This was the last song I wrote that my grandmother who raised me ever heard before she passed away. She didn't seem to care for it much to be honest. After she passed away, I remember singing it alone in my room and it feeling so cold and bringing no comfort. Profound grief, particularly when you are in a dark place to begin with, is not easily remedied. 

It wasn't too long though, while in an ever deepening darkness of despair that the reality of the resurrection rose in my heart and washed away the despair I felt. 

This song captures just how dependent I feel on God. It captures everything I felt while writing it. The uncertainty, the unfathomable weight that rests on the reality of Jesus of Nazareth. That it really happened. That he really was God. That God really does love and care about us in this way. 

It is the hope of my heart that such indescribable beauty and such profound love is a reality. 

Even if I feel like at times I doubt it or don't feel it, that God's love holds on to me all the same.

Journey of the Human Heart

Hope of My Heart

This is probably the coldest song I have ever written. 

I remember what gave me the first inspiration for it was lying in my bed and thinking of all the pain in the world I could not do anything about and following that train of thought through. 

It is admitting the reality of what it means to be mortal and how without God all we can do is watch as it all falls apart.

There are references to thoughts from Job, Peter, King David and others in this.

This song also got some inspiration from a movie by Martin Scorsese called "Bringing out the Dead." The brilliance behind his work I feel is still largely unappreciated. In that movie he explores the hopelessness around us everyday and how we cope with it, seen through an ambulance driver in the Bronx.

World Falling Apart

I didn't do a very good job on the recording, but this song always makes me smile (even if I did write it). It captures my joy when I think about how I see God looks at me; as his child, regardless of what wrong turns I make or happens in this world.

Unfailing Arms Of Grace

This song was before its time. I wrote it around 2010 feeling an emptiness and void in the world of faith. People seemed to have had retreated to their corners and were creating dividing lines. In the midst, the mantra often becomes, pick a side. I didn't want to pick a side though. Everyone needs love and grace and Christians are supposed to live out God's love to all those around them, even to their enemies. 

It is not an indictment though. Rather it is a prayer that God sustain me and be with me through the darkness of not being on any side and feeling like an outsider.

Be With Me

This was a song written when I was young where I felt not good enough for someone I had been dating. She continually kept indicating this to me until I finally burst out with these words. It combines with faith issues of moral performance I was also struggling with at the time. 

The ending of the song especially captures the angst I felt at the time.

Worthy

This is a love song from a lover. It combines the imagery of the lover in Song of Solomon with the seeker of the pearl of great price mentioned by Jesus in the New Testament. 

It is about the belief in a true perfect love.

Pearl of Great Price

I wrote this song about my wife after years of marriage. Seeking to continually soften my heart to her and asking her help to do so by forgiving me for the wounds I have caused. 

It is easy to become pessimistic about being married when you have been married for a while. We can become convinced the love is not real or not worth having and negative experiences can compound this. It takes two people willing to continually move towards each other with tender hearts and a willingness to forgive even as they challenge you to be better. 

This song is also about how faith and marriage serves as a signpost pointing to a greater eternal love where we become reflections of Christ, pointing to the love of God when we love each other.

Musically this song has a hint of Marty Robbins in it. My grandmother loved his music and would play his song El Paso regularly when I was young. I think it has that same south of the border feel to it.

Lyrically, the song is about struggling to see the eternal love and beauty that waits for us on the other side of this life. It has origins in a near death experience I had at 21. It also has imagery of the veil in the temple separating the holy place and the holy of holies in the Bible that is said to have rent when Jesus died on the cross. 

This is one of my favorite songs I have ever written.

The Veil of Life

This song started out musically from wanting to write a song like Tom Petty's Wildflowers. I loved that song so much and wanted to write out my own emotional thoughts and feelings that the song stirred within me. 

The lyrics are about the desire within us to return home and the idea that there is something not just natural, but divine behind that inclination.

Southern Wind

I wrote this song when I was wrestling deeply with the idea that being right with God was based on our own moral performance and commitments. I roughly six months seeking an answer until one day I set down and read the letter to the Romans written by Paul in the New Testament. 

It was then I realized we really aren't saved by our goodness, but by God's grace.

This song captures that moment.

*Josh Evans helped me record this playing guitar.

Marvelous Light

I grew up in the south and have been playing music since I was very young. I began writing when I was a teen, focusing primarily on my own personal reflections of faith.

I’ve gone through many faith challenges over the years, but by the grace of God have held on to the essential aspects of my faith. 

My religious and spiritual influences include Charismatic/ Pentecostal, grace movement and near death experiences. 

My musical influences include southern gospel, blues, folk and bluegrass and rock.

Hope of My Heart

David Wood

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