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Jennifer Knapp --- The Way She IsBy Charles White______________________________________________
Jennifer was
born and raised in the state of Kansas. At the age of three, her mother and father
divorced. She spent the remainder of her childhood living with her father and
stepmother and had little contact with her biological mother. At the
age of 18, Jennifer earned a music scholarship to attend Pittsburgh State
University in Kansas. During her freshman year, Jennifer found her self at a
low point in her life. She was spending hundreds of dollars a month on
alcohol, unable to realize what she was doing to herself. “When I was a
teenager, I was pretty angry and bitter. I liked to party, so I drank a lot,
I smoked several packs of cigarettes a day at my worst, and I fell in the
area of sexual purity. When I started college at the age of 18, I was at the
bottom of my low. I had nothing left. I had no idea who I was half the time
and how to get to my own home. I set out to abuse my body because I didn't
care about life."
In the midst
of the alcohol and her self-abusive lifestyle, Jennifer saw God in the person
of a neighbor. Jennifer
reflected on this in a recent interview. “In the midst of this behavior
during my freshman year, there was a girl living across the hall from me who
simply loved me day after day with the love of Christ. I thought she was
geeky for being a Christian, but time and time again, she’d put me to bed
when I’d come home and not know which room was mine because I was so drunk.” These
countless acts of mercy by her neighbor and dozens of other Christian
schoolmates caused her to take a hard look at how she was living her life. In
these Christians, Jennifer saw something different, something special.
"I ran into some people that I could just see differences in their
lives. It was like they were
talking about a trusted friend." Jennifer found a group of people that
were excited to be alive. Their peace, joy and belief in God touched
her. This caused
her to struggle for many months to determine what she believed. As she
struggled, she remembered the powerful witness of her neighbor and her
Christian schoolmates. This led
her to eventually turn to prayer and the Holy Scripture for answers.
"The more I prayed and the more I read the Word, the more it started to
make sense to me. More than that, I felt like I was hearing from a living
God."
With her
dedication to Christ came a change in her music. Music became a way for her
to share her joy and her faith in God.
It became a way for her to share the love of Christ with others, just
as her neighbor had done for her on countless occasions. "Wherever you
go, people are largely the same. They want to be loved, they've experienced
hurt and heartaches and they want to be encouraged and music is a great way
to do that." Her hard work
and dedication have earned her the accolades of fans and garnered her
critical acclaim. At the 1999 Dove Awards, Jennifer was honored as the Dove
Award's "New Artist of the Year" and captured an award for
"Rock Song of the Year." Her debut album, Kansas, spent eighty
weeks among the top 25 on the Christian charts. This same year she received a
Billboard video award and was invited to join Lilith Fair.
Her hard work
is not confined to music, however. Remembering the example of her neighbor in
college, Jennifer works to touch the lives of others through her work with
organizations at home and abroad. Jennifer constantly performs work with
international philanthropic agencies in countries such as Estonia or the
Dominican Republic. At home, she has worked with Children's hospitals, Mercy
Ministries, Ronald McDonald House and various Children and Women's shelters.
"It has shown me that God does some pretty amazing things." As one
listens to the powerful lyrics and haunting melodies of Jennifer Knapp, you
hear not the ringing of the cash register, but the cries of someone who
continues to struggle each day with her faith. As she struggles, she cannot
help but share her life and her belief with others. It is her conviction and
willingness to continually wrestle with her faith that makes both her music
and her presence a powerful witness to the awesome power and love of Jesus
Christ. In her music, we can hear echoes of the psalmist who wrote,
"Give me the joy of your saving help again and sustain me with your
bountiful Spirit. Open my lips, O Lord and my mouth shall proclaim your
praise." ___________________________________________________ This is
Jennifer's great new album, just released November 20, called The Way I Am.
Not
only does Jennifer sing this album, she also wrote it! Enjoy some
RealAudio clips from The Way I Am below as well as Jennifer's
own comments about the lyrics she composed.
It makes sense to open up the record
with this song because it begins the search for grace. It's an
acknowledgement that I need hope for the day. It's kind of an up
throwing of hands saying, "OK, there's gotta be something else. I
need a solution, need it now, I'm waiting. Here we go." The
energy of it is somewhat purposed. Even though I know God loves me,
sometimes I still need reassurance. It's not some big glory chain of
events. It's just all I need to hear, that small voice. This song
started as that prayer. I demo-ed this song at my house and didn't give
it much thought after that. But when I started playing new songs for
Toby and the people at Gotee, they loved it! Before I knew it, we had
recorded it for the album. I
literally wrote this song as an actual prayer, sitting in my room one
night. I'd come back to it again and again, and I never thought that it
would be out in the open on a record. I wanted to make sure that we had
a solid tie on this record that people could really sink their teeth into and
think about how Scripture fits into this process of admitting our
humanness. So I asked Toby McKeehan to read Psalm 4 over the
music. The timing on it is so artful. |
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