How Tragedy Changed Anne Wilson’s Life

Singer/songwriter Anne Wilson always dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

Excelling in math and science, she visited NASA when she was in 8th grade, further heightening her enthusiasm for the profession. She had a plan. She would graduate from college. She would meet all the requirements and complete all the training; and one day she would be on a mission to space. Her aspirations of exploring galaxies light years away seemed within reach until one fateful night in the summer of 2017.

And suddenly, everything changed.

Her unwavering commitment to Christ came at just the right time. Three years later, tragedy struck, and had it not been for the cornerstone she found in her faith, she says the events that took place might have destroyed her. In the wee hours of June 7, 2017, police knocked on the front door of the Wilson home and shared news no family ever wants to receive. Wilson’s brother, Jacob, had been tragically killed in a car accident.

He was only 23.

Standing in her living room, just minutes after her dad had given her the news, she heard the voice of God. “I heard God say to me, clear as day, ‘Anne, are you going to trust Me?’ I turned around right in that room, and I spoke to Jesus, and I said, ‘Jesus, I trust You.’

And then God spoke again and said, ‘I’m going to give you what you need to push through this tragedy,’” Wilson remembers. “All of a sudden, the weight of death was lifted fully off my shoulders, and I felt like I could breathe. I had this assurance that God was going to pull me through this tragedy to the other side.”

Without warning, it was as if God released her dreams of dancing among the stars and replaced them with a new dream—a dream of writing and recording music from a place of deep pain and authentic worship. The video of Wilson singing “What A Beautiful Name” at Jacob’s funeral was passed on to a friend of a friend, who happened to be an artist manager. Intrigued by Wilson’s mesmerizing voice and visible hunger for Jesus, the manager contacted Anne six months later. She eventually signed a deal with Capitol Christian Music Group.