Jesus Taught Me To Write Music

Welcome back everyone. Today, we are chatting with Alicia and Whitney McDermott, Alicia and Whitney. It is great to have you on. And my goodness, I don't even know where to start in introducing you to you write your own music. I know you both are published authors, you have your own podcasts that you guys are co-hosting.

You have your own ministry and nonprofit organization that you guys operate together. So you guys are on the ball. And I know that you have both been traveling recently with. I know that you guys just have a lot of stuff happening, a lot of stuff going on. Let me just stop and ask what is going on in your life recently?

How have you guys

been? Yeah, first of all, thank you. We're so excited. We have a podcast. And so oftentimes we're the ones that like are interviewing other people. So it's fun to be on the other end of that, but we just want to. Hello, and we just appreciate so much you inviting us to be on the show today.

Yeah, we

just got back from a trip to Atlanta and it was really cool. We were honored as dope women and radio was the title with about seven other women for our podcast coming up higher. And while we were there, we got to record some new Christmas single, but with our producer and Sean Hill in Atlanta.

And so it's been a busy month so far and I I'm excited, but yeah. Thank you so much for having us on.

Yeah, absolutely man, dope women in radio. Is that what you said? That's a cool name. That's amazing. Yeah. We are absolutely excited to have you guys on. And I know that you guys both have a really amazing testimony.

I want to focus on that first, before we get into some more of the stuff that you're doing now. And I just want to understand where you guys are coming from and all of this. And I think a lot of your music and a lot of your story is based on the testimony that the both of you guys have. And I think that you may be shared today.

Let's just start there. If you would just introduce us to your testimony a little bit and just introduce us to yourself and what started you on this?

Yeah. If you didn't know already we're sisters. So we go all the way back and we just have a really neat musical heritage. Our grandparents traveled around in gospel quartet, and our mom is a beautiful singer.

She's led worship at different churches. And our dad was a musician. It was also a pastor part full-time for over 30 years, singing has just really been in our DNA. Like we don't ever, some people ask, like, when did you start singing and ever remember a time where we weren't singing? Just because our mom would put us up on stage at church is as soon as she could.

So we just, we grew up singing and enjoying it, but it was just always like a hobby or just like a passion that we never really thought was going to go anywhere we would have loved for it to have, but we just sometimes see your board or these passions and these dreams, but then life hits. And difficult things happen and you can have insecurities or doubts about, am I good enough or could this really go somewhere?

And so we had, just by the time we were teenagers decided that it was just a hobby, something for fun, and that we would take the secure route and there's nothing wrong in doing, having a secure type of profession or anything like that. But for us, it was. We were just trying to control things ourselves or make things happen for ourselves.

Instead of being compromising, instead of being like, God, what do you have for us? What did you create a sport? We didn't really have that conversation with God. I was going to college for business and marketing. Alicia was going. General education done for nursing. And during that time, our dad was diagnosed with cancer and he, it was a really quick, quick cancer because he had told us on Monday and by Thursday he passed away.

And so at that point, we're just early twenties and just devastated because we obviously loved our dad and he just was such an important piece of our. And he's our pastor and our friend and mentor and all of these things on top of just being her dad. And that's when we really found ourselves at rock bottom.

And that's when we had that conversation with God and, okay, what does life look like from here? Where do we go from here? Because everything, all the plans we had made, everything we had decided we would do really just crumbled at that point. And that's when we said, all right, God, if music is a part of the plan or whatever way you want us to go or willing to.

Yeah, and it was what I love about God is. He places things inside us that we're gonna need, like from an early age. And so whether you realize it or not, you have what you need inside of you, that he placed that in you to get through what life's gonna throw at you, to be able to fulfill your purpose and your calling, like it's in you.

And that's what music and songwriting was for us and worship the heart of worship. That's what got us through that difficult. Reading time, just going from our dad saying on a Monday morning, I haven't told you guys, but I feel like I need to tell you now I have stage four pancreatic liver cancer to Monday night, him being rushed to the hospital, put into a comatose state until he passed that Thursday.

The whiplash of that alone of just like the shock of losing someone and dealing with that when you're 20 and 22, like I'm just so thankful for music and songwriting and prayer and worship and the scripture. That was what sustained us during those days. And God not only gave us those tools to cope with it, but then he allowed us to make something out of.

