Christa Black GOD LOVES UglY & love makes beautiful
New York Boston Nashville
GodLovesUgly_HCtextF1.indd iii 6/1/12 9:06:47 PM Copyright © 2012 by Christa Black All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@ hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. Graphic Artwork: Libby Gifford Photography: Steven Taylor Styling & Makeup: Tasha Homan for Relevant Hair Hair: Carmody Homan for Relevant Hair, and Lynn Dowling Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible (Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation) Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. The author has added italics to scripture quotations for emphasis and all emphasis within scripture quotations is the author’s own. FaithWords Hachette Book Group 237 Park Avenue New York, NY 10017 www.faithwords.com Printed in the United States of America RRD-C First Edition: September 2012 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FaithWords is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The FaithWords name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data Black, Christa. God loves ugly: & love makes beautiful/Christa Black.—1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 978‑1‑4555-1659‑9 1. Self-perception. 2. Self-perception—Religious aspects. I. Title. BF697.5.S43B53 2012 158.1—dc23 2011052228
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GodLovesUgly_HCtextF1.indd xiii 6/1/12 9:06:47 PM August 1999
I picked up the phone, reluctantly dialing the only num- ber I knew to call, the only place I was ashamed to call. Home. My body had finally stopped listening to my slave- driving head. I’d drained my precious reserve of perfor- mance fuel and found myself void of any desire or ability to get up from an uncomfortable college mattress that had turned into quicksand. I had finally doneit— I had reached the end of me. I cleared my throat, attempting to steady the obvious shake behind each word, but my usual strong voice had disinte- grated into a hollow shell of itself. There would be no faking it today. “Hey, Daddy, it’s me.” “Christa?” I felt his immediate fatherly concern. “What’s wrong, honey? Are you okay?” I hesitated for a brief moment, knowing that once the words I feared most came out of my mouth, I could never, ever take them back. They would uncover the one thing I had spent my entire life working overtime to conceal. I am a failure. I let out a long, painful sigh. “Dad, I don’t think I have the guts to kill myself, but, uh, I need help.” My voice trailed off into nothing more than a whisper. “I’m afraid I just don’t have the strength to live anymore.”
GodLovesUgly_HCtextF1.indd 1 6/1/12 9:06:47 PM Chapter 1 The Love Bucket
Ten Years Later
The roar of the crowd was deafening. Well, maybe it wasn’t really a roar. It was more like the ear-bleeding, nails‑on‑a‑chalkboard sound of tires screeching in a high- pitched NASCAR peel- out. I’d never heard anything like it in my life. It was like having to lean into a wind that wasn’t there, as if the sound had fists that kept punching me in the chest as I waited in the dark wings of the outdoor stage. I peered out at the fifty thou- sand teenagers completely out of their minds in expecta- tion of the vision they were about to behold, said a couple of silent prayers, and prepared to walk out in front of them wearing the shortest miniskirt I’d worn in a decade. They weren’t, however, screaming for me—or my miniskirt. They were weeping, dripping snot, jumping up and down holding each other, and throwing roses, teddy bears, and sometimes bras at three gorgeous boys with flawless, curly locks of hair and faces so perfectly chiseled, they would later be cast as cherubs in a movie. The Jonas Brothers were definitely easy on the eyes, easy on the ears, and easy for the heart, especially if you were sixteen or had a thing for dark, Italian hunky types who were raised to be perfect gentlemen. I had been hired for their world tour after playing one
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show with them at the famous Ryman Auditorium in Nash- ville, Tennessee. They needed a fiddle player for the gig, but I assured their manager/father when he approached me with the job that even though I was a native Texan liv- ing in country- music land, I was just a violinist who could only attempt to fake fiddle. I guess I must have been a pretty good faker, because they asked me to join their band. I have to admit, my lack of cable television left me a bit in the dark when it came to current pop culture, and I had to resort to Google to find out exactly who these teen sensations were and what all the fuss was about. I quickly found out what the fuss was all about when I was swept up in the middle of it. This Monterrey, Mexico, show, in front of a crowd so big it could have had its own zip code, was our first stop on a whirlwind of a world tour. The Latin fans were gush- ing with such admiration, zeal, and insanity, to describe them as “passionate” felt like a gross understatement. In fact, when we drove into the venue, it seemed more like we were in Jurassic Park than at a teenybopper concert. Each tiny, youthful body seemed to morph into Superwoman, rocking our heavy vans back and forth like teeter-totters while pounding on the thin glass barriers that separated them from their beloved obsessions. I had always dreamed of being in the mainstream music industry. I imagined traveling the globe and filling up my passport with all sorts of colorful stamps, riding on private jets, hanging out in VIP greenrooms, laughing with Letterman and shaking hands with Conan—happily surviving on tiny amounts of sleep to dazzle and entertain millions of people. I secretly hoped for the biggest and best, the grandest and largest, the crème de la crème of tours. Well, here I was, finally sharing the stage with one of the biggest acts in the world. As I stared out at the expectant fans in a stadium glit- tering with flashing cameras, a small voice inside my head
