wanted that to be reflected in this record.”

To order Hurricane, call Word Distribution at 800-876-WORD (9673).

My Hope: Songs Inspired by the Message and Mission of Billy Graham (Sparrow Records/Capitol Christian Distribution) will release Oct. 15 and retail for $13.99. A compilation of songs from artists including Michael W. Smith, TobyMac, Amy Grant, Israel Houghton, Kari Jobe, Newsboys and Matthew West, the project ties into the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s My Hope America campaign. Songs include “City On Our Knees,” “We Believe” and “The Cross Is My Confession.” 

Si Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame narrates and stars in the latest Christmas DVD from VeggieTales, Merry Larry and the True Light of Christmas ($14.99), arriving in stores Oct. 19. The story follows the title character, played by Larry the Cucumber, trying to help a coworker through a rough patch during the Christmas season, all the while helping his friends discover what’s really important. The VeggieTales brand has sold more than $1.2 billion in retail revenue, including 63 million videos. 

Bridgestone Multimedia Group releases two Christmas-themed DVDs this month, The Nativity ($19.95, 92 minutes) and Christmas Oranges ($19.95, 100 minutes). The Nativity stars Gayle Bedall, Claudio Brook and Guillermo Murray in a dramatic recreation of the life of Christ. Christmas Oranges stars Edward Herrman and Nancy Stafford along with Bailee Johnson in the role of Rose, an orphan looking to find friendship while struggling with challenges at her orphanage during the holidays.

Glorious Films presents Christmas ‘story in song’

Targeted for the Christmas season, Glorious Films releases The Promise, a dramatic retelling of the birth of Jesus using optical motion CGI (computer-generated imagery) animation accompanied by a Broadway-style soundtrack. 

The 44-minute production is a labor of love by Glorious Films founders Todd Shaffer, writer and director, and Ronald Mezey, producer. The film industry veterans started the company in 2010 to provide “creating quality entertainment from a strong biblical worldview that spreads a passion for the message of Jesus Christ.”

During pre-production, the film company team went through the Gospels and studied the birth of Christ in detail. They focused attention on four poetic passages in Luke that provided the basis for the musical. 

“The birth narrative of Jesus as told in Luke is full of musical poetry, describing the human and angelic excitement to the Messiah’s arrival,” said Shaffer. “By telling this story in song—as Luke did—we were able to put a big spotlight on these deep passages, which really capture the gospel message of why Jesus came to Earth. With its beautiful composition, sophisticated animation style and compelling story, we believe families can sit down and enjoy this film together, watching the Christmas story unfold as never seen before.”

The film’s optical animation style blends animation techniques with performances by ballet dancers and stage actors. Composed by James Gelfand and Louise Tremblay, the film’s soundtrack features the Montreal Boys’ Choir. Songs include “Mary and Joseph,” “Nothing Is Impossible,” “I Will Magnify” and “Simeon’s Blessing.” 

Lon Vining, outreach director for the film, believes the mixture of music and animation will help viewers remember key points from the story. 

“Every year individuals read or hear the Christmas narrative, but few pick up on the heart of the story,” he said. “That is where The Promise comes in. We placed great emphasis during the film’s development on blending together animation and music to help provide a connection between the viewers and the story’s historic characters. We feel audiences will get a new perspective for what each person was experiencing.”

Capital Christian Distribution will partner with Glorious Films to release the fall project to Christian retail this month. Greg Bays, executive vice president at the distributor, said he is “thrilled” to join the company in the release of The Promise and called the film “a first-of-its-kind animated musical in the Christian market.” 

To order, call Capital Christian Distribution at 800-877-4443 or go to www.capitolchristiandistribution.com.

ASK THE AUTHOR: Lynn Austin

LATEST PROJECT: Return to Me (9780764211508, hardcover, $19.99; 9780764208980, softcover, $14.99; October), book one of “The Restoration Chronicles.”

PUBLISHER: Bethany House (Baker Publishing Group).

How can Christian retailers briefly summarize your new novel, Return to Me, for their customers?

