When talent meets purpose, it is a potent combination.

It fuels a passion so anointed that it’s hard to deny. With one listen to the songs of Charly Perry, that heartfelt passion is palpable.

On her Gotee Records debut, “Hallelujah Anyway,” the young singer/songwriter channels unspeakable tragedy into a triumphant anthem about the faithfulness of God. In a voice that oozes vulnerability yet teems with the strength and resilience that comes from a close walk with Jesus, Perry reveals the timeless truths she’s learned after a season of immense pain.

I’ve got wounds they’re slow to heal/Some feelings I don’t want to feel/Got memories that I can’t change/Lost someone I can’t replace, Perry sings in the opening lines of “Hallelujah Anyway.” Penned with Tyrus Morgan and Molly Reed-Grayson, the poignant song explores Perry’s feelings in the wake of her brother Clay’s murder. Home for Christmas break, the college quarterback was stabbed outside a Nashville venue after defending a girl who was being harassed. The assailant followed Clay and his two friends outside and stabbed all three of them, killing Clay and one friend and seriously wounding his other buddy.

“It was written definitely from a deep place. It definitely had a lot to do with the things that I’d gone through with Clay going to heaven,” Perry says of “Hallelujah Anyway.” Even though the song is very personal to her; she sees the message as universal. “We’re all constantly going to be facing trials and hard things on this earth. I love that song because when times are hard and we don’t know what to say, say hallelujah anyway.”

Another song that holds a special place in the 23-year-old’s heart is “Joy of the Lord,” which she co-wrote with Benji Cowart and Jordan Mohilowski. “I remember the joy of the Lord being my strength through that whole time,” she says. “It was so painful, but I remember having this joy and it didn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t make it happen for myself. It was just there, and I’ve never experienced that more in my life. I knew there was a difference between happiness and joy, but I didn’t get it, and then after going through the tragedy and experiencing that literally from the day it happened on, I felt like, ‘Wow. I get it now. This is not of myself and I’m not happy about this, but the joy of the Lord is sustaining me through the worst thing of my life.’ It encapsulates a lot of my life. I look back and I see where God was carrying me all along the way. Sometimes it just takes looking back to remember that He’s going to carry you through in the future.”

Perry admits there was a time when she couldn’t imagine music as her future, which seems odd considering she’s practically country music royalty. Her father, Casey Beathard, is a hit country songwriter who has written songs for Trace Adkins, Eric Church, Billy Currington, Tracy Lawrence, Billy Ray Cyrus and Kenny Chesney, among others. He’s one of the 2023 inductees into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame along with Keith Urban, Kix Brooks, David Lee Murphy and Rafe Van Hoy. Her brother Tucker is an up-and-coming artist on Warner Music Nashville. (Football is the Beathard family’s other passion. Her grandfather is NFL Hall of Famer Bobby Beathard and her brother C.J. is a quarterback for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Clay was a quarterback at Long Island University.)

“When I was little, I loved singing and I would always say, ‘I want to be a singer when I’m older,’” she recalls. “Then sometime in elementary school I just stopped singing in front of anyone. I had a lot of fear, and I also had some measuring up in my head because I had seen a lot of the Nashville music business. I actually didn’t sing in front of anyone for years and years.”

In 2019, a year after she graduated from high school, God began changing her heart when she became more involved in her church’s music ministry. Suddenly she saw a reason to use the gifts she’d been given. “The Lord started unpeeling the layers of fear and showing me this thing that He’s put in me and what really changed everything for me was seeing a reason to sing. When I connected with Jesus, it made sense to me. Before that, just to go sing for me personally, it never clicked.”

Once she discovered her purpose and a reason to use her voice to reach others with the gospel, Perry began writing songs and posting videos online while still serving in her church ministry. “God started to soften my heart and show me He wanted me to dig deeper,” she says of developing her songwriting. She was really starting to blossom creatively in the summer of 2019. Then in December, her brother went to heaven and her perspective was further changed. “When Clay passed away, it was like a new even deeper sense of ‘Okay there’s no messing around anymore,’” she says of feeling an urgency to reach people for the Kingdom. “I’d known for some time God was wanting me to step into this, but I’d been so scared. It gave me a reason to not make excuses anymore because my time here is short. You just never know what will happen, and if God wants to use me then I don’t want to mess around with that. I want to do what He’s putting on my heart to do. That definitely was motivation. Now I see there’s purpose in this and it’s not about me, it’s about Him.”

The songs that have emerged from this season are shimmering celebrations of God’s faithfulness. “Be Still,” which Charly co-wrote with her dad and Jonathan Smith, swirls and soars, offering hope and acknowledging the peace found in God’s presence. “That song is really special and definitely speaks to my heart on so many levels,” she says with a warm smile. “Just the simple fact of being still and knowing who God is in the midst of anything, that’s where you find true rest and that’s where we’re meant to be.”

After losing her brother, songwriting became a cathartic experience that helped her heal. “It was like an avenue to express how I was feeling and to even worship God through the heartache,” she says. “Every day is so different with grief, but right after Clay went to heaven, I just remember God being so near. It’s like He was giving me words to write. I’ll always treasure that time.”

The song “Heavenly Praise” feels like a conduit between earthly worship and celestial praise. “That song is about joining the angels, the saints and the people in heaven worshipping God,” she says. “That’s what really carried me through that time was feeling connected to my brother in that way. Just knowing that he’s worshipping God in heaven, and I can do that here right now. That’s what always has made me feel closer to my brother. In spirit we can join together and glorify God in that way.”

On “Following,” written by Perry, Smith and Ethan Hulse, the young artist speaks of surrender to God, even when fearful. “I love that song because to me it’s a marker in the ground saying that I’m going to follow God,” she says. “I’m going to keep following even when I’m scared. There’s a line that says, ‘If I’m honest, I’m scared of what it might cost,’ and that’s just so true for me. It’s so scary to trust God because we don’t know what He’s going to do but I know who God is and I know His character. I know it’s going to be good even when it’s hard.”

As heartbreaking as it was to lose her brother, Perry says God has been so gracious in caring for her family and enabling them to forgive his killer. “Every single person in my family just wanted him to know Jesus at the end of the day, and that’s literally by the grace of God,” she says. “I don’t understand it, but I’m so grateful. God has kept us in His hand, and when you see the good that comes out of such tragedy, that changes everything too. At Clay’s celebration of life when I saw how many people gave their lives to Jesus that day, it sounds weird to say but it was almost like, ‘Okay that was so worth it. I’m still heartbroken and in so much pain, but God you have such a good plan.’ Also, my brother is more alive than I am right now so he’s not sad about it and I know my brother would do it all over again if he saw what was going to come out of it. So I have peace. We’re not made to be here forever.”

Perry is hoping her music will help others who are hurting and will ultimately usher them into a closer relationship with Christ. “I hope these songs can meet people where they are and then hopefully stir their hearts to worship Jesus or at least want to get to know Him more and who he is,” she says. “There’s definitely a lot of rawness in these songs. There’s a lot of the reality of the pain that we all walk through. I wanted to be honest, but I also want to let people know you can walk through the pain and see God, and then want to worship Him through it. That’s my heart. My hopes is that people feel like they want to do that too.”