“I wrote it for young women, mostly,” said Lauren Alaina, country music star who is well known for the songs “Road Less Traveled” and “Getting Good”.
As a next step in her career, she wrote a book titled “Getting Good at Being You: Learning to Love Who God Made You to Be”. It is a journey through her faith, career, death of her stepfather, and a long battle with bulimia.
“Writing a book is very different from writing a song…because writing a song is writing a 3-minute summary of a situation. Writing a book is dedicating an entire chapter to a situation. It’s really breaking it down and getting into the details. It’s vulnerable in a completely different way,” the singer-songwriter, and now author, said.
Within the book, she also includes personal stories, encouragement for young women, as well as practical tips in growing one’s faith. “Being on the other side of it, being healed, I just want you to know that it’s possible; you can get through it,” Alaina said.
She is also using the book as a way to bring awareness to the eating disorder that she struggled for six years. She said that it started when she read a blog that referred to her as Miss Piggy and put pig nose and ears on her face.
“I was 16 seeing that, and I just remember seeing that and thinking, ‘They’re not going to be able to do that to me anymore because I’m going to lose weight.’ And that’s when it got really bad.”
With that, the artist dropped 50 pounds and her hair began for all out. She also developed polyps on her vocal cords. A physician warned that if she doesn’t eat right, there will be permanent damage. Alaina then decided that it was time to seek help.
“You would have never thought when I was 19 years old, bubbly, loud all over the place like I always am, that I was struggling so severely internally,” she said. She added that the more we talk about something, the less the stigma is and the more we realize that bulimia and other disorders are real issues for many people.
“We need to figure out a way to get these people help and… get ourselves help,” the 27-year old singer said. “My faith is the foundation of everything that I do,” Alaina said in an interview.
“I was very fortunate to be raised in a Christian household and to be taught early on. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve defined my faith even more for myself. I think the thing that’s the most important about it to me is that it’s constant. It’s the one thing I can always count on. “
“My life is all over the place and very unexpected, and it’s a very different life than most people live. The Lord is my one constant that I always can rely on. And that’s so nice, living such a hectic, crazy, unbelievable life — and beautiful life, it’s amazing. But it’s unexpected. So to have something that I know is always there, it’s just so important,” she concluded.
God will make a way for us to fully rely on Him. Sometimes, we get caught up in the illusion that we can do all things by ourselves. But God is faithful even though we are not. He is always our present help in times of need.