"You are a true treasure!"

ACM Award winner and two-time Grammy Award— nominated country music singer Jo Dee Messina, 52, is known for her big onstage energy and feisty empowerment anthems, but when her mother, Mary, passed away in 2020, life as she knew it changed forever. Here, how finding faith helped her weather the storm—and rediscover her peace and joy

- Deborah Evans Price

Anyone who knows Jo Dee Messina knows she is as fiery as her red hair and there’s nothing she can’t do. Having moved to Nashville, Tennessee, at just 19 years old, Jo Dee found decades of success in the country music industry with career-defining hits like “Heads Carolina, Tails California” and “I’m Alright.” But when her mother got sick, Jo Dee felt helpless and adrift. “I tried everything to keep her alive,” she shares with Woman’s World. “When I realized I couldn’t save her, I was at the end of myself. I was on my porch in the dark when, suddenly, I had the sense of knowing in my spirit the words, ‘She’s Mine.’ I lived next door to Steve Green, a Christian singer, so I knocked on his door and said, ‘Tell me about Jesus— He just showed up on my porch!’”

As her relationship with the Lord grew, Jo Dee says God helped her feel peace when her mother passed in 2020. “I was able to see the beauty in it, as opposed to anger and feeling cheated.”