Tony Cummings spoke at length to the CCM and dance music hitmaker PLUMB

I am a devoted follower of Jesus Christ; he came in and revealed some really tough things that my husband and I needed to change, to work on. In doing so he miraculously put us back together, and did not just redeem our relationship - redemption is something that happens instantaneously, but restoration is a lifetime - and has continued to daily restore us to something better than we ever were. That song means more to me probably than any song I have ever written, because of the hope it gave me in the darkest hour of my life. When they chose it as the lead single - and obviously now the title track - I have so much hope that it will give the same kind of hope it gave me to every person that listens to it that's in a place that needs that, they need to be able to breathe and get through whatever their crisis is. The way the song is written, you would never think it was about an anxiety attack or a marriage crumbling. It's a song written about whatever critical moment you're in and you cry out to him, he doesn't tire of your need for him: there's not a punch-card that says you can only need him so many times. Crying out, 'How many times am I going to have to say this out before it's going to get fixed? or 'Are you tired of me crying out this many times?' He doesn't tire, he doesn't leave, he will consistently be there; and he will never give you more than you can bear. The outcome may not work like what you thought it should, but that's why you're not God. He knows what he's doing. The most dirty, ashy of things can be turned into something beautiful if we let him.

In my story, in my marriage, it is turning into something more beautiful than it ever was. However, what it was originally written about, I still struggle with panic and anxiety. I still have to take medicine right now. I'm one of those people that would love to be all natural, organic, whole foods; but we live in a fallen world, and that's not my story right now. I actually have to take medicine to prevent some of that from happening. It's a matter of deciding for yourself the lesser of two evils: should I be that girl that says, 'I will not have to take anything. I'm going to get through this: God's big enough' yet my family suffers for that? It's not that God's not big enough. Whatever you go through, it's not that at all. He is big enough, but the sorrow we live in is not something God causes or even allows; the sorrow we experience in this fallen world is an opportunity to be closer to him. I think that in our struggle and in our crisis, or in our panic, he keeps me closer to him. It makes me almost thankful for it. To take a little bit of medicine, I don't think that's a lack of faith. For me, it takes more courage to do that than to not.

Tony: Many Christian songwriters have told me that their songs come back and minister to them in new ways.

Plumb: In all my years of songwriting, it's not that a number of songs haven't meant something to me, or I haven't got emotional circumstantially on stage one night. All of my music has been therapeutic to me, it's been a level of accountability. I had a song out years ago called "Real" about your inner being, where you find the true beauty of who you are. I start to criticise myself: I wish my lips were fuller, my lashes were longer, my hips were smaller - whatever. Someone close to me will say, 'Really? You just wrote a song...' And I'm like, 'You're right! You're right!' So they've been a great source of accountability and therapy for me, but this was the first time - it literally ministered to me as if I wasn't even the singer or the writer. It was God using a song to say, 'I am here; I am not leaving; I'm not giving you more than you can take; you can cry out of me as much as you want. I am going to be the breath that gets you through this next moment; you've just got to trust me.' I surrendered - I completely surrendered - because I had no other options.

At times you want something - a pill to fix it, a counsellor to fix it, a book to read to fix it - and none of that was working. Matthew West has a song that says, 'When you finally hit rock bottom, that's when you start looking up'. I did. I will never, ever, ever look back with regret of hitting rock bottom and being able to finally see him. All that stuff that I was trying to fix my life with, it wasn't an option. I fell in true love with him for the first time. I've always acknowledged loving God, since I was eight years old at vacation Bible school asking him into my heart - mostly because the preacher made me scared of Hell. Then I grew up and I started developing a relationship with him; in the anxiety and the panic I was struggling with, there were times that he was the only thing that could give me some peace. I used that as a means to stay close to him. I look back at my life and thought, 'There's a few things that I've taken credit for that in all reality it was God'. In all of that, just to be able to hear a song and to connect on such a level that you truly feel like, 'I don't care if this sells one copy: it has saved my life'. All the different things that are giving me feedback, saying the song is really ministering to people, I'm humbled to be part of that, to be the pen behind it. God wrote this song: he used me and my laptop and my journal and my pen and my two buddies in a room - he used us to communicate a message he wanted people to hear, whether they're a Christian or not. They can need him, and he will come through.

