Christian artist John Mark McMillan announced his current tour will be his last full-time tour of his long career. CBN News' Studio 5 joined the songwriter on his "Cosmic Supreme" Tour to talk about his powerful and personal worship music journey.

"When I was seven, I had this weird thing happen in vacation Bible school," John Mark said as he recalled the start of his passion. He remembered a specific moment in his childhood when he had a life-changing response to worship music. He began to cry and said, "The only way I can describe it is that it felt like the entire universe was in love with me." That spiritual reaction to worship inspired his drive to pursue music, eventually writing original songs of his own.

After years of writing and performing in bands, while at seminary, he was given the opportunity to perform an original song for thousands of people. Unable to even recall the name of the song, he remembered the feeling of that moment. "I realized that maybe if I can share that feeling through my music," he said, "I could do something that mattered."

John Mark wrote from his own personal experiences. He wrote one of his most recognized hits over two decades ago after losing a close friend in a car accident. He played "How He Loves" for his friend just before he died. 

"In my mind, it was like the last time I saw him alive, and after he passed away, decided to finish that song kind of as an homage to him," he shared. 

He went on to say how losing a friend so young tempted him to think God was not a loving God, but the song ultimately says, in his words, "I still believe you're a loving God."

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Since that hit song, he has released multiple albums and singles. "Death in His Grave," "Future/Past," and "King of My Heart" are just some of the songs that have been played for congregations around the world. Some of the most popular albums include "The Medicine," "Economy," "Borderland," and, most recently, "Cosmic Supreme," out now.

"It was in a season when my father-in-law was passing away," he said as he explained the personal story behind his latest album. "In that season, life is really, really difficult, and so it was hard to write songs and to plan tours." 

As his father-in-law continued to fight cancer and ultimately passed away, he continued to try to write songs and realized, "I felt like God was giving me the songs that I needed, and I thought maybe for other people this might be helpful for them."

The common thread of taking personal experiences and turning them into worship songs that resonate with people has been a key to what makes his career so successful. Through his tragedy and his triumphs, John Mark McMillan has learned to embrace it all because God does. "There's certain things that were painful, but I don't know that I would be who I am right now if I hadn't walked through all of that," he shared.

"In one sense, if Jesus is the image of the invisible God and Jesus is God," he said, "Jesus embraces my whole story, then I can also embrace my whole story, and I can look back without shame, and I can be okay with whatever it was."