Jamie Grace on Tourette's, worship and everything in between

Jamie Grace has stolen the hearts of many Christian music lovers with her number one single “Hold Me” but looking at the successful teen, it would be difficult to tell that she battles with Tourette syndrome and is persevering to complete her college education.

It's been an exciting year for Jamie, with releasing her first album on tobyMac’s Gotee Records, touring, and being well received by fans, the 19-year-old has had her hands full.

Life has greatly changed for Jamie, who started from a humble place, by making YouTube videos of cover songs and some original tunes, along with being a BREATHEcast intern.

Amassing about a hundred videos, she caught the eye of producer tobyMac, who tweeted about working together. Initially believing the tweet was fake, the authenticity of it was realised when her manager-mum was contacted on behalf of tobyMac.

A spokeswoman for Tourette syndrome, the teen had been making moves before she began with Gotee Records but is now continuing to help change lives through her music, managing her illness and pursuing her educational goals.

It's been an exciting year for you. How have you adjusted from being a ‘regular’ teenager to having such a large platform?

Grace: It's been a pretty exciting 13, 14 months. It's been pretty crazy but I definitely have that sense of normalcy with my parents, my sister, and her husband. I travel a lot and I tour a lot on the weekends but I always know that somewhere in the mix I’m going to get a good old family dinner in there, where I’m still the baby in the family. I’m going to half to deal with my brother-in-law picking on me and my sister picking on me and stuff like that.

Along with being a great singer and song writer, you raise awareness for Tourette’s syndrome. What prompted you to start ‘Teens With TS’ and to raise awareness in general?

Grace: When I was 11-years-old I was diagnosed with Tourette's and for people that don’t know, it's a condition that causes movements and sounds called ticks that can’t be controlled. There are medicines that can help and there are therapies that you can test out but there’s nothing that can truly fix Tourette's. There’s no known cure for it.

And I remember being pretty heartbroken about that at around 11 or 12-years old because I had been having the symptoms since I was nine years old. I had some pretty ruff medical things go on when I was younger so I was used to, you know when you get sick, you go to the doctor, get medicine and things get better but with Tourette's I found out that it wasn’t going to be that easy at all.

So learning all that and just kind of going through that slump, it really just kind of broke me and it kind of left me in an area where, I didn’t feel confident with who I was. I was almost certain that God didn’t love me anymore. I was just very confused but fortunately, my parents stayed very close to each other and very close to me and my sister was amazing through all of that, just staying by my side.

They constantly encouraged me and even when I couldn’t believe anything that they said but they just always told me that they loved me and that God loved me and that things were going to get better.

When I started playing music, I’ve been singing my whole life actually, but when I started playing music is when I kind of found hope because I was discovering the plan that God has for my life. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing at that time. I thought I was just having fun but I was finding out that God has a purpose for me and that God has a plan for me and through that He showed me, “Hey kid, like I need you to take this message of hope and I need you to share it with other kids'. So I decided I was going to be a singer, an actress, and a motivational speaker and try to get the message of God’s hope out to anyone that I could.

That led to starting ‘Teens With TS’, the organisation that I founded when I was 14-years-old to just tell kids that you’re not alone in what you’re going through. And I wanted to raise awareness of Tourette's because kids would bully me and pick on me and strangers would often times stare at me or mock me.

I was just thinking to myself, they don’t understand what I have. How can I expect them to treat me nice about it? So, I just wanted to tell everyone about it, encouraging people to not pick on someone or treat them badly just because they’re different.

Along with being an artist, and motivational speaker, you’re also a student. How do you balance your career and student life?

Grace: It's definitely not easy. I’m a senior at Point University. I’m studying childhood ministry. There are some moments where I’m literally sitting up going, ‘Oh my goodness. How am I going to finish this?’ But more than those there are the moments when my sister will send me an email and say, ‘Send me that paper you’re working on. Let me give you my input.’

I definitely have deadlines and things like that, just like any other student, but one of my professors will encourage me. I even saw one of my professors yesterday and he was like, ‘Well I’m praying for you and I know you’re gonna get it done.’ It helps when they say things like that and I have a really good support system, and also a mum that travels with me a lot and helps me do my homework [she laughs].

BC: Your album really has a hopeful and comforting feeling. What are you hoping that your fans ultimately take away from your album?

Grace: I think it's best explained just with the line from the title track, “One Song At A Time” where it says “Just give me six strings and I’ll sing you the truth” because a lot of time I have a hard time saying what I feel or saying what I mean. I just have a hard time putting it into words sometimes, so I’l just pull out my guitar and write a song about it and be like ok, I’m not sure what I’m feeling.

I write songs when I’m really happy. I write songs when I’m upset. I write songs when I’m confused and then those songs end up on my album. And I hope that people are in a great spot with God and they can continue on that path. And I hope that they’ll find songs like “Hold Me” and “You Make Us Smile” and “ Just Wanna Dance” and go sit on the beach or something.

But then again, in a moment when they don’t know how far they can go, and they don’t know how much God is there for them, I hope that they’re encouraged in understanding that God is always there for them, with songs like "Holding On" and "Not Alone".

There’s definitely a lot of great music out there, but if people happen to cross my CD, I hope that whatever they’re going through, there’s something, at least something on there for them to be encouraged.

Jamie Grace’s debut release, One Song At A Time, is out now