Lauren Daigle: In Every Season

From fear and uncertainty sprang resistance as Daigle made the personal decision to not pursue Christian music, despite messages from God telling her otherwise.

“I told the Lord—yes I told Him, ‘I’m not going to do Christian music! I’ll sing whatever You want me to sing, I’ll do whatever you want me to do in the mainstream world, but I’m not doing Christian music.’”

Fast forward several years later, after struggling to make it in the mainstream market, including venturing to Hollywood for American Idol only to be sent back home to Louisiana, Daigle still hadn’t found a home for her talent and passion for music. Though she led worship at her church, she still doubted whether the Christian music industry was the right place for her. “It got to the point when I said, ‘Lord, I don’t know what I’m doing, and I need You to help me figure this out.’ So I got on my knees one day and prayed to surrender all of it, because in my heart I just care about singing—I care about glorifying Him,” she says. “What I realized was that the more I fell in love with Him, the more He revealed things about how He really does give us the desires of our hearts, even if they look different than what we thought.” And for Daigle, different came with an unexpected direction from God—a return to American Idol.

It was late in the rounds of the reality show competition’s famed “Hollywood Week,” and Daigle was doing well. But as she grew closer toward the final rounds, she had a life altering revelation on stage, unbeknownst to the world as they watched her sing.

“I breathed into the microphone and I thought, ‘God if you don’t come and inhabit this, it’s not fulfilling. Nothing about this gives me the same feeling of being at home and leading worship,’” she says. “Even though there were millions of viewers, it didn’t compare to the 1,500 people I was leading worship for at church. And right there and then, I knew that God was teaching me, regardless of what kind of music I do or what kind of life I live—if I don’t do everything from a place of worship, nothing is going to be fulfilling. That was the game changer for me.”

As Daigle’s personal mission transformed, doors began opening for her. She was unexpectedly offered an opportunity to attend a music workshop with an indie Christian band she sang backup vocals for during her time at Louisiana State University. “Centricity, the label that I’m with now, contacted them and said, ‘Hey, would you come out to this indie artist retreat, we want to see you guys work, and, oh by the way, we have one extra spot if you want to bring that female background vocalist.’ It was totally random! So I went there, without a clue as to what this was. I just thought, ‘Oh, a free trip to the mountains? That sounds great, sure, I’ll go. And it’s about music? Why wouldn’t I go? That’s fun!’”

CLICK “3” TO ADVANCE