Musings on Rich Mullins

It was a Sunday morning, September 19, 1997, and we went to worship with our church family, Crossroads Community Church, which met in the gymnasium of the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home. Teams of volunteers went early each week to set up chairs and the sound system and the worship team rehearsed before the congregation gathered to worship together.

On that Sunday morning in September, I don’t remember exactly when we got the news, but it rippled through the young congregation and there were many tears. Singer/songwriter Rich Mullins had been killed in a car accident during the night. Several in our congregation knew Rich personally, including my husband. Countless others had lived and loved his music and lyrics throughout their young faith walks and the impact of his no longer being around to write songs and share them with the world.

A few years earlier, in 1994, I was facing a job loss and had to bear the news for a few weeks until it was made public. One night, feeling very uncertain about the future and dealing with the emotions of what was happening, my husband and I were listening to a newly-released Rich Mullins song, “Hold Me, Jesus.” As we listened, my husband held me in an embrace and we just let the words wash over us:

“So hold me Jesus,
Cause I'm shaking like a leaf
You have been King of my glory
Won't You be my Prince of Peace.”

There were many times that Rich Mullins’ music and lyrics touched our lives. He recorded on the label that my husband worked for, so he had experiences of getting to be at listening parties for album releases and we owned the catalog of Rich Mullins’ work on CDs.

Fast-forward to September 2017. I was sitting in bed relaxing and scrolling through Facebook and saw that Andrew Peterson was livestreaming a concert at the Ryman Auditorium as tribute to Rich Mullins on the 20^th anniversary of his death. Rich was a musical hero of Andrew and many others and they were performing Rich Mullins songs that night. I decided to tune into the concert from the comfort of my bed and listened to the songs wash over me once again.

My marriage had ended years earlier, so I had not been in the Christian music world other than as a consumer for quite a while, but as soon as the songs played, I was transported back to the days when Rich Mullins songs filled my ears more often. They sang the song, “If I Stand” and the lyrics touched me deeply as I looked around my bedroom:

“So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can't, let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
And if I sing let me sing for the joy
That has born in me these songs
And if I weep let it be as a man
Who is longing for his home.”

My bedroom had not changed much over the years since my divorce and the house that had been a provision from the Lord was starting to cause me some financial strain due to repairs. As those lyrics rang in my ears, I thought about how I felt paralyzed to do anything to change my current housing situation, and I wanted something to change so badly.

As those words played, I remember saying to the Lord (or to the room), “I’ve got to get out of here!” The memories that were wrapped up in the room and house that were invoked by the lyrics of Rich Mullins songs were strong and brought me some grief, but suddenly also gave me courage and hope to look beyond my four walls. I didn’t have to sit in my bed, remembering times past, and not have the hope of what God had promised me from Isaiah 41:10:

“Fear not, for I am with you;
    be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
    I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

God had been with me and had never left me or forsaken me in my 50 years of life and in my years as a single mom. He was with me through a health scare, when my husband left, when my father died, when my son went to college. God was with me in the happier times, too, and I knew that He would continue to be with me and would uphold me and strengthen me for my next steps, wherever they would lead.

Soon after that September night in my bedroom, I called a realtor who I knew and had him come over to help me determine what it would take to sell my house. We made a plan of what I needed to do to prepare the house for sale and I began asking for help from friends to get the work done. Thanks to the many hands that made lighter work, I was able to put the house on the market in March 2018 and it received 7 offers in 48 hours. I was blown away!

And to circle this back around to Rich Mullins on this day, 22 years after his passing (untimely to those on earth, but not to the Sovereign God of the Universe), I saw a post by Andrew Peterson and by another friend giving tribute to Rich Mullins once again. I also heard the song, “Awesome God” being played in the office of the worship leader down the hall and was thankful to be able to look back on the words and music that Rich wrote and sang with gratitude in my heart.

 “Hold Me Jesus”–written by Rich Mullins, ©1993 Universal Music/Brentwood Benson Publishing.

“If I Stand”–written by Rich Mullins and Steven Robert Cudworth, ©1988 Universal Music Publishing Group.