Natalie Grant Performs Songs ‘Rooted in the Word’ at Canadian National Prayer Breakfast
By Movieguide® Contributor
Last week, Grammy winners Natalie Grant and her husband, pianist Bernie Herms, sat down with the Canadian Bible Society to chat about God’s peace at the Canada National Prayer Breakfast.
“This is a thrill for me,” said Herms, a Canadian, about the Prayer Breakfast.
“We have sung at Prayer Breakfast in the States, and then they were just like you get to sing whatever you want,” Grant said. “We wondered, like, are we supposed to sing ‘God Bless America’ or like what are we supposed to sing? And they said whatever you want, and it was the same here, where we were given the freedom to just choose whatever songs that God had laid on our heart. So knowing that there would be just a range of people’s experience in the room. That’s why we picked a hymn.”
Grant and Herms performed “It is Well with my Soul.”
They wanted Jesus to be reflected in their music.
“We wanted everything that we sang, everything that we did, all the words that I had the privilege of speaking to be rooted in the Word. Songs that were rooted in the Word because then we know that it will go forth and bear fruit, and that for us was was the most important thing,” she said.
“I think we were so inspired last night and this morning in a country that we know is divided,” Grant said, “and you just feel this kind of tension. You feel that at the Prayer Breakfast.”
Yet, amidst all the tension in the room, God brought peace.
“There was such a focus on the Lord and that he’s the Prince of Peace, and I think that [was a] reminder for me of, okay we’re talking about this party and these issues and this moment, but the at the end of the day, the government rests upon His shoulders and He’s in control,” Grant said.
“God still has a plan, and He’s still on the throne and He says peace be still and that He is with us and that we don’t need to fear,” she explained. “And I think that choosing ‘It Is Well’ was definitely that feeling of this might be some tumultuous waters, but…Jesus stands in the middle of all the storms saying oh you don’t have to be afraid…I’m here. Peace, be still.”
Grant shared her joy to be interviewed with Herms on her Instagram Tuesday.
She said, “My love @bernieherms and I got to sit down with the Canadian Bible Society when we sang at the National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa and it was such a great, spirit filled conversation. Bernie doesn’t always join me for interviews so this one felt REALLY special. ? We pray it encourages you!”
Movieguide® previously reported how Grant and Herms met:
“Somebody from the record company recommended a piano player, and his name was Bernie Herms. I ended up hiring him to play music, to play the piano for me for that first concert. And that didn’t just end up being that he would be my piano player, he ended up becoming my husband.”
“That was such an incredible moment of meeting somebody that was going to actually do more than just give me a career. It’s now almost twenty-two years of marriage and writing and producing and creating music together,” she added.
Grant is a thyroid cancer survivor. A few years ago, the disease almost took her voice.
“Her entire career was on the line with a potential thyroidectomy,” her doctor said. “She’s far too young to observe this. I have one perfect daughter and I told her if she were my perfect daughter, I would want to get the tumor out immediately.”
She had the surgery, and the first time she tried to sing, she shocked her rehab coach.
“She said, ‘Why does your voice sound so good?’ ” Grant said. “I said, ‘I don’t know but it came out so much easier than I thought it was going to.’ From the get-go, we had this confidence all of a sudden.”
Weeks later, she could loudly sing her entire latest album. She and her family were overjoyed.
“I started running around the room bawling my eyes out and dancing like a crazy person,” Grant said.
“We were screaming like little kids,” Herms said.
Today, the singer is happily cancer-free, singing at the top of her lungs.
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