(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) —When Todd Tilghman, pastor of two decades and father of eight from Meridian, Mississippi, auditioned for The Voice, he counted it as a win simply to sing in front of an audience outside of his family and church members. Despite no music or vocal training, he not only made it through the blind audition––with all four celebrity judges vying to coach him––but he also won the show’s entire eighteenth season. Fans were drawn to Todd’s tremendous joy onstage, which gave them much-needed inspiration during the hard challenges of a global pandemic.
In their new book, Every Little Win: How Celebrating Small Victories Can Lead to Big Joy (Thomas Nelson, June 22, 2021), Todd Tilghman and his wife, Brooke, share how decades of unrelenting challenges have taught them a joyful mindset. A mindset that helped him embrace winning NBC’s The Voice, and that has guided them as a couple to celebrate “every little win” among numerous challenges during their twenty-plus years of marriage.
In Every Little Win, Todd and Brooke share how their focus on joy and celebrating small, everyday moments has helped them to overcome numerous challenges over their twenty-plus-year marriage. Whether adopting two South Korean children, or fighting for their newborn son’s life, or pastoring a small congregation through periods of adversity, Todd and Brooke have discovered the enormous value of life’s little things. They know it’s not a common approach. People are often told to focus on “the big picture” and “just keep your eye on the prize!” to reach success and contentment––as if they were end goals. But the Tilghmans have discovered a different way––an approach that anyone can integrate into their own walk through life, being not just content, but joyously celebrating the everyday successes.
As Todd and Brooke detail their life story in alternating sections, they chronicle their journey from fear to faith to ever-present joy, emphasizing strategies and mindsets they’ve learned along the way for living a life unbound by fear. Todd shares the difference this has made in the book’s prelude:
On paper, our lives look very full but hardly remarkable—unless you look for the small wins. Huge achievements get noticed. But if Brooke and I had waited around to find joy until we got a big win, we would have missed out on the amazing life we’ve lived. Instead, we’ve found triumph in the mundane. Even in the middle of our hardships we’ve sought—and clung to—God’s goodness. This has brought happiness in our everyday lives and also allowed us to dare to try for bigger wins. Each step of fighting the fear, and looking for the win, brought us to where we are today. Not only did seeking small joys pave the way to every bigger step, these joys also built up hope within us until it was hard to contain.
Divulging a different part of their story in each chapter—and hiding no messes—Todd and Brooke share about being at the brink of divorce as a couple and how they reconciled, adopting two girls on a pastor’s salary (which is practically impossible), bouts with anxiety and depression, navigating social media as parents and as a couple, and of course, what it was like for Todd to win a singing competition on a national stage. For each step, they conclude with takeaway “wins.” Among the wins readers can look forward to are:
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When we’re willing to put in the work in our marriages.
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When we use our strengths and trust God to bring others to help where we are weak.
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When we treat love as a verb. People need to feel our love before they understand God’s love.
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When we trust God. (He always has more in store for us than we think.)
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When we understand God’s sacrifice to adopt us as part of his family.
The authors also reveal gems like these:
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We win as we allow our kids to be comfortable with who they are.
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We win when we understand that sometimes God chooses us to bring hope to others.
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We win when we discover the goodness of God where we least expect it.
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We win as we discover that, in God’s economy, brokenness leads to beauty and scarcity to abundance.
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We win when we discover that on the other side of fear is freedom, and with freedom comes joy.
Through every page and every experience, the authors count their blessings. This book isn’t sugar-coated. It’s real. It’s honest. It’s intimate. And it’s hopeful. Just like Todd and Brooke Tilghman.
Every Little Win: How Celebrating Small Victories Can Lead to Big Joy is available June 22, 2021 everywhere books are sold. Learn more here.
