Jaci Velasquez Explains How Motherhood Helped Shaped Her New Album

Dove Award winner and Billboard Latin Music Award winner Jaci Velasquez has just released her first album in over five years, her first worship album and her first project with Integrity Music. Trust is simultaneously released in both English and Spanish (Confío). 

Produced by David Leonard (All Sons & Daughters) and Chris Bevins (Salvador, Phillips, Craig & Dean), Trust finds Velasquez taking a decidedly vertical turn, exploring new territory where her faith has been bolstered through seasons of uncertainty that led to a place of complete trust. Certainly, it is a reflection of how her faith has been shaped and strengthened by motherhood with the added challenges of being mom to a special needs child.

"We started noticing when Zealand was two," she says, "but the official diagnosis came in 2nd grade. When they told us it was Autism, I went through a time of mourning the death of the dreams I had for him." It took some time, but she began to dream new dreams for her son, "harvesting the gifts I could see in him."

Today, at 9, Zealand excels in music, in both singing and piano. "His ear is even better than mine," his proud mom says. "Everybody has faith in something," says Jaci, who served as the 2013 spokesperson for Autism Speaks' Tennessee Walk Now. "But at the end of the day, if you're looking to yourself to keep everything under control, God isn't part of the equation. That's where trust comes in, understanding that God loves your children even more than you do." 

Trust features 10 anthems that sing of God's faithfulness, a modern worship and pop hybrid sure to resonate with anyone caught up in the chaotic uncertainty of the everyday. "I don't know a lot about worship as a music genre," Velasquez freely admits, "but I know how God can use music to move people. What we experience in church, in worship, we want to have that experience every day... at home, in the car. In the middle of the day, God uses it to meet us in the middle of our chaos, to move us closer to him, to remind us of who we are and who He is."  

In fact, she really wasn't convinced a worship album was meant to be until she found herself comforting her youngest son, Soren, 7, in the middle of the night, after a bad dream. 

The rocks are falling, the broken calling to the God who moves the mountainsThe earth is shaking, the weary waken to the God who moves the mountains

"When you're scared and don't know what to do, I want you to remember this," she told him. Then she played "God Who Moves Mountains," written by David Leonard, Dustin Smith and Richie Fike. Standing in his room, she closed her eyes and, as the words washed over mom and boy, she raised her hands. When the song was over, they both had tears in their eyes.

"Our lives were changed in that moment because God met us there in a song," she says. "Music is powerful and healing." 

Tags : Jaci Velasquez Trust trustjaci velasquez new album Integrity Music jaci velasquez trust album review