By Stacy Riddle, Worship Leader & Singer-Songwriter Artist

Are you in a place of feeling your dream will never grow beyond a seed tucked away inside of your heart?  Did you have a dream begin, only to feel like it died before it could grow past infancy?

We all have growing years in our lives.  I hope my story will bring you encouragement to see them in a new way.

The seed of my music dream started with a miniature Shoenhut table-top piano toy.  At five years old, I started playing tunes like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” by ear.  My mom started me in piano lessons at age 7, and by then every hairbrush in the house was a microphone for my singing.  At 13, I started performing and never looked back.

During my college years, I traveled with performance groups and dreamed of being in the [American Contemporary Christian] band TRUTH.  Even though that dream didn’t happen, my passion for music still needed more expression.  So, after college I considered moving to Nashville to pursue music and even visited to feel it out.  But it seemed so big and intimidating to me!   Instead, I settled into a high school Biology teacher job in Alabama and did music on the side when possible.

In my mid 20’s, I teamed up with Integrity Music in Mobile and recorded vocals with them on some albums.  However, a new beginning started in every area of my life when I moved to Virginia after meeting and marrying my husband, Chuck. Moving was hard! I didn’t know anyone and had no family nearby.  My role became centered around being a wife and mom, and raising our 3 kids while volunteering at our local church.

I used to call the next 22 years “the hidden years,” but I feel like that frames them in a negative way.  I now see them as “the growing years.”  Yes, my dreams went dormant…but my roots went deeper!

In 2015, I got a call from National Community Church to come on board as a worship leader.  Their worship leaders were writing their own songs, and that was exciting for me!  I had written years before but had not had the chance or community since then to grow my skills in writing.  Nashville came back into the picture during this time of my growing years.

I started traveling to Tennessee for writing retreats, learning all I could and meeting other co-writers. It was during one of those trips that I met [worship artist and songwriter] Krissy Nordhoff and learned about a community she founded called Brave Worship.  When I connected with Brave online and took Krissy’s Songwriter Mentorship Course, it changed everything for me.  The next year, she invited me to be a mentor for her on-line program.  God was really stretching me now in my growing years!

In 2019, I had the opportunity to go on a worship songwriting mission trip to Ireland with Brave Worship.   Chuck and I went together on this trip, and the dream to be in Nashville was back in my heart.  In this season of our life, Chuck and I just knew these were ‘our people.’  We also knew we had found our new church!  HopeUC Church had just started a Nashville-area campus pastored by Dustin Smith, someone I had already met during one of my songwriting trips to Nashville.  Everything lined up for us to move in 2020, when God made a way during covid for Chuck to keep his federal government job and telework full time.

In Nashville, co-writing appointments are a normal everyday staple life for people who love writing songs.  This has been a game changer for my growing years.  Being immersed in both the worship team at church and writing songs on a regular basis with other songwriters has grown my skills, my love of musical expression, and helped me consider releasing my own songs publicly. 

The year of 2021 was a growing year of courage.  There was a song I had co-written called “Faster” that I knew would be my first official song release — I just lacked the courage to do it.  For so many of my growing years in Virginia, I’d heard the lie of the enemy telling me that my time had come and gone.  Every year that went by, I would feel like it was just too late for me — I was too old.  But God was growing my courage to silence that lie, and one day I realized my song was meant to be released on my 52nd birthday.

When I decided to release “Faster” on my birthday, I thought about how I would be turning 52 on the 7th of October. I wondered if there was a Scripture withthe numbers 7 and 52, and I found John 7:52.  In this verse, some people were talking to Jesus and said, “Are you from Galilee, too? Search the Scriptures and see for yourself — no prophet ever comes from Galilee!”

Even Jesus faced the opposition of cultural norms. He didn’t fit the mold of a prophet. He wasn’t from the “right” place. His parents probably had a reputation because his mother was pregnant before she and Joseph had actually married.  But He was the Son of God!  And He was on mission!  Nothing could stop that. It resonates in my heart that nothing could stop what God wants to do in my life, either. Philippians 1:6 says, “And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

What to do in the growing years.

Do you find yourself in “the growing years?”  Here are some things I’ve learned in my journey that might help you embrace where you are and follow God’s lead where He is taking you:

• Focus on what God has put right in front of you to do for now. During the longest season of my growing years I was homeschooling my children, raising them to love Jesus, and helping them find their passions. There is NOTHING greater than this calling. Don’t focus on what you are NOT doing, but focus on doing the best at what you have been called to do right now.

• Remember self-care. It’s so important not to over-commit in the effort to fill your time. Make time for your own health — physically, mentally, spiritually and creatively. I compare it to when you are on an airplane and the flight attendant says to put your mask on first before helping others with theirs. Sometimes that means learning how to say “no” to good things.

• Seek out community. In the area where we lived in Northern Virginia, it was hard to get connected. My connection with Brave Worship was mostly online, and it was a lifeline for me creatively. Whatever you do, don’t isolate yourself. God uses people to encourage us!

What started for me, at the age of 5, is now a long-growing flower finally opening up at 52. And you know what?  I believe it is just the beginning!  God is not finished with any of us until we leave this earthly soil for good!

About Stacy Riddle

Stacy Riddle grew up in Mobile, Alabama and spent 23 years in the Washington DC area before her family of 5 made Nashville their home. She is a worship leader, singer and songwriter whose greatest passion is helping others experience breakthrough and freedom in Christ. Though it was a slow road to “Faster,” her first official single release, she wouldn’t trade the deep roots God has given her through the growing years to get here! Check out “Faster” wherever you stream music or find it at her website.

Stacy’s reSOURCEs:

Do you feel like you are in the “growing years” ? Try this book by Alicia Chole

Are you discouraged because you feel like you are “too old” or it’s “too late”? Try this book by Corrie Ten Boom

Want to write worship songs in community? Try Brave Worship and Writing Worship