Marie Miller takes music and faith to new level in 'Woman'

By Gina Christian

(OSV News) -- A young singer-songwriter in Nashville, Tennessee, is taking her music -- and her faith -- to a new level with her latest release.

"Woman," a collaboration by Marie Miller and fellow artists Sarah Kroger and Sarah Hart, is "the first song I've released in a very long time that is totally scriptural," Miller told OSV News.

The song -- part of a larger project that will be released in 2024 -- recounts "three women in Scripture that encounter Christ and are transformed by him," said Miller, who sings a passage about the Samaritan woman Jesus met at a well, as described in the fourth chapter of John's Gospel (Jn 4:4-42).

That passage resonates deeply with Miller, a 34-year-old Virginia native who grew up in a large Catholic family with a love for both music and God.

"I started to have a real love for the Eucharist around age 15 or 16," she said, admitting that devotion began in part for an unlikely reason.

"When I got my driver's license, I knew that if I told my mom I was going to Mass or adoration, she would let me drive the car," Miller said. "It seriously started out that way."

Over time, adoration took on "a special significance," deepening her intimacy with Jesus Christ.

"Adoration allowed me the opportunity to get to know him through Scripture and through prayer, just sitting there with him," said Miller. "And it was a huge influence on my life. To this day, the red candle (near the tabernacle) signifying that Jesus is present is the closest to home I'll ever feel, no matter where I travel around the world. That is my guidepost for sure."

Still, Miller said it has taken her several years to fully integrate her faith and her music, which she "separated" from each other.

"It was like, 'Well, I love my music, and God is kind of something I need to do,'" she said.

That wall began to crumble after Miller read St. John Paul II's 1999 "Letter to Artists," which declares that beauty is "a call to transcendence."

"It changed my life," said Miller. "I really had an 'a ha' moment that the beauty I was searching for in my music was the whisper of beauty himself," in the person of God.

Miller, who said she has "always wanted to make music that led people to God," was signed to a label as a Christian recording artist at age 16 -- although developing that career during adolescence proved exhausting.

"I did that for a couple of years, but I didn't really like it as much as I thought I was going to," she confessed. "Being a teenager is hard enough, and then (I was) trying to be a professional artist. I would be performing for these contemporary Christian music events. I was on the road a lot promoting my first single, and I just kind of wanted to play soccer and play music (informally)."

Feeling "really burned out by age 20," Miller "took a step back" with the cooperation of her label, which she ended up leaving in 2018 to make her independent release, "Little Dreams."

That album "was more folk and had more of a spiritual leaning," she said.

With "Woman," her faith has blossomed into song, said Miller.

"The reason why I love the woman at the well so much is (because) of a letter Mother Teresa wrote to her sisters," said Miller. "She had just read something by John Paul II about (Jesus saying) 'I thirst' (Jn 19:28). Mother Teresa (says), 'Jesus thirsts for you.' In the encounter with the woman at the well, he says, 'Give me a drink.' There's something that woman has that is of value to him. He has given his sons and daughters that opportunity to satisfy his thirst. That will always blow my mind."

The other parts of the song, which focus on Mary Magdalene and the woman caught in the act of adultery (Jn 8:1-11), also explore how "Jesus always wants to tell us that we are cherished, no matter what is going on in our life," said Miller. "We have a role in evangelization, reminding women that we are cherished, we're loved and we have a calling to share that love with the world."

The recently married Miller said she draws strength from that awareness as she strives to be "the best wife and mother possible.

"I just know that thinking about Jesus more and singing about him more is going to help," she said.