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“Sweeter,” is the highly anticipated debut single by Melinda Isley. Written by Terrance Howell & Jesse Wood of Revival Music Company, “Sweeter” also features the dynamic vocal talent of True Firestarter!
Heather Shelley (formerly of the Eric & Heather Air1 Morning Show) commented, “[Sweeter] is INTOXICATING!!! I love it!! Such a great song – and [Melinda’s] voice is incredible!!
My story is full of hills and valleys. I have prayed for a mountaintop for years to share all that God has taught me. The over arching theme of my life is simple, God works all things for my good (Romans 8:28).
Introduced to hospitals and sickness at a very young age, God fueled a passion at the age of six to help others as a pediatric physical therapist. As an adult, my work with the physically broken quickly collided with my burden to help the spiritually broken. But along the way I found my own healing. As God raised up my ability to help others, the enemy brought valleys of fear and anxiety, until God took one of the things I feared most and healed me.
In February 2018 my father stood face-to-face with a sudden diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. It was through this trial that God rescued us from our fear and filled us with His truth, love, and hope. For what would become the last five months of my fathers life, my family pulled together in Christ and faithfully honored Him through the biggest trial we had ever faced. God showed himself in ways I had never seen before. I began to experience Him in the most intimate and precious ways, in ways that I never thought humanly possible. In prayer I heard him speak healing over my anxiety and I have not seen it since that day. In prayer I heard him speak healing over my father, and while in His sovereignty that healing was in heaven, I came to realize more than ever that this earth is not my home and that heaven is real! That realization has made all the difference as I have moved through the grief of my father’s passing. And while I miss him, how could I possibly be sad for him if I truly believe in the promise of heaven?
I prayed with my father that God would move mountains and heal him against all odds. I see now that God would indeed move mountains, but in His own sovereign way and in His own sovereign time.
I cried out to heaven one quiet Monday morning from the floor of my kitchen, I asked God to sit with me. “Just sit with me Jesus”, I asked. “I don’t know what else to ask for. I don’t know how else to pray. I do not understand what you are doing.” Little did I know that through that prayer God would reveal His greater plan, His mountaintop. Through that prayer God whispered a melody and turned it into the first of many songs I would begin to write. As I prayed, God directed me to the piano my father had bought for me as a child, a piano that I had never really learned to play. But in that moment, I obeyed and recorded the song “Sit with me” (yet to be released) in its entirety. Twelve songs quickly poured out of me, streaming from prayers and pleas from my own heart as I moved through grieving the loss of my father.
So through my own pain, I have the privilege of sharing the love of Jesus and the message of hope with you. Life is so full of ups and downs. This world is not easy, but I have learned two things over the years that make all the difference:
1) There’s a single place where we can go and find all the answers to every need, every problem, every question. It’s the word of God, His holy bible. It is the greatest love story ever written and our literal guide to living in this fallen world. But the secret is… We have to actually read it.
2) Prayer is our most powerful weapon. When we intentionally carve out time to spend with God, He loves to meet us there and speak to us. He loves to give us treasures in the secret place, in the darkness, but we have to choose to go there. We must seek Him first and learn to listen.
God uses the difficult things in our lives to call us closer to Him. Oh how I wish we were just born appreciating and living out his Holy plan, but it just isn’t so. He would never allow a trial without a greater purpose, His greater purpose. I know this to be true.
So as I come to this point in my journey, this is the message I want to share….God loves you. God is calling you. God loves you so much that He will walk you through anything just to reveal that perfect love so that you will truly come to know it, receive it, and share it.
As always, thanks for reading! Leave me a comment and let me know what you thought of the song.
