Ellie Holcomb will be leading us in praise and worship at this year’s International Shelby Conference in Memphis, TN. Here’s the story behind her hit song Find You Here.
“I wrote the song Find You Here in the wake of my dad’s (Brown Bannister) cancer diagnosis” Holcomb recalls. “And it’s crazy, the music video came out on January 18, we did not intend for this to happen, but it was a year ago [to the day] that my mom and dad, in the wake of that diagnosis, wanted to have a praise and worship night at their house.”
“I will never forget watching my mom and dad run into that bleak, and daunting, and unknown journey ahead of them,” she says. “I watched them run into the darkness with their hands raised in the air, just praising God. I felt like that was one of the most bizarre, unnatural responses, that diagnosis in that circumstance, but in the same breath it felt irresistible. Just following them, it was like, I have to follow them.”
“That night, we encountered the presence and the peace of God in a way that will mark me for the rest of my life. In that promise, in Philippians 4:4-7, ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I’ll say it again, rejoice.’ That feels like a hard command, right? In light of everything that life can throw at you, that feels like a really hard command, but I love the following verses. ‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I’ll say it again: rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.'”
“And as we lifted our hands in the air, we sensed the nearness of God and that mysterious peace that did not make any sense to have in the moment. We experienced that in a way that was overwhelming, and man, I am so grateful that I get to sing about that and remind myself of that hope that we have, because there’s no guarantees in this world, with our health. There is one guarantee that I know of, and it’s Jesus who died on a cross and walked up out of a grave. And so I’m grateful that He gives us a reason to sing, because we really do have hope, whether it’s for healing this side of glory or the next.”
Ellie Holcomb’s dad is now cancer free and her testament to God’s faithfulness through it all is forever sealed on her album, Red Sea Road.
Worship with Ellie Holcomb on Thursday morning (June 7) at ISC 2018 in Memphis.
Learn more by visiting:
shelbysystems.com/isc