My pastor retweeted me not that long ago; I was like, 'People wish they can win an Oscar or a Grammy or go to the moon and back, but to be retweeted by my pastor would definitely be on my list'. I had made the comment for the first time - 'Hope is oxygen and we all need to breathe' - and he retweeted that. I was like, 'I didn't realise I was coming up with a little phrase there, but God gave that to me to say'. It's true, and to have him retweet that was very affirming. Everyone has to breathe, and sometimes it takes a little bit of hope to get through that critical moment of wherever you are. That element of truth is evident in every song on this record. "Need You Now" may connect with you but it may be another song on the record. At the end of the day at the core of why you're connecting, it's because you feel hope. There's a lot of songs on this record that people will say, 'Me too!' If there's a song about it, someone else has clearly gone through or connected with what he's been through. There's nothing like being in the shadows of someone coming around the corner and saying, 'I'm here too. You're not by yourself.'

Tony: When you finished it, did you think, 'This is a special album'?

Plumb: It was the record that I took the longest to write and record. My very first Plumb record, the writing process started in the summer, and we were recording by December. We spent three weeks recording and we were done. In a six month span, all songs were written, recorded, mixed and mastered. This record, from the very first song that we wrote for it to the mastering was about two and a half years. There were definitely times my producer Matt and I were beating our heads against the wall like, 'Are we taking too long? Are we being too analytical?' Some of that was not just us being super-creative: some of that was, with all respect, it was the record label. They had this idea to record three at a time, and looking back - I hope that they see, because I've been more than open and honest about this - we lost some momentum that way. We would have written dozens of songs, but we would chose three that we loved and record them. In the process - three and the next three - we would write another song that trumped one of them. 'Oh, wait a minute!'

So we ended up recording more than we needed to, because there were times we were thinking, 'This song blows that one out of the water'. Part of us wished we could've sat back and just written, then chosen the 12 and recorded. But some of the songs we felt like we trumped ourselves, those would not probably have been birthed had we done it that way. In the middle of it we were kind of frustrated, but, looking back, we have what we have and we're so excited about it. When we tied it up with a nice little knot and stepped back, I did say to my manager Chris, to my producer Matt, to my husband Jeremy, and to Ainsley, our mixer - we were all in the same room that night - 'This is the best record I've ever been a part of'. Matt said, 'I agree with you'. My husband was affirming of that, and my manager as well. 'I think you've outdone yourself: there's something special about this.' The wheels were spinning about, 'When is this going to come out in the next few months?' blah blah blah; and when the bottom fell out of my personal life, there was a definite fear and concern from the label's perspective - management, publicity, booking - 'Oh goodness! We were so excited!'

If you know me on a very personal level, this record is actually prophetic, and sounds like I wrote it in the darkest moment in my life. My very best friend in the entire world called me, after she listened to it, when my husband I were separated, and she was like, 'Have you listened to your record recently?' I started to cry and I was like, 'No, I don't have time for that right now'. I did, and I just wept. It sounds like I wrote it about right now. She said, 'Tiff, you didn't write it about now, so I honestly believe that the fact that your record sounds so much like you wrote it right now gives me hope that God has a purpose for this record. You're going to be able to say things about this record that you would not have otherwise been able to say, so have hope.' I was sitting in my car with my friend Leona in Ohio, and she'd never heard it. She began to weep. She grabbed my hand and was she like, 'Tiffany, God has a plan for this. There's no possible way that you could write this record now, having gone through what you've been through and what you're going through - you just couldn't - but it's so interesting that these songs were written about real things that now mean something completely different to you. Think of the listener. You wrote it about A, but they're going to connect with it like B. That's the beauty in art. This is almost like affirmation that God has got a plan for this album, and you need to hope.'

There's two songs on the record very specifically, verbatim, about my husband and I. At that time I'd already met with the label and said, 'We need to have plans to remove those in the event that we don't reconcile - what songs we're going to replace them with'. Those are two songs that didn't get taken from the record that I perform with such joy. They're reminders of what God did. One of them is "Chocolate And Ice Cream" and one of them is "Beautiful". Some people are tempted to steer clear of remembering the past. If you dwell in the past that's one thing, but when you remember it on a regular basis I think it's healthy: it helps you appreciate where you are now. Those songs are reminders to me, because they're about how crazy we are about each other before the bottom fell out. When I perform them, I'm reminded that these songs almost weren't allowed to be heard; and wow - God has brought us through something massive. He still performs miracles; he still is alive. Another song that my kids are crazy about on Christian radio is "God's Not Dead". He's surely alive: he's roaring like a lion. He's so present among us, and he loves us; he wants beauty for us.

