This summer I’ve had the beautiful privilege of getting to know Emily Wierenga and have thoroughly enjoyed the gift of her story told in her new book Atlas Girl. Emily is an award-winning journalist, blogger, commissioned artist and columnist, as well as the author of five books including her memoir, Atlas Girl: Finding Home in the Last Place I Thought to Look (Baker Books).
In celebration of Atlas Girl’s book release this week, I asked Emily to stop by and share some of her story with us {and she offered to give a few copies away too!}
by Emily T Wierenga
I tried to starve away my curves when I was nine years old.
I had my mother’s pear-shaped body, and I thought if I stopped eating maybe I could become small enough to slip into the lives of the other girls at school, the ones the boys stared at. I would douse myself with Exclamation perfume and spend my allowance on brand-name clothes and cry myself to sleep because I was starving.
And even though it got so bad that I was dying at thirteen, and hospitalized at sixty pounds, my hair falling out and my braces showing through the skin of my cheeks, I don’t know that any of us women is much different.
I don’t know that any of us isn’t hungry like this for love.
I wanted my Dad to stop preaching at the pulpit about a God I couldn’t see or taste or touch or feel. I wanted him to come and hold me, play with me, read me stories again like he used to when I was little, the scruff of his beard on my cheek, but life has a way of stealing your loved ones away from you and so I starved myself instead.
And when a friend of mine died when I was eight I hurt so bad it felt like my soul turned inside-out.
Because no one had told me you could love so hard only to lose.
So I spent my life trying not to feel because it ached too much when I did.
And then I met Jesus.
I met him after years of thinking I already had. I met him after years of calling myself a feminist and relapsing back into anorexia when I got married, after years of battling infertility and addiction to sleeping pills and drinking too much wine and never eating enough because part of me always wanted to feel hungry.
Because full isn’t safe. Full means you might start to feel comfortable, and then you might get hurt because nothing good lasts forever.
But that’s where I was wrong.
Because God is good and He lasts forever, and I met Him one day when I was twenty eight and pregnant. I was standing in worship, closing my eyes, and I saw myself as a little girl in heaven. I was wearing a white dress and running to Jesus who looked a lot like a shepherd in one of those children’s paintings.
And Jesus picked up that little girl and he spun her around and then he held her close and said, “Emily Theresa Wierenga, do you know that I love you? I love your feet, I love your knees, I love your legs, I love your arms, I love your head, I love your hair, I love you.”
And sister? He’s saying this to you too. He sees you, the little girl in you—the one who once believed she could swing so high she could touch God, who now struggles to believe He even exists. And He loves you.
Jesus offers a kind of food that will never perish. A love that will never leave you hungry.
He provided the loaves and fishes for 5,000, with twelve baskets leftover. Some would call that a waste; I call it extravagance. He’s the Savior at the well, telling the woman about a kind of feast that will never end—with living water, and living bread. Food that will fill us up forever.
So, I’m eating again.
I’m eating, and I’m no longer scared of getting full.
Emily lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband and two sons. Her memoir, ATLAS GIRL, releases this week and she is graciously giving away 3 copies here! All you need to do is leave a comment under today’s post to enter the drawing! {If you’re reading this via email, click here and return to my blog to ENTER TO WIN.}
From the Back Cover
“Disillusioned and yearning for freedom, Emily Wierenga left home at age eighteen with no intention of ever returning. Broken down by organized religion, a childhood battle with anorexia, and her parents’ rigidity, she set out to find God somewhere else–anywhere else. Her travels took her across Canada, Central America, the United States, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. She had no idea that her faith was waiting for her the whole time–in the place she least expected it.
“Poignant and passionate, Atlas Girl is a very personal story of a universal yearning for home and the assurance that we are known, forgiven, and beloved. Readers will find in this memoir a true description of living faith as a two-way pursuit in a world fraught with distraction. Anyone who wrestles with the brokenness we find in the world will love this emotional journey into the arms of the God who heals all wounds.”
Click HERE for a free excerpt from Atlas Girl. Emily is also giving away a FREE e-book to anyone who orders Atlas Girl this week. Just order HERE, and send a receipt to: [email protected], and you’ll receive A House That God Built: 7 Essentials to Writing Inspirational Memoir — an absolutely FREE e-book co-authored by Emily and editor/memoir teacher Mick Silva.
ALL proceeds from Atlas Girl will go to Emily’s non-profit, The Lulu Tree.
The Lulu Tree is dedicated to preventing tomorrow’s orphans by equipping today’s mothers. It is a grassroots organization bringing healing and hope to women and children in the slums of Uganda through the arts, community, and the gospel. Find our more and connect with Emily on her blog at www.emilywierenga.com, or find her on Twitter and Facebook.
