Austin French made a name for himself as an independent artist with his high-quality YouTube covers, and now he's signed to Fair Trade Services, making his own music, and gaining new fans with his debut label single, "Wide Open." In this guest feature, French shares why he wrote this song. 

I was 21 years old and packing a moving truck with my wife, getting ready to take off to move to Delray Beach, Florida the following day, when my life changed forever. Until this point in my life I had a picture of what I thought my life would look like. My wife and I had been married for a little over a year and we had a five-year plan to start having kids. But God had something else planned.

Through the door walks my mother-in-law with a four-month-old chunk of a baby who had been taken from his home by the State of Georgia to be placed in a safe home. The moment I met this sweet little boy I felt something I would never forget. I wanted to be his daddy more than anything. That day I learned first hand that some of the best things God has for us we may never even see coming our way.

We started fighting for this sweet little baby boy and it was the hardest thing we have ever walked through. Loving a baby as our own, but living hours away, wishing more than anything that he could come home. For a year and a half we prayed, cried, laughed and screamed, and finally little Coleman James came home to live us.
 
This journey was not a part of my plan. But I wouldn't trade him for anything. Because my wife and I were willing to jump into the unknown with our hands and hearts wide open we watched God do miracles in front of our eyes. God rescued a little baby boy and gave him a future, a family, and hope.

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the Lord. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." - Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV

These are the words I have become well acquainted with. And maybe you have too. Our society teaches us that we hold the key to our destiny. That it's up to us to make a life worth living, but I believe it's the opposite. I believe it's when we lay our life down that we begin to discover the life God has for us. That's the heart behind my song, "Wide Open." I pray it encourages you to embrace the unexpected as moments and miracles in the making that are waiting on your hands and your hearts to just simply be ready, and be wide open.

Check out the song: