Moment:
Saturday, November 16th, 2019 at 9:52 AM IST
“Welcome to the group Su-ni-ta.”
Christmas is almost upon us, and it is by far my favorite time of year. I had a really awesome early Christmas present this year: an original song! I’ve been songwriting since I was nine years old (the first couple weren’t that great to be honest), but I found renewed inspiration when I came to India. I wrote this song in September, then I had the privilege of meeting the incredible musicians of the band Upside Down, who I met in Hyderabad when we all played together at our campus Christmas program during my time abroad. We rehearsed together through all of September and October, then in November, we dove into recording this song. Collaborating with them to produce this song was an absolute dream come true, and I hope you are just as blessed listening to our song as we were making it.
The song is called “Emmanuel,” and though it talks about God sending His Son Jesus to be born as a baby to one day save the world, I think it is a song that can be relevant at any time of year, not just Christmas (and for those of you who listen to Christmas music year-round, all the better!). This song was inspired by an incredible God experience I shared with one of my friends, after which I got home, immediately pulled out my guitar, and wrote this song, “Emmanuel,” that very same night.
My friends and I had gone to our friend’s house to visit her, as she was extremely ill and home-bound for a long time, and had lost all hope of getting healed. She shared that she was in fear of losing her job, of being harmed by those who called themselves her family, and of not being able to afford a place to stay in the coming year. I asked her if I could pray for her, and when she agreed, I took her hand and closed my eyes. I felt a rush to my head, like I was spinning, and the words just started to flow out of me, and honestly I don’t remember what I said. But after I said “amen,” she told me that in a really dark season of her life, a friend had gifted her a Bible, and whenever she needs encouragement, she simply opens the Bible to a random page and somehow it always says exactly what she needs to hear.
She asked me to get her Bible, then she opened it, handed me the book without looking at it, and asked me to read the first thing I saw. I looked at the page in awe, because this chapter that stared back at me talks about the greatest provider of hope and peace that I have ever known. It was Isaiah 9, a chapter that my family reads every year during the Christmas season, because it talks about the promise of a coming Savior. I firmly believe that there are no coincidences in the life of a a believer, and this was no different, because like she had said before, it was exactly what she needed to hear.
About a month later, after writing the song, I presented it to the band, and they helped me turn my iPhone recording of my sick voice singing with just an acoustic guitar into something that we could not be more proud of. Hours of rehearsing, hauling gear into restaurants for post-studio dinners, and hiking around for the perfect video shoot resulted in this song and video that will hopefully make your Christmas season and the rest of your year a little brighter.
We filmed everything for our video literally the day before I hopped on a flight back to the States, and Calvin, Chris (K.D.), Tej, Noah, Goutam, and Joshua made it all come together. Thank you to the band for making this song come to life, and thank you to everyone who listened, watched, commented, liked, subscribed, and shared - we are absolutely overwhelmed by the tremendous support as we delved into unknown territory to come out with this song!