Like the scripture. And Isaiah says he takes our ashes and turns them into something beautiful. So that then we have songs now that are ministering to other people who are broken and going through situations. And so that was really the Genesis, the star of Alicia and Whitney, this music ministry that we have, and it's morphed into some different things, some different areas like missions work and a podcast and things like that, but like the heart of worship.

And communing with the father is like what birthed at all

for us. Yeah. And a really neat testimony too, is out of the songs that we wrote. We were living together at the time with our grandmother actually. And it was our dad's mom. And. Going through the screaming process together. And I was actually learning the guitar.

I was just teaching myself through YouTube and stuff like that. And I would just have, start playing the guitar and have these melodies, and she'd be like asleep in her room at midnight. And I would come like storming him. I have this new melody. Let's write a song. Do you have anything to go at this? And typically.

She wouldn't be too happy that I woke her up, but she'd have a, we'd start writing together. And that's literally our first album core is just full of those songs that we wrote in that grieving state. But just what they're not like sad songs necessarily. They're just our hearts cry and just really offer a lot of healing.

Like when we sing these songs, a lot of we've had a lot of people just say, that's my heart cry or. I just love the vulnerability in that. And God's brought so much healing through the song and it's just really neat. Felicia said that God's used something that was like so tragic and difficult, but he's using it.

He used it not only to help heal us and bring us out of that, but also to help us. And we had started performing these songs that like different churches and things that would ask us to come and sing. And people were just like, man, you have to get these recordings. You have to get these recorded. And actually a friend of our dads has done some work in Nashville.

And then he said, Hey, I can get you a really good deal you can come and record these. And so we're like, all right, Lord, this is totally new staff. Yeah. It's amazing how, unlike God guides you to something and you just step out on faith, like he'll be faithful to provide and to bring things about you.

Don't have to make it happen on your own. And so we just started praying and asking God for all these funds and what to do with that. And one of the churches that we performed at her that we had this opportunity and just completely put the bill I'm a hundred percent. And so within, it was only like a couple of weeks or something.

We call it our dad's friend back and was like, all right, we have all the money. And he was shocked. He couldn't believe it, but yeah, just encouragement for those listening. Like you're stepping out in faith. God's asking you to do something that's beyond your means and just be willing to trust him and step out anyways, because in our history he's always been faithful to me and bring us through.

Yeah,

that's a really cool story. I think that we don't talk. About Greece specifically. I think that is such a powerful thing that all of us go through every single person at some point in time is going to go through that. And I think that we just don't talk about it enough. And I think from a Christian perspective, if you're able to approach it from that viewpoint, I think that we have a different way to look at it.

We have in a sense of different hope that we can approach grief in that we may not have had, or that we didn't have before we we were Christians. I don't know when you guys, I don't know when you guys became Christians, but have you been able to compare that or do you see a change in how you can see that now, how you can approach grief with sort of the lens of Christ and through the lens of Christ and the hope that we have in Jesus versus the hope or the way that you would have had to approach that if you did not have that as part of your

background,

that's a good question.

We grew up in church. So like we just, we don't know a time where we didn't know Jesus, obviously we're never perfect and things like, we didn't always do everything. Right. But there is something to be said though, about when the rubber meets the road, do you believe what you say you believe, or it's really an opportunity to experience God in a new way that you haven't before in the past.

And so how do we know. As healer, unless we've been in need of healing or sick, or how do we know him as comforter if we haven't been in grief. And so that's what I love about serving God is that problems are opportunities to experience a new aspect of him that we haven't before. And so one thing that I found during that process was the peace of God that passes all understanding that scripture talks about.

There were some times where we probably should have been losing our minds or should have been not able to do things, but just like you felt his presence. So tangibly that like you were like under the shadow of the almighty, the Psalms talk about, for example, we sang at our dad's funeral. And so just to experience a new level of his presence that like you never would have had you not walked through this trial is something that, that really stuck out to me.

You are who you say you are, and I'm experiencing that in a way that I wouldn't have any other way. And like how scripture talks that he's near to the brokenhearted. And definitely can, I can testify to that. That. During that time in a different way. Yeah.

