Possible

I remember the exact moment when the inspiration for "Possible" came to me.

I was sitting in my sweltering, incredibly old, teensy-tiny apartment bedroom. Our apartment was built in the early 1900's, had no AC, and it was the middle of summer in Utah. I felt like I was living on the surface of the sun (if the surface of the sun had been covered in peeling, hideous plaster older than the dinosaurs). My baby hadn't slept in weeks. My husband was working two dead-end jobs (easily 12+ hrs/day) and hating every second of it. I never saw him except for midnight-5AM as I repeatedly got out of bed to quiet our screaming infant in between his shifts. We were struggling in every sense of the word - financially, mentally, physically, emotionally.

It. was. SO. hard.

In the middle of all the chaos, I was working my hardest to convince my team at Deseret Book to let me record a second album. I felt so strongly that the new music I had been writing needed to be recorded and released - but I also knew that there were several major roadblocks in the way. 

I had just gotten off of a phone call with Bart - he's my main guy at Deseret. This phone call had NOT gone the way I had hoped. Haha. I had sent over some demos...and, well...the reviews weren't stellar.

"It isn't that we don't LIKE the songs, Calee," he had told me. "They're great! We just need you to write something...uh...happier..?" 

RUDE!

In my head I was thinking, "UM I DON'T HAVE LOTS OF HAPPY THINGS TO WRITE SONGS ABOUT RIGHT NOW, BART. THANKS FOR ASKING."  

I knew what he meant, though. The Waiting Place had more than filled the immediate need in my repertoire for slower, touchy-feel-y music. I needed upbeat, peppy songs. Songs that I could use during my performances to break up the make-you-cry songs. Songs that were about the JOYOUS parts of my faith and testimony and life.

The problem is that I was having a tough time writing music that felt peppy and happy. I was mostly writing songs that went "Lalala GO TO SLEEP FOR TEN DAYS, VIOLET...Ooo ooo WHEN WILL A DECENT JOB HAPPEN FOR MY POOR HUSBAND...yeah yeah oooohhh WHY IS LIFE HARD THIS IS THE WORST."

(You're sad THOSE songs aren't on What Heaven Feels Like, right?! Ugh. Everyone write Bart angry emails immediately.)

(jk.)

(please don't do that.)

I hung up the phone and sat there...deflated.

"This is impossible. Everything about my life. I can't keep going on 45 minutes of sleep at night - I'm ready to friggin' lose it. My marriage is going to fail if we NEVER see each other. I might just die from heat stroke before we ever move out of this apartment. There is NO WAY I have it in me to write the kind of music Deseret needs from me right now." (I'm being silly as I tell this story, but I'm 99% sure I was crying at this point.)

I looked out the window.
This is what I saw:

"They may as well ask me to move those huge freaking mountains."

Now, if you're anything like me...you're constantly having conversations with yourself. Whenever I have a doubting moment, or an angry or negative moment, I generally try to pep-talk myself out of it. I try to work through the issue with scriptures that I know, or talks I've heard. If I can't think of any, I go searching for answers. It's pretty exhausting, but it helps me not be so crabby. "Possible" is quite literally the conversation that happened in my head that day.

As I sat there looking out the window, the first line of "Possible" popped into my head.

As I look at the task that's been given me

it might as well be a mountain I can't move.

The fear in my heart keeps me from starting 

and it seems

impossible to do

feels impossible to do. 

But then a small voice whispers to my heart,

"God doesn't give you battles you can't win"

and with that a tiny light of 

courage sparks -

"it's possible with Him... 

could be possible with Him."

And if He can raise men from the dead

He can surely make me whole again

It is possible

If He can calm the stormy sea

He can calm the storm inside of me

It is possible

If I find the trust to give Him

He'll give me courage that I need

to conquer all the battles I've been given

and overcome things that have felt impossible to me

all things are possible with Him.

Things are falling apart all around me now

I feel my fate and failures closing in

I want to believe, but really I just can't

see how

it's possible to win

feels impossible to win

But if He can raise men from the dead

He can surely make me whole again

It is possible

If He can calm the stormy sea

He can calm the storm inside of me

It is possible

If I find the trust to give Him

He'll give me courage that I need

to conquer all the battles I've been given

and overcome things that have felt impossible to me

all things are possible with Him.

Sometimes things in our lives really ARE impossible. 

Sometimes God (or WE) put(s) us/ourselves in impossible situations, and the only way to survive is to surrender our hearts to God through constant humility and prayer.

If we can muster enough strength to trust Him and His timing (easier said than done sometimes, amiright?), He'll give us the courage we need to face each new day and each new challenge. I truly believe that. I've experienced it over and over again in my life.

So there it is. The story behind Possible. 

Truth: I often listen to it on repeat because I need to remember the message and experience behind it. 

For every Bible verse that states all things are possible with God (reading this was like a spiritual Coke Zero for me), click here.

xo.