been my most recent thing I’ve been learning
from my kids, just to ask for help. You don’t
have to carry this all on your own, you can lay it
down and ask Him how, ask Him to be near, to
help me carry this, it’s too heavy.
[WM] You grew up with a Dad that has literally
made CCM history. What lessons did you learn
about music from your Dad - producer, Brown
Bannister?
[Ellie] There is so much. I think what I saw
in my Dad as a kid, we’d talk about the songs
he was making and the stories of what music
could do, is I learned at a really young age
that music is a bridge builder. It connects our
Ellie & Drew Holcomb and family
Photo by Katie Sura
stories and it can connect a story that feels full
of despair and darkness to hope and light. I
hope in places where it didn’t make any sense yard. You know how kids are always like, “Do caught that as a kid, and my Dad has always
to have peace or hope. it again!”, like a daisy grows and he says, “Do been so passionate about the power of music
it again!”. I think one of the beautiful things to bring healing and hope.
Its’ not like it’s all just going to be okay, I still about writing for children has been the work of have questions, I don’t understand why God remembering before I’m an adult responsible So I caught on to that at a really young age,
allows some things that He does, but the for children, before I’m an adult with a job or and then in the same breath, and he would say
answer that I do have, and the truth that I know, with complicated relationships or other things this when he was on the phone with us, he was
is that God has been near and He has brought that I am carrying, I am first and foremost a so passionate about the vision and the work
me through such heartache. I think anyone who beloved child of the Most-High God. That has he was doing. He was gone from home a lot,
is alive knows what it is like to suffer and have been such a gift to remember. he missed a lot of my childhood because he
pain, so I think we have this God that doesn’t
was in the studio making this amazing music,
sit far away and say, “Good luck with that”. He I would just say that when I look at my kid’s and honestly my whole family was really behind
drew near so we could know that we could expectancy, when I look at my kid’s freedom, him because we knew that it mattered, too.
draw near to Him. So I have this grounded joy they are just very unhinged and unhindered, it We loved that he did it, but man, we missed
in a way that is grounded in a grave that is now encourages me to know that I can be like that him. The Lord just really turned his heart toward
empty. I am so grateful for that, and I’ll go back with God. I can ask, I can dance. Kids are joyful home, so I got to see this beautiful process of
to the grave again and again even though it is but they can also let out their emotions, and I my Dad saying, “I worked too hard, and this
the last place that I want to go, because I’m not think there is so much beauty even in that. To work is important, but you are so important
as scared of it and I know who is there. let our heart be open even when we’re hurt, and I’m so sorry I have been gone for a lot of
to come to Him like our children come to us things, and I have to offer you repentance and
[WM] We know that Jesus said we should when they’re hurt, I think that is really just as the gospel, and this isn’t the end of the story”.
have childlike faith. I think children are naturally important as all the joy is, knowing what to do So I actually got the privilege of watching him
the happiest people on the planet. How can with our pain. They come right out with it, they hold this beautiful passionate and amazing
Moms, Dads, and even Worship Leaders don’t have to hide it or fix it or calm themselves gift that he’s been given too tightly, and then
learn to approach the Lord with the joy and down before they ask for help, the come right watching him let it go and begin to hold things
expectation of a child? away… screaming! God tells us to be like kids in more of a balanced way. I am so grateful for
so we can be like that too, we can let Him know that modeling that he and my Mom lived out in
[Ellie] Is it G. K. Chesterton that says, “We’ve when we’re hurting and we can ask Him for front of us saying, “We did not do this perfectly,
sinned and grown old?” I think it is, and he help, too. They ask for help all the time, I think we love you, God loves you, and it’s never too
talks about how God is like a child because when we get to be adults we feel like we’ve got late, He loves us too much to leave us as we
He’s always creating, like a daisy grows in the this, and it’s like, no… we can ask! So that’s are.” God can rewrite our stories.
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April 2020
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