Christian artist Petrina Pacheco has released her new single "God Moves," a scripture-driven Christian AC and worship track that reflects her powerful personal testimony of transformation and faith. Co-written with her son Treyvin Pacheco and produced by Chris Springer, the song emerged from a dream and became a meaningful family collaboration, featuring Treyvin's musical arrangement and a spoken segment recorded by her husband James. Rooted in biblical promises about faith, the lyrics emphasize themes of healing, redemption, and God's power to move in every circumstance. Pacheco's journey-from growing up in church, to enduring abuse and addiction, to experiencing a life-changing encounter with God at age 33-shapes the heart behind the song, which she now uses as a tool to share Scripture and hope with listeners, especially those who may encounter God's Word through music rather than traditional means.
Q: For readers who may be discovering you for the first time, how would you describe your journey-from growing up in Kiln, Mississippi, to becoming a Christian artist sharing your testimony of faith through music?
I was born and raised in the very small town of Kiln, Mississippi. My parents raised me and my siblings up in church so I knew about God but as soon as I was old enough to go and do whatever I wanted, going to church was the last thing on my mind. While venturing out into the great unknown, I was completely naive but yet expected to find a life that I dreamed of and someone with the same traits and morals as my own father. Unfortunately, I was not prepared for what the "real world" had to offer me. I quickly realized that not everyone was like the people from my hometown and that finding a "Prince Charming" was indeed extremely rare or maybe even nonexistent. I found out the hard way that "BAD PEOPLE" did actually exist!
After several years of an extremely toxic and very abusive relationship, at the age of 28, I was finally able to escape from that situation physically but had no idea that I was still trapped mentally. I tried therapy but having to talk about the horrific things I endured in that relationship was too difficult for me at the time so I resorted to something that I felt was a much easier solution and that was consuming alcohol daily to subdue the pain I was feeling inside. I was soon overcome by addictions that led me down a dark path and was quickly spinning out of control!
At the age of 33, I walked into a church service where God stepped in, showed Himself REAL to me and intervened in my life. He saved me and set me FREE from every addiction that ever had me bound. I became a new creation, completely transformed and for the first time in my life I had TRUE JOY in my heart and PEACE in my soul! I finally found what it was that I was missing all of those years. God has since then blessed me with a family. So now me and my husband, James have founded several outreach ministries in hopes to help others who are broken, addicted or lost. Sharing my testimony and the Gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone and everyone who will listen is now my mission.
I knew I was supposed to be singing in church or at the least, be part of a worship team but I did not know that I was going to be writing songs about my life and newfound freedom. I started hearing lyrics and melodies within the first year of my total surrender to The Lord. I quickly realized the songs were about my own personal journey of overcoming life's obstacles and finally becoming who God called me to be. Revelation 12:11 states, "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony." So, I feel that the songs I write are just another way of sharing my testimony and letting people know just how good God really is!
Q: Your new single "God Moves" is deeply rooted in your personal story of redemption. What inspired you to turn that testimony into a song, and what do you hope listeners take away from it?
I came out of an extremely abusive relationship that I was trapped in for several years where intimidation, manipulation and fear was constantly used to control me. Fear became a major part of my every day life and completely consumed my thoughts at all times. I lived in a constant state of fight or flight mode and always expected the worse in every situation eEven after escaping from that relationship. I have found that when people experience abuse or trauma, it's like they automatically default to expecting bad things to happen to them and it makes it much more difficult to believe that true joy or happiness can actually be attained in their future. At least, that was the case for me. I had the mindset of just making the best out of what was left of my life and do my best at making lemonade out of the many lemons life had given me, so to speak. After surrendering my life fully to Jesus, I became a completely different person with a totally different outlook on life. I now have hope where I once was hopeless. I became a new creation in Christ and my mind was transformed as well. I no longer live in fear but now live by faith knowing that God has good things in store for those who love Him.
Q: You've shared that the song first came to you in a dream, with the melody and lyrics already forming in your mind. What was that moment like for you spiritually, and how did it shape the direction of the song?
So, in my dream, I was leisurely walking through an open field. Up ahead of me, I saw what looked like an old rundown guard shack along the left side of the path in the direction I was headed. As I approached the building and began to pass in front of it, I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye so I turned to look at the building. Through the front window of the building, I saw a shadow that looked like the dark silhouette of a man sitting but looking out toward my direction. As I stepped directly in front of that window, while still looking inside of it, I watched as the dark shadowy figure stood up and appeared to be looking directly at me. I paused to turn and look directly at it as well as if we were in a standoff. I immediately sensed that the shadowy silhouette was evil and somehow I knew that it was the spirit of fear and intimidation.
