Youth 97 Article (January/February 1997)
Jaci Velasquez
A fairy Tale, Sort of...
By Holly Halverson
Sixteen-year-old Jaci Velasquez is quick to admit the similarities between her life and a fairy tale. Like most heroines, she enjoys the blessings of natural beauty, a sophisticated singing ability (think: Snow White and Cinderella) and an upbeat take on the mundane--even her teen years. As in many tales, Jaci was "discovered," plucked from obscurity and cast into fame through no effort of her own. The pumpkin delivering her to the ball came in the form of a secretly recorded videotape of her performing that was delivered to the right place at the right time.
At first glance, it may appear that Jaci lucked into a purely glamorous existence as a recording artist with her first album on the Word label, Heavenly Place, already released. But if you look more closely, you'll find rich doses of fun and excitement contrasted with a suitcase existence, a grueling work schedule and little of the mall time most teens relish. In other words, sometimes that glass slipper is too tight--even for even Cinderella.
Singing came easily to Jaci from the beginning. According to her mother, Jaci first performed publicly from the church nursery where she was heard "singing" "The Blood of Jesus" when she was 8 months old. "I don't know if I was actually on key or anything." Jaci says. She reports speaking only in melody during the formative months of toddlerhood.
Self-described as "the biggest ham in the world," little Jaci eventually graduated to singing with her parents, who are traveling evangelists, when she was 10. The next year, she won a competition with 3,000 other performers in an entertainment pageant: by age 13 she had sung at the White House.
Still, her audiences were mostly at the various churches her parents traveled to in places as diverse as California, Wyoming and Florida. At one of those churches Jaci met Point of Grace's road manager who invited Jaci to open POG's concert. She did, he taped it, took it back to Nashville and the rest is a sort-of fairy tale.
"I wasn't looking for a record contract," Jaci emphasizes. "I wasn't [thinking], 'Oh. maybe I'll become a singer or an artist.' That wasn't my goal. I'm still a kid! I really don't have goals right now, [except] to finish school, put as many hours of college in as possible and get a car--get my license! And do something that God wants me to do, and that's what I'm doing now."
How did she know music was her vocation? "I knew it was God's call on my life because I knew there were people getting blessed," she says. "Sometimes I would sing a song and I would see people crying. That has to be something--it's not just someone feeling sad, [it's someone] being touched. You know that's not because of you but God's using you."
So she has a record, grateful audiences, star status--what's not to like? The best of intentions can create enormous demands, Jaci has found. "I have a hard time with the fact that I don't really belong to myself," she admits. "I belong, I think, to everybody else at times. You belong to people that listen to your records sometimes, to your record company.
"You strive to be something that everybody else wants you to be. It's not a bad thing, but they don't understand that sometimes you really do have to slow down and do some homework, watch TV. At that point I really have to look to God and say, 'Lord, I need to bring myself in and just focus on my walk with You.' I have to be who God wants me to be and who I think I should be. But that's just being a teenager."
If there's one thing this princess wants people to know, it's that she's not royal at all--just a typical teen who grapples with her spirituality, her parents and temptations. "I have the same problems that every other person my age does. I'm on the same wavelength. I struggle every day with my walk with God. Who doesn't? I like boys! I love clothes! School is a struggle, it's hard for me at times because I want to go shopping but I can't--I have to do a concert that night."
As for the glitzy part of her job: "It's glamourous for about five seconds, then it's not anymore," Jaci says, citing late nights, all-day travel plans, living from a suitcase for a month at a time, missing her friends, washing her clothes in hotel laundromats and year-round home-schooling.
Then too, while singing is her passion, she admits to regular stage fright: "I'll be honest. Right before I go onstage, I really dread it. I wish I didn't have to." But once she's on? "I wouldn't want to do anything else."
It appears that every fairy tale has its price, but Jaci takes the good with the bad. She learned early on that a life of service calls for good, old-fashioned work. Jaci names her father as her greatest influence. "He's taught me to really love God more than you love yourself," Jaci relates. "He has taught me how we need to strive every day to be more and more like Jesus. He taught me that you really have to listen to the voice of God to find out what you're supposed to do with your life--listen and obey Him."
Jaci puts her inspiration to good use, weaving her vocal acumen with the musical wiles of producer Mark Heimermann to create songs of help and direction. "I Promise," which Jaci cowrote, verbalizes her commitment to sexual purity. Though I may be young/I see and understand/That at times like sheep we go astray/And things get out of hand.
"Everybody says, 'Don't commit fornication' from the pulpit, but I wanted to put it in the positive as something young people could say for themselves. I am saying it for myself, and it's not like I am not tempted like everyone my age." Will it be worth the wait? "It's going to be so much more romantic." Jaci enthuses.
Key to Jaci's reaching people, she believes, is singing words she needs to hear as much as her audience does. For example, on "Baptize Me" she says: Hear me as I pray/Wash my sins away/Drown me in Your grace ... /As my lips confess/Fill this emptiness/With Your holiness/Baptize me.
"For me that is an everyday thing." Jaci confesses. "We sin and we don't even mean to." She meets her failings with a plea for God's mercy. "Put all Your grace on me. Put Your favor upon me, Lord," she prays. "Hear me as I confess everything to You."
Snow White, Sleeping Beauty Cinderella--none wished for anything more profound than a prince. Jaci shares that longing, but her hero is celestial, and it's the depth of her spiritual roots, not a glass slipper, that assures her on the rugged, starry journey to a happy ending. Holly Halverson is a free-lance writer from Hermitage, Tenn.
Copyright © 1997. For independent scholarship and/or purposes of review only.
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