by Emily Ley
Why couldn’t I carry my babies full-term?
Why do I struggle with food choices?
Why couldn’t we conceive on our own?
Why do I lose my temper?
Why am I so impatient?
It was as if God was giving me the opportunity to unload my soul right there on that gym floor. The physical challenge was tearing open a hole for my spirit to break through. As I finally let that pain surface, I’d push and push and punch those thoughts in the face.
I am more than the sum of my doubts.
My body is strong.
I have wonderful children.
I am capable and worthy of being the woman I want to be.
I doubt James knew everything that was going on in my head during those workouts. But he probably saw the emotion and fight in my eyes. Working out, even when I transitioned to exercising on my own, made me a new girl. In fact, moving my body and fighting through hard stuff was probably one of the single most transformative things I did for myself. Even though I usually dropped to the floor once the timers ended and the music stopped, I loved the feeling of going up against something hard and coming out the other side.
And guess what? I lost exactly zero pounds during that time, but my mind and body were truly transformed in immeasurable ways.
7
FAITH
Less Fear, More Community
My biggest prayer in writing this book is to honor my sisters whose lives look different than my own and to honor any of you who may feel as if you don’t measure up to everyone else. It’s my heart’s greatest hope that this message reaches every woman, no matter your story, your background, or your current situation.
Whether you’re a single gal in a tiny apartment in New York City or a grandmother walking the halls of a big empty home in Alabama; whether you are living the city life, doing laundry ten floors down when the quarters stack high enough, or spend your time vacuuming half-eaten French fries from the floor of your minivan; whether you’re a college gal working toward a dream career or a girl fresh out of high school off to train to begin your job now; whether you’re a mom with special needs kids or a bright, beautiful woman with special needs of her own; whether your paychecks are plentiful or your paychecks are spoken for before you receive them; whether you worship the God who I believe created this world or are unsure about your walk in any faith, these words are for you.
I say this because, as it relates to the topic of faith, I’ve always felt like a bit of an outlier. Like maybe I don’t belong in some groups. I’m a Christian and I publish with a Christian publisher, but I’ve always wondered if my story fits neatly with other Christian writers in the world today. I don’t have a childhood of church camps and stories of Bible studies and women’s groups. You see, although I was raised in a very faithful family, I was not raised in a church. In fact, while I’ve attended numerous churches and been involved in a few great ministries, I first joined a church only when I was in college.
So know that whomever you are, sister—whatever your background, your story, or your beliefs—you have a seat at this table next to imperfect, searching me.
LOVE THAT NEVER FAILS
When I was a little girl, my grandmother took me to our local Lifeway Christian Bookstore to buy me a big-girl Bible. My grandmother and I had a special bond, one that crossed generations and connected us as sisters in Christ. More than anything in the world, she wanted the rich, golden love of Jesus to live solidly and brightly in my heart. She knew that no matter what life might throw my way, this unwavering love would never fail me. It’d always be there, burning bright, when life got hard.
She was raised by a single mother in Montgomery, Alabama, during a time when there weren’t many single mothers. Her mom, my namesake, was mannerly and motherly and Southern as can be. She worked shifts at the makeup counter at the local department store, selling skin care and lipstick to ladies who could afford far more than she. She raised my grandma on hymns and cornbread and lived a simple life caring for her girl. Like my grandmother, I wasn’t raised in a church. Instead, my family found Jesus at the dinner table sharing stories of choices made and lessons learned, on the shores of the pristine white beaches of our hometown, witnessing the majesty of God’s incredible creations, and in the stands of the local football stadium under Friday night lights, where we connected with others over sports and hot dogs. I found fellowship with girlfriends who helped me memorize Scripture and worshipped down back-country roads with my windows rolled down and mediocre voice cranked up high singing Chris Tomlin and Point of Grace.
I wouldn’t change a thing about this. My family’s legacy is grounded in connection, communion, and fellowship, wrapped in its own unique packaging. The love of Jesus was taught not in a Sunday school classroom for me, but on my bed, knee-to-knee with my mom, reciting the words of the Lord’s Prayer line by line, slowly building up my ability to recite the whole thing. It was in Precious Moments books shared with my brother at bedtime, learning about good choices and poor choices. And it was in learning to put others’ needs before our own, actively loving and serving others in our community.
More than anything in the
world, my grandmother wanted
the rich, golden love of JESUS
to live solidly and brightly in my
heart. She knew that it would
always be there, BURNING
BRIGHT, when life got hard.
As I got older, I found that I wanted to dig deeper into my faith. Why did I believe what I did? What else was out there? How did these things come to be? I questioned everything (even reading stacks of books about other religions). I’ve asked trusted mentors hard questions. I’ve even shaken my fists at God during hard times. But the Lord keeps finding me. And I keep finding my way back to Him. It’s funny how that works. And in me, He began to stir a thirst for deeper knowledge into the truths put forth in the Bible. I became thirsty for truths I could truly dig my nails into when life got hard, rather than reaching for what the world told me would make things better.
