When Lacey Sturm made the seismic decision to step away from Flyleaf--the Platinum-selling rock band she formed and fronted for 10 years--it was to be true to the theme of Flyleaf's second album, Memento Mori: remembering the fleeting nature of life, and to never take loved ones for granted.

She left Flyleaf just before the release of their third record, New Horizons, to spend valuable, irreplaceable time with her husband, Josh, and their (at the time) only child. But that didn't mean Sturm was done with ministry, creative pursuits or her public life. It just had to look different.

After the successful release of her first book, The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living, and making history with her debut February 2016 album, Life Screams, Sturm is sharing more from her personal story--this time about relationships--with her new book, The Mystery: Finding True Love In A World Of Broken Lovers.

Sturm, ever the present mother, talked to me recently from the parking lot at the zoo--while her kids watched Night at the Museum for homeschool history class in the minivan--about the new book, her unshakeable standards for her family, her overarching calling these days, and the prospect of rejoining a recently lead singer-less Flyleaf.

I've been wanting to talk to you for quite a while. I've been a fan since the first Flyleaf album. Love your testimony and just watching you live the way you do, so thanks! This is personally an honor. We're coming up on four years since your decision to leave Flyleaf. In that time, just bring us up to speed. What's something that's been a great surprise for you over these past years and maybe something that's been an unexpected challenge?

It's surprising that I'm doing music again. It's surprising having a second child and that I released a book. I don't know how any of this happened. Funny when you think about it in a big chunk like that. It's been crazy. It doesn't feel that way. It just feels like it's time for this, so let's do it. I guess I'm really a very present person and sometimes it's great and sometimes it's a little stressful for other people. Just super present.

We've been able to accomplish a lot I think just enjoying the moment and taking the opportunities that we get prayerfully. Just being like, "Is this good for our family? Is this good for the season? Is this what you're calling us to?" The freedom to follow where the Spirit is leading. It sounds funny to say that, but that's really how we've been living.
 
You left the band, obviously, because you wanted to have time and space for your family. Would you say taking life a season at a time has been the secret to balancing this platform that you have and this calling you have with your dedication to your family? 

I do think we need the flexibility of saying what season are we in and at the same time we need to follow the Spirit.

Where are you right now? I'm hearing music box sounds.

I'm actually at the zoo. The zoo is going to open and we have 30 minutes from the time interview ends to the time they open the gates to let people in. I told the kids I'd bring them to the zoo and this is how our life runs. 

I think that's a huge key. We figure out how we can maintain the priorities we want and if we can maintain our priorities and accept these opportunities, then I think that's a good indication that where you're meant to be. 

If it gets hard, then you have to really go back and make sure that's what you're supposed to be doing. We've done that a couple of times. Even in the beginning of this process of putting a record out we've had those moments where we have to go back.

My husband and I are in counseling. I think that's so great because we always wanted to have counseling. We never pursued it like we should have I think and then the circumstances of all of this put the pressure on for us. We said we need to make this a priority now. 

It's been amazing. I think when you work with your spouse--and I guess this is for anybody who is in the ministry, but also just working together. Most people probably don't work together or work with a spouse and if something comes up you can probably be like, "That's not worth it," but when we're working together, we really have to face everything so we can go on stage and do interviews together.

You've written your second book, The Mystery, about relationships coming off of the record. How do you approach book writing as opposed to how you approach songwriting?

I wish there was a formula for that I could follow. I say to people, "If you can talk too much, you can write a book." I never went to school for writing. I did take a writing class in high school once, but I probably would benefit a lot from that. 

I have a friend who actually is a writer that my writing agent connected me with who helped me write The Reason. He helps me organize my thoughts and cut things out. He cut out so much. Then he showed me where I needed to expand and that was helpful.

I think for me personally I would say I just sit down and I make myself write and I just write and write. It's free writing and some of it is awful and then there are parts in it that are great and I'm like, "Let's pull that out."

The book is about relationships. Like you mentioned, you're working on just having the best marriage you can with your husband. In doing your second book, what led you to think there's something here that you want to share about relationships?

I was married when I was 19. I was divorced when I was 21. I had an emotional affair with someone and thought God had led me to do that. I was very deceived and the pain and the confusion and the hurt that came out of that on all kinds of levels is something I would never want anyone to have to experience if they didn't have to and to come out of that was such a miracle.

For me I remember standing in the computer room with my husband. We were watching something. It was a pop video and it was just promoting having an affair and I was overwhelmed with the kids listening to that and what it's putting in their hearts and how painful and hurtful that really is. Just emotional promiscuity, which sounds weird to say, but just the way people are all all the time without any regard for and being so close.

I just got overwhelmed and started crying over my story, and I just found myself praying without even realizing I was praying. God, if you use my story please, do it to keep the enemy from deceiving people like he deceived me. If there's any way that it would help one person, please God, just use my story. Let it not be in vain.

I said that and then I signed this book deal and it turns out I had another book to write and I had already written so much about [relationships], it was almost already written because they pretty much cut most of it out from the first book and said, "This looks like another book." I was like, "I guess that'll be the next book."

The first time I sent the book to my agent, I just got this terrible feeling of "Why are you telling people this story? Why would you tell everybody this?" Then I got a phone call from a friend of mine who told me that somebody that we really respect in the Christian community was in an affair and they're leaving their wife and boys and they feel like they've met their soulmate. No matter how many people say, "We can help you repair all of this," he's like, "No, this is my soul mate. God led me here."

