IDOLeyes

Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Contents

Foreword by Beth Moore.........................ixPrologue.......................................xv1. Waiting Patiently...........................12. On Solid Ground.............................293. A New Song..................................494. The Joy of Trusting.........................735. Tender Mercies..............................1016. Troubles Surround Me........................1317. Joy and Gladness............................1498. Poor and Needy..............................1679. Losing Courage..............................17910. In the Lord's Thoughts.....................201Notes..........................................237About the Authors..............................239

Chapter One

Hello. I'm Mandisa, and I'm a foodaholic. I'm also addicted to reality television. I love cheesecake, ice cream, and The Amazing Race. My idea of a perfect night is an up-sized cheeseburger meal deal followed by a two-hour episode of Survivor.

These days I'm learning how to deal with my food addiction, and I'm choosing to eat healthily. I've come to realize that being overweight is bad for my body and that if I'm going to be a good steward of the life God has given me, I need to change my eating habits.

The reality shows, however, are a different story. God has not led me to give those up; instead, He's used them to change my life.

Before I ever thought about auditioning for American Idol, I had watched every episode of every season and knew all the finalists by name. I believe Idol is the greatest TV show in the world, and every time I watched, at the back of my mind lurked a question: What would happen if I were to audition? But whenever I'd wonder about my chances, I immediately re- minded myself that I was too old. For the first three seasons, contestants could be no older than twenty-four when they auditioned, and I was twenty-five when Idol first aired in the United States.

Ultimately, though, I'd flash back to all the comments I'd heard Simon make to people who are overweight-let's face it, the man is not the sort to spare anyone's feelings. He must adhere to the philosophy that one must be cruel to be kind, because I've seen him deflate dozens of contestants' hopes with a well-placed barb.

Still, I couldn't help but wonder. Then, at the start of season four, Idol raised the age limit to twenty-eight. I was eligible ... but I didn't have peace about proceeding. The timing didn't feel right.

Yet as I celebrated my twenty-eighth birthday in October 2004, I realized that would be my last year to be eligible for an Idol audition.

Was I going to let fear of one man's comments keep me from fulfilling a dream? Would I blow out the candles on my thirtieth birthday cake and wonder if I could have qualified for the competition?

In the early winter months of 2005, I decided that I wanted to live a life of no regrets. I didn't want to reach thirty-five or forty and still be wondering whether I had what it took to make it onto the Idol stage.

Back to the Beginning

I grew up in Citrus Heights, California, near Sacramento. I lived with my mother, Ruby Hundley, and spent every other week-end with my father and stepmother, John and Millie Hundley.

My parents named me Mandisa, which means "sweet" in the language of the Xhosa, a South African people group. Growing up, I heard my name pronounced every imaginable way. Kids used to tease me by calling me "Medusa," so I'm sure you can understand why I wasn't thrilled to be compared to an ugly mythological monster with snakes for hair. Because of that horrible nickname, in junior high I tried to change my name to "Kandie." After all, Mandisa means "sweet," and what is sweeter than candy? On the first day of school I would approach my teachers before class and tell them that I wanted to be called Kandie instead of Mandisa.

The result? Many of my classmates never knew what my real name was. When I enrolled in junior college, I finally decided it was time to let go of my childhood nickname and live under the name my parents gave me.

There's power and meaning in a name. And just as my friends struggled to switch from calling me "Kandie" to calling me "Mandisa," I've had to learn how to refer to my mother by a different name. In 2003, Mom decided that she wanted to return to her maiden name, Ruby Berryman. My brother, John, and I were grown, so she wouldn't have to explain why she and her children had different last names. I also think she wanted to clear out some painful memories from the past.

Like most children who grew up with divorced parents, I felt torn between my mom and my dad. I wanted to love them equally, but it's not easy to be loyal to both parents when they are divided by hurts that are as tender today as they were thirty years ago.

Like millions of working mothers, my mom was out of the house most of the day, so I spent many nonschool hours at home in front of the television. Combined with my love for food, those periods of inactivity began to pack extra pounds on my childish frame. In hindsight, I can understand why researchers have discovered that children who watch more than three hours of television a day are 50 percent more likely to be obese than kids who watch fewer than two hours. In fact, more than 60 percent of instances of being overweight can be linked to excess TV viewing.

I started getting heavy in late elementary school, and there I heard my share of fat jokes and sharp comments. Kids can be cruel, and even though I had always recited "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," I would have preferred any number of broken bones to the sting of those condemning words.

Yet I could forget those mean remarks and nicknames when I went home and lost myself in a TV show. I'd go to the refrigerator or cupboard, grab a snack, and settle down on the sofa as I ate and laughed and let the television take me away from the real world.

When I wasn't watching TV, I'd go to the bathroom, pick up a curling iron, hold it like a microphone, and watch myself in the mirror as I sang along with the radio and pretended I was a talented television star.

Lately I've come to understand that I'm an introvert by nature. I used to think that introverts were shy and withdrawn, and I enjoy parties and people! Now I understand that being an introvert means that I need to be alone to reenergize. I suppose it's because of that tendency that I've always preferred sedentary activities to active ones. As I grew heavier, the excess pounds only reinforced my preference. My personality, combined with the ridicule I sometimes heard, led me to stay indoors and keep to myself.

I might have continued forever in a sort of vicious cycle-eating and sitting, sitting and eating-until a new interest entered my life by way of a book.

A Novel Leads the Way

My high school creative-writing teacher assigned the classic novel Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein. Michael Valentine Smith, the hero of Heinlein's novel, is a human raised by Martians. He comes to earth as an innocent child, grows up, establishes a church, preaches love, and ultimately dies-the fate of most messiahs.

The book is...