Return to Me is the first in a three-book series based on the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. In this novel, a small group of Jewish exiles make the difficult decision to return to Jerusalem from Babylon to rebuild the city, their temple and their faith in God.

Why did you call your new series “The Restoration Chronicles”?

When the people of God were carried into exile in Babylon, they began to compromise with the surrounding culture until true Old Testament faith in God nearly disappeared. Ezra, Nehemiah and the other characters in this series lead a movement to restore the Jews to their promised land, to rebuild the temple of God and, most of all, to restore the people’s faith and their relationship with God.

What first drew you to the genre of historical fiction?

When I wrote my first books, the “Chronicles of the Kings” series, I discovered how much I enjoyed researching the past, seeing the challenges and choices people faced and then showing the lessons that we can learn from history. That passion has remained the same for me. 

You have written many novels since your last biblical saga, “Chronicles of the Kings.” What led you to write another series of biblical fiction?

My readers asked for it! So many people wrote to me saying that the biblical books were their favorites and that they loved the way those novels brought the Bible to life. Reading and studying Scripture is one of my greatest passions, so fulfilling my readers’ request was an easy choice to make.

What research did you conduct to write this series?

I began with the biblical texts, reading and re-reading them in several translations. Then I turned to the commentaries on this material, Christian and Jewish. I also read numerous history books and learned about the archaeological discoveries from this time period. I even took some courses on the Jewish faith at the Chicago Torah Network. But my favorite way to research was to travel to Israel and immerse myself in the country’s sights and sounds and tastes and places.

Who are the four point-of-view (POV) characters in Return to Me, and why did you select them?

I chose Iddo and his grandson, Zechariah (who prophesied during this time period), because they’re listed in Scripture as being part of the first wave of exiles to return to the land. Curiously, Zechariah’s father (Iddo’s son) isn’t mentioned, which provided me with plot ideas. The other POV characters are Iddo’s wife, Dinah, and Zechariah’s friend, Yael, whom I created to provide the women’s viewpoint of these events. Ezra and Nehemiah don’t enter the story until books two and three.

These characters examine the nature of their own relationships with God, whether they are motivated by love or fear. Can you tell us more about that?

Some of my characters witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple, and they decide to return, not out of love for God, but out of fear of His wrath if they disobey. They must learn to truly know God and serve Him out of love. The same is true for the women, who initially return because they love their husbands, not because they love God.

At one point, Iddo asks his family if they are willing to obey God no matter the cost. Why did you include this question? Does it have a broader meaning for the Israelites of that day and/or for God’s people today?

It took an enormous sacrifice to obey God’s call and leave the comforts of Babylon to return to a desolate, ruined land. Obeying meant giving up many of the things that had become “idols” in their lives and stepping out in faith to trust a God they barely knew. Today, I think we have to make daily decisions to choose between God’s call and the pull of our culture. Sometimes those decisions also have a high cost.

How did the backstories you created for each character come together in such a satisfying way that is also consistent with Scripture?

I started with the story from Scripture. Once I understood the biblical events and the issues they raised, then I could create my characters and place their stories in that context. 

What other information about Return to Me might be helpful for Christian retailers to share with customers?

Return to Me is the first novel in a three-book series; the others are Keepers of the Covenant, which will feature Ezra as the main character, and On This Foundation, which will feature the story of Nehemiah.

Latest project: Preemptive Love: Pursuing Peace One Heart at a Time (9781476733463, $24, Howard Books).

Preemptive Love chronicles the efforts of the Preemptive Love Coalition to help Iraqi children waiting for heart surgery. What sparked this effort? My wife and I had moved to Iraq in the middle of the war to help ease some of the pain and respond to the needs of that time. I was in the habit of taking my laptop to a hotel to do my work because the hotels often had electricity and Internet when the rest of the city did not. One day, in my usual hotel café, the “chai guy” asked me for a favor. He told me about his cousin’s daughter who was born with a huge hole in her heart and told me there was not a doctor or hospital in all of Iraq that could save her life. He asked if I could get her outside the country and arrange for her surgery. Of course, I did what any warm-blooded, right-thinking father would do: I said no. The book chronicles some of the fear and logistical mountains that played into that response, but the chai guy ultimately won me over and we tried to help this little girl. Along the way, I learned she was not the only one, that thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of children across Iraq who were waiting in line for these life-saving heart surgeries.

