You have been carrying something heavy for a long time.

This is a place to set it down.

The Girl Who Carried Stones is a memoir about being given away, about the weight we learn to hold so no one sees us struggling, and about the slow, sacred work of finally letting go. Ella's story arrives this November. The early pages open this October.

If you are the woman who holds everyone else together and quietly wonders who is holding you, this book was written with you in mind.

If grief has settled into your days in ways no one else seems to notice, and you are tired of being told to move on before you are ready, the Lord is not rushing you either. There is room for you here.

If you were given away, in ways big or small, and have spent years wondering what it would feel like to be chosen instead, know that you were chosen by God long before anyone else had the chance to choose you. Ella knows that ache from the inside.

If you have lived through a season that changed you, and you are done pretending it did not, this book will not ask you to perform a healing you have not felt yet. It will simply point you back to the One who heals.

And if you are a woman of faith walking through a hard season, learning what it means to lay your stones down at the feet of Jesus instead of carrying them one more mile, you will find a companion in these pages, not a lecture.

This is not a book that rushes you toward a lesson. It is a book that sits with you first, in the presence of a God who already sees everything you are holding.

The Story Behind the Stones

Pre-orders open soon. Sign up now to reserve your copy before launch day, November 30.

"I did not know I could set the stones down until someone showed me they were never mine to carry alone."

Join the Early Reader List

Ella grew up learning to carry things quietly. A childhood shaped by being given away. A marriage that asked more of her than she knew she had. A season of adoptive motherhood that cracked her open in ways she never expected. A grief that arrived without asking permission.

The Girl Who Carried Stones is the memoir she wrote from inside that weight, and from the other side of it. It is honest about the years she spent proving she could hold anything without breaking. And it is honest, too, about what it finally looked like to stop.

This is a story about being given away. It is a story about choosing, again and again, to stay. And underneath it all, it is a story about a God who never once let go.

A Letter From Ella

I did not write this book because I had it all figured out. I wrote it because I finally stopped pretending I did, and started letting God meet me honestly instead.

For years, I carried stones I never named out loud. Being given away. The quiet exhaustion of holding a family together. The grief that came in waves I could not predict. I told myself that strength meant never setting anything down, as if my worth to God depended on how much I could bear without breaking.

It took me a long time to learn that being chosen and being loved were not things I had to earn by staying strong. They were gifts God had already given me, at the cross, long before I had done anything to deserve them. I just had to stop carrying long enough to notice His hands were already open.

This book is my offering to you, especially if you have never had the words for what you have been carrying before God. I would love for you to be among the first to read it.

Join the Early Readers

Join the early reader list and you will receive a free excerpt from the opening chapter, first access to pre-orders when they open, and a personal note from me as launch day approaches.