Popular singer/songwriter discusses lifelong struggle ahead of upcoming concert in Idaho Falls

IDAHO FALLS - Talking about uncomfortable things is something Jason Gray has come to epitomize over the years.

The 49-year-old Christian singer/songwriter from Mankato, Minnesota, who will be the headline performer at a benefit concert for the Idaho Falls Rescue Mission on June 11, has written hundreds of songs addressing personal struggle. Many of them stem from his own life experience and one song he wrote several years ago called "Death Without a Funeral" addresses his feelings about his recent divorce.

"I'd probably put that in the top three songs that I'm the proudest of," Gray tells EastIdahoNews.com.

In a conversation with EastIdahoNews.com, Gray spoke candidly about another personal struggle he's dealt with his entire life.

"My s-s-s-s-s-s-sss-tuttering is mysterious," Gray says. "I'm not sure what causes it, but as far as I understand it, it's genetic. I'm genetically predisposed to it. It lies in wait inside of you and is activated by a traumatic event."

Gray developed a stuttering problem when he was 5-years-old. He says it was tied to his parent's divorce and an abusive relationship with his father.

Despite living with an embarrassing handicap as a kid, Gray has learned to cope with it over the years with the help of speech therapists and breathing techniques. It's a challenge he's got mostly under control now, but there are still a few words and sounds that trip him up occasionally.

"Has it gotten better over the years or have I just learned how to mask it? I think it's a combination of both," he says. "You'll notice sometimes I'll be speaking and I'll take a breath before I finish the next (word). When I do that, I'm doing my breath monitoring. If I can tell I'm going to get hung up on a word, I'll quickly find another word."

Even with a speech impediment, Gray says he always knew he wanted to be a singer. He wasn't sure quite how that would work with his speech challenge, but he quickly realized that it wasn't a stumbling block. Quite the opposite, in fact.

When he picked up a guitar and started to sing, suddenly it was much easier to communicate and the messages inside his heart could finally be set free.

"When I sing, it automatically clears up and the idea behind that is that when you sing, you automatically breathe properly. You're (communicating) from a different part of your brain," he says. "I could sing everything but I think that would be more awkward than the actual speech handicap, so I just (embrace) the speech handicap."

Embracing and accepting that weakness, however, is not something that happened naturally for Gray. For a long time, he was ashamed of it and didn't feel he could become what he was supposed to be unless God intervened and removed it from his life.

"I argued with God, saying 'I can't be your spokesperson until you mm-mm-mm-mm...uh...m-make it so I can speak.' But then I thought, I see how this is supposed to be. I'm supposed to go out and do this anyway and when I do that, G-G-G-God's gonna make it go away and that'll be my story."

But that isn't Gray's story and it wasn't until several years later that he had an experience that changed his perspective.

Gray says he was stuttering like crazy in between performances at a concert. He could barely get two words out while speaking to the crowd and he wanted to hide.

His attempt at disappearing after the concert was an epic failure. As he sat in a coffee shop, there was a line of people waiting to speak with him.

"I heard variations of the same story. I heard people say, 'J-J-Jason. Thanks for what you did this evening. It reminded me that I'm not defined by my weakness,'" Gray recalls. "I remember going home that night and realizing it wasn't the content of my concerts that spoke to people. What spoke to people was that I was a broken, imperfect person and I got up there on stage and I did it anyway."

Today, Gray considers his weakness an incredible asset to his performing career because it allows him to reach people in a way that few people can.

"Maybe this thing I've always imagined is a liability is really a gift," he says. "Maybe God doesn't intend to heal me of my speech impediment but maybe he intends to bring healing to others through it."

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE CONVERSATION WITH GRAY IN THE VIDEO PLAYER ABOVE.