Traveling with Bill and Gloria Gaither in the early days, Sandi Patty learned an invaluable lesson. With a band and full complement of singers in tow, the Gaithers would receive notes from the audience with requests like this: "Please play 'The King Is Coming' like you did when I first heard it."
"Bill was smart enough to know that, most likely the first time they heard it, it was just Bill on the piano and just Bill singing it. They would probably hate it. What they wanted was to feel like they felt the first time they heard it."
Though it's been two decades since she traveled with the Gaithers, that is one lesson Sandi clearly has not forgotten. So when it was time to go back into the studio to record Take Hold of Christ, the notion of recreating feelings was very much at the forefront.
Take Hold of Christ features sweeping orchestrations and those rafter-raising endings that are a Sandi Patty staple. But mostly, the songs she selected had to stir in her the same emotions stoked by classics like "How Majestic Is Your Name" and "In the Name of the Lord." Musically and lyrically, the album is in many ways a return to the kind of music that first put Sandi on the path to a record 11 Doves as female vocalist of the year.
"In every professional path, you tend to stretch, and sometimes it's a good risk and sometimes it's not a good risk. In the last couple of albums, we said, 'let's do something outside the box.' The bottom line was it just didn't turn out to be me. While I learned something about what I'm capable of doing and what I'm not capable of, I learned where I feel most at home. When I'm comfortable, I'm better able to share."
It didn't hurt to be more comfortable in the studio, either. Greg Nelson, who had worked with Sandi on some of her best-loved albums, was hired as producer, as was David Hamilton, who had played keyboard on several earlier albums. "Tremendous comfort in relationship is so key to me. To walk into a studio with somebody that, yes you've done a lot of records with, but you've lived a lot of life with, too. When we were doing the live album, Greg was waiting for his son, who is now 19, to be born. When we were working on a record soon after that, I had just had my 18 year old. That's a lot of life to live with somebody."
With the team in place, they began looking for material that would be "right for the heart of the church. I grew up in the church. My career has been in the church. That's where I feel really at home. Part of our criteria was, 'are these songs that soloists at church could sing? Are these songs that could become a choral octavo that choirs could sing, or choruses that congregations could pick up and sing?' "
With those questions answered, the songs had to pass another - more difficult - level of scrutiny. "The song had to speak to me and to what's going on in my own life."
Suffice it to say there's a lot going on in Sandi's life at any given moment. As the mother of eight children, she can rattle off their ages, though at times it sounds as if she's stuck in place: 18, 14, 14, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 6. Add to that the busyness of being a baseball mom - youngest son Sam plays - and a choral mom - with three children in show choir - and sending her oldest off to college.
"Life is just really crazy sometimes. In the midst of the craziness, what is God doing? In the midst of sometimes the ups and downs, where's the joy? I think overall what's emerged from this record is it's definitely a praise record in terms of a person in their own walk with God. The theme of the album is a celebration of God's grace and forgiveness."
And that is squarely where Sandi stands these days - in the midst of grace and forgiveness. Both are something she sees - visibly - in her family's life every day, thanks to a "burning bush" in the form of a child.
After a difficult period, which included merging two families in to one, Sandi and husband Don were discussing adding another child, but "then we'd slap each other back to reality." Still, in the discussions, they decided it would be nice to have a boy, and they'd name him Sam. "The kids would go through a rough time and we'd say, we have our hands full. Finally, one day I prayed this prayer: 'God, if you want something to happen, you're going to have to drop a baby in our lap.' "
Months later, they received a call from a friend whose husband is an attorney, telling them of an adoption that had fallen through. If the child wasn't placed with a family within 24 hours, he'd enter the foster system. "Suddenly that prayer came back to me. We all met and we prayed about it and decided if another family came forward in 24 hours, it wasn't meant to be. Otherwise, maybe God is doing this thing. The next day came and I just knew I had to see the baby. We said 'God, if this is you, we need a smack-you-in-the-face burning bush.' They wheeled this little acrylic bassinette in and they had already named him Sam. We knew he belonged to us."
Sam became the first thing in the new family that wasn't "yours" or "mine." "There was a reconciliation and a blending of hearts that he really helped with." Beyond that, though, Sam brought another message - that of grace and forgiveness. "After my husband and I had been through such a difficult time in our lives - through nobody's fault but our own - here was God entrusting us with a new life. Not only literally, but figuratively."
And every day, the album's underlying theme is proven in Sandi's life. The title cut - and the feelings it brings - perhaps reflects it best. "I've always been one of those people who has felt like I have to got to get my life together before I come to God and take what he has to give to me or before I take advantage of God's blessings. I love the lyric of this song. It just comes down to an invitation from God to take hold of his life, to let God prove his promise. Sometimes it's that simple and that difficult." |