In Praise of EPF

About six months ago, I stumbled across Emily P. Freeman. 

She came into my life quite mysteriously and unintentionally. I think this was how it happened: Emily’s sister, Myquillin (pronounced like “Michael-Lynn”) Smith was a guest on the Young House Love podcast- and I think then I started following Myquillin on Instagram.

And THEN I think she was promoting Emily’s podcast, The Next Right Thing. So I clicked “subscribe” in my iTunes.

However it happened- EPF ended up in my iTunes podcast queue. 

And then one day I was listening to podcasts in the car while driving alone (paradise, btw). And my phone just would not play anything but The Next Right Thing. I kept trying to get it to go to the RobCast (my favorite podcast of all time period). But it just wouldn’t.

The piano music rolled and Emily’s soothing voice started talking about Jesus. And I said to myself,

“Oh, Lord. The LAST thing I need *in the world* is another podcast by a Sincere Christian Southern White Woman”

Because I don’t. I’ve got Suzanne Stabile, Jen Hatmaker… 

But what can I say? The Southern woman OWNS the podcasts (not to mention the Instagram)… and…

I just freaking love progressive Protestant Southern women. I cannot help myself.

I love their love for the Bible, their pursuit of an authentic relationship with Jesus, their commitment to the Gospel… .And so, I listened to that little podcast by EPF… and it was just GOOD. After I mutter to myself, “Dammit,” I forwarded it to my friend Beth. She loved it. And SHE started following EPF and saw that Emily was the founder of this group called hope*writers. And Beth forwarded me an email about that group because I had told her I was trying to write more. And I asked God about it – and she was like, “Go for it.”

And so now I’m a hope*writer, and I freaking love EPF’s soothing voice; I own her latest book, and I wait eagerly for her little podcast. (I say “little” because they’re usually mercifully short; EPFknows we don’t all have time for all that). 

In. Her. Lane.

Besides her intellectual curiosity, bookish nature, graceful spirituality, careful choice of words, generosity of expertise, the thing I love about about EPF is that she is just In. Her. Lane. She has been writing for over a decade, and she knows her mission. She just cruises in that lane of expressing authentic spirituality, educating writers, and exploring the world with passionate curiosity. And, well, she inspires me to do the same.