Jaci Velasquez: When God Rescripts Your Life

THE UNEXPECTED
At 16, Jaci Velasquez’s career rocketed to stardom. Over the next several years, Jaci became an international phenomenon. She has leaned full-throttle into her God-given gifts, racking up 16 No. 1 hits, penning three books, acting in seven films, gracing 50 magazine covers and launching a non-profit clothing line. She enjoyed overwhelming success for years but in 2003 things changed.  In Chasing Papi, a comedy film in which three women discover that their boyfriend has been dating all of them at the same time, Jaci played a debutante of New York's high society who is tired of her mother's endless attempts to marry her off. The negative response from the English speaking Christian community crushed Jaci. She explains, “It was all unfamiliar, bewildering territory. I’d long been a golden child in the eyes of the Christian world. And now I was muddied. I was going to do whatever it took to polish my reputation…”  After dating a new guy, Jaci thought she could make a marriage with him work and also believed the marriage would help restore her reputation. She knew immediately that she had made a mistake and after only one year, her marriage failed. Not knowing how to handle the negative turn of events, Jaci fled to London to study Spanish for a year. During that time, she dug deep into the Word of God and allowed Him to start healing her heart. When she returned to the states invitations to sing came in and eventually, God began restoring the broken pieces of her life.   

A longtime friend and previous boyfriend, Nicolas Gonzales entered Jaci’s life again. Over time, she realized that he was the one she was meant to be with. They married in 2006 and began having a family. Jaci grew as a wife and mother. She says her faith has been shaped and strengthened by motherhood with the added challenges of being a mom to a special needs child. They knew their firstborn, Zealand, was developmentally delayed but thought he would catch up. “We started noticing when Zealand was 2, but the official diagnosis came in the second grade,” she says. “When they told us it was autism, I went through a time of mourning the death of the dreams I had for him.” It took some time, but she began to dream new dreams for her son, “harvesting the gifts I could see in him.” Today, Zealand excels in music, in both singing and piano. “His ear is even better than mine,” his proud mom says. Today, Jaci, Nic, Zealand, and Soren live a happy life in Nashville, Tennessee. God has restored and healed Jaci and rescripted her life into something beautiful. Now, she shares that God can do the same with your life.

GOD THE EDITOR
In Jaci’s book, When God Rescripts Your Life, she candidly shares her journey of mountaintop and valley experiences. Jaci shares her life experiences and pairs them with what people in the scriptures endured, showing that no matter what you face in life, God can turn your ashes into something beautiful. She explains, “I want you to come away from our time together with this going deep down into your heart: You matter. You matter to God. Don’t let a detail that doesn’t seem to fit with what you expected in your life be your only focus. Repurpose that pain. See that detail with fresh eyes… And let God repurpose it all to draw you close to Him.”

TRUST
On Jaci’s latest album, Trust, and its Spanish language counterpart, Confío, she shares how her faith has been strengthened through difficult times that led her to depend on God completely. “It took a while to lay it all down, to trust God with my sons, to trust God with my marriage, walking that out as a child of God, as a wife and a mom, trusting Him to make all things possible, to move the mountains in our lives….” It’s the underlying theme of this record, she says, but more than that, “it’s everything.”

One of the most poignant songs on the album is “God who Moves the Mountains.” The song is personal to her, as she found herself comforting her youngest son, Soren, 7, in the middle of the night, after a bad dream. She sang, “ The rocks are falling, the broken calling to the God who moves the mountains/ The earth is shaking, the weary waken to the God who moves the mountains…”

She told Soren, “When you’re scared and don’t know what to do, I want you to remember this.” Then she played the song. Standing in his room, she closed her eyes and, as the words washed over mom and son, she raised her hands. When the song was over, they both had tears in their eyes. “Our lives were changed at that moment because God met us there in a song," she says. "Music is powerful and healing."

She hopes the album will inspire others to trust God more. “Everybody has faith in something,” says Jaci. “But at the end of the day, if you’re looking to yourself to keep everything under control, God isn’t part of the equation. That’s where trust comes in.”