Emily Ley, a wife, mother, successful business owner, and author, found herself mired in the pursuit of perfection that so many modern women struggle with. Using the Scripture found in Jesus Calling, Emily was able to give up the chase and find God’s grace along the way.
Emily: There are so many things going on, good or bad or both, when there are so many things calling for our attention, and pulling our heartstrings in different directions. Grace, the grace we get from Jesus, is the thing that comes in and lets us off the hook and says, “It’s okay. These things don’t have to get done. These things can fall. At the end of the day, what matters is this relationship that I have with you, and this connection back to God, and this foundational faith. That’s all that matters.”
Narrator: Welcome to the Experience Jesus Calling Podcast. Emily Ley seemingly has it all—she’s a wife, a mother, a successful business owner and now an author. Emily shares how she gave up always striving for perfection and found grace instead.
Humble Beginnings
Emily: My name is Emily Ley, and I am a wife and a mom to three kids. I have 18-month-old twins and a 5-and-a-half-year-old new kindergartner, Brady. I’m also the creative director of Emily Ley Paper and Gifts. I’m the creator of the Simplified Planner, and I’m a new author, as well, of Grace, Not Perfection.
I was born and raised in Pensacola, Florida. It is a beach town in the panhandle of Florida, and holds a big piece of my heart. I love that city so much and I love going back to visit and see our families. I actually grew up outside of the city, north of the city, and went to a high school where we had cows and farms and fields all around us. It was really great. It was just a really cool experience.
My mom was a teacher. My dad has worked at the local power company for many, many years. I have a little brother. I had a great childhood. My family’s very, very close-knit. Family’s just really, really important to all of us.
When I was a child, I was really artistic. Looking back, it’s funny to kind of see where I am now, and what I’m doing. But, I loved art, and I loved writing. I used to write stories and I would make bookmarks and have my family buy the bookmarks. I would pedal my bookmarks around to each person in my family and have them pay me for them. I guess it’s not that big of a surprise that I’m selling planners now. But, I think my whole family gets a big kick out of that story when we remember it.
I ended up going to the college there, University of West Florida, and got a degree in English Writing, and a master’s degree in Public Administration.
Emily: My husband, Bryan, and I met when I was 16 and he was
19. We actually both worked at the same restaurant. It was my very first job. I was a hostess, and he waited tables. And I just thought he hung the moon.
Emily: Bryan’s awesome. We’re very, very different, and I think that’s what’s really cool about the two of us, is that we’re just very, very different people. It’s very exciting. Our values are the same and all of that. He enjoys different things than I do. His personality is different than mine. It keeps things exciting. It’s been 8 years now that we’ve been married.
A Change of Plans
Emily: Bryan and I got married in 2008. We had our first child in 2011, after struggling with infertility for a bit. Working in corporate America, I was climbing the corporate ladder. I had a master’s degree. I was checking off all the boxes, and wearing the skirt suits, and doing all the things.
I just found myself feeling really empty, and feeling like, “How am I going to be a mom?” which is all I really wanted to be, eventually. “How am I going to do that and do this, and how am I going to mesh them together?”
I realized, in that role that I was in, in particular, that I wasn’t going to be able to put them together, and I wasn’t going to be able to find a job, necessarily, that would fit the bill, and would give me the flexibility I wanted to be a good mom. In my head, “good mom,” for me, meant that I didn’t work the 80 hours a week I was working at the time.
I decided to just start my own little company. I had friends who were photographers, and they were starting their own companies on the sides. Etsy was new. This entire idea of “you can create your dream job” was a new thing. I just stayed up very late every night, and I worked really hard, and I Googled all the questions, and I decided to start a stationery company. I sold stationery on Etsy in the early days, while I worked my full-time job at the University of South Florida. I worked during my lunch break, and I worked late at night. Little by little, we saved up the money that I made there. Once I had enough money to build a website, we built a website. I didn’t take a paycheck for two years in that role.
I slowly and surely built the company as a stationery company, did wedding invitations and that sort of thing. Then started doing branding work, and anything I could within that graphic design realm that really made me happy, to pay myself a paycheck. A very, very, very modest paycheck.
After my son was born, one day, I was pacing around my house with a laptop on one hip and a baby one the other, and I was so much more empty than I felt when I was working in corporate America, and that was a very, very weird feeling for me. “What have I done? Is it worse now that it was? Am I actually any good for this child that I love with my entire heart? Am I actually any good for these branding clients that I have as well, either? Am I any good for myself?” I was on the phone with a friend, and I said, “I am done.” It was one of those throw a dish against the wall moments, when I said, “I am done. I am trying so hard to be perfect, to have dinner on the table at 6, my house always clean, my clients always happy, and my baby always perfectly clean.” Everyone had perfect hair and six-inch heels, and why couldn’t I do it? I was just miserable.
