Imagine a 19-year-old college student looking out the window while driving through Asheville, N.C. She goes home and writes a song about how she felt. Years later the song is on the radio, sung at her college and heard around the world.
If that sounds odd, imagine how Laura Story felt. She wrote “Indescribable” and was more surprised than anyone that the demo she sent to Nashville, Tenn., ended up in the hands of Chris Tomlin, who eventually recorded it. “All of a sudden we started hearing the song everywhere,” says Story, 33. “It wasn’t anything I was looking for … that’s the story of my life.”
Story lacked so much confidence in her musical ability—namely, her singing—that she’s still surprised to be leading worship at her Atlanta church and at events around the country: “I grew up listening to people who could do all these vocal acrobatics and I knew I couldn’t do that. I have a decent voice, and I sing in tune most of the time. But when I realized this was something maybe God wanted me to do, I wasn’t going to shy away from it.”