#8: A Little Help From My Friends
I need to tell you about my friends.
I recognize that as I share my songs, other people’s stories are woven into them. And those are not my stories to tell. So more often than not, I’ll keep the anonymity of the other people in my life. But I have many great things to say about these friends, so I will gladly tell you about Jenn and Nolan.
Jenn and Nolan are two of my dearest friends. Everyone else in my life has heard much about them, because I simply think they are wonderful. They are married with a growing gang of the cutest kids, and I have never met any other people who can so seamlessly manuever between lively music, silly games, and deep conversations like Jenn and Nolan can.
And if they are reading this, they are probably embarrassed to be highlighted.
But they are formative in my life in so many ways. They are also a key part of me making a music album. So I have to tell you about them.
I’ve played a lot of music in my life. I grew up playing fiddle, which led to guitar and piano and any other instrument I could get my hands on. There’s a beautiful dichotomy to music. It is immensely personal and intimate. But it demands to be shared and communed over. It is a canvas upon which we can paint any of our emotions. Joy, gladness, lamenting, confusion. Music helps us express it all.
And the walls of Jenn and Nolan’s house have heard music in all these different tones.
They are eager to turn a gathering of any size into a spontaneous space of worship. It is an eagerness I have tried to apply in my life as well. And that space they created was where I was most comfortable to share my first song.
I really don’t like self-promotion. I don’t like the spotlight. So when I had written my first real song, it was with great apprehension that I considered sharing it. It was deeply vulnerable. It was an outpouring of emotions from the suffering I had been carrying. Sharing it in any big way was far from my mind. But as soon as I had written the last word, I knew I wanted to share it with Jenn and Nolan.
In part, I felt that because I couldn’t think of anyone else who I could share such a personal thing with and have no fear of judgement or self-consciousness. That alone is a testimony to the kind of friends they are. And in other parts, it was a movement of gratitude, because they had been the faithful friends who sat with me in my long season of suffering. They had spoken truth into my life and aided me in the wrestlings. They had prayed over me and spurred me on in my race. I wanted to thank them for that, and I knew how much they love music.
When I shared it with them, it was my first glimpse into what would be unfolding in my life. The details of that is something precious to keep private. But it was a moment of clarity that set my song-writing into full motion.
I need to include an entry about Jenn and Nolan because it is one of the stones of remembrance in my life. As for them and their house, they have served the Lord. And their obedience has impacted me and others in eternal ways. It now seems so obvious that they would be the first ones I’d share my songs with, that they’d be integral to the grander story behind those songs.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” (Hebrews 12:1)
I love talking about my friends. I’m happy to share the ways my life and these songs have been shaped by the saints around me. Jenn and Nolan are just one example, but there’s oh so many more!
The best is yet to come.
Madison Marlyn
9.19.2025