Why are so many children waiting for this surgery in Iraq? There are a few things we can say definitively—and a few things that we can only name as “suspects” at this point. The U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s are the single most devastating cause of the backlog of children waiting for heart surgery and other kinds of life-changing surgeries. As a child, watching the bombing of Baghdad, I remember learning that sanctions were a humane alternative to war. I was wrong. For Iraq, sanctions were simply war by another name. When Iraq began emerging from that era in 2003, health care was a shell of what it had once been and [the number of] children with high-risk heart disease and other birth defects had piled up. By the time we arrived, there may have been tens of thousands of these kids across the country—we don’t know—but many of them simply died before they could get the treatment we provide. On top of the fact that the doctors fled the country and the hospitals were destroyed, the rate of these heart defects was actually increasing in some places. In addition to heart defects being cited as the number-one birth defect in the world, experts have also suggested malnutrition, gestational diabetes, intra-family marriage, Saddam’s chemical weapons and chemically toxic, radioactive U.S. weapons have all played a role in exacerbating the problem. The issue has become very politicized, and it has been difficult for anyone to produce solid research to substantiate or refute many of these hypotheses. I have a strong personal interest in the causes, but I refuse to stand by idly while children die for no fault of their own. We can help train Iraqis and ultimately save tens of thousands of lives across the country while the conversation about who’s to blame is sorted out.

How do you define preemptive love? Preemptive love is the opposite of preemptive war. In preemptive war, I get you before you’ve done anything to me. In preemptive love, I might love you before you can hurt me. [It can be] a soft word or a gift in the midst of violence, a disarming act of service where aggression was expected. In preemptive love, I love you before you love me. I don’t predicate all of my actions on what you’ve already demonstrated to me. I take the risk that I can increase trust and change our future together by loving first.

Who should read this book? Everyone who has relationships! ... In marriage and our wider families, in the workplace, in school and in our many voluntary associations, people continue to be the most confounding and rewarding part of our lives. Sure, the story grabs attention initially because it takes place in Iraq against a sometimes unbelievable background of fear and violence. But Iraq is not the story. My family is not the story. Readers keep turning the page because it is the story we need every day, but seldom hear—of loving the person we most disagree with, whether our closest loved one or our most feared enemy. It is not a marriage book, but it will strengthen marriages. It’s not a devotional for high schools or churches, but it will inspire youth groups to live and love differently as they head off into the world each day. And though it is different from most in its category, it could transform conversations about evangelism and the mission of the church.

The Amish will never forget the date of Oct. 2, 2006, when an armed man shot 10 girls and then killed himself in the West Nickel Mines School, a one-room schoolhouse in an Old Order Amish community in Lancaster, Pa. Five of the girls died—and the nation grieved.

Since then, many stories have been told of the Amish community’s responses, which emphasized forgiveness and reconciliation. Now, seven years later, the shooter’s wife breaks her silence and tells one story from that tragedy that has not yet been told—her own. 

Marie Roberts Monville, with Cindy Lambert, offers her perspective in One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting (9780310336754, $22.99). Zondervan releases her book this month.

Monville journeyed through many dark days in the aftermath of the massacre. As she faced seemingly insurmountable obstacles and grappled with her questions, God reconstructed everything she believed about herself, her faith and Himself.

Despite the difficulty she experienced, she believes that God keeps his promises.

“In the days following the shooting, I could’ve only talked about the places of seeming defeat within my life,” she said. “God redeemed my life, breathing hope to the hopeless, healing to the broken and freedom to the captive.”

To order, call Zondervan at 800-727-1309.