This Mystery (Compact Disc)

With two Dove Award nominations under her belt already--for Best New Artist in 1999 and Best Female Vocalist in 2000--Nichole Nordeman has been at the forefront of Christian music for the last couple of years. Her debut album, Wide Eyed put four songs at the top end of the charts.

Who is she?

Raised in a Christian home in Colorado Springs, Nichole played piano for her church and attended a Christian school. Nothing too difficult or faith-challenging had come her way.

And then she turned 18. Sadly, her parents divorced and her life changed drastically. So much of the faith she’d taken for granted was now brought to question. Listening to her first album, Wide Eyed, we can hear the voice of a heart that’s been hurt but keeps on reaching out to God for the answers to all of her painful questions.

Thanks to the grace of God, Nichole’s life took a turn that gave her an outlet for the hard questions she was asking.

Working as a waitress in Los Angeles, she caught wind of a Gospel Music Association contest. With a borrowed $200 she entered the contest . . . and won. John Mays, Vice President of A&R at Star Song records, took notice of her there and the rest is, well, history. She signed her first recording deal with Star Song and Wide Eyed was released in 1998.

And now, two years later, we have the privilege of hearing another great release from Nichole in This Mystery.

Who is Nichole Nordeman? She’s a young woman who’s taken her real heart and put it to song. And we are fortunate enough to be able to listen.

She’s brave.

If you think of doubt like a monster--and many of us do--then we can only call Nichole Nordeman brave. Once again, Nordeman has given us a release in This Mystery that is both honest in its questions and forthright in its claim of Jesus as the answer to all of them.

Of asking hard questions, she says, “Often times exploration and seeking gets left behind because it’s interpreted as a weakness. But it feels right to write about that because that’s where I am. Questioning is such a prerequisite to growth. If you’re not asking hard questions, how can you be taking a journey to the answers?”

So it is not surprising that This Mystery, the sophomore release to Nichole’s successful debut Wide Eyed, refuses to offer easy answers.

She’s asking different sorts of questions now, though.

“This record for me is more about who God is, as opposed to who I am. The first record was about my struggle in my relationship with the Lord. This record has become more about the mysterious, the intangibles, the question marks about the mystery of our faith that we want to skip sometimes.”

Nichole continues to keep her hand in song writing on this album. Like Wide Eyed, This Mystery is packed with songs written by the artist herself--nine of the ten tracks are penned by Nichole (no small feat when you consider the touring schedule she’s lived with since the release of Wide Eyed).

The new album holds on to the same genuine piano-driven sounds of the first release, as well. This is no repeat release, though. When you listen to This Mystery there is something clear and new about both the artist and the tracks. You could almost call it confidence. Mixed with the new sounds she’s incorporated, the piano seems somehow more bold.

Or maybe the word is brave.

In her own words, Nichole gives us insight into the heart of This Mystery:

"The bulk of the inspiration for this project is owed to a woman whom I have never met personally, but feel as though I know intimately on the pages of her work. Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle should be, in my opinion required reading for anyone who has ever tried to navigate the murky waters where the worlds of faith and art still swim around together. Ms. L’Engle has given me a gentle nudge to remember and reclaim the innocence, naiveté, and mystery of my faith long before it got lost in the land of adult reasoning. Somehow, it seems, in the middle of contemporary (and ridiculously complex) Christianity, I lost sight of the mystery of God. Placing limits on where God moves, who God moves through and dismissing whatever did not fit into the tiny framework and parameters that had become my religion. I am just now beginning to remember what it was like to be a child . . . when ALL things were possible with God, despite my criteria. I am beginning to feel the tremendous liberation in finding God far away from the usual places, and it is my hope that at least part of the joy of this re-discovery has spilled over into these songs. Many thanks to Ms. L’Engle and her very thoughtful book, for giving me permission, in the face of all things that demand a rational explanation, to shrug my shoulders and delightfully admit, 'Who knows?' Indeed, we all share in this mystery."

-Nichole

This Mystery | Tremble | Fool for You | Help Me Believe
Small Enough | Lookin' at You (Lookin' at Me)
As | Home | Please Come | Every Season

This Mystery  listen

This song was written during a time in my life, not to long ago, when I felt like the pressure and stress of my chaotic schedule at the time rendered me empty. I had sort of shifted to the "automatic pilot" approach to life…just going through the motions and routinely living out my day to day activities, as if my life was a series of obligatory events that must be crossed off some master list. Then I realized…this must really grieve God to live this way. It must sadden Him to think that I don’t recognize each day as a brand new gift…a clean slate…a chance to know Him better and an opportunity to extend the hands and feet of Christ to each other.

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Tremble

It seems to me that the contemporary worship experience for the average evangelical Christian has been marked by a very casual approach lately. So many churches in the past ten years have transformed their once rather formal church settings into something much more accessible. Pulpits and altars have been replaced by praise bands, coats and ties have been replaced by pastors in jeans…all wonderful signs that we can relax and worship a God who meets us as we are, without the pomp and circumstance. But I wonder if this casual approach to worship hasn’t left us a little too comfortable in the way we approach God. I know that there are moments when I take great comfort in my relationship with "buddy Jesus." What about the God of holiness, I wonder. What about the God who is righteous and merciful and deserves our respect and utmost reverence in His presence? While I may be grateful for how approachable Jesus is, I must remind myself often to tremble before a God that demands my respect and fear.

