COVERINGS’ Covergirl: Becky Fender

Coverings: Our age group has to leave something behind. We can’t have another generation of hurting women. I know that you do your part through music. What is it about the music that grabs us…that moves us? It transports us. What is it about that music that lifts us and heals us, when we hear it, but after we go out the door; after you’re done and we leave its presence we seem to come back “down to earth”? Is this a crazy question?
Becky Fender: No. No. It’s not a crazy question. I can’t speak for other people’s music, but I know that my own music has such a positive message that if I dwell on the words of my music then those words will bring me up and out for that moment. But, the moment I cease to dwell on the words then I’ll find myself right back in that same situation. That’s why the Bible says “meditate on these day and night.” That is what makes you like a tree planted by the rivers of water.

Now, let me show you what God has done in my life. In my song I Give You Jesus the second verse says:
when your body is in pain
and your health you can’t regain,
you need someone
At that moment in time I wasn’t sick…didn’t know anything about being sick. Little did I know that just a few months later, I would be diagnosed with a tumor behind my eye. There was no cure. They [the physicians] were going to operate, but they couldn’t promise I would come out with sight…it was so close to the brain. It could be fatal. All of a sudden the words to the song that I thought I was singing for you, came back to me.

I Still Have A Future is a song that I wrote a few years ago for a woman in her 60’s, who was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was only given a few weeks to live. She lived seven years, thereafter. There are times when people discount you; count you out. Sometimes they never say it to you, but you can tell by the way they distance themselves from you, ‘she doesn’t think that I still have it… she doesn’t think that I still have it in me’. The older a woman gets the more she needs to understand, “you do still have a future.” If God is not through with you, then it doesn’t matter if every person in this world writes you off. God is the only one who can pull the plug. He’s not going to pull the plug as long as there is work for you to do on this earth. I’ve gotten two bad reports from mammograms. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. God’s not through with me yet. I am still important. I am still working. I am still doing the work of God. I’m still writing songs that are changing peoples lives. And so, my own song that the Lord gave me, that I thought was for you and my friend who was healed of the cancer; ends up it’s for me afterall. So again, I am thinking about my songs. I am meditating on them.

Coverings: Talk about your new project.
Becky Fender: My new project? I am in what I am calling my bossy phase. I am not sure what I am going to call it, but I’ve written a new “no matter what” song. All of the songs on this CD are commandments to pull yourself together, because we’re running out of time. Women who are restless inside and hurting, are expecting some magical force from the outside, to come in and take care of that. You have to take care of that from the inside out. You take care of it with your words. You take care of it with the music we’ve been talking about, and with praise and worship. By the time you’re 50 years old, if nobody has come to help you by then, they are not coming. So you have to do it by yourself. I am not preaching a secular message where you say, “well I have the power.” No. You don’t have the power, but you have the one on the inside of you who has the power. Let Him do His work. Put the past behind you. Turn your face toward Jesus. Get your focus on Him. Whatever happened back there…forget about it and move toward that prize.

When God says, “clap your hands all ye people” or “Shout unto God with the voice of triumph,” He means you. That’s not a suggestion. It doesn’t matter if you are shy. Whether you’re introverted or bashful, He just said for you to do it. Well, I am entering into that YOU DO IT phase. One of the songs is called Snap Out Of It Sister. There is a book with the same title. I have a song on there titled Don’t. It’s in that old jazz mode (singing: If you ever thought of giving up – Don’t ! ) I even have a sassy one called Position Yourself.

Coverings: There’s a CD and book?
Becky Fender: Yes. This is me telling the ladies, “You have had your pity parties long enough. You need to snap out of it! Get up in the morning, get yourself dressed up. Look as good as you can possibly look with whatever you have got to spend. Get out there and make your body align itself with the word of God.” You may have stayed up all night long and cried, but joy comes in the morning. When I get up in the morning I say, “okay, whatever troubled me last night I am not going to fool with it today. I have joy.

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*To read our entire interview with this month’s Covergirl, Becky Fender, pick up a copy of COVERINGS at your local church or Christian bookstore. You can also have every issue of COVERINGS sent directly to your home for only $18, which gets you a one year subscription.