LeAnn Rimes has been promoting her new album, god’s work and speaking about the personal journey the album portrays from her life. In addressing the title, the Grammy winner said, “the lowercase ‘g’ represents the duality of this record and where humanity meets spirit.” She called the album a “reclamation of God” for her, saying, “I kind of ran from the word God for a long time. I was raised Southern Baptist and my frustration was we’re brought up with these messages of love, acceptance, community, and forgiveness, but no one’s living them to the fullest. It really makes us question how we’re allowing creation to work through us for a better world.”

Despite talking about the spirituality of the album for her, she didn’t necessarily limit the “god” of god’s work to the Yahweh of the Bible. “God can mean different things to different people. To me, it’s like insert the word ‘love,’ insert the word ‘creation’. I saw somewhere where people were saying it’s called god’s work, so it’s a religious record. It’s whatever it is to you.” The album itself is three years in the making, with the titular song, “god’s work” being one of the first songs she recorded for the album. “In early 2019 we wrote ‘god’s work’ and ‘Throw My Arms Around the Word,’ and we recorded mid-year, then thought we’d take a moment to regroup since I was on tour and start writing again in 2020. We did that and then life happened, so we started creating a record with everyone on the couch in their sweats,” she said, referring to the 2020 COVID pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. She used her experience of the anxieties during that time to inform the rest of her album, trying to capture “the collective experience” of those early days of the pandemic.

Rimes has focused particularly on wellness in the last decade and began her own wellness podcast in 2020 called “Wholly Human.” In an interview with “The Chalkboard,” the singer discussed the toll that being a celebrity took on her, coming into the music world at the tender age of 13 and winning a Grammy at 14. “I’ve spent my whole life in front of the world’s eyes, being projected upon in one way or another since I was 13 years old. For so long, our society has not wanted to see the humanness of our celebrities… For my own soul and sanity, it has been important to me to not have to fracture myself to be ‘LeAnn Rimes.’” She stated she looked to creativity to help her when “anxiety creeps in.” “Having daily communion with my own soul has been so important,” she added. “Meditation, nature, and creating help me to stay in touch with my inner voice, my connection to creation.”

Now 40, Rimes hopes to use her latest album to touch the heart of her fans. “Even when people didn’t know the music they seemed to be connecting and jamming to it already. When we played ‘god’s work’ it’s like we turned the whole audience into a choir and by the end they were all singing ‘We are God’s work’ then applauding afterward. I think it’s empowering.”