But remember, before you leave, be sure and ENTER TO WIN!
Just leave a comment below.
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I would love to give this book to my granddaughter, Courtney, who is turning 18 this year. This is a great message for teenagers to help them through those hard years.
thank you so much.
Gwen
Wow! I ‘m already in tears, I want to read this book!
As I struggle with depression and a struggling marriage, I’ve turned to God, really for the first time in my life. It’s hard to accept His love when I have such low self-esteem… I look forward to reading your book for some encouragement.
I love, love, love each of you with all my heart!!! As I read your comments all throughout the day, I prayed for you and for Emily. Thanking Jesus for you both. I know how God takes broken and makes beauty. I know what it’s like to search and someone be found. I know what its’ like to want to end up somewhere and realized where I wanted to be was never where I thought I’d end up. Yet it’s exactly what and where my heart needed God to take me.
I am so grateful for you and our beautiful, authentic, vulnerable, honest, loving, encouraging, wanting-to-have-all-of-Jesus community here.
You are LOVED!! You are CHERISHED!! You are PRAYED for!!!
I believe with all my heart God has a purpose for each of your lives and Im so honored and thankful HE gives me this space to encourage you towards it, but more than anything to help you experience the depth of God’s love in the looking and finding.
Love,
Renee
oh friend, THANK YOU for opening up your space and allowing me to meet these incredible women. I’m so touched by their transparency and their courage… by Jesus, shining through all of the cracks in our stories…. May God be given full glory through our lives! Bless you sister. e.
As women we all desire to be loved for who we are on the inside, not what we look like on the outside. God gives us this love….I am an x-pastor’s wife and raised my children probably a lot like you were raised. My daughter has dealt with OCD and I would love for her to read your book. This came about when her dad and I went through a divorce when she was a teenager. Divorce wrecks so many lives, but God is there through it all. So glad he loves us just the way we are and leads us to come to know him like we never have! He does make things turn around 180 degrees!
I believe there is a little girl in all of us women that is hungry to be known & loved.
Would love to read Emily’s new book and share it with others!
Emily’s story sounds amazing, can hardly wait to read her book!!
Thank you sharing your story. Anorexia is a terrible disease, close to our family, but God is greater!
What an amazing testimony – thank you so much for sharing!
Sounds wonderful…I could see so many women benefiting from reading the book as well as a Proverbs 31 online bible study…hint, hint, hint!
I love that idea Loretta 🙂 I will be over at Proverbs 31 tomorrow! Bless you! e.
This book sounds excellent – and something that I can relate to 🙂
Such a touching story–I want to read more! Thank you for sharing!
What a beautiful way to portray the average young girl, whose shoes we have all been in. Hooray to Emily for being able to overcome anorexia! I too remember being in high school and starving to death while taking diet pills. Thanks for the wonderful email.
I would love to be part of these pages, walking through life with Emily. Relating and see what the Lord has done in another sisters life.
Oh Emily, I understand your pain and what you went through. I experienced the same thing in middle and high school. The anorexia and bulimia were so bad I too was hospitalized. It was on a retreat that I met Jesus, I mean really met Jesus for the first time. Some girl (don’t even remember her name) had just finished her witness and followed it up with the song El Shaddai. The words to that song saved my life. God spoke to me so clearly I cried for three hours.
Thank you for being transparent and willingly sharing your story with others. Know that many young ladies and women will heal through your truthfulness. Praying God will continue to hold you close and surround you with his unconditional love and grace. I would love to read your book.
El Shaddai is an incredibly powerful song isn’t it friend? It always leaves me gasping. Love that God has brought both of us home sister…
Loved this excerpt – sounds like a great book, can’t wait to read it!
Wow, what a powerful message that everyone can relate to in one way or another. This sounds like a great book…thank you for sharing your story!
Ive heard so much about the release of Atlas Girl, and now I can see why. This article was so simple and short and yet so powerful. Very rarely can I say that i get choked up reading something, but this did it. I remember my first revelation with Jesus was when I too was feeling unloved. And when God shows up, He shows off! 🙂 Congratulations on the book release and God bless your beautiful mind!
oh Leonora, this is so encouraging–thank you. You nearly brought me to tears. It’s been a long road, but I’m grateful to be sharing my journey with others. Bless you sister!
Tears sprung to my eyes as I read this. That hollowness I knew and felt until I realised my hollowness was empty like the tomb…it was empty because only Christ awakening in me could fill me. Now I ache to be near Him and to radiate His light to the world but I still need Him daily to stop the world creeping in filling me with darkness and doubt. Thank you for this.
oh Trish, this is exquisite–I love how you worded this: it was empty because only Christ awakening in me could fill me. Wow.