A broken engagement and a called-off wedding. Years of infertility. A high-risk pregnancy, then another. Marriage and parenting. Entrepreneurship and risk. A few health scares. At some points in my life, I have hit my knees and tried to recover every earthly way I knew how. All the kale and exercise and screen-free time in the world is wonderful. Books about hustle and fresh starts and getting after your goals can take you far.
But when you’re at your lowest, down in the valley, there’s only one way out: to lay it all at the foot of Someone so much bigger than you. We can hustle and strive and try all we want. But without the missing piece . . . the central piece . . . the piece that ties the rest of it together with unwavering truth, we’ll all fall short.
I’ve never read the Bible cover to cover, but my goal is to do it soon. Even so, nuggets of truth from its pages have buried themselves deep in my heart over the years, as anchors for my soul during the ups and downs of life. The following verse is a cornerstone of my faith:
“Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)
During the times in my life when I’ve been filled with fear, riddled with anxiety, this verse has given me so much hope. Do not fear. Maybe one of you needs to hear it. I promise you can trust these words: I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
As smart, thoughtful, strong women, we believe the lie that we have to do life alone. We are solution-oriented, and we are fixers. When life is off course or full of more than we can possibly manage or we encounter a problem, we survey the landscape, gather our tools, and fix it. Here’s the hard truth I’ve had to learn: God doesn’t need us to be fixers. God is waiting to take the burden from us. To make our loads light. But laying down our worries and concerns feels counterproductive, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we be focused on finding a way over, under, or around these roadbloc
ks?
I will uphold
you with my
RIGHTEOUS
right hand.
ISAIAH 41:10
God doesn’t want us to work so hard. Yes, He created us with strong hearts and minds and the ability to move mountains. But He wants us to first lay it down. Get ready for Matthew 11:28–30 to knock your socks off:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Look at the lightness God wants for us. “You will find rest for your souls.” Soul rest. This verse perfectly encapsulates the fullness Christ has for us: rest, gentleness, humility, ease, light.
Yes, please. Let us lay it all down.
A COMMUNITY OF LOVE
Over the years, God has also stirred in me a desire for a larger faith community for our family to be part of. But finding this community seemed really big and scary. I felt a lot of pressure to find the perfect place that checked all the boxes. And I also felt pretty nervous.
Stepping out into this desire meant I would have to step into the uncomfortable and own the fact that I didn’t really understand how it all worked, that I was going to be the new kid, that I was probably going to have to visit a few churches (maybe even more than a few) before I found the right one. But I did. And it was awkward.
I visited churches all over, none of them feeling like the perfect fit. I wanted to find a place that felt right for me and for my husband and kids. Until one day—when I ventured into a school cafeteria with a friend and met a bunch of imperfect people with big hearts for God. They didn’t have the perfect building or the perfect programs (yet). But they were good people who loved God, and they wanted to love others in big ways. Their love for the Lord was really simple and special to me. And they welcomed everyone into their doors. No one even batted an eye at the fact that I was the new kid or that I didn’t speak fancy church language (they didn’t either really!). And so I brought my family. And slowly we became part of that community.
When we moved back to our hometown last year, I set out to find a new church home for our family. And God provided because I put one foot in front of the other. Last Sunday, our three children were baptized there. It was a moment like no other.
I’ve learned, as I continue to walk out the topics of this book in my own life, that the following truth is the fundamental part of learning that less is truly more. Jesus didn’t pick and choose the most confident, well-read, best-behaved people to join His table. He didn’t surround Himself only with the best Scripture memorizers or the ones whose church attendance was the most stellar. He chose the broken ones. The imperfect ones. The ones who doubted and asked questions. He chose the ones with histories, and stories, and struggles.
He chose you and me.
God doesn’t need us to be fixers.
And if we keep choosing Him, even when it’s not easy, we will discover more—more peace, more richness, more joy. Even when we are doubtful or unsure, He always chooses us—always. Despite our imperfection, our brokenness, our overwhelm; whether we meet Jesus in a sanctuary or around a dinner table or with a friend; whether we’re sure of His promises or have a question or five, He chooses us. And He has so much more for us than we could even imagine.
BEAUTY IN BROKENNESS
One of the hardest concepts to grasp in my faith is that Jesus doesn’t always immediately fill our emptiness or manage our mess. During certain seasons of life, I’ve fought with my faith. Why, if God is Lord of all, does He allow bad things to happen? Why does He allow important prayers to go unanswered? Why does He allow my feelings to persist if He doesn’t want me to feel this way? Why doesn’t He give me some relief from the craziness?
