Last night I sat in a room full of lovely voices. It was choir practice for this Sunday’s Easter service at my church, and my first time as a member of the choir. As a young person I always loved to sing. As as a grown-up, however, I’ve been very compartmentalized in this area.

Showcasing Shame

I suppose the splitting began back in 1993 with a horribly humiliating showcase here in Nashville. It was supposed to be my crowning achievement – my chance to prove my talent to the Christian music industry and secure the recording contract that I was sure I deserved. But it was not to be.

Over the course of three months I had spent thousands to hire all the right players, produce a new demo tape (remember, this was 1993!), secure a cool venue, and ensure my attendees had good food to munch on during the show.

The event was well promoted, and thirty minutes before I was to hit the stage there was a line out the door and down the street. Industry executives and artists alike filled the room.

I was so thrilled to appear in this mag! Little did I know what was coming…

CCM Magazine – the holy grail for any aspiring artist at the time – had even featured me, WITH A PHOTO!, just before the event. Everything was in place to ensure that my dreams of Christian stardom were well within my reach.

How unfortunate that I came onto that stage two measures too late. How naive I was to have told the sound guy that I wouldn’t need monitors. How terrifying to realize I couldn’t hear my own voice inside my own head. How humiliating to fail so perfectly, so completely, and in front of so many people. And how ashamed I felt when no one would return calls the next morning.

The 41-year-old me weeps today for that 22-year-old girl with stars in her eyes who didn’t have anyone to sit with her in the pain of defeat, to tell her she was more than this horrible failure she had just experienced, and to remind her that God is bigger than our mistakes.

Instead, she stopped singing for ten years. When people asked her if she was “that girl from the showcase”, she lied and said “no.” Instead, she got a job in the music business, helped others chase their dreams, and decided it was safer to deny her love of music than to feel the pain of having lost it.

I didn’t realize what I was doing when I chose to “split” off that part of myself. I only knew that sending her into exile seemed the only way to survive the pain.

Struggling for Redemption

During the last ten years God has been breathing life back into this area for me. Through the support of friends and a great vocal coach, I was shocked (and pleased) to discover I still had some vocal ability.

God’s promises were made new to me when I got to be part of this!

Slowly but surely, I began to coax “her” – the exiled part of me who loves music – back out of hiding. I wrote some new songs. I recorded a little five-song EP. I was honored to record one of my songs, “To Be Free”, as part of “Tell Me What You See” – a recording by Music For the Soul to help those struggling with eating disorders.

Today, I often get to sing at my speaking engagements, and most recently, I have felt incredibly fulfilled by the release of my first music video, “More Than a Number.”

But there are still some places where she’s not been allowed to venture out.

While I’ve gotten very comfortable being bold about music again in the context of the ministry I do, for example, I’ve hung back from simple things like joining the choir at church.

It’s almost like the “onstage” Constance is ok with singing, because in that context it makes sense. People who book me already know I can sing so I feel safe boldly doing that in such settings. But the “offstage” Constance is just this mom who has three kids and doesn’t want to seem like she thinks she’s all that. That’s what got her into trouble in the first place. It feels unsafe, in some post-traumatic way, so I’ve kept myself compartmentalized.

Until now.

Let the merging begin…

Sitting in that room last night was part of an intentional effort I am making to be more “merged” as a person. There is no GOD reason why I should proclaim my love of music in one part of my life only to hide it in another. This is Satan’s trick, to keep me bound up with lies about the gift, its validity, and its purpose.

As with all gifts, my love for music is for one purpose alone: to know God and to make him known. It is a gift that is appropriate to use at ALL times when it is called for, whether in front of thousands of people or in a small choir at church or just in my living room praising him at the piano.

I am a musician, ALWAYS, not just when the situation deems it “safe”. It’s who God created me to be, and I am no longer willing to split “her” off from the rest of me.

