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What prompted that question?

GrovesI had just come on the bus after fighting my way through a concert that didn't go real well. I was asking, "What am I doing this for? What are we all doing? The Christians in my life don't look any different than the rest of the world. Have we just created this little subculture? Do we really believe this stuff? And how is it changing us?" I was feeling discouraged and wondering if I needed to quit.

Would you say you were having a crisis of faith?

GrovesNo, that's not the right term. I never doubted that God exists. I just wondered about his intentions toward me. I wondered what his love looked like, because if he was "loving" Job, I wasn't sure I wanted to be loved. I think at the heart of it, I was trying to swallow the sovereignty pill, and it just took me a while to choke it down. At one point in all of our lives, we are faced with the fact that God is sovereign. He is in control. And when you really understand what that means for Job—and for Jeremiah, David, Paul and Peter—well, that's not an easy road. I wanted answers.

I'm the kind of person who just can't let something go. And yet the whole time I was going through this, I felt like God was saying, "Bring it on. I'm bigger than that."

I'm a lot like Jeremiah. He says, "Lord, I wish I could never speak your name again. Every time I do your work, I get beat up" [Jer. 20:7-10]. But then he says, "But your word is like fire shut up in my bones and I try to hold it in, but indeed I cannot." That's what the song "Compelled" is about. That's what the song "Jeremiah" is about. I came out of this whole rebellion saying I can't just walk away.

I'm compelled to do the right thing. The Word of God is like fire in my bones, and I can't walk away from it. I truly am marked by Christ, and I can't quit fighting. Even when I try to walk away and say I'm tired of the ring, I am Frodo. And I don't think I'll ever be done fighting. I am throwing punches.

But you also thought about throwing in the towel.

GrovesYes. I almost quit doing music. I felt really defeated. It was December of '02, and I was five months pregnant [with Toby, born last May]. We got off the road and spent much of the year at home. It was a great healing time for Troy and me. There were times when I said, "That's it. I'm done." Then I'd get back on board, and then Troy would feel like quitting. Finally, we both came together and said, "We feel called to do this. We just have yet to do it in balance." And it's not just us. I look at all of our friends and the husbands going to work and the wives either working or staying at home and deciding about homeschool and public school. We're all fighting the good fight, and we're all quitting and then picking it back up again.

You know, I've "quit" this thing several times over the last six years. But I guess that's the point of this whole new album: God isn't letting us go. He is doing a good work in us, and he is going to complete it. And I finally just kind of woke up and understood what that meant—the joy and the freedom in that. I'm not just slugging it out by myself, and I'm not just trying to hold onto Christ. He's holding onto me, and he is working on my behalf. I feel that now. This is just one more season in a hundred seasons that I've been through and will go through to come. This album is just marking one of the more dramatic seasons.

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