Mike Rimmer met up with the Nashville-based songsmith REGIE HAMM

During that struggle, Hamm's financial resources dwindled away. He shares, "It happened at the same time really, the record, career and money dried up. I lived in Nashville so I had an opportunity to try my hand as a country writer for three years, and also failed miserably. I am very acquainted with country music, love it, it's in my veins and I have nothing but respect for that place in the musical world. But for some reason, I was missing the mark. Once again, I think it was about me going through a process, being a house dad during the day, writing songs with my daughter in the room, which was a great bonding experience, which I think more about than the actual songs. We went through that for three years and God bless him, my music publisher Mark Bright kept me for the full three year term he signed me, despite the fact I didn't make any income for him. He was a Christian man, recognised the situation I was in and was merciful."

His whole life was slowly stripped away and everything he could put his security in vanished. There must have been times when he was sitting in a room crying, talking to God and wondering what the heck was going on. "Many times," Hamm agrees. "I think a lot of confusion too. What I do, I have been doing since I was five years old and it's been the bedrock of my life. If you put me in a room with people and a piano I know I can make money. It got to the stage where I just couldn't any more. I wasn't in control. No matter what it is, if it's music, if you're a carpenter or work in radio, whatever it is you have become good at, you make it the bedrock, the pillars of your life. You put your trust in it, thinking you can always succeed at it. I was having it stripped from me and coming to the realisation that I couldn't count on it any more. It's very frightening, it's terrifying. I have never done anything else; I don't know what I would do. But beautiful lessons once again."

Beautiful lessons? What was the thing he learned at this point? "Surrender is a wonderful thing," he says. "Surrendering to God's will, and the redemption that came out of it... The song that came out of it, which we explore in the book Angels And Idols, is something that I couldn't have controlled. When you get to the place when you really are able to surrender and say whatever happens it will be OK, we have God, we have everything we need. Once you get there, God can do some beautiful things."

And it's time in this story to examine just how God can turn a life around in the blink of an eye. Having reached the lowest point of his life and learned some of life's most important lessons, one simple decision changed everything. Sometimes it's best if you listen to your wife. He explains, "My wife asked me to write a song for the American Idol song contest. I knew a bit about it, because my friend had won the year before. I didn't really keep up with it, but my wife did. I thought it was a little silly, but my wife thought I could win it, and she had never asked me to write a song in all the years of our marriage. So I honoured that, and went to write that song, and what really came out was the desire to hold onto those around you. The heart of the song for me is once again to live in the now, whether it is winning or losing the contest, the moment is yours and it is a gift. I had no idea if anybody wanted to sing it, or if it would win. There were 40,000 entries and I entered it on the last day with my $10 entry fee. The song was "Time Of My Life". When I entered it, the song got into the Top 20 and that was the year that David Cook and David Archuleta were the two rival idols. So the song ended up winning and David Cook sang the song and ended up winning. It turned into a really big hit."

Of course a royalty cheque arrived eventually which must have been a relief. "It was, it brought us back to where we had been. It paid all our taxes and medical bills. We were able to buy a mini-van and all the things you want to do for your family." The victory wasn't without some online grumbling and controversy. Isn't it supposed to be an amateur competition? Hamm explains, "It's not an amateur competition; they want you to think that! But it's an unpublished songwriter competition. At that moment, I wasn't in a publishing deal, and the only requirement is that the publishing on that song has to be available. I looked at the laws and by-laws and they told me I was eligible to enter. Maybe some people think they got a raw deal, but some people on that show have had record deals and try to get in from the singing side. I just did it to honour my wife; I certainly wasn't trying to be controversial."

The book Angels And Idols tells the whole story in detail. The book is important to Hamm because he has been through some stuff and seems to be passing on the things he has learnt from his experiences. The book has a very honest confessional vibe even when the things he reveals are not exactly flattering. He explains, "I wrote a blog in 2008, and it came to the attention of a book publisher and they said that it maybe had the potential to become a book if I could extend it. I wasn't sure as I'd never written a book but I write a blog every week, and I am interested in writing so I got into it. When you are writing a book about yourself, you are digging around in your brain and your heart and you learn things. The book presented to me what it was about as I was writing. Obviously it's about the American Idol and American Dreams experience, raising a special needs' child. Ultimately, it's about learning how to take all the things that happen in your life and embracing the idea of surrendering. It shows that brokenness is not a bad thing, and doesn't have to be the end of it."

It's certainly an inspiring story. Does Regie think he is more human now, has something changed in his own humanity in all of this? "There's no doubt about it," he says. "I think I am a 180 degree different person than I was and I am thankful for that. I don't think I could have sustained who I was before, very driven, a bit of a mean streak, defiant, and running as fast as I could to stay ahead of the game. I am not that person any more, I still do what I do, but I am much more interested in connecting with people and talking. I talk a lot about Acts 17, the fact that the God you seek is not far from you. It brings me to tears when I think about it. I stood on Mars Hill once, where Paul said it to the Athenians, and realised that Paul was looking right at the Acropolis. All these things were built with the hands of men to try and get to the gods, and he said it's not that difficult; the God you seek is as close as the beat of your heart. So that's what I want to talk about with the book and CD."

Ham has a new life and fresh opportunities. The song has opened up doors for him and suddenly people are interested in him again. He reflects, "It's quite ironic what a hit song will do, it's wonderful. I'm thankful that these opportunities have come to me now having learnt some of these lessons, because I think God has prepared me a lot more than I was before."