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Fool For You

I’ve lost track of how many conversations I’ve had with people who are not Christians where I have embarrassingly tried to argue them into the arms of Christ. I’ve always had personal issues with how "the world" sees us…. And a quick flip through my cable channels doesn’t usually ease my fears. So, I’ve tried often to make Christianity sound intelligent and sophisticated…and whenever possible, rational. I don’t want to look stupid or foolish. I want to look savvy. And while I believe firmly that there is an important place for intelligent faith and solid theology, I had to take a hard look at what was motivating my need to present my faith as if it were some sort of theological dissertation, wrapped generously in disclaimers and apologies for all the people in the world who make Christianity look foolish. But here’s the thing…at some point it is foolish. The whole idea of God becoming man and walking among us to teach us how to love and then eventually dying for us (and as if that’s not hard enough to swallow, he came back to life!) has to look crazy to someone who has not encountered that love personally. We must be willing to look foolish for the sake of Christ…and this remains for me, a great personal challenge.

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Help Me Believe

This song is very simply about learning how to reclaim a faith that is innocent and full of possibility…the faith of a child. There is something so wonderfully pure and naïve about a faith that has not been complicated yet by analysis. Kids just believe because Jesus said to. That’s it. They don’t need additional explanation. What a lesson for those of us who get bogged down by the heaviness of complicated religion. There are many moments when I long to return to that innocence I possessed as a child.

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Small Enough  listen

I wrote this song one night when I need to feel God’s presence in a very real way. God seemed, at that moment, elusive. Too big. How, I wondered does the same God who led a bunch of Israelites through the middle of an ocean by speaking the waves into submission so that they could safely pass through, meet me on my knees in such a small and intimate way? This is one of the great mysteries of our God. He is all things to all people. Merciful but jealous, compassionate but angry, giver and taker of life. That night, I didn’t need to experience the grandeur of His miracles, but rather the closeness of His presence. He is so capable of both.

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Lookin at You (Lookin at Me)  listen

This song is about the realization that the love and security we seek after is rarely found in the places we’re looking. It seems like every time I turn around, someone has written a new book, conducting a new seminar series, or selling a new gimmick that promises to fill the void we feel. When will I stop buying into this stuff? The love that frees us and gives us identity and esteem is found only in our realization that we were created with purpose and intent by God. We’ve all heard it before, I know…this is not a new concept, but one that was worthy of being reminded of, I think.

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As

What a fun song to record. This is an old Stevie Wonder tune that like so much of his work, is still a timeless piece of work. I won’t pretend to know what Stevie was thinking when he wrote this song, but I think there are many ways to interpret it. This song could easily be sung from one person to another…. or from me to God…or from God to me, for that matter. "I’ll be loving you always," the songs recurring theme, is a wonderful promise and reminder of the power of unconditional love.

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Home

This song is really important to me. In many ways it’s the story of my personal journey and quest for truth. My faith was an integral part of my upbringing and I am roots are firmly planted in church life and history. I knew Jesus when I was a little girl. And still, even then, as I got older I insisted on taking path after path that led directly away from that truth, in search of my own version. Time after time I would wind up where I had begun, wondering why I could not be content to rest in knowledge that had been instilled in me as a youth. Many tears and growing pains later, I have to understand what it means to be "home" in the Lord. I’m not referring to heaven, here. "Home" is where we find ourselves; it is a sense of belonging and a place of familiarity and sanctuary. The consistency of God’s truth and His ever-extending grace and forgiveness has truly brought me back home…and this song is for every prodigal son or daughter who shares that story.

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Please Come

This might be the most important song to me on this record. Its message is so simple.

I’ll never understand why the church insists on drawing boundaries and lines of divisiveness around itself. Who actually decided that it would good for us to be separated by denominations? Why do feel so much safer around our own kind? This is not the heart of Christ, in my opinion. Yes, it is healthy to engage in a community of people that share our similarities, but not to the point of exclusion, and certainly not to the point of arrogance and competition. This is the beauty of the simplicity of the Gospel. The price that was paid for us wasn’t just paid for some of us. The invitation to receive the love of Christ is not dependent on one’s denomination, background, race, or even political affiliation, believe it or not. We find common ground in Christ. Each of us, without exception, is invited to come.

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Every Season

This is a very special song to me. I sang it for the first time at the memorial service of a dear friend this past year. I was struggling at the service to find and feel the presence of God. And it occurred to me that it is far easier to believe in a God of the happier moments in our lives. I felt God at my friend’s wedding…where I sang again, just four years prior. If life is good, than God is too. This view of God breaks down pretty quickly when life is not good…and when we hurt. Suddenly, we’re not so confident in a loving, good God. And in some extremes, we’re not even sure God exists. I’ve learned lately the importance of not relying on my emotions to gauge how I feel about God. He is always with us…. despite the moments and sometimes entire seasons, where we struggle to feel that presence. Thankfully, God is still God and His sovereignty is not dependent on our ability to make sense of His will.

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