As humans, if things aren't going well we get this attitude of 'Why would God do this, or allow this? What have I done wrong?' Now that I'm a mom, I think how often I have to recognise in my children they have choices, every day, and if my son chooses to bite his sister he's going to have a negative consequence. I could be the kind of mother that locks his jaws shut so that can never happen, but then Oliver would never learn the beauty in the voice that he's been given. Sometimes we don't acknowledge and thank God enough for the choice that he gives us. He gives us the choice to choose him; he gives us the choice to make good decisions or not. With every choice there's a natural consequence. Sometimes because of the choice that Eve made way back when - even a choice you made last week or last month or last year - there are consequences to those, and sometimes we have to sit back. It's not that I'm allowing something, or causing something, negative to happen in my children's life: I've given them a choice and they make a bad choice. If Oliver decides to get in the pool when I tell him not to, because it's so frigid cold, and he gets in there anyway, he's going to freeze. Then he wants to get mad at me for letting him jump in the pool, and I'm like, 'Hey! I didn't put you in there. I gave you some instruction, some guidance, to not do that, and you chose to do it anyway. That's how it feels.'

This actually happened. I didn't cause that consequence, I didn't allow that consequence: that was the natural consequence. However, it's my hope that it drew Oliver closer to trusting me more when I give him guidance - maybe I have some good things to say as his mom - and to learn from it. In anything that we do, instead of being bitter of blaming God for certain things, we should embrace the fact. Thank you for the choice that you give me, and help me to receive the consequences of those with understanding and grace and beauty. In my darkest hour I was just referring to, I learned a magnitude of things, and I'm so much closer to Jesus, and I trust him so much more, I love him - truly love him - so much more. I have so much less fear than I did before; I look back and go, 'I don't think he even caused or allowed that junk to happen, but he was present and he was guiding; he said, 'You have choices to make. If you'll trust my guidance here, this can be beautiful - just like, "Oliver, don't jump in the pool".' Oliver has definitely learned. He's my little adventurer/risk-taker. There's a song on the record called "I Don't Deserve You", and Oliver is the inspiration behind that song. He challenges me in ways that I never thought I would be challenged. None of my children are perfect, but Solomon, my firstborn, by his birth, his newborn stage, his early toddler stage was such an easy baby.

Tony: Was "In My Arms" about him?

Plumb: "It was. "In My Arms" is about Solomon. He calls it The Baby Blues. Just treasuring him - almost having a prideful, innate, subconscious ego: 'I must be a really great mom, because he's a stellar baby'. Then I had Oliver. I don't mean to make that sound like he wasn't great - he was absolutely fantastic - but he didn't sleep through the night, he was a lot louder, and he had a lot more demands. So when I was pregnant with our third is when we thought, 'Maybe we should stop at three'. But he has proven to be the child in my life that teaches me the most about how God loves me. I look at him so often with this, 'Wow! God made you and he chose me to be your mom'.

I feel that way about all three of my children, but this little guy was in my head the whole day when I was writing "I Don't Deserve You". He's got this really sweet spirit, and he's very self-motivated, he's very driven, focused; he's hilarious, he's loud, he is a party waiting to happen. He's usually the first one awake, so he's the first face I see, which is what the lyric opens with. 'The last thing I think about' is the next line; he's usually the last thing on my mind because of how adventurous and risky he can be, I worry about him the most. He pushes me to the limits where I am sometimes catching myself saying or doing something that I look back and say, 'Oliver, I'm sorry I said that, I'm sorry I did that. You tested my patience more than the other two.' I don't tell him that, but my patience has been tested in ways that with Solomon and Clementine I don't necessarily experience. I lose it on him more often that I should. He always says, 'I forgive you, mom'. He loves me. He's so resilient I feel like God uses him to show me how quickly God forgives us, and how resilient our relationship with him can be, that his mercies are new every morning.

So when I was writing about this innocent, amazing little boy with these gigantic blue eyes - looks like just my husband - I realised very much like "In My Arms" when I wrote about Solomon, it sounds like I'm writing about my relationship with God. "In My Arms" is about his being safe in my arms, but yet the term safe is relative, and ultimately if we belong to God the Father we are safe. With Oliver - 'I don't deserve you but you love me anyway' - I don't deserve God's love but he loves me anyway. There's a lyric in it that says, 'When I walk away you take off running and come right after me. It's what you do and I don't deserve you.' Oliver and I have conflicts. I literally will have to walk away before I say something I will regret; but he often has a tendency to run off when his feelings get hurt - you find him in his room - but he is the quickest at wanting reconciliation. He will come after me, or I'm in pursuit of him, and it is almost instant. We're joking and we're tickling and we're laughing: there's not this harboured bitterness, he just forgives, he moves forward. I just think of how, sometimes when I'm seeing him be distant, it's because of a choice, usually, that I've made - turn the corner, he's readily waiting. Isn't that how God is with us? He's in pursuit of us. He's just wanting to say, 'Yes'.