Grammy Violinist Caught a Hot Curling Iron and Watched God Heal Her Hand in 20 Minutes

Picture this: a Grammy-nominated violinist stands in her bathroom, her hand searing with pain after catching a falling curling iron. Her skin is bright red and shiny. A music video shoot is hours away. Her career flashes before her eyes as she realizes she may never play violin again. In that moment of panic, she does the only thing she knows to do: she prays. Twenty minutes later, her hand is completely healed.

Meet Jenny Oaks Baker, known as "America's Violinist," a Billboard #1 recording artist who received her master's degree from Juilliard and has performed at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, and as a guest soloist with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. She's released 20 albums, including The Redeemer Deluxe Edition, which has sold over a million copies. Her music from the Grammy-nominated album Wish Upon a Star is featured at Disney World and Disneyland to introduce the nightly fireworks show. She also recently founded SoulPhil Music, a foundation to establish faith-based productions. But beyond the accolades, Jenny is also the daughter of President Dallin H. Oaks, current prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In this episode of Why We Believe with host Nathan Gwilliam, Jenny shares her journey through loss, worldly temptation, and miraculous healing. Her story challenges everything we think we know about faith, divine timing, and what it means to trust God with our impossible dreams. What makes her account so significant is not just her musical accomplishments, but the spiritual lessons she's learned at the feet of a prophet and through her own encounters with the divine.

 Seeds of Faith Planted Early 

Jenny's testimony didn't begin on concert stages or in prestigious music halls. It started in her living room as a four-year-old with a tiny violin. Before each childhood performance, her parents would kneel down with her and ask Heavenly Father to bless her to play her best. Minutes later, she would feel those prayers answered.

Those small moments became the foundation of everything that followed. As performances grew larger and venues more intimidating, she already knew she could rely on God. The seeds planted at age four grew into a testimony that would carry her through life's most difficult trials. By the time she faced real adversity as an adult, Jenny had decades of evidence that God heard her prayers and responded to them.

 The Email That Saved Her Faith 

When Jenny was 22 years old and studying abroad at the BYU Jerusalem Center, she received devastating news: her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. Surrounded by sites where Jesus Christ had performed miracles, Jenny believed with everything in her that God could heal her mother. But a question tormented her: how do you exercise faith when everything depends on God's will? She emailed her father, then Elder Dallin H. Oaks, and asked him directly. His response changed her life forever. Her father explained that true faith is not faith that something specific will happen. True faith is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. When you anchor your faith in Christ rather than in a particular outcome, then whatever happens cannot shake your foundation.

If the thing you prayed for doesn't come to pass, your faith remains intact because it was never dependent on that result in the first place. When her mother passed away a year later, Jenny's faith wasn't destroyed. It was strengthened. She credits that single email with carrying her through grief without losing her testimony. The lesson her father taught her that day has become one she shares with anyone struggling to reconcile faith with difficult outcomes. She has watched others go through trials, pray for something specific, not receive it, and walk away from their faith entirely. She understands why it happens. But because of what her father taught her, she was spared that fate. Her faith could be strengthened through trials rather than shattered by them.

 A Child of Promise 

Jenny's very existence is a testament to faith and persistence. She was born 13 years after her nearest sibling. Her parents had tried to have more children for over a decade, including a heartbreaking miscarriage at five months. When people assumed Jenny was an accident or a surprise, her mother corrected them firmly. Jenny was not a surprise. She was prayed for. Growing up with that identity as a child of promise shaped Jenny's entire view of motherhood and family. She wanted children as soon as possible and as many as the Lord would send.

This desire was reinforced by watching her parents and siblings prioritize family above all else. President Oaks now has 29 grandchildren and is approaching 100 great-grandchildren. Jenny sees children as the heritage of the Lord and the greatest blessing a person can receive. This conviction echoes the message her father shared in his most recent general conference address about the importance of families and raising up a righteous generation.

 The Grammy Trap 

In 2011, Jenny received a Grammy nomination for her album Wish Upon a Star. She walked the red carpet, posed for photographers, and let the experience fill her with dreams of worldly success. The nomination put stars in her eyes and got her off track, convincing her that fame and fortune were her new life path. But the doors she expected never opened. For nearly two years, she became dissatisfied with a life most people would envy: a loving husband, four beautiful children, and a thriving music career. The nomination had shifted her focus toward validation that would never come. What pulled her back were the small and simple things: daily scripture study, consistent prayer, and faithful church attendance.

She never completely left the path, but she had wandered enough to feel the difference. Then came the realization that reframed everything. At the Grammys, photographers only knew her name because she had written it on their whiteboard. The moment she walked past, they erased it and never thought of her again. The contrast hit her like a revelation. The world erases your name the moment you pass by. But God keeps our names written on the palms of His hands. He never forgets us. Walking the red carpet, she realized, is nothing compared to walking on the white carpets of the temple. One experience leaves you empty and forgotten. The other leaves you filled and eternally remembered.

 The Impossible Dream God Solved 

As a teenager, Jenny wanted two things that seemed mutually exclusive: to be a world-class concert violinist and to be a present, stay-at-home mother. She stressed over the impossibility of achieving both and eventually shelved the question entirely, focusing instead on working hard and following the Spirit. Years later, she stood backstage at the Conference Center, about to perform for President Nelson's 95th birthday celebration with the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. But she wasn't performing alone. Her four children, the musical group Family Four, stood beside her.

In that moment, the realization washed over her. God had solved the problem she could never figure out. She had become a concert violinist with her children. She never found the answer on her own. But the Lord had been working on it since her mother placed a tiny violin in her hands 46 years earlier. She was so overcome with emotion that she could barely compose herself before walking onstage. God had answered a prayer she'd stopped asking decades ago.

 The Miracle of the Curling Iron 

The burned hand remains one of the most extraordinary miracles of Jenny's life. After catching the searing hot curling iron, she ran cold water over her hand and began praying desperately. Immediately, she felt certainty wash over her. She knew her hand would be healed. She received an impression to photograph her hand because it was about to be restored, and she would want a record of the miracle. Twenty minutes later, her hand was completely normal. She practiced violin, completed the music video shoot, and returned home with only a tiny blister on her thumb where it had barely grazed the iron. The before and after photos remain on her Instagram as a witness to what God did that day.

 Choose Your Own Path of Faith 

Jenny Oaks Baker's journey reveals that faith isn't about demanding specific outcomes from God. It's about trusting Him regardless of what happens. Her story challenges us to examine where we've placed our faith and whether we're chasing red carpet validation or walking the white carpets of the temple. Consider whether you've been trying to solve impossible dreams on your own rather than trusting God's timeline. Jenny's breakthrough didn't come when she figured everything out. It came when she looked back and realized God had been working on the answer for 46 years. Your own circumstances might look different, but the principle remains: when we follow the Spirit without knowing the destination, God creates paths we never could have imagined. Sometimes, our most stressful questions are already being answered in ways we won't recognize for decades.

Thank you for reading this week's blog post inspired by the Why We Believe show. If you are interested in more stories like this, you can check out our other blog posts and episodes at WhyWeBelieve.com.

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