Last night, as voices joined in beautiful harmonies all around me, I sang my heart out, and my spirit swelled with joy. I am home, I realized. This is who I am, these are my people, and I’m right where I’m supposed to be.

Can’t wait for Sunday…

This past Saturday I was in Birmingham for the Girls of Grace tour and a really cool thing happened. It had to do with a five-year-old’s squishy bottom, and a girl in an orange shirt…

During my “More Than a Number” talk at GOG, I share about my past eating disorder, how my eating issues were triggered by feeling like a “zero”, and how I’ve learned that no external number can resolve my internal desire to know that I matter. It’s a struggle most of us face – a deep, unmet (and often unspoken) need to know we have value beyond cultural measures.

Near the end of my talk, I share the fun picture of my daughter Sophia you see here. As you can probably tell, this sassy little thing is completely comfortable in her body. I can’t take full credit for that, of course, but I have been pretty intentional over the years about helping build a positive body image in her.

For starters, Sophia has the most deliciously squishy booty which I love to squeeze. “I luuuuuuv your bottom!” I tell her enthusiastically, pretty much every day. Next, I’ll rub her soft, round belly. “One day you’re gonna have a baby in there!” Then I’ll squeeze her legs and tell her “God gave you strong legs to walk and run.” Playing this little game always makes Sophia smile. “I love that you smile with all your teeth!” I tell her, and she smiles even bigger.

After we “celebrate” her body, I always ask her this question: “Sophia, do you know why I love you?” She used to say, “because of my bottom…?” since she knows I take such delight in squeezing it all the time.

“No,” I tell her. “As much as I love all the parts of your body, what I love most is that there is only one you. If something were to happen to you, no amount of money in the whole wide world would ever make it possible to replace you. There is only one you, and that is what makes you special.”

So what does a girl in a purple bathing suit have to do with a girl in an orange shirt?

When I share this part of the story at Girls of Grace, I always turn to the audience, picking out a girl or two and saying directly to them, “There is only one you. That is what makes you special.” I don’t plan ahead for who I’ll say it to – it’s just whoever my eye happens to land on.

This time my eye went to a girl in a peach/orange colored shirt. As I said the words to her, she looked around to see who I was talking to. “I’m talking to you, girl in the peach/orange shirt,” I told her from the stage. Finally, she nodded to indicate she understood SHE was the target of my words.

Afterward, a mom excitedly pulled me aside. “The girl in the orange shirt is my daughter,” she said. “Just this morning she was complaining about the size of her butt. Then you told that story and called her out to tell her she was special!”

I got chills as she said it. It was another “proof of God” moment. That girl, that morning, needed a word just from God to her, and he used me, completely unaware of his plan, to give it.

“God loves your butt,” I told the girl at the end of the day. We both smiled and laughed a little at the potential sacrilege of such a statement. But then we agreed it had to be true. He created it, after all.

Me on stage at Girls of Grace Birmingham – where I met the girl in the orange shirt. The next one is in Dallas on 4/20/13. Come see me!

Twenty-two years ago God gave me a vision to help those with eating and body image issues. It was birthed during a season when my own eating was so out of control that I sometimes wanted to curl up and die.

As a young girl I had watched my mother struggle with diets, anorexia and bulimia, and there I was, at nineteen, wrestling the same demons.

Some of you know my story, so you know that ten years after the vision was birthed, I resigned from my job at EMI Christian Music Group and founded the non-profit FINDINGbalance. Today we serve thousands of people each month through our video on demand website. I’ve gotten to publish books and curriculum to help other women break free, and I get to speak to thousands more through tours like Girls of Grace, Sex and Skinny, and dates I do with Compassion International.

It sounds big – and the work IS big – but I still run FINDINGbalance nearly by myself. It has truly been a labor of love in the midst of raising three kiddos and trying to operate on a shoestring budget. But on those (many) days when I’ve felt burned out and ready to quit, it’s been the vision that has kept me going. And the creative aspects…

You see, my guilty pleasure is – and has always been – music.

