Time Warp Wife

Congratulations to the following 5 winners! Emily will be contacting you shortly for your mailing address.

Eva Marie – Emevey@*******
Sara – Sunshinythoughts@******
Amy Hunt – Amy.rockwell.hunt@******
Dorcas – Dokasajose@******
Maranatha – Marcouponclip@******

Guest Contributor, Emily T. Wierenga

There was no honeymoon phase.

None, except the three weeks we spent in bed and breakfasts, on trains and hitch-hiking across Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

But we started fighting the night before we flew home, and continued the plane ride back to our basement suite because I wanted out. I didn’t know how to make a home. I didn’t know how to be a wife. And I didn’t want to be a mom.

All I knew was I loved this farm boy I’d met in Bible School, who drove a long blue car called The Beast, volunteered at Kids’ Club and went home to the farm on weekends to go bowling with his Grandma.

But I didn’t know how to let him in.

We flew home to me relapsing into anorexia and yelling at my husband and him breaking through the plaster because he didn’t know how to fix his wife. How to make her want to eat, to have kids, to be happy just being married.

We flew home to holes in the walls.

I wanted more.

I’d always wanted more, because I’d always sensed there was more. More to life than just the American Dream, more to life than just being a pastor’s kid who plays the part, more to life than just eating one meal after the next after the next.

And those holes in the walls, they let in the light.

I was driving home. It had been three years of drinking 12 cups of a coffee a day and only eating supper; three years of ministry and insomnia and an addiction to sleeping pills. Three years of fighting, and we were at it once again when I turned the car into oncoming traffic. And Trent, he reached out and took the wheel and guided us to safety.

And I realized there on the side of the road that he wasn’t going anywhere. In spite of everything, my husband still loved me.

When I was 13 and sixty pounds, hypothermic with my braces showing through my cheeks, nurses had said I should have died then too.

And there on the side of the road, that day, I saw Him. Jesus. He’d been there for me the whole time, and He wasn’t going anywhere.

And I began to let him in.

Broken like those walls, I began to let love’s light in, to eat again and to lean into Jesus. Into my husband. Into my life.

I’d always wanted more—

More of Him.

 

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My memoir, ATLAS GIRL, is releasing this month, and I am excited to give away FIVE copies today. Just leave a comment below by Wednesday July 3rd, 2014. We’ll randomly choose 5, and announce the winners here on this post, Thursday.

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.”

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Click HERE for a free excerpt.

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I’m also giving away a FREE e-book to anyone who orders Atlas Girl. Just order HERE, and send a receipt to: atlasgirlbookreceipt@gmail.com, and you’ll receive A House That God Built: 7 Essentials to Writing Inspirational Memoir an absolutely FREE e-book co-authored by myself and editor/memoir teacher Mick Silva.

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ALL proceeds from Atlas Girl will go towards my 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.
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Emily T. Wierenga is an award-winning journalist, blogger, commissioned artist and columnist, as well as the author of five books including the memoir, Atlas Girl: Finding Home in the Last Place I Thought to Look (Baker Books). She lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband and two sons. For more info, please visit www.emilywierenga.com. Find her on Twitter or Facebook.