Songfacts®:

• In this ballad, Amy Grant plays the part of a woman trying to repair a relationship that's hit a rough patch. It's a pop song, but Grant is well known in the world of Christian music, so there's no cheating or sin going on, just some standard conflict that can be settled by affirming their love.
• Grant wrote this song with Mark Mueller and Michael Omartian, with Omartian producing. Mueller also wrote "Nothin' At All" for Heart and co-wrote "Crush" by Jennifer Paige.
  
  Omartian is the man who convinced Peter Cetera to make Amy Grant his duet partner on the 1986 #1 hit "The Next Time I Fall." Cetera had never heard of her but Omartian, who was producing the track, had worked with her before and thought she would be a good fit.
• Grant dipped her toe into secular music in 1985 when her song "Find A Way" was promoted to pop radio. It was her songwriting that motivated her to branch out - Grant wanted to write songs about love in general, not just a love for God. "Find A Way" was a just a minor pop hit, but "The Next Time I Fall" was huge. In 1991 she leaned hard in the pop direction with her album Heart In Motion. The first single was "Baby Baby," a #1 hit. That was followed with another upbeat song, "Every Heartbeat," which went to #2. "That's What Love Is For," a slower song, was the third single and went to #7. And that wasn't all: Grant released two more singles from the album and they were also hits: "Good For Me" (#8) and "I Will Remember You" (#20). She was the most successful Christian music singer on the pop charts in the '90s and even grew her CCM fanbase. In 2000 she married the country star Vince Gill.
• According to Grant, "That's What Love Is For" was fully formed when Michael Omartian presented it to her, but she wasn't comfortable with the storyline and made some changes to the lyrics. She wasn't angling for a songwriting credit, but Omartian insisted she take one.
• Directed by D.J. Webster, the music video looks like the cover of a romance novel come to life. We see a shirtless model and his beautiful love interest posed on windswept rocky terrain as Grant appears in a vivid red as the voice of a narrator in this story.