Judging Amy

After more than 20 years in the music business, singer/songwriter Amy Grant is recognized as one of the most successful performers in Christian music, and for that, her stature has risen to mythic proportions—the heroine of the genre. The Good Lord willing, if anything favorable came from Christian music, Amy Grant probably had something to do with it. And if something favorable needed to happen, attach Amy Grant’s name to it and watch the magic transpire.

She is Christian music’s own Wizard of Oz.

Or was. Last year Grant pulled the wizard’s curtain wide open, first to her husband of 16 years, then to her family and, finally, to the rest of the world Now, in a CCM MAGAZINE exclusive, Amy Grant, 39, talks at length about the decision to end her marriage to fellow artist Gary Chapman, 42.

Growing up a religious woman and being taught that divorce is a sin, she acknowledges that she is only beginning to work through the aftermath of divorce, that she is not at the end of this difficult path she never thought she’d take as a Christian. Divorce has consequences one cannot imagine until they happen, she says. And she knows first-hand why God hates when marriages end. STEP INSIDE THIS HOUSE

Following weeks of speculation in the press, Dec. 30, 1998 brought news from Blanton/Harrell Entertainment and TBA Artist Management that the famous couple planned to separate. The release succinctly stated, "Gary Chapman and Amy Grant regretfully announce their separation after 16 years of marriage. They both ask for your prayers during this sad time and hope that you would respect their privacy." No further information was available as local and national media outlets reported the news. But fans and members of the music industry seemed to cling to the wording of the press release: Since divorce was not mentioned, perhaps there was hope of reconciliation.

But in March 1999, Grant filed for divorce in Chancery Court for Williamson County, Tenn., citing "irreconcilable differences." Accurate or not, the event seemed to confirm some of the conjecture surrounding the darkness and mystery of 1997’s Behind the Eyes (Myrrh/A&M) [CCM September 1997]. Today, custody of the couple’s three young children is shared. Grant no longer lives on the well-known Riverstone Farm, the Franklin, Tenn., estate she calls "the prettiest place on earth."

Life moves forward for the Augusta, Ga.-born singer/songwriter. On Oct. 19, Grant released, A Christmas to Remember (Myrrh/A&M/Interscope), her third Christmas offering, and at the end of the month she will take her popular "An Amy Grant Christmas" tour on the road for the third consecutive year.

"I’ve toured the last two Christmases," she says during a late September interview in her rented home in a historic Nashville neighborhood. "It’s been a kind of rough stretch for several years. It was much easier to be away."

Though fans and admirers sometimes perceived them as having a fairy tale romance, Grant and Chapman never denied the difficulties of their marriage.

For her sophomore record, Amy recorded "Father’s Eyes," a song written by a struggling songwriter named Gary Chapman. The two met in the spring of 1979. The next few years brought friendship, an on again-off again courtship and eventually marriage in June of 1982. In an interview with writer James Long [CCM February 1995], Grant reflected on her thoughts before the wedding: "[Gary] saw all the great things ahead, and I saw all the unarticulated scary things. But I loved him. I really did. So even though I was scared, we got married."

Still, there were good times mixed with a strong sense of healthy self-awareness. A 1986 Saturday Evening Post story characterized Grant like "an excited teenager on the phone with her boyfriend" as she spoke to Chapman prior to her appearance that year on the American Music Awards. At the time, Amy characterized herself as a normal person struggling with normal things. The Post writer reported, "As proof of her struggles with the same temptations that plague everyone, Grant offers a piece of paper on which she scribbled several stanzas of a new song... ‘Oh you crazy heart, I’m holding on to you/Left up to yourself you’d pull this girl in two/And everyday this life tries harder to undo/The home I keep, the man I love, and the heart that’s true/Faithless heart, be far away from me....’" Rewritten and finished later with Michael W. Smith, the musings became "Faithless Heart," a stirring song from 1988’s Lead Me On (Myrrh).

There were times of professional teamwork—Grant and Chapman have penned several songs together and toured together—and personal support, too, like in 1985, following a discouraging incident with disgruntled fans. Grant told USA Today writer Jack Kelley, "I cried in the shower then went into the room and Gary was in bed and I said, ‘Would you hold me for awhile?’ and I just cried. Gary prayed for us...." But playing a supporting role to Grant was not always easy for Chapman. In a 1988 cover story, he told CCM MAGAZINE that being married to Amy "has been a little harder than I have ever admitted. Living in her awesome shadow... has been difficult," but asserted that "the marriage is great."

Sharing the spotlight in May of 1994, Grant and Chapman appeared on the cover of CCM MAGAZINE sitting together on Chapman’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Parents now to three children, the couple again spoke lovingly about each other to writer Holly Halverson, but openly noted they struggled through hard seasons. "We’ve had some wild, rocky times," said Amy. PRIVATE CONVERSATION

"For people that have [personally] known us and loved us a long time," says Grant, "[the divorce] was not a surprise to anybody. None of this was taken lightly. It was years in the making. Gary and I went to all kinds of—tons of—marriage counseling."

