Growing up as a Pastor's kid is not an easy thing. For Jessica Smith-Wright, she sums it up with a fine point: 'You are either labeled as a wild child or a goody too shoes.' And while Jessica was basically a good daughter, a family conflict was soon to emerge.
By the time she reached the age of 14, Jessica was a typical teenager, with one exception: she didn't have a serious boyfriend. In fact, she had never had one, because her mother and father wouldn't allow it. 'My parents teach what I used to call the 'no dating' rule,' Jessica recalls, with a voice that sounds like she has grown wiser. 'All of my friends were dating, and my parents were telling me not to date. How could they tell me not to, when they did at my age? How could they tell me about something they never had to deal with?' In junior high through the beginning of high school, the issue created quite a bit of tension at home.
Jessica recalls the turning point in this debate: 'I remember one day, my dad was talking to me about the two different paths that lay before me. He said that one path was this wide path and almost everyone was taking it, but it led to a dead end. The second path was the straight and narrow way that few traveled and it led straight to the heart of the Father. He told me that I would have to decide for myself the one I would take. Of course, I knew he wanted me to take the narrow way, so I wanted to take the opposite.
'During that time, her father made a bold and difficult decision: Jessica was to sever all friendships that were luring her away from her calling. 'My parents cut off a lot of my friendships and wouldn't let me talk on the phone. Can you IMAGINE that for a 14-year old?' she exclaims. 'I thought it was literally the end of the world. And it was -- at least the end of my world.
''I don't believe that there was a specific day my life did a 180-degree turn, but a gradual turn,' Jessica recalled. 'Over time, God began to open my eyes and my heart. I had a new best friend and it was my Creator!' In that time, she began to understand her parents' relationship rule. 'The 'no dating' rule became a 'no dating' revelation. I realized I wasn't old enough to be getting married, so why build a relationship with someone that was probably going to be torn apart.
' It became a turnaround in her family life. At the same time, she began to draw deeper into her spiritual life. "As a pastor's kid, you hear the stuff about God and Jesus every day, and you get to the point of 'yeah, yeah, I've heard all of this over and over again.
' But by spending time with them and God, I began to realize who I was in Him. I absolutely loved to worship Him!'As her spiritual life grew, the desire and joy in worship became a greater part of her life. 'One of my biggest desires was to be able to sing,' recalls Jessica. 'One night when I was seventeen, I was praying and I cried out to God that if He would give me a new voice with which to sing, I would always use it to glorify His name.
' Soon after this prayer, she began to express with a powerful new voice -- not only through her singing, but also through her words as she began writing her own original songs.
And while she never expected to write songs, it began to come out as a natural extension of singing. 'I found that I had certain feelings and thoughts about the Father that I wanted to sing, but I couldn't find songs that expressed it.
' So while her brother, ...
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