Loretta Lynn’s Granddaughter Clung to Jesus Through Abuse, Addiction

Tayla Lynn is the granddaughter of country music legend Loretta Lynn. But being part of an iconic family didn’t shield her from deep emotional trauma and severe addiction. In some ways, it made things worse.

“I can remember the first time I drank, I just loved the way that it made me feel,” she recalls.

Tayla tells The 700 Club she spent the first years of her life near the glow of her grandmother’s celebrity. But when her parents divorced and her mother remarried, Tayla’s life suddenly changed.

Tayla remembers, “Their wedding night, uh, was the first time that he kicked me across the room … crawled down the hall into my bedroom. And it’s one of those moments where you grow up all of a sudden really fast and go, oh, okay.”

In her teens, Tayla turned to alcohol to take away the fear. She says it made her feel invincible, but inside she carried the burden of rejection. “I deserved it. It was my fault. Uh, I think when you are a fighter, you think that you’re bad, so, it’s really me that’s the problem,” Tayla says.

The alcohol she used to cover her pain sent her on a path of personal destruction. Tayla recalls, “The alcohol stole my integrity fast. Things that I can’t imagine a 15-, 16-year-old girl doing, it just took away whatever felt like was good in me, was tainted.”

Her aunt told her stories from the Bible that gave her peace. Even through the abuse, and her own bad choices, Tayla found comfort knowing Jesus loved her. “She would say, ‘You’re not alone. Remember that. You’re not alone. Jesus is with you all the time. Like, all you have to do is close your eyes and Jesus is there.'”

Through her tears, Tayla recalls, “And so I can remember so many times, like being in my closet, ‘I’m not alone. Jesus is here.’ And without that I don’t know what that would have—I don’t know what my life would have looked like had I not thought, ‘Let’s, you know, either let’s do it, let’s fight.’ Or like, ‘I’m bad and nobody loves me, and I want to just run away.’ But the whole time, Jesus was always, like, in my pocket, and always. That never changed.” {eoa}

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