For a while, it was like,“ What is this album? What is the theme?” And then the Blue Jays, and then we’ re making it with our family, and we’ re in our home, and we’ re fighting for each other as family, but we’ re also working together. And the album title, that whole long phrase was in my head the whole time, and for a while it was like,“ It could be called this.” And pretty seamlessly over time, we just started calling it,“ Have you ever looked around and realized … the whole long thing?” So yeah, it all kind of fell together. It felt very divine.
[ WM ] I’ m going to jump ahead a question here. Because you’ re hitting on where I was going to go with this, and that is joy seems to be a theme within your writing, and that’ s not always the case for many believers. I know for myself, joy in the little things in life didn’ t happen until I survived stage four cancer. A walk in the park, an afternoon tea, a good conversation. We need to enjoy the simple things in life, and how do you communicate that kind of simplicity to believers, to Christians?
[ Abbie ] Yeah, I mean, I think it’ s an awareness issue for me. I’ ll just speak to myself, because I heard someone say one time,“ We don’ t necessarily need more of God. We need more awareness that He’ s here.”
And it’ s the same idea of everything in my life, the home I get to live in with my husband and my children, my children, the life we live, the fact that we get to travel the world with our family. There are so many things. The fact that I get to drive only 10 minutes down the road and my son’ s school is that close by, a coffee, a bubble bath, all these little things, they can feel like nothing. They can feel like the mundane just grinding through life if I don’ t notice. So, for me, it’ s been a practice of opening up my eyes and being like,“ Oh my gosh, I can’ t believe that this is my life.” So, I’ m so glad that the joy comes through because it’ s hard fought. It’ s not something that necessarily comes easy. Life is challenging people. There’ s pain, there’ s confusion. Living life with human beings is just complicated. I’ m complicated, the people around me are complicated. It’ s not this beautiful, perfect walk in the park ever, even when I’ m aware and grateful. So yeah, something I fight for is attempting to live gratitude because I miss out on so much when I don’ t.
[ WM ] Yeah, you’ re right.
[ Abbie ] And it’ s true what you said, sometimes just going through something life altering, life-threatening, just immediately puts things into perspective. I was talking to my husband about that last night, just some conversations I’ ve had with a couple friends recently where we’ ve just shared honestly about hard things in our lives, and it’ s so interesting to me how sometimes hearing about someone else’ s hard things makes my hard things be put into such a perspective that I’ m like,“ Oh, I’ m okay. I’ m
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