"God Can Use Even That"

It was the summer of 1997, early in June, and I had just come home about midnight after a very long, very trying meeting at my church. I was emotionally and spiritually spent.

Too tired to sleep, I decided to stand under a hot shower. As I did, I kept thinking about the meeting and the hard words that had been exchanged between men who claimed to be brothers.

The only comforting thought I could hold was that God was still in charge. I remembered Joseph's words to his repentant brothers, the very ones who had sold him into slavery and told his father he was dead, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." I reflected more on the meeting and I thought, "God can use even that."

Immediately I knew that was a song, and I had to write it. Words and phrases started forming in my head as I got out of the shower, found paper and pen, and began to preserve the ideas.

  The knife that flashed, then cut me deep,
  Wasn't made of tempered steel.
  Its two-edged blade was made of words,
  But the wound was just as real.
  I fell down like a crippled bird
  And cried in a selfish plea,
  "O Lord I thought you said you cared.
  Why let this come to me?"

  "Even that. Even that.
  I am lord of all the universe and lord of even that.
  I can use the worst of passion, I can use the best of pain -
  Use them as your teachers, or to glorify my name
  I used the cross of Calvary, I used a beggar's mat,
  And this trouble that you cry about,
  I can use even that."

I don't remember how much more I wrote that night, but by the time I went to bed a few hours later the basic ideas for the lyrics were safe on paper. The experience was healing, partially because I was so focused on writing that I couldn't be bothered to think about the meeting, and partially because the expression of my belief that God was in charge helped me live it.

Little did I know that those words would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and that in fact God would use the song, Even That, in a very special way.

When we finished the Talent Search last year we decided to make a compilation CD of the Top 25 artists. One of those artists was Laurie Kinsella, and she needed an original song to record. Gary Dugan (the composer half of our writing team) and I offered Laurie the song "Even That."

We knew the song was good, and not just because our families said so. Monte Ingersoll had used it in a competition for GMA and had received "over the top" marks for it -- mostly because he sang it so well, but partly because the song was well liked by the judges.

Before Laurie recorded it, I had the opportunity to hear her perform it live in concert following one of our seminars. Monte was there, too, and when she finished he walked up on stage and said that he had performed that song in competition and done well with it, and that she had just kicked his... You get the idea -- he was impressed. I was wiping away tears.

Gary's music and Laurie's performance took my words to a new level, and the song moved me. Others felt the same way, and said so.

Laurie then recorded the song, and she has been performing it from time to time in churches, in concerts, and at special events. Every time she sings it, she says, the song touches somebody.

Recently one of the people it had an impact on came to Laurie and told her she was involved with a group that was putting on a big event to remember September 11, and she believed Laurie should sing that song at the event. Laurie said she would be thrilled and honored, assuming it all worked out.

Well, it has. The event is being held on August 5, 2002, and hundreds of women will gather to listen to Deena Burnett, widow of one of the heroes of United flight 93, tell the incredible story of the way God prepared her and her husband Tom for that day. (If you haven't heard it, you should.) The program will close with Laurie singing Even That.

Needless to say, I had no idea on that night in 1997 that the events of September 11, 2002, would happen. I was wrapped up in the problems of my church, and not thinking much past the next few weeks. But I was, in the song, stating a belief that I held then and still hold: God is in charge, and he can use anything he wants in any way he wants -- including you.

But what I didn't see then is that God could use the song. He has already used it, and he continues to use it, and I continue to be humbled and amazed. How could I have missed it? When I titled the song Even That and wrote the line (from God's mouth) "I can use even that" it simply didn't occur to me that God was also saying, "I can use Even That."

Thank you, Gary, for the awesome, perfect music, and thank you, Laurie, for the heart that makes your beautiful voice even more compelling, and thank you, God, for using the troubles of a meeting as the genesis for a song that you continue to use in amazing ways. They meant it for evil, but you meant it for good.

Do good!

Lewis Greer
President, Do Good Music
lewis@dogoodmusic.com

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