MUSIC
Point of Grace: Getting the 'Point' Across
By Zsa Zsa Palagyi
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– Point of Grace has been topping the Christian music charts for
over 10 years and continues to release songs that stir the soul and encourage
listeners to press into their relationship with Jesus Christ.
Lisa Ryan got a chance to hear the heartbeat of this incredible band in Nashville
a few months back, when three of these four encouraging artists were pregnant.
LISA RYAN (reporting): Every Christian girl knows who they are, and many
women would like to be a little more like them. They’re the Grammy-nominated,
Dove Award- winning Point of Grace. Would you like to know what’s behind
these four beautiful faces?
SHELLEY BREEN: Right now, a lot of the girls may go, 'Oh, they look like
they’ve got it all together. They have their perfect little picture on
the front of the album.' But that’s not really us.
HEATHER PAYNE: I truly wanted to be married. I wanted to have a baby.
I wanted to be a mom. I wanted to be a wife. For some reason it wasn’t
happening. I wasn’t meeting anybody.
DENISE JONES: I still struggle with comparing. I can sit and I can
watch my friends and go, 'Gosh, they do that so much better than I do.' TERRY JONES: It’s kind of a female tendency to be insecure about
yourself and to need that affirming, whether it’s from your husband or
your friends or whatever. LISA RYAN (reporting): Despite their fame, Point of Grace struggles with
the same issues that women everywhere face. How do they overcome their problems
and insecurities? They know who they are in Christ. They actually learned
this lesson way back when the group first got together. SHELLEY: My favorite story was when we were out singing at a summer camp
a long, long time ago. This one little country bumpkin, this little boy wrote
us this little letter, and it said, 'Dear Point of Grace, I love your music.
Thank you for coming to our camp. Denise, you’re the first prettiest.
Heather, you’re the second most pretty. Terry, you’re the third
prettiest. Shelly, you’re the fourth prettiest. I was like, 'That would
make me the least pretty, little boy.' LISA RYAN: Does that ever make you compare yourself with each other or bring
up those female jealousy things that are kind of natural and normal for women?
DENISE: I still struggle with comparison. Terry’s a much better teacher
than I as far as her children are concerned. Shelly is so much more organized
than I. Heather is so laid back. I feel like there are two major sins in life:
pride and unbelief. I think mine is unbelief. That’s my unbelief; I don’t
believe God can make me the mom I need to be. Those are issues that I struggle
with every day. It’s a constant thing that I have to go to the Lord and
remind myself, I am not an orphan. I am His daughter and I inherit everything
He gives me. So that’s where I am. LISA RYAN (reporting): Denise knows that believing God’s promises is
the secret to surviving in a world that’s focused on success. Point of
Grace has set-out to share this secret with today’s young women through
a conference tour called Girls of Grace. LISA RYAN: What’s the message you want to get across to young women
through these conferences? HEATHER: Well, I think that the Scripture that we have that we’ve kind
of set as the theme of Girls of Grace is in 1st Timothy 4:7 or 4:12. It says,
'Don’t let anyone look down on your youthfulness, but rather in speech,
conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe.'
SHELLEY: If we can cause these girls to contemplate their friendships and
contemplate their sexuality and what being a pure girl really is and really
looks like, and if we can have them contemplate their relationship with God
and how they treat their parents and maybe make them think about some things
that maybe they’re doing flippantly and haven’t really thought about
and think about their decisions and how they’re going to effect them
later, that’s really what we want to do. We just want to be real with
them. LISA RYAN: What age group are you targeting? TERRY: It’s ages 12-18, seventh- to twelfth-graders. LISA RYAN: Do you feel that’s a critical time for young girls?
TERRY:
Absolutely, I mean I know for me, those were my foundational years of the
person that I am today. I know that 8th grade is where I really
found out that you know you could have a daily relationship with God, that
you could have daily quiet times. Those are foundational things to the way
that I am today, memorizing Scriptures and knowing things in you head so that
when a crisis comes up, God can give it to you and give you peace about things.
We really want to come alongside what the parents are trying to teach the
kids at home. We’ve had so many moms come up to us desperate, saying,
'Help me with my teenager. I don’t know what to do. They’re not
listening to me. They listen to y'all.'
LISA RYAN: As Point of Grace, what would you say to the young woman who feels
like she’s ugly, no one likes her, she’s not pretty, nobody loves
her. How would you encourage a young woman like that? SHELLEY: I think that on different levels, all four of us have felt that,
and everybody has. I didn’t get to go to the prom because I just didn’t
get asked when I was a senior in high school. I mean, I didn’t really
go on dates and stuff. TERRY: We are really trying to encourage girls to look on the inside,
to look on the matters of the heart. Honestly, when God looks at you, He does
not see your outward appearance. He sees your heart. LISA RYAN: What about the single woman who is watching all of her friends
getting married and feeling, 'Is there anyone for me, God? What’s wrong
with me?'
HEATHER:
I have totally been there. I totally have. I was 29 when I got married, and
I’m sure there are people that are older than that even right now that
are still single. It was always a struggle for me. It came to the point in
my life that I just said, 'OK, Lord, I’m going to be honest. I don’t
trust You. I just don’t trust you, and I confess that. That was a turning
point in my life. It was truly a turning point in my life. I was just honest
with Him and just said, 'I’m giving this over to You because I can’t
deal with the fact that I don’t trust you anymore because I know that
You are worthy of my trust. I finally did, and I cannot tell you, the Lord
gave me the desires of my heart in such an amazing way in the man that I married.
He is everything that I needed, more than I even knew that I needed.
LISA RYAN: How do you balance it all? I struggle with how to balance the
ministry God’s called me into, being a wife, and being a mother. How
do you balance everything? TERRY: It’s just a daily thing. I really try to prioritize my life and
put it into perspective. If God is going to be first in my life, how much
time am I going to spend with Him today? Then if my husband is second in my
life, what am I doing to make Him second in my life, to make him the priority
He needs to be? Then my children are my next thing. Then after that comes
my job. Once those things are in line and we have our time slotted out correctly
with each of them, then it kind of falls into place. SHELLEY: So we are fourth.
TERRY: You all are fourth. SHELLEY: I didn’t know that. TERRY: No, maybe you all are the friends after my job. LISA RYAN: Do you think women need to learn to say no? DENISE: I’m telling you, Christians have it hard. I mean we have a lot
of extra pulls. Then there’s that whole guilt thing of I’m not doing
enough. The thing is we can’t do enough to please God. He loves us where
we are.
CBN IS HERE FOR YOU!
Are you seeking answers in life? Are you hurting?
Are you facing a difficult situation?
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
|
