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"Rebecca St. James, burned out? How? I didn't think she had any problems." That's a common notion people have of the popular Australian-born singer. But RSJ will readily tell you that she too needs to refuel on occasion. For someone who makes music, tours extensively, writes books, and is involved in a variety of speaking engagements, running on empty is not an uncommon thing. That's why she took a trip to Switzerland last year for a brief hiatus, one that inspired much of If I Had One Chance to Tell You Something (ForeFront), her first album of original material in five years. In this conversation with Christian Music Today, St. James gets a chance to tell us something about this period in her life, her time in the Alps, and how ministry is still the one thing that drives her.

If I Had One Chance to Tell You Something. That's quite a mouthful. Why not choose something simple, like God or Pray or Transform, your earlier CDs?

Rebecca St. James I'm a bit of an adventurer, and when it comes to music, I kinda like to break the rules, even if it's my own rules. Often the policy with my albums has been, "If somebody has already tried something, let me try to do it another way." So that has carried over to my choice of album titles. But really, I like it a lot. It's a line from the song "You Are Loved," which we've been doing live on the road. It's really been connecting. The title also comes from a real mission, and I hope it draws people to want to know what that one thing is.

And what is it?

St. James "You are loved." That's what I felt like God has been really speaking to my heart about, over the last year or two especially. I went to L'Abri, a study center located in the Swiss Alps, for a sabbatical last year. It was there that God started to impress upon my heart that I am loved. There's nothing I can do to make him love me more, and there's nothing I can do to make him love me less. [I also learned about the] safety and the security of that love.

Everything in the Christian life comes from the knowledge of that love-friendships, compassion for the hurting, surrender to God-all of those things come from that main frame of the love of God. It's when we know this love that we can love others. feel like that's the message that he wants to speak to our hearts, that we are so loved by him.

But it's not the first time you sing about the love of God-most of your albums are centered around that premise. What makes this album any different?

St. James This album is more vulnerable than other albums. There are two things I wanted to be present. One is reality; people are longing for reality. And people are longing for hope-and the only true hope is God's hope. So I really wanted those two things to be on this album. In that whole mission of wanting people to know the love of God, I want to be very real-talk about both pain and joy-but I also want the biblical hope to shine through.

"You Are Loved" was written in second person. Who are you addressing it to?

St. James It's a song that I wrote for a friend of mine, for a prodigal-a guy I grew up with named Daniel. I hadn't seen him for many years when I ran into a mutual friend years later and I asked about him, and they told me that he had gotten involved with drugs and fallen away from God. So I wrote this song to him, and in it I say, "My friend no matter where you've been, no matter what you've done, you are loved by God. He is the Father that has his arms open-wide waiting for you to run to him."

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