That's what, one time the Holy spirit is brought to my attention was that like those who, the scripture that says those who more and will be comforted.

And because I was, I don't know, it was just one of those days where everything seems to be going wrong. And we just think about all the loss you faced or the difficult things you've had to overcome and just having a pity party for myself. And why did this happen? Or why did I have to go through this?

But then holy spirit just reveal it to me that when the, yeah, you've had to walk through these things, but you've also been comforted in a way, and you experienced the presence of God in a way that like, not everybody has, because there's only, there's like some things about God, you could only really. No through experience.

Like when you go through these difficult times, like there's aspects and facets of God, like she said, you know him as healer because you've been sick and it's, you know, him as comforter, when you have to be comforted, when you go through something that's really difficult. And there is one scripture throughout this, the grieving process of losing our dad that just like really kept being repeated over and over again.

And one that was really meaningful to us. It's in John 12. And starting verse 24, it says very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies, it produces many seeds. And it's a verse that really helped us through that process because.

It's hard to lose someone and it's hard. Any loss or any tragedies, hard, maybe people listening, haven't lost a loved one, but they've lost a job or they've lost their identity. Yeah. They've lost a marriage or maybe they have lost a spouse or a child or a parent. It's difficult to walk through those things.

But when you walk through it with God, so much can come out of it. Like we lose a lot, but God also can bring so much beauty from. And when you look at just our testimony, we lost our dad who was just a pillar in our life. And just someone we loved and counted on and expected to have around a little longer out of that loss because we submitted it to God.

That's why we have a music ministry. We're here to almost three albums later of music that we've recorded and we've started a nonprofit. And we have a podcast and there's like all these things if we lost our dad, but God's given us so much as well, that's impacted hundreds, maybe even thousands of people.

I think that's a really neat privilege that we have when we serve Christ. Is that, yeah, we're laying something to rest. Something has died, we've lost something, but there is going to be a harvest and it's going to be bounced supple and plentiful. And that's something that non-believers don't necessarily have that confidence.

They don't have that assurance, but we as Christians do. And so I'm so grateful that we have the Lord to walk through that whole process.

Yeah, absolutely. Whitney you bring up a really good point. A couple of really good points actually, but one in grief can be experienced in so many different ways.

Obviously, our conversation right now is about losing someone but we can experience grief in really profound ways. And then through, just the loss. Even through the loss of various things in our life, that doesn't necessarily have to be a losing someone through passing and it can be the loss of a job loss of a relationship loss of so many things that we can experience grief and just a really profound way.

And I think that a lot of people that are outside of Christianity looking into this may be something that they struggle with, particularly in that. Why would a just God, why would a great God? Why would I perfect. God allow. Something like this to happen. Why would he allow struggle? And what I perceive is imperfection to happen in my life.

And then we see examples like yours, and we see other examples like this of people that are just really taking this and define their life by it and use it as their passion to fuel their impact of other people and really impacted people in profound ways. And so I think those two examples, not only. Deal with grief really well, but are also just I really great testimony and a really great message to someone that is not super familiar with the message of Christ and the message of Jesus may be confused in a sense about that.

So I think what you just said is, is, is really on point to that.

Yeah. And I just grief is just such, you can have a whole podcast series done grief alone, but it's just such a unique thing. And I actually. But our dad passed away. I just felt impressed to, to write a book on grief. And I did, it's called beauty for my ashes.

And it's just talking about how you can walk through grief just in a healthy way and with God and what that looks like. Because like you said, there it is, it can be confusing. Like I would be lying if I said that, that didn't cross my mind. Hey, my dad was a pastor and he was a really good person. God, like, why did you take him from us?

Or like people who are doing evil live such long lives sometimes then it's like people that have made such great impact on the kingdom and I've helped people and things like that. Sometimes their life gets cut short. And so there definitely are those questions, but as we. And God's not afraid of those questions.

I think that's like something that needs to be clarified too, because sometimes we feel like we don't have faith just because we have questions, but just bringing those to God and searching those out. Like we may not get all of the answers on the side of, but God can definitely, like I said, bring healing through it and give you direction and guidance and, and bring beautiful things out of the law.

