Over 32 years, superstar Amy Grant has sold 30 million albums. Her new EP, She Colors My Day, features two new songs about moms. She spoke with us about motherhood, music, and her new Spirit-led purpose.

How have your notions of Mother’s Day changed over the years?

As children we often see Mother’s Day as another pressure: “Oh, great! One more unmet expectation!” But once you’ve had a baby, it’s a totally different day.

The way Mother’s Day plays out for people has a lot to do with how their marriage or primary relationship plays out. I have a blended family with five children aged 27, 21, 19, 16, and 8 years old. So now, I take Mother’s Day as a time to celebrate my own experience. That way I don’t attach expectations to anyone else. I just give myself the excuse to choose that today I’m not cooking, or not doing anything. Thankfully, my family says, “Hey, whatever Mom wants to do is OK.”

How did the two new songs come about?

I wrote “Unafraid” as a tribute to my mom to explore all aspects of motherhood, including partner, parent, and caregiver. My mom is older now and not in best of health these days. So I cherish the times I have with her as something precious and limited.

I wrote “She Colors My Day” with Cristina Carlino. It’s a fun song is about a mother’s love for her daughter. The first verse says:

Here and now I'm going to stay
In her world I'm going to play
Rolling in her cartwheels,
Feeling just like she feels
Lost inside her curls and her sun rays.

Cristina is the founder and creator of the philosophy skincare brand. All artist and publishing royalties from the song are being donated to the Entertainment Industry Foundation’s Women’s Cancer Research Fund. That’s great, because my dad was a radiation oncologist who spent his entire career working with cancer patients.

It seems like in recent years you have balanced making music with practicing philanthropy.

It’s not like I woke up and looked in the mirror and said, “You are a philanthropist.” I’ve always been more like a milkweed in the wind.

I write more music now than ever. I love what music does. But life is short, and at this point I’m not willing to do what it takes to build the kind of platform as a performer that at one time seemed like the right move. There’s nothing wrong with using a lot of energy for that. It’s just not important to me now.

It sounds like your purpose may be changing.

Yes. Long before I read The Purpose Driven Life I was one of those people who is energized by having a purpose for the day and for my life. I can piddle away my time with best of them, but I am most energized and invigorated when I have a purpose and some short-term goals.

I feel my purpose day-to-day comes out of my responsibilities. Right now, I’m a mom with children at home, and that outlines the purpose of my day.

Photo: Kristin Barlowe
You also take up other projects that come your way.

Yes, like last fall. I have a friend who moved here from Trinidad. She has a child with cerebral palsy who had seizures at school, creating huge medical bills. One day she called me to pray with me. I talked to some women about what we could do. And then an entire plan downloaded into my brain instantly: We need to have a giant yard sale.

I was on a Christmas tour at the time, but I knew there was one weekend during Indian summer when I wasn’t touring that we could do it. Together, a group of us did everything, including gathering the items and handling the publicity. We raised $25,000 in one weekend.

You’re also working to help veterans.

For years Vince [musician husband Vince Gill] and I have helped do fundraising for Challenge Aspen, a non-profit organization in Colorado. But it’s easy to raise funds in Aspen.

What we’re doing now is getting ready to host a concert June 8 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., to launch the nationwide Challenge America initiative to honor wounded warriors. The event will feature musicians Michael McDonald, Alison Krauss, Darius Rucker, Melinda Doolittle, and Mac McAnally. We want to raise funds and awareness for Challenge America, which will work with communities across America to develop recreational and occupational programs for returning injured military personnel and their families.

On a daily basis, how do you determine what your purpose is and what you’re going to pursue?

I remember what I learned from Mary Chapman, who was my mother-in-law when I was married to her son [Christian musician Gary Chapman]. She taught me to pray this prayer: “Lord, lead me today to those I need, and to those who need me, and let something I do have eternal significance.”

I don’t think we can always identify what that eternal significance is. But there’s a verse in John that says, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). I believe we’re supposed to have our eyes and ears open so we can be a part of something bigger and more filling than our daily to-do list.

When I was a kid, my mom used to say, “Amy, being led by the Sprit is better than the life of 007. You never know what’s going to happen, or where God’s going to put you!”

That’s how I try to live, and part of it is to not be overly scheduled. I wake up. I have some things I need to get done. But then, beyond that, who knows how you’re going to engage in today? It also helps that I watch almost no TV, and sit down at a computer once a day or every other day.

I still pray the prayer my mother-in-law taught me. And at some point, I trust that I’m going to land where I’m supposed to land.

Steve Rabey is an award-winning writer and an adjunct professor with Fuller Seminary.