Speaking in a recent interview on Southern Living’s “Biscuits and Jam” podcast, Christian American Idol contestant Emma Russell, the granddaughter of country music legend Loretta Lynn, said that she had a Christian upbringing and that God helped her overcome the eating disorder she developed as a girl, reflecting on her “deep encounter” with the Lord.
Beginning, she spoke about her “Meemaw,” Loretta Lynn, saying, during the podcast, “I grew up going on the road with her. So, my mom, she actually was in a duet, in a duo country group called the Lynns, and they were on the road with her touring. My mom became manager, so whenever I was born, they kind of quit doing their, you know, out in Nashville thing and went on tour with her and opened up, and I was just on the road as a baby.”
Continuing, she spoke about developing her musical talent at a young age, saying, “My first song I think I wrote, it was for the talent show, and I was in the second grade. And it was called ‘Keep Trying Again,’ and it was just about math and how I just failed but then I was like ‘keep trying again.’”
She added, commenting on another song she wrote, “But then whenever I was about nine, I wrote a song called ‘The Mirror Can Lie,’ and it was just, you know, it doesn’t show you what’s inside…that’s what the hook was like, ‘The mirror can lie, it doesn’t show you what’s inside,’ so I was really always like attracted to like identity finding out who you are.”
Then, getting deeper, Russel described developing an eating disorder as a teenage girl, noting that it came out of a desire to look better in the eyes of others, saying, “I started developing an eating disorder when I was like 16, 17 out on the road, and I just stopped eating and drinking a lot of coffee. And you know you’re going all the time, and I just really cared what people thought of me.”
Fortunately, she was able to find God and overcome that. Describing how though she was raised as a Christian by Christians she lacked faith, Russell said, “My whole family did believe in God, but I didn’t believe in God. I was like why am I not happy. I have everything I’ve ever wanted. You know, I’m following in my grandmother’s footsteps, and I couldn’t fill that hole inside.”
But then that changed when she found God, with her hunger leading her to Him during a church service. She said, describing that, “I had like a deep encounter with God, and the preacher, he called me out in the crowd, and he said, ‘You,’ and I said, ‘Oh my gosh.’ He’s preaching on hunger, and I said God I don’t have anything, but I do have hunger.”
Watch her here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video