At the age of 47, after surviving numerous depressions and a scandal-plagued divorce, the singer has found the love she yearned for all her life

As a top-selling Christian music artist, Amy Grant has spent a lot of time basking in the spotlight’s glow — but life offstage hasn’t always been quite so rosy. In her recent memoir, Mosaic, she reflects on the joys that faith, family and career have brought her. But the star also talks candidly about tougher stuff, including her battles with depression, her guilt over the dissolution of her first marriage and the challenges she and second husband Vince Gill, 50, faced when attempting to blend their families.

Amy’s career was launched at age 15 when a Nashville, Tenn., studio owner heard one of her demo tapes. Before she was 16, she was offered her first record deal, and from there, she quickly became a leading force in contemporary Christian music. She married singer/songwriter Gary Chapman in 1982, and for the next 17 years, she continued to write music, record albums, win Grammys and raise the three children she and Gary had together — Matt, now 20, Millie, 17, and Sarah, 14.

Happily Ever After Fails

Amy appeared to live a charmed life right up until the moment in 1999 when she and Gary announced they were divorcing. But for the singer, a devout Christian, it was hardly a quick or easy decision. “When I chose to end my marriage to the father of my three older children, there was a time when I was too wrecked and too ashamed to pray with them at night,” she admits.

During the divorce proceedings, many Christian radio stations refused to play Amy’s music, and disappointed fans deserted her. What they didn’t know was that she and Gary had been seeing marriage counselors for 14 years, and even went through pre-divorce counseling when they finally realized the marriage was over.

Amy says she only discovered in hindsight that she had spent 10 years in transition, going from being “fully engaged as a wife, all systems go, to being fully engaged in a different direction.” However slow the process, the effects were still devastating.

“I invested in my own family and the family I married into for 17 years — on a daily basis. So to then say, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ is not just the end of a marriage. That was my biggest life investment up to that point.”

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