For his entire life, Phil Wickham has been involved in Christian music. Faith and song go hand-in-hand for him. “Music and Jesus have always been used together to point people to God,” he said in an interview with LifeZette.

“I didn’t know if I was going to get back to normal, but I knew I had nothing to fear.”

He’s released nine albums in his music career, including one out this year: “Children of God.”

The contemporary Christian musician and singer, 32, married his longtime girlfriend, Mallory Plotnik, in 2008, and the couple live with their daughters in San Diego, California.

Throughout his career, Wickham has released great music that honors God, and he inspires others to do the same. He was touring and spending time with his family — things seemed to just be going right for him. Until he was hit with a difficult diagnosis.

“It all started about two years ago,” said Wickham. “I lost my voice due to this thing called a polyp on my vocal chord. The doctors said I had to have surgery, and they [believed] they could fix me up real good — but there was a small risk if it healed incorrectly.”

That risk? He might not have the same control over his voice as he once had and might not “be able to sing professionally anymore.”

“I was just floored. I felt frustrated and afraid of what the future would hold,” he said. “But the biggest surprise was feeling a little bit lost — like who am I if I don’t sing?”

[lz_third_party includes=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvEMFc5fV7U”]

That loss of identity struck Wickham to his core and brought a sea of questions.

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“I had to be completely silent for a month-and-a-half, no talking or singing. It just left me in this place of depression and frustration,” he said. “I was just asking God, ‘What are You doing? I don’t see You in this, I don’t hear You in this, I’m just frustrated and I’d love to just see something of You in this.'”

Then, through prayer, came the resounding voice of God — and Wickham knew he shouldn’t worry. He concluded through his prayer: “Even though I didn’t know if I was going to get back to normal, I knew I had nothing to fear.”

“Out of this newfound victory, this refreshed version of identity that I got, I started reading the Scriptures and finding bigger and different meanings in certain verses. I started writing songs from this place of God’s love reawakened in my heart” — and that’s where “Children of God” came into play.

His surgery went smoothly and Wickham soon returned to his music, able to sing just as he had before. He was armed with a newfound inspiration to write the record of a lifetime. Through the questioning, Wickham found his way back to trusting God and finding his identity in Him. “That’s where a lot of these songs came from and that’s what I wanted the story of this record to be.”

“Live in victory, live in freedom. Know that you’re loved.”

Regarding this new record, Wickham said, “I’ve never had such a theme in my mind for what I wanted a record to revolve around as I have for this record.”

“This idea of being a child of God is not something that we are born into, it’s a gift that is given to us,” he continued. “With this new record, I hope that the songs stir people’s hearts to a place where they are reminded, or told for the first time, that they are loved. That nothing they can do can step out of the love God has for them.”

That divine love of God is a great source of comfort for Wickham, and through his new record he hopes to inspire others to feel that same support.

“God welcomes us all into His family. I just hope this record would encourage people to draw closer to Him, and just step into that,” Wickham said. “And to understand a little bit more, or maybe a lot more, what it means to live life knowing that God loves you as his own — because in that knowledge is such a freedom.”

And what is the message Wickham artfully sculpted in “Children of God”?

“Live in victory, live in freedom. Know that you’re loved — you have nothing to be ashamed about, nothing to be anxious about, if God’s on your side,” declared Wickham.