Every artist has a story. No two stories are the same because no two people are the same. Most artists, however, will tell you that there was a journey that led them to where they are today—an adventure filled with peaks and valleys that helped them become who they were created to be all along.

For worship leader and speaker Tasha Layton, the road to discovering her artistry has been a long, exhilarating one – a journey that has been hard, exciting, painful and incredible all at the same time. From her small town roots to circling the globe while on tour with Katy Perry and working as an in-demand session singer in L.A. to moving to Nashville and recording her debut EP, Love Running Wild (BEC Recordings), Tasha’s story is as vibrant and strong as the singer herself.

Tasha grew up in a Christian home in South Carolina. “We had one flashing light and a volunteer fire department,” she says of her hometown. As a teen, her passion for God was ignited, and when merged with her love for music, she began to sing at church and lead worship for her youth group. Unfortunately, the church she was attending experienced a painful split, which left an undeniable imprint on the impressionable teen. By the time she entered college, she was carrying a heart full of wounds inflicted by an unhealthy church family and a head full of lies about her self-worth and musical gifts.

Hurt, confused and insecure, she eventually left church altogether; and as a college student, she became severely depressed and, at her lowest point, suicidal. Realizing she needed help, she changed her major from music to religion. “I was searching and had grown up conservative, so I just wanted to know about other religions,” she explains. “I went to Buddhist meditation camp. I went to mosque. I went to synagogue. I even studied mysticism in Europe for a summer… I wanted to know what the truth was because I needed help. I needed something to grasp that was real, that was going to help me find peace.”

Through all of her exploration and research, Tasha rediscovered the Jesus of her youth. “In other religions, I realized that you had to strive to pursue God; whereas in Christianity, He’s in hot pursuit of us,” she maintains. “I realized in all these things I had experienced, Jesus—not all these other religions—was the only One who had the power to transform me.”

Leave a Reply