Casually relaxed today in a pair of white nylon running shorts and a blue sweatshirt, she continues, occasionally playing with her long shirtsleeves.

"What I find in life is that it’s not so much about good and bad people, but about good and bad combinations. Gary and I had a really unique courting, a very unique marriage."

Out of respect and privacy to Chapman, their three children and herself, Grant speaks in generalities about the divorce. And although she declines to comment on any specifics of numerous marriage counseling sessions which began in 1986, she does remember wondering, "How did I wind up here?" She agrees that marriage is difficult, but nevertheless she felt like an unlikely candidate for becoming a divorce statistic. "I’m from a big family. My parents are still together, and my three older sisters are married and still together. I stood up at the front of a packed-out church and made a vow before God about—as best I could—how I would lead my life. And I failed in that. Failure’s incredibly humbling.

"I tried at every turn to take the high road. And yet, my personal life kept just spiraling downward."

An avid journal writer, Grant admits she’d need to re-read some entries to give more context to those times. She declines to comment on what exactly was causing her life to spiral. "It just seems so unbelievably private."

She continues, "I guess the real pinnacle came for me in February 1998. I wound up having a really intense meeting with Gary and two pastors that we both trust. I basically said, ‘I’m completely laying my life out as honestly as I know how, and my desperate plea is, Is there really such a thing as healing? Does God really heal?’ And I wasn’t even thinking to heal our marriage; I just needed Him to heal me. So we all committed to pray. Pray, pray, pray, pray, pray."

The sessions to follow helped Grant identify what needed to be healed in her, but again she declines to comment. "A lot of life is just meant for everybody to take to their grave."

Throughout their marriage, Grant asserts she was committed to making the marriage work. But in August of 1998, after years of counseling, Grant made a different commitment, and she went to the pastors with whom she had been meeting and to Chapman. "I said, ‘I believe and trust that I’ve been released from this [marriage]. And I say that knowing that even the Bible says the heart’s deceitful.’

"And anybody could so easily say, ‘You’re completely deceived,’" Grant interjects, "I guess a part of being deceived would be that you wouldn’t know it. But to the best of my level of peace, I had a very settled, unshakable feeling about the path that I was going to follow.

"We all met together and just said, you know, if the mercy of Jesus doesn’t extend to a situation like this, then it doesn’t go very far, does it? So we started meeting to pray toward individual healing, to help mediate our lives, to try to pursue the most respectful path possible toward divorce. I think that there was a part of us that felt incredibly tender toward the other one all through the divorce."

Grant believes God hates divorce and its ramifications, but not the people involved.

"I know why God hates divorce," Grant says, "because it rips you from stem to stern, and children are the total innocent recipients of a torn and shattered life.

"There’s not a week that doesn’t go by that I don’t really cry out from the soles of my feet and just say, ‘God, let me go back. How could this have worked out differently?’

"And yet—just as a functioning, somewhat intelligent woman, I also got to the point of saying, how many times can I re-duct tape myself and go through the charade and not feel like what I’m really passing on, especially to my daughters, is [a false sense of] ‘This is OK.’ Neither the charade nor the duct tape is OK."

Grant pauses for an extended moment and continues.

"At some point you see the path ahead of you, and you say, ‘I have to walk this path because I believe it’s the path that I have to walk,’ regardless of anybody’s opinion."

"This [divorce] has been just unbelievably humbling. But it has been healing. It makes me incredibly thankful that God is a God of second chances."

Grant recalls something a counselor told her. "He said, ‘Amy, God made marriage for people. He didn’t make people for marriage. He didn’t create this institution so He could just plug people into it. He provided this so that people could enjoy each other to the fullest.’ I say, if you have two people that are not thriving healthily in a situation, I say remove the marriage. Let them heal."

Gary had a different perspective, according to Amy. "His feeling was that this is our life, this is our commitment, and being true to this standard and keeping this vow is the most important thing for us, for our children, for our spiritual wellness.

" Gary has the kind of valor toward ideals that would make people overthrow governments and run armies. I think we all have different gifts, and I think one of Gary’s is that he is like a standard-bearer. And if I have a gift, it’s compassion. And at some point those things are different. They’re really different. That’s kind of a positive way of looking at some dynamics that have a negative side as well." OLD FRIEND

Throughout the middle part of this decade to the present, the subject of Grant’s relationship with country singer Vince Gill has been grist for the mill of gossip, tabloid and Internet discussion groups.

Among the rumors? That Grant and Gill are more than friends; that they were having an affair; that they are secretly married; that they plan to be married. Amy denies having an affair and being secretly married or engaged, and she prefers not to waste time addressing rumors more specifically. "I didn’t do many things right, but I didn’t do a lot of things wrong that I was accused of."

