We all wonder what our future will be like. What will we be when we grow up, who will we marry, where will we live, will we be successful, loved and happy? When we’re young, we feel like the possibilities are endless, but then something can happen and our hopes and dreams can come crashing down.
At the age of 12, Grace felt like her dreams were coming to an end as she faced serious bullying. She felt like she would never be good enough and like she needed to escape her life. Ready to take her life, the Hawk Nelson song “California” met her where she was, giving her reason to live.
Fast forward 4 years, Grace had the opportunity to go to a Hawk Nelson concert. She hung around afterwards and headed toward the meet and greet line. Grace describes that evening, “I walked up to them essentially crying. I told them how much God had moved in my life since that song saved my life. And I was like, and ‘my biggest dream one day is to sing with you.’ And I remember Jason just looked straight up at me, and he said, ‘well, let’s make that dream come true!’”
Grace’s dream met reality the very next night when she took the stage to sing “California” with Hawk Nelson. “After I got off stage, I immediately thought to myself, if God can do that, He can do anything. And if my wildest dream came true at 16, what else might He have for me?” says Gaber. “That was the song that God used to knock all of my biggest dreams out of the park, making way for what He would do with me in the future.”
Grace Graber’s Breakthrough
As the story goes, Grace Graber knew now that she had to make music too. Her desire was to write songs that impact the lives of teenagers just like her life had been influenced by a song. But with every high, there’s usually a low. Grace still struggled with anxiety, depression and lack of self-worth. She felt like she needed a breakthrough. That breakthrough came when Graber shifted mentally and emotionally from feeling like she had to push through on her own to realizing that God was going to do it for her. “It’s God who’s going to break through. It’s not me who’s going to break through,” Grace Graber reflects.
This realization is the foundation for Graber’s latest album, Breakthrough. Her music is essential in her own healing, because her focus is about bringing healing to others. “This ministry, the rest of my music, none of this is about me,” Grace explains. “It’s about what God wants to do in His people, specifically through mental health. That’s an epidemic right now. We need to be talking about it more. I’m not doing music for me, to get on radio, to get signed. I’m doing music to save lives.”
Grace Graber has been very open about her struggle with mental help and prays that people can see that faith and mental health are important and deeply intertwined. “In my own life, I’ve seen Him break through in the way I’ve accepted my mental illness, coming to terms with the fact that maybe the blessing looks a lot different than we pray for it to look. What if the breakthrough is God literally asking us to stay where we we’re at? Are we willing to accept that? If it’s the sovereignty of God that is keeping us in a broken place, are we willing to accept that?” Graber continues, “I see the truth of provision, the truth of faithfulness, the truth of breakthrough always coming, but coming when God says it’ll come. If the odds were what they were when I was young, if I had taken my own life, I wouldn’t be here to see all this. And I think there’s breakthrough in that, in realizing like there’s reward in staying. Music reminds me that staying was a good idea.”
Grace Graber’s Journey with God
Grace’s Conversations EP built the foundation for Breakthrough and continues God’s incredible dream. Jason Dunn of Hawk Nelson is featured in the song “This One’s For You.” Through this album, Grace encourages people to talk about their struggles and hardships. We live in a superficial world, where we’ve become really good at keeping things in.
Grace never pretends to have it all together, her heart is genuine and true. “I want to be a safe place in Christian music. I don’t want to be a place where people feel like they have to prove themselves in any way, shape or form.” Grace adds, “I am actively singing about my mental health and faith as I’m working on my mental health and faith. I’m still finding healing and every day gets a little better. And for me, the healing is going to be found in the grace of God.”
As God’s faithfulness continues to unfold, Grace finds more and more opportunities to minister to others, all while reflecting on her own journey. “I’ve come so far in just a couple years. It shows me how much God has had his hand on this, because none of this could have happened without that. It’s just an example of if God can do this, He can literally do anything.”
