This song started out back in the early 90’s as a song for my Grandmother, Mama Margie. She always loved the song “His Eye Is On The Sparrow”.  She bought me the sheet music and envisioned me performing it in George Beverly Shea style. I have an appreciation for GBS but our styles are different (and at the time I thought I was cooler than him) and so I resisted her heavy hints. Her promptings did however inspire me to write an allegorical song for her entitled "The Sparrow". I came up with a few lines and melody and basically got stuck and then the song “sat on the shelf” for years.

Fast-forward to the year 2006. In June of that year while we were on vacation at the beach my wife Kim noticed a little bump behind her ear. We didn’t think much of it at the time but over the next several weeks it never went away and other bumps appeared in other places on her body. She also noticed being exhausted and out of breath all the time. We thought she might have mononucleosis. After several trips to the doctor and testing it was discovered that Kim had acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

The treatment for ALL consisted of intense chemotherapy with the goal being to almost completely kill the bone marrow with the hope that it would regenerate itself cancer free. Most people who die who have leukemia die from an infection because if your bone marrow is not functioning you have no immune system. Therefore part of the treatment is to keep the patient in as filtered sterile environment as possible.

For treatment Kim was sent to Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem NC, almost 3 hours from our home. For her first round of chemo she had to be hospitalized for 6 weeks. I took off from work to stay with her there and our mothers took turns caring for our young children at home. Kim was very sad to leave the children and was also very scared about what might happen. I decided that while with her in the hospital I was going to finish “The Sparrow” for her as a comfort. I finished the song in August 2006, about halfway through the hospitalization.

We (and by that I mean Kim, me, family and friends) spent right at one year in and out of the hospital for her treatment. Until the very end we all hoped that God would heal her and let her stay with us longer. One of Jesus’ treasured sparrows, Kim went home to be with Him in July 2007.
 
The picture you see at the top of page is of Kim and the kids taken the day before we left for Winston-Salem for her initial treatment (Thanks to Brad and Rachel Owen for the photo shoot that day).  The picture below is Kim taken the day before the song "The Sparrow" was finished.  She got the hat years before when she had traveled to Africa.  She had a love for the African people...

See Luke 15:11-32

Well, what can I say? I’m a prodigal son, now somewhat reformed. I was in jail a couple of times for DUI back in the crazy 80’s, had a first marriage that quickly dissolved (I possibly broke a record!). I was all about killing the pain and doing things my way.

I always liked this particular parable in the Bible. To write the song I tried to imagine what was going through the young son’s head while he was headed home. What would he say, what would he do to get his father to forgive him? The father’s response was shocking, thus, “somebody pinch me, I know I must be dreaming…”

Also I borrowed one or two conceptual ideas from an old REO Speedwagon song “In My Dreams”. Remember that one?

We started recording this CD (originally to be entitled “Prodigal Son”) in March 2006. We recorded the final vocal on this song the day before I found out Kim had leukemia in July 2006. Subsequently the project was shelved until September 2007 (Kim passed away in July 2007).

I wrote this song somewhere around 1995-1997. I lived in a singlewide trailer in West Asheville at the time. This song was one of those rare gifts that wrote itself in about 3 hours.

Originally I sang the song “If faith can move mountains, then I know faith can move me… It can take me to where You are in an instant, effortlessly” My producer Hank Lueck encouraged me to make some changes to the words to make the song more cohesive. I didn’t like the idea of changing my song but I gave in and the words ended up “If faith can move mountains, help me know faith can move me… Let it take me to where you are” etc. When I got through changing stuff the song said more of what I originally wanted to say in the first place, so THANK YOU HANK (I hate it when you’re right!).