It’s Never Too Late: Make The Next Act Of Your Life The Best Act Of Your LifeSample

 It’s Never Too Late to Sing Again

Hoda and I were scheduled to be in Nashville shooting our show, TODAY with Kathie Lee and Hoda, during the CMA Music Festival in June 2017. I love Nashville, but for some reason I wasn’t excited about this trip. Our producers booked a segment for the show where we were going to write a song with one of the best songwriters in town: Brett James. 

“I’ve never heard of him,” I said. 

“Oh, he’s had over five hundred of his songs recorded, like ‘Jesus, Take the Wheel,’ ‘Something in the Water . . .’ ” They began rattling off one huge hit after another. 

I headed over to Brett’s studio with a short, bawdy little lyric so we’d have something to play with. Brett and I ended up writing the song in thirty seconds, which made for a very entertaining segment for our show. As we were packing up our gear, Brett said, “Kathie, I was a big fan of your husband. I’m so sorry you lost him. How are you and your kids doing?”

“We’re doing fine, Brett. Truly. I found him that morning and his face was wide with wonder. He saw Jesus, and Jesus took his breath away. And someday I’m going to write that song.”

Brett didn’t hesitate. “Well, then, let’s write that song.” We made plans to get together the next week at his studio to write the song. I had never written a serious song with someone who was pretty much a complete stranger. And since I had no idea what to expect, I wrote four lines to give us a starting point: “A little kiss. A little coffee. A little moment to pray. Our Sunday mornings always started that way.”

Brett smiled. “Well, that’s how we’re going to start our song,” he said. We finished it in all of twenty minutes and titled it “He Saw Jesus.” A couple of weeks later we recorded a demo of the song in my studio—I had damaged my vocal chords years ago and no longer sang professionally—and infuriatingly, Brett pushed me to sing it.

Brett said, “You did a great job on the demo, Kath.”

“Really? You’ll fix all my croaks and clams?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna comp [create a composite of best takes] your vocals and we’re gonna add some live strings.” That was a dead giveaway of what he was up to: you never add live strings to a demo. I glared at him. “You bamboozled me!”

He shrugged and laughed it off. “Only Kathie Lee Gifford can sing this song. And it’s gonna change the world,” he said. Well, it certainly changed mine. I sang “He Saw Jesus” on the TODAY show and had my first number-one song on iTunes. It stayed on the top of the gospel chart for a long time. 

It was a very creative time for me—something both healing and energizing. What memories have you locked away that are too painful to share? Sometimes God heals you in the blink of an eye; more often it seems to take forever. The beauty in the long road is that He will often use someone else to be a part of your healing. And who knows—this someone might even bamboozle you into singing again.

Respond

What painful experiences have you locked away? 

Who has God used to be part of healing in your life?

How can you respond to the work of healing God wants to do in your heart?