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whispered with pride, “Christa, you’ve done it, girl. You’ve finally made it to the big time.” This had to be it. This had to be the top of the mountain. I had to have finally arrived. We huddled, prayed, finally chanting, “Living the dream!” before running to our starting positions. Lights spun in strobe patterns, flooding the massive metal rig that held up thousands of pounds of speakers ready to challenge the screaming. LCD screens flashed and twirled with bright images and pictures, taunting the crowd to somehow reach jet- engine decibels. As I stood looking out at the blur of faces, waiting for the downbeat signaling the start of the biggest show of my life, the heart that I had expected to race with exhilaration stopped suddenly. I swallowed hard, confused, choking back the onslaught of tears building up behind my carefully applied makeup. In the middle of what should have been my crowning moment as a musician—in the midst of the event I had practiced for my entire life in front of my bathroom mirror—an unshak- able weight, as heavy as a freight train, fell on top of my heart. I looked out at the beautiful faces of these frantic girls. They were screaming, weeping, longing for someone to love them, define them—tell them they were pretty and special. They wanted to be chosen, to have their hands touched for a brief moment, to be looked at and noticed as a treasure. I stared into the eyes of pain, of insecurity, and of questioned identity. Empathy consumed me, and familiarity reminded me of the struggles I’d fought for years to overcome. I remembered what it felt like to hurt, to feel like an alien in my own skin, to long for something more, to loathe my reflection— at one point even believ- ing the only way out was to end my own life. I stopped and breathed a deep sigh— the deep sigh that changed my life. I wasn’t out there for the glory I once thought I was after. I wasn’t on tour in the hope of seeing my name in
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lights or gaining the popularity or fame I had once cov- eted. I wasn’t hired as just another musician, playing yet another instrument and another passing song. I was there for one thing: to become a friend, a cham- pion, a sister, and a cheerleader for those faces in the crowd. I found myself longing to bestow love on kindred hearts navigating through waters I’d already charted, dying to know the truth that I could clearly see. They were unique, irresistibly beautiful, and powerfully important. These new feelings were so overwhelming that, as I looked into their eyes, they were changing my heart, becoming my purpose, and completely, absolutely, unde- niably taking my breath away.
In the Beginning
If Webster’s Dictionary defined the term “Great American Family,” you might just find a picture of my family beside the definition. Our checklist was more than complete:
1. Mom: Check ✔ 2. Dad: Check ✔ 3. Dog: Check ✔ 4. Food: Check ✔ (homemade food, at that) 5. Clothes: Check ✔ 6. House: Check ✔ 7. Car: Check ✔ 8. Middle-Class: Check ✔ 9. Easy-Bake Oven: Check ✔ 10. Disco Record Player: Check ✔ 11. Trampoline: Check, Check ✔✔
By most textbook standards and definitely from the outside looking in, I should have had absolutely noth-
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ing to complain about. There was no obvious reason for nightmares, fears, or stumbling hesitations. But there was always one enormous problem that, as I grew older, I could never seem to sweep completely under the rug, no matter how hard I tried. My first memory of life was sexual. It wasn’t playing out in the backyard or laughing. It wasn’t learning how to take my first steps or French braid- ing my Cabbage Patch doll’s hair. Instead of the inno- cence of a wide-eyed childhood, the discovery of the world with excitement and fearless courage, a few experiences within the sexual realm overshadowed and influenced the enormous wealth of good that came my way. I’m still not exactly sure what happened—vague mem- ories of a young man working at my mom’s furniture store, fragments of being touched in a way no baby should be touched, and a sexual realm that opened up a secret place of dark shame and dirty emotions. I felt disgusting. I felt unworthy. I felt, well—wrong. No one taught me as a three-year-old child to hide and be ashamed, but somehow I knew. The core of my humanity sensed that those feelings of sexuality were premature and that I should run and hide when “the blackness” would come rushing over me. Its talons of shame and self-hatred ran deep and hooked strong, frying my emotional circuit board like an electric power line hitting water. Running and hiding weren’t very easy inside a home supplied with unlimited amounts of unconditional love. The thing was, I had already built a castle of protection around my tiny wounded heart to cope with my experi- ence. My parents continued their onslaught of lavish affec- tion, unaware of the trauma I had encountered, so no matter how much love they gave, I continued to feel com- pletely unworthy of the extravagant gift they were giving. The truth didn’t really matter. It didn’t matter that my parents loved me more than life itself. It didn’t matter that
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I was a beautiful little girl with my whole life ahead of me, with pages of my book waiting to be written and uncharted territory explored. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t really tar- nished. I wasn’t really ruined. I wasn’t really broken. What mattered was, I believed that I was. My worldview had been forged from a circumstance that was far outside of my control, and yet every emotion, every thought, and every action still filtered through that one distorted lens. I saw the world, and my world was covered in a disgust- ing black lie. What I believed wasn’t the truth, but I still lived every moment under its power. I couldn’t help it. Every move that I made, every word that came out of my mouth, the way I treated people, and the way I let them treat me were direct results of an inner list of beliefs written on the fab- ric of my existence. My truth was: I’m dirty. My truth was: I’m ugly. My truth was: I’m unworthy of love. So as an innocent little girl, learning the ropes of life, I did what any little girl in my position would do. I acted out what I believed to be true.
The Leaky Bucket
People cope in different ways when they believe lies about themselves. They act differently when they believe they’re unwanted, rejected, or damaged—maybe believ- ing they’re dirty, wrong, or unlovable. My beliefs about myself might not have been true, but they were the most powerful things in my little universe, and I unconsciously lived through their power every single day. Some cope by giving up all hope. Some try to blend in or become invis-
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