The Story Behind the Song
“Made Me Glad” is certainly one of the most sincerely systematically Scripture-saturated songs we can sing. (Try saying that three times fast!) Each line is a paraphrase or direct quote from the Bible:
Miriam Webster is an Australian singer, songwriter and worship leader. From 1996 to 2007 she served on the worship leadership team of Hillsong Church in Sydney and can be heard on many of its recordings from that period. After her time at Hillsong, she relocated to the United States and released her first solo album, “Made Me Glad,” in 2010. The title track from that album had been first released on a 2002 Hillsong record titled “Blessed.”
Miriam shared a little of her creative process: “I love to write when His word has opened up my eyes to His perspective rather than my own.” In reference to her solo album, she stated that it “…was mostly shaped by songs that have been inspired from personal praise and worship, or times with God where I received life and strength through His Word.”
In regards to her song “Made Me Glad,” Miriam said: “I was living for eight months in a mouldy old house with no TV so I wouldn’t be distracted. One day I was speaking some words of praise to God and said, ‘You have made me glad.’ It’s like He grabbed those words and praise rose up within me. He revealed to me freshly that day that it doesn’t matter where I am…in a beautiful hotel or the opposite, Jesus is the one who makes me glad and my joy is in found in Him. There was one place in this song that I couldn’t think of a line, so when it came to finishing it I remembered this experience and put ‘You have made me glad’ in there.”
As we sing “Made Me Glad,” we are literally fulfilling God’s directive as recorded in Colossians 3:16, where the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”
So sing, blessing the Lord and trusting in him—your protector and provider—he who has, and will continue forever, to make you glad!
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