Anne Wilson’s debut album is out! The Christian singer just released My Jesus, a record that includes both her current single, “Sunday Sermons,” as well as the album’s title track, which she wrote with Matthew West and Jeff Pardo.

“I started writing for this record in 2019,” Wilson tells Everything Nash. “So I’ve spent two-and-a-half to three years of writing music and recording songs and working on this. It’s been so fun, getting to create all of these songs, and just take all of these inspirations and put it into songs. I think it’s so fun, because music is so powerful for everyone. And so to be able to create my own music and be able to work on the production side of things, and get this record to where I wanted it to be is just really, really special. So I’m very excited about this record.”

There are 14 tracks on My Jesus, an impressive undertaking for any artist, but especially one who is just getting started, like Wilson. But the Kentucky native says that for her, the hardest part wasn’t having enough songs, but choosing which of the many, many songs she wrote to include on her first project.

‘These songs just mean so much to me,” Wilson says. “It was really hard to pick. I wrote over 130 songs, so to pick the 14 was the hardest thing ever, with so much back and forth, trying to figure out what we wanted to put on the record. So I’m very, very grateful for this. I’m so excited. It feels very surreal.”

The fact that Wilson has any music out at all is still a bit surprising for her. The Kentucky native grew up dreaming of being an astronaut, when her family experienced an unimaginable tragedy that changed everything. Wilson’s older brother, Jacob, was tragically killed in a car accident in 2017, when he was just 23 years old.

“I wanted to work for NASA,” Wilson acknowledges. “I wanted to go down that path. Since I was really, really little — my mom said when I was three and four years old — I would always be looking up at space and just admiring the beauty. I would ask to stay up late so that I could look at the stars. I was just always very big into NASA and space, and math and science came naturally to me. That’s what I wanted to do, and it seemed like that was what the path was going to be the path for me. And then my brother passed away in 2017, and that’s when everything shifted for me. My perspective changed on life in a really big way. I was only 15 at the time, so I was still in my early high school years. I decided to pursue music and drop everything to do with NASA.”

Even more surprising, Wilson had never performed in public, until it was at her brother’s funeral, a testament to both her unwavering faith and her undeniable talent. Wilson was singing “What a Beautiful Name,” which her mother heard, and asked if she would sing it at his memorial service.

“I sang for the first time in front of anyone at my brother’s funeral,” Wilson recalls, “I had never sung in front of anyone before; my mom and dad had never heard me sing. I played piano my whole life, but I was 15 years old and I had never sung in front of anyone. I was downstairs just worshiping the Lord in the middle of the day, probably four or five days after Jacob had passed away. We were planning the funeral and my mom came in the room. She overheard me singing, and then she asked me if I would be willing to sing at the funeral. So the singing at the funeral led to then posting a video of that song, which that video went viral. That’s how I met my manager. And that’s basically how I got into the national scene, all because of that one moment at the funeral.”

While Wilson acknowledges that the idea of sitting at a piano and singing a worship song during the hardest, most painful time in her life might not be most people’s reaction, for her it was the only way to cope with her profound heartache.

“I had this instinct in me to go, ‘Okay, I’m gonna be strong for my family,'” Wilson shares. “And I was the one that kind of held [my family] up for those next few months. God gave me that strength. And so for me, it just happened to be the way that I realized, ‘Okay, I have nothing left. I’m completely, totally heartbroken. I can either leave God and go on my own and try to walk this all out without him, or I can turn towards Him. He’s the only one that can truly get me through this tragedy.'”

Wilson is currently out on the road with Zach Williams, and will then join Crowder and We the Kingdom on tour this summer. Find My Jesus and see a list of all of Wilson’s upcoming shows by visiting her website.

Photo Credit: Cameron Powell