I said, “I’m done. I am going to hold myself to a standard of grace, because that is all that matters. I’m so sick and tired of trying to be perfect.”
Leaving Perfection Behind
Emily: When I said that, it was like this light bulb moment of God saying to me, “Yes, this is what I’m trying to tell you!” He was shaking my shoulders, or something. “This is it. This message, this thought, needs to be out there, and it starts here in your heart, Emily, because you are in the thick. You are thinking these thoughts, and you just need to sit in them and let me work in you what I’m trying to do.” And so, I decided that that idea that women are so completely overwhelmed because of the pressure we put on ourselves, was going to be part of this new company I was going to make.
I thought, “I want to go into that space of women who are purchasing organizational products, looking for hope, and looking for a fresh start, and women who feel like I did, or some variant of the way that I had felt in that throw a dish against the wall moment.” I wanted to reach them, and not just schlep a product, or make them buy something. I wanted to make things that made them think, and to get inside their hearts, and help them come to those moments that I had come to, and continue to come to. I have those moments often, still.
Our very first Simplified Planner was a binder concept. I wrote on the pieces of paper. I started mocking up this idea for a page that just had your schedule, your tasks, your notes, and your dinner. Cause that’s the way my brain works. Those are things I think about during the day. I used those pages for a little while, and had them printed locally, first. That first year, they sold out like crazy. I think that first year we sold 500, which might as well have been 50,000. It was just such huge number to me that that many women were looking for something that spoke to them in a way and gave them hope and a fresh start, made them feel confident in tackling their days, with all that women have going on.
It’s just been such a crazy adventure since then. Things have grown, and grown, and the planner concept’s changed and morphed as we’ve used it and tweaked it and perfected it. I just feel so honored to be able to make a product that gives women that kind of a fresh start. Because I think it’s something that we’re all so thirsty for, deep in our hearts, so thirsty for the confirmation and the empowerment that comes with that.
The whole Grace, Not Perfection concept, when it came to me that day, when I was stomping in my living room on the phone with a friend, trying to comfort my baby, it was so powerful to me, and it was so heart-changing for me. I said, “I want to do something with this. I want to make something with this. I want to make this tangible, or give this to other women, or speak this to other women.” I wrote a blog post that I can’t even remember how many times it’s been shared. A bazillion times, I feel like. We wrote the phrase and turned it into a little art print. It became a journal, and all sorts of different things.
The whole concept of the book has evolved so easily, because it’s such a big concept, and it’s something that I think women are so thirsty for right now. We all have ourselves on the hook in such a big way that writing this message of saying, “It’s cool. You don’t have to have it all together.” And by the way, I’m totally speaking to myself on every page of this book. “You don’t have to have it all together. Your house does not have to be spotless. Your kids can have oatmeal on their face, and it’s okay.” The whole concept…Continue Reading…@ https://www.jesuscalling.com/
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People Often Ask These Questions:
- How do I fulfil my destiny? Our destiny is bound up in our response to the Gospel. “Are you saved or lost?” That is the question above all questions. The declaration of the Gospel is “Jesus saves.” He saves from wrath, judgment, hell, bondage, the devil, and darkness. He saves us from dying in our sins. …People insure their houses and yet do not insure their eternal future. Yet we know that salvation offers so much more. Who else offers such insurance but Jesus?
- Why does God allow suffering? You could just as well ask the National Secretary of Transportation why he allows accidents on the highways. No doubt he would take exception to your accusation and point to the rules of the road. “Every time a law is broken, an accident and suffering might occur,” he would reply. People suffer chiefly for one reason—they are ignoring God’s rulebook, the Bible, and everything goes wrong. Our Creator knows exactly how He has made us and what will harm us. Consequently, out of a caring, protective heart, He says, “You shall not … ” The “you shall nots” are not edicts designed to spoil our fun, but rather they are the manufacturer’s handling instructions. God wisely knows that our psyche is unable to handle sin. Actually, it is crushed and tormented by misdeeds. It is always wise to read the instruction manual before using a new appliance. People worry about breaking a new DVD player or a new computer, but strangely, they have no worries about destroying their own spirits and souls with the poison of sin.
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“Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior and to yield back the life given to me by You, back to You. Take Control of my life Lord, and let only your will be done in my life from now on. Amen.”