Over time, looking back at seasons of grief or struggle, I’ve learned that sometimes God doesn’t immediately patch the holes in our balloons. Sometimes He actually makes a hole bigger. In those moments He is reaching in and working inside us. Because a quick fix doesn’t add up to lasting and true growth. And because this is when our souls are most changed, often even made stronger as we become who God wants us to be at our core.
Perhaps then, there is beauty in brokenness. Maybe God does His holy work here instead of perfect scenarios—using our insecurities, our imperfections, and our brokenness to force us to slow our steps, to turn our hearts upward, and to be still. It’s when we stop and lay down all the mess, when we finally unburden ourselves of all the things that are weighing us down, that we can turn our open palms upward and allow God to steward us into becoming the women He made us to be.
8
PARENTING
Less Great, More Good
Over the years, I’ve thought a lot about the kind of life I want to give our children. Bryan and I have always known we wanted to give our kids lives that are close and connected. We want them to value family and to find comfort in the connection between the five of us. We want them to know that home is always a place they can come to for a big hug, a listening ear, and a place to be still.
As I was on this journey to pare down and focus on what truly matters, Bryan and I talked together about how to define the family life we truly wanted, the life we dreamed of, the life we would invest our hearts in, not just what we didn’t want.
We started by making a list of words that describe what we were after in our home and family, words like comforting, peaceful, and connected. And we frequently came back to a word that sort of surprised us both: good. Something about good just stood out to us so much. And I tripped over it every time I read it. Why did good feel so strange and yet also so calming to claim for our family?
Good felt so ordinary, like it should be off-limits for being too small, not great enough. Ten-year-old Emily or even twenty-year-old Emily surely would have written the word great or successful for what she wanted her life to be.
Why was I stuck on good? And was it okay to want this kind of life—a life of good? Was a good life less than a great life? Should I be striving for a life full of accolades and achievements of the trophy variety? Or was it okay for us to work toward a peaceful home, to keep a steady pace, to quietly cultivate a loving marriage, and to set our sights on fostering good character and kindness in our children?
Could it be that those good things actually add up to a life that is pretty great?
RICH, SLOW, MEANINGFUL
In a world of constant comparison, it’s easy to believe we aren’t measuring up to everyone else—that our children aren’t as well behaved, that our clothes and cars aren’t as current, that our homes aren’t perfect enough, that our incomes are lacking, or that our aspirations as women and as a family aren’t sparkly or big enough.
What words do we want to define our family life?
[Your Response Here]
I think we all know deep inside that these aren’t what add up to a life. But they’re the measuring stick we see around us every day—online, in magazines and books, on TV. It’s difficult not to compare ourselves to that! I’ll tell you that the more I have written, the more I have poured out my heart during this season and mined the depths of my dreams and goals, the more I have become convicted of just how damaging this comparison game is. And I keep coming back to good.
I want more good, less great.
Sometimes good is beautiful . . . and great can be a little exhausting. Sometimes good feels like a job well done . . . and great feels like a job never done. Sometimes good is full bellies and happy smiles around a table of paper plates and sandwiches . . . and great is the complicated monster of a “perfect” meal that stole our joy before we even sat down to eat it. Sometimes good is a staycation full of slow memories . . . and great is that overplanned vacation that wasn’t relaxing or fun.
This shift doesn’t mean I want to give up my career or stop dreaming big or stop working toward goals. It means that we, as a family, want to live a life that
is rich, slow, and meaningful—in the ways that matter. We want to build a life that doesn’t have to be the greatest or “the best.” It means we are learning to develop a thirst for more exploring and more stories, fewer television series; more helping mama make cookies, less perfect meals; more patience, fewer overscheduled days; more proactive intention, less reactive hurry. I consistently ask myself: When I’m eighty and look back on my life, what will I feel happiest about? What will I be glad we did? I’m fairly certain the good things are what will leave the most lasting impression and the deepest joy.
Could it be that
GOOD things
actually add up to a
life that is pretty
GREAT?
Instead of writing in order to create a bestseller, I want to write to really reach women in the most sensitive and meaningful areas of their lives, to move their souls, to inspire them, to help them a little and leave them different than they were. I want to give women permission to dream big—and dream doable.
Instead of trying to raise children who believe they have to be star athletes and valedictorians, I want to raise children who are hard workers, playful, inspired, inclusive, kind, and full of grace in their imperfections. Instead of striving to perfect my children, correcting every flaw and redirecting every misstep, I want to get down on the floor, put their hands in my hands, look into their eyes, and see them. And I want to guide them as a parent should . . . while giving their souls permission to be kids. More than anything, I want them to know that a good life truly is a great life.
Sometimes good is beautiful . . . and great can be a little exhausting.