There’s so much music out there these days, and so little time to listen, but please do! Some albums I regret buying after listening to them once. Then others stay with you and become the soundtrack of your life for a season, the Spirit speaking through the lyrics daily directly to your need. This album is for people struggling to believe and trust in God’s goodness in the face of personal brokenness and pain. I hope it ministers life and hope to you! This 12-year old Stick-to-your-ribs Meat & Potatoes debut album has: • Sold over 1000 copies without distribution • Been hailed as having more substance than most of what you hear on Christian radio. (One fan bought copies to send to her local Christian stations encouraging them to play it!) • Repeatedly been called “theologically and biblically sound” • Gotten 3 independent cuts I'm singing better now. My songwriting has improved. But I keep hearing from people whose lives are touched and changed by this first album. So humbling. May God bless you with His peace this coming year! Brent Ellison Philadelphia January 1, 2014 THE GIFT OF MUSIC...(Original Online Debut Notes from June 17th, 2007) "The Gift of music".... A gift is supposed to be a good thing that gives, builds, and completes. Though I've always been told I was a "gifted" musician, for many years that "gift" seemed more like a curse. Though music won me acceptance and favor, it also chained me down because I tied most of my self-esteem to it. I thought I HAD to perform and serve in order to be accepted. Eventually I walked away from music due to the pain of misunderstanding and mishandling the "Gift." I'm so glad that I've been freed to rediscover that the Gift is good, that it's meant to feed my soul and help me connect with God, as well as to bless others. Recently I heard someone state that God is the giver of all good gifts, and that creativity comes from Him. He who comes to steal, kill, and destroy creates nothing. Only God and His presence in us. So I celebrate God's creativity in me. These songs are truly " Songs in the Night", rousing me out of bed to write them down, lest I forget them by morning. They are responses to sermons, thoughts, boring meetings, and deep feelings that I've scribbled on scrap paper while lying in bed, or even whizzing down the Interstate ( God forgive me!) It's been an incredible joy to watch these little songs travel to a studio in Nashville, and to be sung by roomfuls of people in Atlanta and Corpus Christi, TX, singing for free as a favor! I thank God for the Gift, and the opportunity to pass it on. I have prayed that God will make these songs a blessing to you and to everyone who hears them. I hope they bring a smile to your heart, as they have to mine; and as I believe they have to the heart of God. MY STORY... I grew up as a missionary kid (MK) in Indonesia. I was 6 when we arrived , and promptly started picking out melodies from "The Sound of Music" by ear on our new piano when it arrived. I was quickly taken to a piano teacher, and the music never stopped! I was on the piano bench playing for church by the 6th Grade and stayed there for many years. I went to Baylor University to study music. There I quickly got into some bad habits that destroyed my life to the point where I dropped out of college 9/10 the way through my degree. At one point I was offered an opportunity to move to Philadelphia to 'start over again.' I got a job at the Second Mile Center, a Christian Thrift Store which hires and helps people coming out of addictions, prison, and off of welfare dependency. I eventually got sober there and have stayed over 20 years. I thank God for the Thrift Store ministry, where I was given a safe place to fight my way through to a real faith of my own apart from that of my parents'. Whatever and however we grow up, there are always plusses and minuses, and some baggage. For MKs, that means being a third culture kid, belonging neither to the culture of your parents, nor to that of your adopted country, but a third, mixed culture. And because you're there as a result of your parents' following something as nebulous as "The Will of God", it's easy to blame everything that goes wrong on God. Being born to the Team with The Answers,, and being expected to always be a good example, leaves little room for actually realizing your own real need for God. Reconciling the perfect ideal of your parents' mission with the reality of their imperfections can be difficult. I have largely come to a peace and acceptance of my upbringing and its baggage. Feeling deeply for MKs and children of people in ministrty who are fighting their way through has led me to dedicate this album to MKs struggling to overcome the stumbling blocks of their upbringing, to arrive at a faith of their own and the peace with God that He has promised. I pray that for you, too!