Mandisa uses faith to tackle abuse, weight

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Man­disa, who just gar­nered a Gram­my nom­i­na­tion, will per­form with Matthew West on Sat­ur­day, Dec. 3 at Mis­sion Hills Church in Lit­tle­ton. Matthew West also received a Gram­my nom­i­na­tion this week.

Man­disa grew up in a “typ­i­cal Amer­i­can fam­i­ly” — divorced par­ents and an extend­ing fam­i­ly — but what she has accom­plished is atyp­i­cal. Par­lay­ing her appear­ance on “Amer­i­can Idol” as a final­ist in Sea­son 5, Man­disa has blos­somed into a con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian music artist, who gar­nered a Gram­my Award nom­i­na­tion Wednes­day night for Best Con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian Music Album for “What If We Were Real.”

Man­disa and Matthew West, whose “Strong Enough” earned a Gram­my nod for Best Con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian Music Song, will be per­form­ing at Mis­sion Hills Church in Lit­tle­ton on Sat­ur­day, Dec. 3.

Man­disa sur­vived Simon Cow­ell’s stab­bing com­ments about her weight and now five years after wow­ing TV audi­ences, Man­disa is address­ing her demons of child­hood abuse and liv­ing life to the fullest.

High­er Note: How did you get involved with “Amer­i­can Idol?”

Man­disa: I was a back­ground singer in Nashville. I was doing stu­dio work. Nashville is such a great music city, you can cut any type of music, coun­try, Chris­t­ian, hip-hop. I was doing a lot of choral work, and back­ing up Chris­t­ian artists and doing wor­ship ser­vices. I was mak­ing a liv­ing full-time in the music busi­ness.

It was the last year that I was eli­gi­ble for “Amer­i­can Idol,” and I won a radio con­test in Geor­gia. If you won, they sent you to the Chica­go audi­tions, and you got to skip wait­ing in line — so I missed all that dra­ma. They flew me out to Chica­go and set me up in a nice hotel.

I was con­tent singing back­ground, and with every­thing that was hap­pen­ing in my life. But any singer that watch­es “Amer­i­can Idol” thinks what if . And I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life think­ing what could have hap­pened.

High­er Note: What did you learn on “Amer­i­can Idol”?

Man­disa: God used that avenue for me. I was hap­py, shocked and blown away by the oppor­tu­ni­ties that I’ve had. It is who you know. It was a crash course in every­thing. How to talk to the media, how to put on a good show, what to wear … there are things that I learned from that show that I use today.

High­er Note: What is the hard­est part of your job?

Man­disa: Try­ing not to make my rela­tion­ship with God rou­tine. I want my rela­tion­ship with God and my career to bleed togeth­er. It’s a bat­tle. I want my rela­tion­ship with God to over­flow into my career. I want to expe­ri­ence Him in my life. You can get in a rou­tine and do shows, go to the stu­dio, record music. I want to keep from being jad­ed. I want His being to over­flow into my life.

I had to learn that this (Chris­t­ian music) is not a reli­gion — it is a rela­tion­ship with Jesus. And to have any rela­tion­ship you have to spend time with that per­son. So I get up ear­li­er to study the word. And through­out the day I talk to Him. I com­mu­ni­cate with Him. I want to pre­serve my rela­tion­ship instead of just being on stage and talk­ing about Him.

High­er Note: You’ve lost over 100 pounds. How much did your beliefs play in your suc­cess weight?

Man­disa: Faith was the most impor­tant thing to me los­ing weight. I had diet­ed before, I had lost weight. My faith taught me about obe­di­ence in the Lord, and I want my body to be a tem­ple not a hin­drance. And my weight has been a hin­drance my whole life.

I used “Break­ing Free” every day. It was a Bible study I did in col­lege, and it’s helped me break free of my food addic­tions. “Break­ing Free” holds a spe­cial place in my heart — to focus every sin­gle day. I’ve lost 100 pounds and I know how easy it is to go back. It’s helped me with the temp­ta­tion, and with (hol­i­days) com­ing up I focused on Psalm 100, to spend time count­ing my bless­ings. You can lose sight of that in all that you have.

I learned to trust Him and I mem­o­rized a lot of Scrip­tures. I have a spi­ral note­book with Scrip­tures that I look at when­ev­er I feel tempt­ed. I recite a lot of prayers. And you have to eat right and exer­cise. I eat whole grains, fruits and veg­eta­bles.

And I’m going to a Chris­t­ian coun­selor, who has helped me to real­ize that the root of my weight gain was about the abuse I had when I was a child. I turned to food so that would get heav­ier so men wouldn’t look at me, so I wouldn’t be attrac­tive. I was abused by men, boys. I was treat­ing the result and not the root of the prob­lem.

You don’t real­ize it’s one in four girls and one in four boys. And my whole life I nev­er looked at the root issue that I was abused as a child. I was shield­ing myself and I was deal­ing with the sur­face with diets.

High­er Note: Were you always a Chris­t­ian or did you have moment where you turned your life over to God?

Man­disa: I believe you can be raised in a Chirs­t­ian fam­i­ly, but it’s not until you ask God to be your king and sav­ior that you are a Chris­t­ian. I remem­ber I was 16 and a cowork­er of my mom asked us to go see “The Singing Christ­mas Tree,” and I real­ized that Jesus wasn’t just this char­ac­ter in a play. That He had died for our sins. And I asked Him then to be my lord and sav­ior.

And now I look at my life, and I can see that all that has hap­pened that God had a hand in every­thing.

After “Amer­i­can Idol,” I was think­ing about what to do after­ward. I was get­ting all these offers from record com­pa­nies that want­ed me to be a R&B singer. And I remem­ber what Randy Jack­son told me: Do the music that comes more nat­u­ral­ly to you. And I knew that I want­ed to do Chris­t­ian music — that I want­ed to talk about God. And that I could cre­ate any sound that I want­ed with Chris­t­ian music. It can be hip-hop, rock and every­thing in between. It’s so true I remem­ber when I first heard Chris­t­ian heavy met­al, I did­n’t know there was such a thing.

High­er Note: Who were your musi­cal influ­ences grow­ing up?

Man­disa: When I was 16 I was lis­ten­ing to pop radio and you hear every­thing. Pop, rock, coun­try but my bent is toward Whit­ney Hous­ton, Mari­ah Carey. But I like Def Lep­pard, Guns and Ros­es. So my sound is def­i­nite­ly all over the spec­trum. That’s the beau­ty of Chris­t­ian music. So I have funky beats with rock­ing gui­tars. That’s why I’m con­sid­ered a con­tem­po­rary Chris­t­ian artist, but peo­ple look at me and see a black Gospel artist.

High­er Note: Talk about your new CD (Note: the inter­view was before the Gram­my nom­i­na­tions.)

Man­disa: Social media played a huge role in my newest record: “What if we were Real.” Through social media I learned that peo­ple don’t want pre­tense. They pre­fer you to be real. And yea, it’s real­ly me on Twit­ter.

So fans, now you have a chance to con­grat­u­late Man­disa in per­son –via Twit­ter — on her Gram­my nom­i­na­tion and her new healthy lifestyle.