AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
Imagine if all the worn-out, untrue, painful chapters of our lives
started to quiet, and the beautiful, unique pieces of who we are were to
rise. Imagine if the stories we tell brought us back to our true selves,
back to one another. Imagine if they spoke of how we loved and lost and
tried our best. How we saw it all, even the parts that hurt.
Joanna Gaines' new book, The Stories We Tell, invites us on an
authentic and deeply vulnerable journey into her story--and helps shine
a light on the beauty of our own--guiding us to release the weights that
hold us back so we may live and share our story in truth.
We've all dropped anchor in places that suited us for a time: a city, a
perspective, a lie we mistook as truth. This book is an invitation to a
kind of life where you know how to hold what you believe--about yourself
and the quiet worlds behind the people you pass--with gracious and open
hands. To see your story as greater than any past or future thing, but
for all the beauty and joy and hope it holds today.
It's an invitation to take stock of the chapters you've lived--the good
and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly--glean what's gold, and carry
only that forward. Let it slow your feet and steady your life-in-motion
so you can see where you stand today from a new point of view. No longer
through weary or uncertain eyes, but a lens brimming with hope.
"The only way to break free was to rewrite my story. Because something
would happen every time my pen stopped: It was like my soul was coming
back to my body. Like the deepest parts of me that got knocked around
and drowned out by all the crap I let the world convince me about who I
was came back to the surface. And what was left was only what was real
and true. I was, finally, standing in the fullness of my story. I felt
hopeful. I felt full. Our story may crack us open, but it also pieces us
back together.
We all have a story to tell. This happens to be mine--every chapter a
window into who I am, the journey I'm on, and the season I'm in right
now. Because this is my story, maybe you won't always relate, or maybe
it will feel like you're looking in a mirror. Whatever we have in common
and whatever differences lie between us, I only hope my story can help
shine a light on the beauty of yours. That my own soul work will stir
something of your own. And that by the time you get to the end of my
story, you're also holding the beautiful beginnings of your own.
A story only you can tell. And I hope that you will."
-Joanna
