Wings of Glory: Songs of Hope & Healing from Addiction
Wings of Glory is a collection of songs inspired by experiences in my own family. They reflect the sorrow, the hope, and the healing that can come from addiction. These songs are not only for people who suffer from the disease of addiction, but also for their families and friends.
Each song has a heart-wrenching story behind it. Each song came at the cost of great personal pain. Each song speaks the truth.
Several years ago, my son Jonathan became involved with drugs and alcohol. Helplessly, I watched him struggle as he went from the experimental stage of drug abuse to becoming completely addicted. Year after year I saw his frustration and his hopelessness as he continued to relapse, even though he tried to change his lifestyle and stay away from drugs and alcohol. As I agonized over my son’s pain from addiction, I sought for answers as to how he could ever be free from this progressive disease. I also sought for ways my family and I could somehow help him.
As a novice songwriter, the songs I had written up to this point in my life had dealt, ironically, with the theme of family happiness and love. When I found out that Jonathan was abusing drugs and alcohol, new thoughts came flooding into my mind, steering me in a direction
I never thought I’d go. From the anguish of my own soul, I began writing songs about the pain and sorrow of drug and alcohol addiction. When I would share my songs with others, they would weep with me. Then the thought came to me that I needed to record my songs someday.
After several years, another one of my sons, Ben, approached me about recording the first two songs I had written, “They Weren’t Really His Friends” and “Because We Are a Family.” I was very grateful because I’d wanted to have these songs recorded for a long time. I told him I’d written several other songs he hadn’t heard yet. I shared with him my real dream to make an album of songs about recovering from drug addiction, which would have all of these songs on it. Without hesitating, he said, “Let’s do it.”
With Ben’s amazing musical talents, he took the simple words and melodies I’d written and turned them into beautiful songs. He edited the words, changed notes here and there, and composed the sounds that I had not been able to create by myself. It was as though he could see directly into my heart as he captured the feelings I was trying to express and put them back into my music. Where my talents ended, his talents took over.
My husband, David, a marketing executive, had wanted to help me publish my creative works someday. But with a large family and many expenses, we always put these projects on the “back burner.” When
I told him my desire to record an album with Ben, he immediately said, “We need to make your ALBUM this year. Ben will be graduating in the spring, so we need to get started on this project right now.”
Financially, the timing couldn’t have been worse. But going forward with a lot of faith, we budgeted some money to begin the production of the album. We gave Ben the go-ahead without knowing if we would have enough money to finish the project. After months of hard work and a lot of prayer, my dream finally became a reality.