Yeah. So that's a lot about what my book is about

too. What's the name

of beauty for my ashes.

Beauty from ashes. Okay. Yeah. And is that, where is that on Amazon? Where can we find that at?

You can find it on our website, Alicia, winnie.com. We have an online store. And so it's on there. It's a small book. Cause I, when I was going through grief, I'm like, man, I don't want to, I don't want to read it.

I just want something that's like short and sweet and to the point. And so when I wrote that, that's what I did is just, if I could pick out like some of the key things of walking through grief and what would be most helpful, these are the ones I would pick. And so that's what I made, made the book from.

Did you say Alicia and Whitney? Yes. Is that what she said? Okay. Alicia and whitney.com. Yeah. No, absolutely. And definitely want to spend some time diving a little bit deeper into your books. I think both of you have just some really cool content that you're putting out in books and also in your music.

And definitely want to just spend some time talking about that. And I know we have another episode together. One, I want to spend some time diving a little bit deeper into that. Something that I am curious about. I think you guys have already mentioned that music was a big piece that sort of pulled you through this and you have obviously used that to impact other people in really cool ways.

But for people that might be going through this right now, or I guess could go through it in the future or might have just come out of that. If you were speaking to those people, would you say there is. And importance of allowing people into your life or allowing relationships in your life to really pour into you in specific ways that really helped you through that process relationally, or maybe just spend some time talking about their actual relationships that really got you through that aspect of your.

Yeah, it's a double sided coin on that aspect because you have to be careful and guard your heart during that time as well. People can say things. They may even be well-meaning things, but they can say things are really feed negatively and to you during that time as well. Definitely want to know that, but we were very fortunate to have each other before we lost our dad to cancer.

Our parents, when we were 10 and 12, they went through a divorce and that was just, it was a rough time in our family. And so like through the hard times, our relationship became stronger because we just leaned on each other so much. And so again, God knew what he was doing and gave us what we needed ahead of time.

But even in our relationship. Yeah, definitely. Whether it's a counselor, whether it's a pastor, whether it's a best friend or family member, having someone to process those emotions with and just say, I need to share my feelings and I need, I may need to cry. I may need you to not say anything. I may need to adjust a listening ear, but having.

That connection point with people is so important because a lot of times our first instinct is to isolate, to put up walls, to grin and bear it on our own kind of thing. But God really puts people into your lives too, to help bear one another's burdens like scripture talks. And it was the relationships around us, but it was also our relationship with God that grew in a different way.

And really, I would encourage people that are Christians or that are searching to just dive into the word and see what people. Who were in similar situations like you are like David or when he lost a child or when people were going through different things and like in gleaning from the scriptures, because we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.

And so when we read other's testimonies and apply that, and it's encouraging as well to our own.

Yeah. That's something that a pastor friend of mine told me to do after losing dad was just, he said, go through Psalms and just one chapter a day or whatever it is just read. And she's like, I think you're going to hear your heart cry through some of that.

And I did cause you know, David was just pretty exhausted at times. He was pretty emotional at times and just base loss and. Fear and anxiety and things like that. But what's really cool about the Psalms is that he always points it back to God. Your loving kindness or things are just recounting, but you did this for me and I know you can do it again, type of thing.

And that's just a great perspective to have because. It's okay. That we acknowledge that we're going through something difficult. It's okay to acknowledge if you're dealing with depression or if life hasn't turned out, like you thought it would be, but we don't, we shouldn't stay there. That's the key thing is you don't want to camp there.

You want to recount, okay. But God, you did this for me and my. Just our example. I got you. You brought me through my parents' divorce and just the devastations that, that caused. So I know you can bring me through those again, or you brought my friends through whatever situation they went through, so you can do it for me and just recounting those things.

But I totally second Alicia with don't isolate. Like it's so easy because you're already in people's words, hold such power and weight. They could say one thing and it can literally ruin your whole day. Like I know that's happened to me just when you were there. Just susceptible to being hurt because you're already going through a difficult thing.

It's hard to open up to people, but vulnerability is really, what's going to bring healing and what's going to just help facilitate what God has for you and your life. And that's something that I really like. Man. It's been eight years and literally just in the last like year and a half, God's been talking to me about my vulnerability and how just from that situation, I've found myself closing up and just, ah, they don't want to hear about what I'm going through or it doesn't matter.

