Rebecca St. James dreamed of motherhood long before she became a Grammy-winning Christian singer-songwriter, which made two miscarriages cut into a hope she had carried since childhood.
“There’s a dream that is born immediately,” St. James said in a new Focus on the Family video, describing the little girl or boy a parent begins to picture during pregnancy.
The Recording Academy credits St. James with one Grammy win and two nominations, but she said motherhood had always surpassed singing, acting and writing books as her deepest dream. The oldest of seven children, she remembers having a younger sibling on her hip from the time her first brother was born when she was 2 until her youngest sister arrived when she was 14.
St. James met musician Jacob Fink, known as Cubbie Fink, at 32, married him at 33 and welcomed their first daughter at 36. Before that baby arrived, she read stacks of books about sleep and healthy eating and thought her years helping with younger siblings had prepared her for a breeze.
Then a tiny person depended on her for everything. St. James said she placed perfectionistic pressure on herself to get motherhood right, even while delighting in the daughter she had waited years to meet.
But the family did not grow again as quickly as St. James expected. She and Fink tried to have another child for roughly two years, and she suffered two miscarriages, a painful history also detailed in a 2024 Focus on the Family profile.
She described that stretch as winter. Her body felt as though it were failing her, and the uncertainty left her wondering whether she would ever become pregnant again.
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“God, we are desperately hurting right now and we seek to trust you in the pain. We trust that you’re good,” she remembered praying with her husband.
The strain followed them into their marriage. St. James admitted that grief and tension did not bring out their best, but the hard season taught them how to keep trusting God and stay close to each other.
A 2017 performance with her brothers, for KING + COUNTRY’s Joel and Luke Smallbone, helped mark the turn from winter to spring, according to the Focus profile. Less than a year later, St. James and Fink welcomed daughter Imogen, followed by son River in 2020.
Their three children are now 12, 8 and 5. St. James treasures homeschooling them, watching them play and hearing everyone’s stories around the dinner table.
Motherhood has also given her a fresh picture of God’s love. She described looking at her children with tenderness even when they have a rough day and realizing that the Lord’s grace toward His children runs deeper still.
“But with God, his grace is there and it’s so real and so big and so powerful,” she said.
St. James has tried to pass along the steady presence she received from her own mother, Helen Smallbone. In a 2024 iMOM essay, she remembered folding laundry, cleaning or sitting on a bed while her mother made time for conversations about life and faith.
St. James now co-hosts the weekly Christian parenting podcast “Practice Makes Parent” with Dr. Danny Huerta. At home, she wants her children to remember a mother who saw them, listened and made time for them.
“I want to slow down my life enough to be available to my children,” St. James said.
St. James hopes her children remember a mother who loved them wholeheartedly and sought to honor God in the way she raised them. For her, much of motherhood is caught rather than taught.
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