Two years ago, I landed on the cover of CCM for the first time by myself. I wore a dress "borrowed" from Neiman Marcus, that I'm pretty sure cost three times my current monthly mortgage. To put it simply, it was the quintessential Cinderella dress. It was everything I've dreamt of being since I was 11 years old; and I flittered around in layer upon layer of that glorious shimmering, flowing, sweeping gown while the photographer snapped away. I had just been on this insanely stupid diet for months so that I could squeeze myself into the Cinderella getup, but one minute in that dress, and I knew that every shunned bagel had been worth it.

Hours later, the shoot ended; and I regretfully pulled on my Old Navy cargo pants, hopped into my pumpkin and headed home to my family where my 1-year-old son had decided to greet me with perhaps the most toxic diaper in the history of Huggies. Needless to say, the clock had struck midnight.

Awhile back, I askedCCMif I could write this story. I felt -- still feel -- uneasy about that photo shoot princess moment. Not because there's anything wrong with feeling momentarily flawless, but because that photo, and many like it, in no way represent my real life. I feel rather nauseous when I consider the young girl who sees that photo and has no idea that it took five hours and an entire team of makeup artists and stylists to make me look like a princess. She also has no idea that even after all that, somebody sat at a computer (with my enthusiastic blessing) and point and clicked away my acne scars, my 35-year-old wrinkles and the roll of flesh around my middle that makes me look like I am perpetually stuck in my second trimester.

This is an especially difficult scenario to stomach, since this same young girl will probably send me a heartfelt email about how she appreciates how "real" I am...

So.

Armed with a guilty conscience and CCM's permission, I was compelled to ask some other artists if they, too, might wrestle a bit with the irony that we are trying desperately, through our music, to point to the liberating love of Jesus while packaging that music in a way that points to ... well ... us. To be honest, I wasn't sure if anybody wanted to talk about that pressure. I feared silence. I feared the Jerry McGuire office memo moment. Would my fellow artists talk about real life?

Thirteen interviews later, to say that they were honest is an understatement. I awkwardly asked for a couple inches and, miles later, was humbled by the transparency of my peers.

Youth of a Nation

I continue to marvel at how the average age of a new artist gets younger and younger each year. I've chimed in with the cynics on many occasions, "What can you possibly say to the world when you're 16? I mean, are they going to write songs about how much it stinks to wear braces?"

I could tell after about 30 seconds of talking with Bethany Dillon, now 18, that I had a lot to learn from her perspective. I've always admired her "jeans and T-shirt" sense of self, and yet she confesses to getting tripped up by some of the trimmings and trappings and the struggle to stay true to who she is, "...people can smell a phony and can tell when you're not wearing your own clothes and you're saying things that aren't really in your vocabulary. I mean, I'm human...and there's part of me that's like, 'Why can't I buy hundreds of dollars worth of makeup?' And I could...and in the back of my mind I feel like I couldn't pull that off for long. I have to learn now to be honest about the fact that I am a girl from the country in Ohio. I want to be feminine and all that, but the thing about me is that I just don't spend a lot of time putting myself together."