“Everybody wishes they were born with thicker skin, but the wound is where the light gets in….”
That message, brimming with hope in the midst of pain, is at the heart of the newest musical effort from Jason Gray.
The singer songwriter offers up his latest heart-felt work in the new album ‘ ’. Jason gives us a window into the story of the record, and points to his journey with a speech impediment as one of the paths God has used to shape his faith and the person that he is.
“I think it’s been a wonderful teacher in my life. I used to be very anxious about it – especially as I began to be aware of God’s calling in my life. I used to argue with Him about it – saying, ‘Lord – You can’t make me your spokesperson until you make it so I can speak!'”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience or not – where you tell God that He can’t do something. It’s kind of like a dare that He can’t refuse.”
“I used to think that it would be an obstacle and a problem that I had to overcome. I used to also think that He would heal me of it, and that that would be my story – that my testimony would be that I used to have this problem and then God healed it, and now I don’t have it anymore.”
But continuing to walk in this journey has shown Jason some truths he may never have discovered otherwise.
“I went through a season of disillusionment when it began to be clear that, I don’t think He’s going to heal me of this. But then I began to recognize that – though He wasn’t going to heal me of my speech impediment – He would bring a lot of healing to me through my speech impediment. There were things I learned, and there were were things that He was able to get access to in my heart, because I had a bearable humiliation, a speech handicap.”
He explains that the places where we are weak can be those places where God’s strength is made most powerful in our lives.
“A big part of the value of our brokenness or our imperfection is it becomes a place where again and again we meet with the Lord. He meets us there. And we learn the benefits there of trust and we learn true Lordship there. The places where we are competent it’s harder for us to learn those things, you know? But in our brokenness that becomes a very intimate meeting place with the Lord.”