I moved to Nashville about twenty years ago to try and make it as a Christian artist. I thought that would be how God would use me to reach people for this issue. My journey has of course led me down different paths, but God is good and he loves music too and today I am so very proud and humbled to share with you a song I wrote which I hope further fuels my efforts to help women, girls (and guys) escape the dead-end life of disordered eating and dieting, so they can be freer to change our world.

For those of you who think your dreams can’t come true, I’m living proof that it’s never too late. I shot my first music video in KENYA at the age of 41! Anything is possible.

And so, without further ado, here it is. If you like it, share it. Let’s start something really big…

Credits…

Special thanks go to Jonathan Dimmel and Geoff Hunker from Satellites and Sirens, who directed; Lindsey Labadie, who performed beautifully as the American woman in the video, “Nashipi” – our precious girl in Kenya, and Mike Varel, Ryan O’Quinn and the others on the team with Compassion International who made it possible for me to shoot this as legit as possible. We shot on location at Jackie M.’s place downtown Nashville. Makeup by Paige Omartian. Many generous contributions made this work possible and I am so very grateful to all of you.

Hi friends. Just wanted to show you some of these cool behind-the-scenes pics from filming the FINAL installment of the More Than a Number video today.

This was the most nerve-wracking part of the filming for me, since it was the “performance” piece, i.e. I was the one being filmed, instead of someone else. We shot here in my home which made it really comfortable and natural for me.

I was also so grateful for my friend, Paige Omartian, who helped me do my makeup. I’m bummed that I didn’t take a pic with her, too. We worked together last year on a project called the True Sisterhood, and she truly was a sister to me that day.

These pics are proof that it’s never too late to do something you love. I moved to Nashville when I was 22 to pursue a recording career. God had other plans, but here I am nearly 20 years later getting to do my first music video. Anything is possible and age is just another number, right friends?

Me with my directors, Jonathan Dimmel (left) and Geoff Hunker of Satellites and Sirens. I met these guys on the Girls of Grace tour in 2011 and they have been awesome throughout this process!

Johnny shooting. Note the belts laid over the couch (right corner). We didn’t realize they were there but you see their reflection in the video if you look hard enough. If anyone can find the time marker where they appear, I’ll give you a free necklace. How’s that for a little scavenger hunt? Watch the video here: http://youtu.be/lTDwGK5T0PQ

Shooting in my living room was super comfortable. We purchased this piano ten years ago with the advance for my “Life Inside the Thin Cage” book. Cool that it ends up in a video to help those with eating disorders.

Today was shoot #2 for the More Than a Number music video – the segment when we show the “story” of the American young woman who needs to know she is more than what she weighs. A couple cool things about this shoot…

First, Lindsey Labadie is the AMAZING girl you’ll see here. Not only did she bring amazing emotion and authenticity to this project, she also has a personal testimony about being freed from exercise obsession in her own life. It was really important to me that every element of this video be “legit”, so when I heard Lindsey’s story, I knew she was the one for this. Only later did I learn that she is a pretty amazing actor, and even appears as Carey Mulligan’s body double in the upcoming film The Great Gatsby. When I heard about the millions of dollars worth of jewelry she got to wear in that filming, and considered the incredibly little expense she required in filming this video, I knew once again that God had done his thing.

The other way God showed up was in the location. When Johnny, Geoff and I originally talked about where we wanted to shoot this segment, we knew we wanted a cool, stylish, loft-type apartment that overlooked downtown Nashville. My budget was tight, and so I just started asking around, hoping we could find a good place for not too much money. I was at a movie with a friend that night and mentioned my dilemma to her, and she said, “my friend Jackie has a cool place downtown.” Turns out that I knew her friend, we just hadn’t connected in a while, so I hadn’t seen her cool digs. Not only was her apartment perfect, but it also had a workout room in the basement, so we were able to shoot everything without any location expense. God is cool! (So is Jackie…)