Excerpt from Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

a cry
That first noise
It was a fanfare
Announcing a marvel
That will never
Be
Repeated
There are no satin sheets
There are no handmaidens
No emissaries with jewels
No trumpets or announcements
Where are they!
Don't they know what
Happened here?!
A princess has arrived.

I was loved. Just like my daughter is loved. And still, one evening, she sat on the edge of my bed, looked up at me with naked brown eyes, and said, "I'm big, Mama. I'm bigger than the other girls. Why am I different? I want to be small again." Her words came out jagged, like she hated to break this to me, like she was ashamed to reveal her hidden truth. I took in her tears, pigtails, lip gloss, and the dirt on her hands—left over from climbing the banyan tree in our front yard. I scanned my mind for a response worthy of her, but there was nothing to find. Everything I'd learned about bodies, womanhood, power, and pain scattered upon hearing how my little girl said the word big. Like big was her curse, her irrefutable condition, her secret, her fall from grace. Like big was something inevitably unfolding inside of her that threatened her contract with the world.

My daughter was not asking: How will I deal with my body size? My daughter was asking: How will I survive being this particular type of person in this particular type of world? How will I stay small like the world wants me to? And if I keep growing, how will anyone love me? I looked at my daughter and I did not say But you do not look big, honey. She didn't, but neither do I. I've never looked big a day in my life. No matter. My daughter and I pay attention. We know what the world wants from us. We know we must decide whether to stay small, quiet, and uncomplicated or allow ourselves to grow as big, loud, and complex as we were made to be. Every girl must decide whether to be true to herself or true to the world. Every girl must decide whether to settle for adoration or fight for love. There on the bed, in her pigtails and pain, my daughter was me—the little girl I once was, the woman I am now, still struggling to answer the questions: How can I be expansive and free and still be loved? Am I going to be a lady or am I going to be fully human? Do I trust the unfolding and continue to grow, or do I shut all of this down so I fit?

Excerpted from Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton. Copyright © 2016 by Glennon Doyle Melton. Excerpted by permission of Flatiron Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.