We’re just past the middle of the year, and Jamie MacDonald has already had three chart-toppers.
The most recent hit on the Billboard Christian Airplay Charts is “Ain’t No Way.” “Desperate” and “Left in the River” were the two that hit the chart before that, CBN reported.
All three of the songs are from her self-titled debut album, which features 16 tracks in all. She has the current record for the fastest-rising artist, as she got three chart toppers in the eight months since her album was released.
The 42-year-old shares her testimony through her music.
“I struggled a lot as a young girl. After my parents divorced, we really never saw our dad again,” she told CCM.
However, the memories she does have of him are positive. He would drive her and her brothers around, and they’d sing at the top of their lungs. It’s where she got her love of music.
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It’s hard to guess from her powerful voice and obvious confidence that she had “identity issues” growing up.
Her mom got remarried when she was 12. “My new stepdad brought a ton of stability to our house, but he didn’t ever really want kids. And so, he made the rule for me. No singing in the house,” she recalled.
A part of her comfort was suddenly gone. She was celebrated at school for her voice and punished for it at home. Eventually, she dropped out of high school, got into drugs and gang violence and even went to prison.
At 21, she said, “God, if you still have a plan for me and if you can get me out of this life that I’m in, I would love to know the plan. And I’d love to give my life to you and sing for you.”
She soon got baptized and felt the sins of her past wash away — which is what she sings in “Left Me at the River.”
“Here I am 20 years later from the baptism anniversary, and I’m just now getting to tell this story and, invite people in on just what God’s done in my life,” she said.
Her song, “Desperate,” is about the grief of losing her father. He had dementia, and she spent many years caring for him before he passed.
“I was carrying a lot of grief and a lot of heartache from that season,” she said of when she wrote the song. “Even the song says, ‘I’m not asking, I’m begging.’ I just feel like a lot of people get to that low place and maybe they don’t know how much God loves them.”
She noted that a lot of people think they can’t ask God for big things. But he can hold it all — even the heaviest grief.
“It’s been cool to see God come through in some of my most desperate prayers and really show up and say, okay, I’m listening,’” she said.
MacDonald is singing at many special events over the summer and will soon join Phil Wickham on his Song of the Saints tour, beginning Sept. 16.
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