“I was cleaning my apartment one day while listening to a MercyMe album,” Kara says. “I had this pivotal moment when I felt God telling me, ‘This is what I want you to do. Even though it is not where your heart is, I’m going to change your heart.’ “

God did change Kara’s heart and opened the doors for her to record an album titled Kara in 2002 and Undisguised in 2005. “God has been orchestrating my music career from day one,” she says. “I can’t take any credit.”

Keep reading to learn why Kara wanted a break from music and how God has continued to restore her heart.

Brio: How has being in music since a young age impacted your life?
Kara: Everything I did as a child was motivated by making people happy, wanting to do good and being a good person. When I was 15, I developed an eating disorder. It started subtle by skipping lunch here and there. By the time I was 18 or 19 years old, I was starving myself and making myself throw up. It was a control issue because I wanted to please people. But some situations in my life I couldn’t control, such as what people thought of me.

I tried being the perfect person for my boyfriend and at church where my dad was the pastor. I felt like I had to set the example for everyone. In concert, I felt the pressure to be perfect, and I caved in.

How did your parents find out about your eating disorder?
My mom took me on a shopping trip for my 20th birthday. As I tried on clothes, she noticed that size 0 pants were too big. At that point, she knew there was a major problem. On our way home, she looked at me and said, “Kara, is there anything you want to tell me?”

Any other time I would have said, “No, I’m fine.” But for whatever reason, it was as if God was looking at me and saying her words. I totally broke and confessed everything to her about my eating disorder. That’s when God started healing me.

My restoration is a process even to this day. I’m 26, but I still struggle with eating every now and then, especially when life gets hectic or stressful. My first response is I don’t want to eat.

Did you ever seek treatment?
Yes, I did. But I went to a counselor who didn’t really help me. I made him think everything was fine. I’d grown up doing that my whole life, so I knew how to say the right things.

Later, a lady in my life who had struggled with an eating disorder sat me down and told me the facts. She explained what I was doing to my body. It totally freaked me out, and God used that as the initial thing to scare me into reality. Then, once I understood that, God said, “Now let Me reveal to you the issues of your heart and why you’re doing this to yourself.” Working through those issues has been kind of a painful process but also amazingly healing.

How have you shared the things you’ve experienced with other teen girls?
About a year after I confessed to my mom, I felt God telling me to confess it to my youth group, where I was the worship leader. I was so scared to do it because these the teens thought I was perfect, and they had no idea anything was wrong.

I stood in front of those teens as their leader and confessed to them. It was unbelievable! So many of the girls came up to me afterward and said, “We never knew, but we’ve looked up to you all the time. It makes us feel so much better that you have the same struggles we do and can help us.”

Since that day, every time I share my testimony I get the same response: Girls say, “Wow! That’s exactly how I feel.” Girls feel so much pressure to be perfect. They don’t always realize you don’t have to measure up to the world’s standards. God totally accepts you just as you are and He takes you from that point.

How have you incorporated these lessons into your album Undisguised?
Oh, my goodness! It’s all over it. There’s a song called “Dear Performer,” and it’s basically me talking to that performer and people-pleaser in me. Its message says, “You’ve deceived me all these years and made me think you’re the only way I can be successful in my life. But now God has revealed the truth to me, and I don’t have to listen to you any more.”

Another song is called “Undisguised.” It’s a love song to Jesus and to my husband. My husband met me and fell in love with me in the midst of all of this. He saw me have panic attacks. He saw me with no makeup. I wouldn’t even let the pest control guy see me with no makeup at that time!

But I was so broken and tender with the Holy Spirit at that time, and that’s what my husband fell in love with. It had nothing to do with my outward appearance or the reasons I thought people would love me. The fact that he fell in love with me apart from all the things I identified myself with was an unbelievable miracle Jesus did in my life.

What advice do you have for teen girls who desire that sense of control and feel pressured to be perfect?
First of all, you have to get on your knees and get into the Word. Know what God says about you to counter what the world says about you. The only way to fight a lie is to know the truth, and the only way to know the truth is to get into the Word, pray and ask the Lord to reveal His truth to you.

Put Scripture verses all over your room. Put them on your bathroom mirror, on your dresser, wherever you need to and be filling your mind with those things.

Also, don’t harbor secrets in your heart. We all have things we don’t want people to know. Find one person you can trust and is not going to judge you, such as a counselor at your school or a youth pastor. It’s awesome if it can be your parents, but I know a lot of girls who are afraid of what their parents will think. So find someone who is a believer to whom you can confess.

Sometimes I’m still tempted to starve myself. It’s not this thing that completely went away, but by the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word, I’m not in bondage to it any more. It’s not something that controls my life. It’s like a thorn in the flesh because it makes me lean on God and fall to my knees.