Country superstar Luke Bryan celebrates his 50th birthday today, capping three decades in music with five ACM Entertainer of the Year awards and a string of chart-topping hits. But behind the stage lights is a story of loss that Bryan has said only his faith carried him through.
Bryan grew up in Leesburg, Georgia, the youngest of three siblings, where he first picked up a guitar at 14 and served as a youth leader at his church. His very first song, written and performed for his congregation as a teenager, was a Christian tune called "The Day He Turned Me Around."
At 19, just as he was preparing to move to Nashville to chase a music career, Bryan's older brother Chris died in a car accident at 26. The loss delayed his move for years. Then, months before his debut album released, his sister Kelly - his last remaining sibling - died suddenly and unexplainably at home. In 2014, tragedy struck again when Kelly's widowed husband died of a heart attack, leaving three children without either parent. Bryan and his wife, Caroline, took in their nephew so all three kids would have a home.
"The losses gave me such a deep perspective of life - how tough it can get at any second," Bryan has said. "You question it every day, but you have to revert back to your faith in God's plan."
That perspective shaped some of Bryan's most personal music, including "Drink a Beer," written as a tribute to his siblings. He's said that sharing his story is worth it if it moves even one person "down a positive path of hope."
Three decades and dozens of hits later, Bryan's story remains a reminder that even the brightest stages don't shield anyone from grief - and that faith, for him, has been the thing that held.
