“Not This One” was written from one of the most terrifying and faith-stretching moments of my life as a mother.

 

The song began during the birth of my second son, Michael. What should have been a joyful moment suddenly became filled with fear, uncertainty, and desperate prayer. After a difficult delivery, there were moments where everything felt fragile, and as a mother, I found myself staring into uncertainty while silently pleading with God for my child.

 

One lyric says, “Lord take me, don’t take this one.” That line came directly from the cry of my heart in those moments. It was not a polished prayer or a carefully spoken act of faith, it was raw surrender, desperation, love, and grief colliding all at once. The kind of prayer that rises when words feel too small for what your heart is carrying.

 

Another lyric says, “Waves keep crashin’ in / Tryna pull my faith apart.” That became the emotional center of this song because fear has a way of testing faith. When life feels uncertain, when prayers feel desperate, when outcomes are unknown, fear grows loud. Questions surface. Hope feels fragile. Even strong faith can suddenly feel thin.

 

In those moments, I wrestled honestly with fear.

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I knew in my heart that God is good whether we understand the outcome or not, yet I also found myself crying out in desperation for mercy. Faith and fear sometimes sit painfully close together in our hardest seasons, and this song became honest about that tension.

But what makes this story deeply emotional for me now is knowing what came afterward.

 

One lyric says, “He took breath in that silent room / Life came back… and broke the gloom.” That lyric represents the moment hope returned. Slowly, life returned, fear loosened its grip, and what once felt impossible began turning into testimony, and then grace continued writing a story I could not yet see.

 

The little boy I once feared I might lose grew into someone deeply devoted to God.

One lyric says, “Years went by that boy grew strong / Carried mercy all along / Now he stands preachin’ truth / Every breath belongs to You.” Those lyrics are deeply personal because they reflect the life Michael lives today.

 

As a child, Michael quietly served alongside me in ministry, helping prepare classrooms and serving in ways that felt simple at the time but now feel deeply meaningful looking back. Over time, his faith matured, his love for God deepened, and a calling began to emerge.

 

Today, he is pursuing ministry and preparing for pastoral leadership, serving faithfully in church ministry and following a calling that I believe God placed on his life long before I could fully understand it.

 

When I look back now, I cannot help but see mercy. At the time, all I could see was fear. I could not see purpose. I could not see future ministry. I could not see the people he would one day encourage, teach, pray for, or lead closer to Christ. I only knew I was begging God not to take my son.

 

The lyric “Every breath belongs to You” carries an entirely different weight for me now because there were moments where I truly did not know if he would take a breath at all, and while I never want to speak lightly about suffering, because I know not every story unfolds the same way. I do believe God met me in those moments. I believe He stepped into fear, sat with me in uncertainty, and reminded me that faith is not pretending storms do not exist.

 

Faith is staying anchored while they rage.

 

The bridge says:

“Storm got loud… I heard You still / Right there with me in the middle.”

 

That lyric became one of the deepest truths of this song because God did not wait until fear disappeared to be near. He was present in the middle of it.

 

My prayer for this song is that people sitting in impossible moments, hospital rooms, grief, uncertainty, unanswered prayers, fear, heartbreak, or exhaustion, would remember that hope is not gone just because life feels fragile.

 

Miracles still happen and even when faith feels paper-thin, God still holds us.

 

Sometimes faith simply whispers:

“I won’t let go.”