THE VAULT: MUSIC

Jen G: After you two were married, God called your husband to seminary, which meant not only a change in states, but also a career change for you. You went from being a teacher to working at a buffet. Why do you think God decided to reconstruct your life from the bottom up?

Maria Long: I think God humbles those He loves, and He definitely humbled me. I had always felt very confident that God had a plan for my life, but sometimes God tries our faith so that we can experience His faithfulness. I needed more faith. I think He allowed me to experience that because now so many people I encounter are experiencing that, and they don’t know how to deal with it—just like I didn’t at first. But God really worked on me, you know. I needed it! I went from a job where everyone respected and pretty much adored me to people looking at me like, “You have no life, and you’re a loser.” Like I had no value. At that point, I wasn’t getting my value from God, and He knew that. I think that’s why He humbled me—so that I could realize that none of those things mattered. My 10-year reunion, what people thought of me—none of that is as important as what God thinks of me. That’s what matters, and it seemed like once I figured that out, everything changed!

Jen G: That mirror image makes you want to work on yourself! I know I look in the mirror, and sometimes I want to duck out of view.

Maria Long: I know the feeling.

Jen G: I think that’s why God gives us the right person to hold us up during that time. In your case, your husband. Why do you believe that a time of not only financial hardship, but also the emotional change of going from doing what you loved to doing something you didn’t, caused you not only to draw nearer to God, but also served as a means to strengthen your marriage even more?

Maria Long: Maybe because God was preparing me for a time like this, when I would need a strong marriage. Being gone on trips is hard on any marriage. We keep things in perspective, and we maintain balance. I do not like to be gone more than 12 days from Ryan. We really started praying together during those times. I mean, we were so broke.

Jen G: That’s good that you love him that much. During that trial in your life, you began to study the people of the Bible. Was there any particular account that really ministered to your heart—any person or triumph that you held on to until God brought you out of that place?

Maria Long: Yes! Moses and Joseph—how Joseph was in jail for something he didn’t even do, and then God made him a ruler. God was preparing him and testing his faith. I couldn’t even imagine a trial like that for years! Two years, I think. But he remained faithful to God. He depended on God for everything, and look how God changed his life!

Jen G: Yeah, that is inspiring! 

Now, from what I can tell, much like your parents, from high school through college God was using your singing and your heart for souls to lead you into the mission field on your own. Tell me what it was like to be a missionary on such a small island like Yap, where the population is only a few thousand.

Maria Long: Amazing! I loved those people. My students became my kids, and we still keep in touch! It changed my life! I wrote Call On Him on that island because one day I was walking down to my classroom for school, and a man had hanged himself. He was hanging from a tree. They didn’t even take him down until the end of the day. It broke my heart. Just think—I was trying to teach, and all my students were looking at that. Yap had a very high suicide rate.

Jen G: I can’t even imagine that.

Maria Long: Because people didn’t have God, and there was nothing to do once you graduated from school except, like, work at the grocery store, you know.

Jen G: No hope.

Maria Long: Not much purpose. Yeah, no hope of something better. So that day I was talking with my students about what would make a person want to do that, and they said, “Well, if they felt like they had nobody to call on or tell.”

Jen G: They feel alone.

Maria Long: So many people do. You know, just last month a woman wrote me, and her husband told me this too. He came into the house and found her lying on the floor crying because she was listening to Call On Him and had finally accepted Christ into her life instead of pushing Him away and trying to deal with everything alone. I could not believe it!

Jen G: What a testimony!

Maria Long: I cried so hard because, you know, you never think what you wrote will impact someone. You hope it does, but man, I couldn’t believe it! God is so amazing to give me those kinds of experiences. It is the most meaningful thing ever!

Jen G: God uses us as vessels to reach people in uncommon ways. That is amazing because some people will turn on the radio before stepping into a church.

Maria Long: Yeah, that’s so true.

Jen G: I love that about musicians. They reach the unreachable, many times without even knowing it.

Maria Long: Such a powerful thought!