Sandi Patty talks about experiencing 'The Edge of the Divine'

She had no way of knowing then that she would rise to fame as a Grammy Award-winning singer and that she would go on to sing at the California amusement park and its Florida counterpart Disney World several times.

All the young Sandi heard was God saying "no" to her Disney dream.

"I felt like I was on the edge of disaster, but really I was on the edge of the divine," Patty said during a recent interview.

She said she enrolled at Anderson University in Indiana and studied music after the unsuccessful audition. Patty said she also began traveling and singing with gospel music legends Bill and Gloria Gaither, who would sometimes let her step to the edge of the stage and sing a certain inspirational song.

The song? "We Shall Behold Him."

It was to become Patty's signature song and a favorite of the fans she would continue to draw worldwide as her music career took off.

"So, I look back 30 years ago at Disneyland, and it wasn't that God was saying 'no' to my dreams, it's just that He was saying 'yes' to a dream that I really couldn't see yet," she said.

"We can't see 30 years down the line, but we can know that maybe this, what feels like disaster, can be the beginning of something divine for us."

Patty discusses her Disney dream and her weight struggles in her new book "The Edge of the Divine: Where Possibility Meets God's Faithfulness." The book went on sale Aug. 3, and an album of the same name is set for release Aug. 24.

In "Edge," Patty candidly describes the health issues that led her to consider and ultimately choose to have bariatric surgery in 2008. She said she had been experiencing heart and blood pressure troubles, her cholesterol was high, and she also was concerned that she would develop diabetes.

She said her doctor suggested Lap-Band surgery, a procedure in which an adjustable gastric banding device is placed around the top part of the stomach to facilitate weight loss. Patty said she balked at the idea at first because she thought she was somehow cheating God if she let medicine intervene in her weight-loss struggle.