I'll get over it kind of thing, but I've had to really learn the art of. Uh, being vulnerable again and communicating and realizing that it's okay that I don't have it altogether, because I think as Christians, we have this mindset that we have to have it all together. We've grown through a loss or a divorce, or like whatever we're going through, we need to hurry up and get through it so we can like teach from it and help people from it.

And it's just, yeah, God can use that, but just hold up. You don't have to have it. Just let, allow yourself the time you need to heal and to get through it just for you and go. And we don't, we don't have to have everything together just because we're Christians. And it doesn't mean that we don't have faith in God.

It doesn't mean that he's not our savior and that we're not serving him, but he created us with emotions. Like I said, it's important that we acknowledge those emotions, work through them, but we don't stay at the motions are great. Indicators, but they're horrible. Dictators. We need to be vulnerable enough to acknowledge like what we're feeling, what we're going through, but then stand on some truth and point back to the word.

What is the word say? What is, who has God revealed himself through scripture and through your life's experiences.

I was just going to comment. I think those are really wise words. When you talk about vulnerability, I think that is also amplified potentially right now in the generations that we have coming through with social media.

And that w we see, we only see one piece everyone's life. And so we think that everyone else is not dealing with the things that we are dealing with. And so I think there's a really wise words to say, and just the power behind being vulnerable. If you think you guys are great examples of this, I mean, if you guys were not vulnerable in what you guys are going through your entire ministry, based on that right, your music and your books and everything that you do is, is really essentially based on vulnerability and everyone is learning from that.

So I think that is a really amazing way. To just look at that in general vulnerability as a strength and as a way to impact people around us, my guess is, and I don't know. Let me ask you, is that where coming up higher came from the name

for your podcast? Coming Up Higher comes from the verse in revelation where it talks about come up higher and I'll show you things for the future.

So our heart was starting. The podcast was just God, we want to see things from your perspective, because so many times we're just ground level. Like we're in the fight or we're in the situations, then we're just seeing it from our vantage point. But there's so much more than what we see. And a pastor friend of mine, he talks about the difference between a prophet, a prophetic narrative and a prominent narrative.

And the prominent narrative is just as, as what you can see, it's, what's on the news. It's what everybody's talking about. It's the easiest narrative to live by because it's, it's tangible. It's what, but then there's always in the background of prophetic narrative going on, but that's what God's saying about the situation.

That's how he's working in and through it. And that's how he's working all. Thanks for your good and just weaving everything throughout. So with our podcasts, like that's, what we want to do is help. To come up higher, see God, see things from God's perspective and just not buy into, to the prominent narrative just because that's, what's in front of us, but God's always doing things in the

background.

Yeah. And it's we, whether we're sharing inspiration or things, the Lord's laid on our heart or we're interviewing, I think it's going back to that, sharing that we overcome by the word of our testimony, sharing other people's stories about how they've overcome, what, whether it's. Ex-gang members, drug addicts, just people that have Ms.

America is America and how she's overcome like body image issues and just different things that when you hear how Christ brought them through, it helps you to see things from an elevated perspective, as almost as seeing things from a place of victory versus being in the trenches. And you're just in the middle of it.

And that's what we love is sharing. Other people's stories about Christ moving in them because it helps other people come up higher in the process.

Yeah. I love it. Really cool. Name really catchy name, really great name for podcasts are really, really encourage our audience to go check that out. So another episode with you guys, and we're going to dive into some of the specifics of kind of what your books and what your songs are about.

And so really looking forward to do that before we sign off on this episode again, where is the best. To for people to either follow you or just read about what you're doing is still your website is the best place to keep in touch. Yeah, that's a

good place to start. Alicia and whitney.com and we're on social media.

At Alicia and Whitney, you can find our music on our website, all streaming platforms, iTunes, Spotify, et cetera. And yeah, we'd love to connect with some new people. So that'd be awesome.

Yeah, absolutely. And is it a and D Alicia, a N D whitney.com. Awesome. Thanks so much. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you guys so much for coming on.

Really

appreciate it. Thank you for having

that. We've enjoyed it as well.