She acknowledges she and Gill developed a strong friendship in the early ’90s. "I was invited to do a Christmas TV special with Vince in 1993. And I said, ‘I’ll tell you what: I’ll do your TV show if you will do this Nashville Christmas [concert] with me.’ I didn’t hardly know him, and I don’t really like television stuff. But I was packing to leave and Gary said, ‘I know you’re gonna have a blast with this. I don’t know him very well, but I know him better than you do. And you guys are cut from the same cloth.’

"All I know to say is that I walked into that situation, and I felt like I had known [Vince] for a long time."

Since that time, the two have worked together in a number of professional settings. Gill sang on her 1994 project House of Love (Myrrh/A&M). More recently, they have appeared in charity golf outings and Gills sings on A Christmas to Remember.

Grant continues, "I didn’t get a divorce because I had a great marriage and then along came Vince Gill. Gary and I had a rocky road from day one. I think what was so hard—and this is [what] one of our counselors said—sometimes an innocent party can come into a situation, and they’re like a big spotlight. What they do is reveal, by comparison, the painful dynamics that are already in existence.

"Through all of that process in my life, Vince was a friend of mine," she continues, "It’s not adulterous, but it’s just messy because their friendship existed already.

Grant does acknowledge that she is now dating Gill, although she clarifies that he was not her boyfriend while she was married. She is also clear to say that she was not a confidant to him when he went through a divorce in 1997. "I have boundless respect for him, and he has always been so respectful of me…

I think it happens that you meet somebody and you go, ‘I feel like I have met a true complement.’"

Not that meeting such a person is a unique phenomena. What does Grant think happens when a married person meets a "soulmate" who is not their spouse?

"Well, I would say this—I do know that when you have invested in something for a long time, sacrificed for it, nurtured it—I’m talking about a relationship—it has a value that no spur of the moment meeting can compare with."

She continues, "We create boundaries around things that are important to us; that’s all out of protecting something that already means something to us. You just protect what’s valuable to you. It’s something that becomes more and more valuable."

After a long pause, Grant continues, "If somebody is unable to protect what they have at home, it’s either because [she pauses] they don’t know how to value a good thing or it’s not a good thing," she says, her voice trailing off.

"If people say, ‘She was leaning on a man emotionally that she wasn’t married to; she developed a friendship that was inappropriate….’ I want to go, ‘You know, if you’re gonna list my faults, let’s get to the real meat. You ain’t even scratched the surface with that stuff. Let’s get real. Humanity is humanity. You want to know what my real black ugly stuff is? Go look in a mirror and everything that’s black and ugly about you, it’s the same about me.’ That’s what Jesus died for. This should not be a surprise to any of us." Closing Time

Some Christian music fans, radio stations and retail stores have, in the past, drawn hard lines in the face of divorce, resulting in pulling support of the artist. Although each case is unique, history indicates Grant may face a similar fate. Grant has no argument against such decisions. "Well for one thing, it’s not like I knock on their door and said, ‘Here’s my music for free, please listen to it.’ I’m offering a product for sale that pays for my life and my children’s inheritance and what I tithe and on and on and on. So I’d have no argument.

"I guess I would say, judgement is usually exercised from a distance, but in more than one instance the thing that has brought about change [in people] is compassion. Jesus led by compassion. No one is ever changed because of judgment. No one’s ever healed through judgment."

Grant describes a visit she received from a friend and veteran gospel artist. "Vestal Goodman came to my house and basically talked pretty sternly to me for two hours one night. I came home from a long work day, and she’s waiting for me in my kitchen. I didn’t know what was coming. She talked to me about what she thought I should do with my life.

"I knew she did it because she loved me." Still, Grant thought her guest’s motivations were somewhat presumptuous. "I don’t know her that well.

"By the end of two hours, Vestal said, ‘Are you wanting me to just leave?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m wanting you to pray for me and then leave because I’m exhausted.’ Well, I saw her a couple of weeks ago on a flight going to L.A. She came up to me, gave me a big hug and she said, ‘Honey, you look alive. There’s life around your eyes for the first time in a long time.’ And I thought, you know what? It was her responsibility as a godly woman to give me a good talking to—and, trust me, because my life is so public, I got a good talking to from a lot of people."

Grant continues, "It doesn’t make one person more holy to point out the sin of another person. I just think there are so many stigmas in our society that we as believers feel become some dividing line: divorce, homosexuality, you know, just any kind of thing that [I believe] the Bible is so clear on the fact that God hates these things. We say, ‘Well, hey, I’m gonna side with God and be mad at all these people.’ But rather than stand back and judge, God made the ultimate sacrifice by saying, ‘In spite of the sinfulness of the world, I’m gonna send my Son down there to rescue everybody in the midst of their sin.’ How that differs from judgment is that God removed the distance. God closed the gap."