So, while still looking at the figure, I thought to myself "Not today, satan!", laughed out loud, then turned back towards the direction I was originally going and began walking once again. With the first step that I took, I raised my hands, started clapping and singing the words in the exact melody that you hear in the chorus of the song, "When you have faith, God moves, God moves! When you have love, God moves, God moves!" and so on. I remember feeling full of joy while singing those words and melody. So much so that I could still hear it so vividly when I woke up and I remember saying, "Oh I hope that song hasn't been written already because it's gonna be a good one!"
Q: "God Moves" became a special family collaboration with your son Treyvin creating the musical arrangement and your husband James contributing the spoken narration. How meaningful was it to create this project together as a family?
My son, Treyvin showed early signs of being musically inclined and gifted at the age of only 3 years old. He started figuring out how to play songs by ear on the piano on his own as early as I can remember. My husband and I put him in a few different music classes so that he would learn how to read music as well even though he would still rather just play by ear today. I started writing songs when he was just a year old so I honestly had no idea that he would one day co-write songs with me and help create the music for demos of songs that I wrote years ago as well. He is now 16 years old and has collaborated with me on several songs already and has also written several of his own songs as well. "God Moves" is the very first song that Treyvin and I co-wrote and also had professionally produced. When I first received this song in my dream, the next day I sang the melody and lyrics to him that I heard and he created the music from that. He also added the music for the bridge to complete the song. It was my son's idea to add preaching to that part of the song instead of writing a bridge for it.
And since his dad is not only a preacher but also his pastor, we agreed that it would only be fitting for his dad to preach that segment. I wrote out the "narration" segment for my husband to preach and decided to end it with a prayer before I came back in to sing the final chorus. Since my husband isn't a musician or a singer, it was a really unique and special way that he could be part of the music that our son and I created. I think that the final product turned out to be not only special because it's a full family collaboration but also because it's really just an amazing song altogether.
Q: The lyrics are filled with direct references to Scripture, including the promise that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. Why was it important for you to center the song so strongly on the Word of God?
The focus point and vision of this song was to have the lyrics come straight from scripture for a few different reasons. So when a person sings along with this song, they are actually singing verses directly from the Bible itself and may not even realize it. Some people may never even open or read the Bible but if they hear this song, they are hearing the Word of God. Other people may have been desiring to learn scriptures and by singing along to this song, they aren't just singing lyrics but instead reciting verses straight from God"s Word!
I also know that some people may never step foot inside of a church and may never ask for prayer either so I felt that we could also include a short teaching on 'faith' followed by a prayer for those who may never feel worthy enough to ask for it. We are hoping that the lyrics of this song, the narration and the prayer will bring a little more hope and a lot more Jesus into their lives! My hope is that people come to realize after hearing this song that having faith can cancel out any fear they may have.
Q: As "God Moves" reaches Christian radio and listeners around the world, what do you hope God will do through this song-and are there more music or ministry projects on the horizon for you?
My husband often says that each one of the songs I write are like 3 to 4 minute sermons. So, "God Moves" is a mini sermon about "Faith" and I'm hoping that the message is heard loud and clear, the scriptures will back it up, the prayer is received and as a result people will begin to believe!
We do have more music projects on the horizon! When we went into the studio to record "God Moves", we recorded two other songs along with it that I also received in dreams. Each song was in a separate dream but were all a very powerful and unique individual experience. During the last 15 years of songwriting and out of over 60 songs, I only received 3 songs in my dreams so we decided to have those 3 songs produced at the same time. My son refers to these 3 songs as "The Dream Trilogy". My husband and I also say that they are like "The Dream Trinity" since these songs are about The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit and we will be releasing them in that order. The second one will be released next month in April and the third one will be released in May. We are hoping and praying that God will send people who believe in our mission to come alongside us with the resources we need to help us further this ministry and help to get more songs produced so that the message each song carries can go forth and touch the hearts of the people who need to hear them!
Listen to the song:
Connect with Petrina:
https://www.facebook.com/PetrinaPachecoMusic
https://www.instagram.com/petrinapacheco/
https://www.tiktok.com/@petrina_pacheco
https://www.youtube.com/@PetrinaPacheco
