From adopting two children from South Korea to fighting for their newborn son’s life to pastoring a small congregation through adversity to joining Team Blake in 2020, the Tilghmans share how their focus on joy has helped them conquer numerous challenges in their new book
“In this uplifting debut, Tilghman, a Mississippi pastor and past winner of The Voice, and his wife, Brooke, emphasize the importance of celebrating small steps along the way to achieving one’s goals. [. . .] In their transparency about choosing optimism, the Tilghmans will inspire Christians to focus on the small things.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Todd Tilghman is that special artist that is not only immensely talented but also someone you buy into as a person. It was an honor to coach and win Season 18 of The Voice with him. On the show, fans got a small glimpse into his remarkable story. In Every Little Win, Todd and his wife, Brooke, tell the whole story of their lives. A story of faith, struggle, and championing the battles they’ve faced over the years.”
––Blake Shelton, The Voice Coach and Country Music Artist
(NASHVILLE, Tenn.) April 27, 2021—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:
- When we’re willing to put in the work in our marriages.
- When we use our strengths and trust God to bring others to help where we are weak.
- When we treat love as a verb. People need to feel our love before they understand God’s love.
- When we trust God. (He always has more in store for us than we think.)
- When we understand God’s sacrifice to adopt us as part of his family.
The authors also reveal gems like these:
- We win as we allow our kids to be comfortable with who they are.
- We win when we understand that sometimes God chooses us to bring hope to others.
- We win when we discover the goodness of God where we least expect it.
- We win as we discover that, in God’s economy, brokenness leads to beauty and scarcity to abundance.
- 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.
About Todd and Brooke Tilghman: Parents of eight, Todd and Brooke Tilghman currently live in Tennessee, having recently moved closer to Nashville for Todd’s leap-of-faith to pursue music full time. From 2011 to 2020, Todd was the pastor of Cornerstone Church in Meridian, Mississippi. He has the distinction of being the oldest winner, at age forty-two, in The Voice’s history. Todd has been singing in church since he was eight years old, and he is currently writing and recording songs for his first album, to be released in 2021. Brooke continues to cheer him on. Keep up with Todd’s latest music releases on all streaming platforms. Learn more about Todd and Brooke’s new book, Every Little Win: How Celebrating Small Victories Can Lead to Big Joy, at www.everylittlewinbook.com and follow their journey on Facebook @toddtilghmanmusic, Instagram @todd_tilghman @brooketilghman, and Twitter @todd_tilghman.
About Tricia Goyer: Writer Tricia Goyer is a USA Today bestselling author and has published 75 books to date, written more than 500 articles appearing in national publications, and is on the blogging team at TheBetterMom.com and other homeschooling and Christian sites. She is a two-time Carol Award winner and a Christy and ECPA Award Finalist and regularly receives starred reviews in the Romantic Times and Publishers Weekly.
Thomas Nelson is a world leading publisher and provider of Christian content and has been providing readers with quality inspirational product for more than 200 years. As part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc., the publishing group provides multiple formats of award-winning Bibles, books, gift books, cookbooks, curriculum and digital content, with distribution of its products in more than 100 countries. Thomas Nelson is headquartered in Nashville, TN. For additional information visit www.thomasnelson.com.
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