It's exactly what I went through. The day that I sent the book out to my agent, I had that phone call and I felt like, "Why am I doing this?" Then I got that phone call right after and it keeps happening like that. I sent a pre-edited version to friends of mine who went through an affair--both of them. The wife had an emotional affair. The husband had a sexual affair. They had three children and they reconciled and they remarried and their story is amazing. It's beautiful.

I sent it to them to see what they thought about it, and the husband wrote me back this email, and just point for point took every single thing I wanted to express with the book, what I wanted somebody to know. I just cried, "Thank you God for answering my prayers because I sure don't want to put this book out, but if it's going to do that, then do it."
 
Obviously, like you said, there's a lot of deception out there, a lot of confusion. What would you say is missing in most relationships these days as you see it?

I think that one of the things that's missing is understanding of covenant. I think that's a huge deal. I didn't understand covenant. I never saw that, but the freedom that comes when there's a covenant to just work through everything and the vulnerability that's safe in a covenant is something we don't recognize. I think that's a big deal. Then an understanding of guarding your heart, just emotional purity. I don't think we have that either and understand what that looks like.

I think it'll be great to have these topics and life situations addressed by someone who also has this incredible testimony and this great rock career. It's a source that you don't normally expect a relationship from, so I think that'll be awesome.

Speaking of the rock stuff, you already mentioned one of your surprises was being in music again. I read that you were the first solo female ever to top the Billboard Rock Albums Chart. The reception of this album, the way it all came together, are you completely shocked and what did you take away from that, this whole experience?

I wasn't totally shocked because I just know God is so kind and so faithful and He's just such a good dad and that's one of the biggest things I wrote about in The Mystery. I feel like even with Flyleaf, there were certain things about our level of freedom to be ourselves that would be key to being received, but working with so many different people like producers and record label people and all these different people, you compromise that in a sense. You sort of take the heart out of it a little bit. 

When we did this, if it was not received at all, I would have been totally excited: "I obeyed you God and now I get to stay home, which is really my dream is to be a stay at home mom." I was honest. If people don't like what you do when you're honest and genuine and you know you're doing the right thing, that's great. It's OK. As long as you're true to yourself, you're doing what you know you're supposed to do, that's OK. But if people received it, it's like, "Now here we go. The ball is rolling. Where are we going to head from here?"

Where are you going to head from here? Are you still writing? Is that long rumored worship project going to emerge at some point?

I didn't know that was a rumor, but that would be nice. My husband and I would love to do that. I'm not sure if that's where God's going to lead us. I think life would be a lot easier if we just settled down and made worship music and went to worship conferences. That'd be awesome. But instead we're going out on tour with OTEP, who is so anti-Christian. That's the suicidal kids. You have to know what you're called to.

We're always writing. That's one of the ways I connect with God; I take my guitar and I sit with Him by myself and I just play and sing to Him and sometimes songs come out. Every day there are new things--not necessarily things you're going to share with everybody, but there's stuff we could and so we're always writing. We have enough for another album if we want, but we'll see what's happening.

Right now we released "Rot," the video and the single and it's doing really well. We just did a video. My sister is the actress in there and we worked with a girl named Annie Lobart, who I met through The Whosoevers. She was an ex-prostitute who came to Christ in the hospital and she was trafficked. She was trafficked for a while. She wrote a book about it. It's amazing. It's called Fallen. 

It's a Christian book. I can't believe she was able to write a book and make it fit. I loved her book so much, and I had her in the video. In the video my sister is playing pretty much Annie's role and she's going to give her a necklace and invite her to our show. In the end we invite all these people on the street to a show and then we end up inviting my sister and she gets this moment of freedom in the end. That's what the video is about. 
 
As you're scanning the horizon asking God what's next, the announcement came about Kristen May leaving Flyleaf. Do you think Flyleaf is done? Would you ever do a reunion? Have there been any talks around this?

There really haven't been any talks like that. I was surprised that she put that out before the band because when it was my time, I really waited a long time to tell people because they wanted to have their ducks in order before I came out and said that, so I was trying to let them do that and let them find a new singer, but I guess she was one to cut her ties so she could move on.

I was surprised and I didn't know anything about it. I got a text message early in the morning from our manager: "Just so you know Kristen May put a video on Facebook," and I went and watched it and I was shocked how similar her speech was to my own letter. 

Babies change everything.

I haven't talked to any of the members since that happened. I haven't talked personally to any of them. I want the best for them. I couldn't imagine that. That's not in my plans at all. Who knows what God's plans are and what will happen in the future. I don't put anything past Him, but at the same time I wish the best for them. We do have our own plans and I don't know what's going to go on with Flyleaf.

Obviously God's blown out all of the things beyond just music with speaking and writing and all these things. Happy 35th birthday, by the way! When you hit these milestone birthdays every five years, people tend to be contemplative. What are some things you still dream about that you still want to do, you still feel called to do?

There are a lot of things. I really want to have an artist community. There's a merchandise line that I want to put out called tattoo alternatives. I want it be based off of people's tattoos that I respect and get their stories behind the scenes.

I've done some interviews for those already, like the singer for the band Seether. His brother committed suicide. He has a tattoo reminding him of that. He does a festival every year that brings awareness to suicide and helps people that need help. I did an interview with Brian "Head" Welch about his latest book and his tattoo of Janea and his relationship with his daughter and how tough love was a big part of her recovery from depression and cutting. 

I did an interview with a guy from Sevendust about his tattoo. He has a tattoo of Jesus on his forearm and his face. So we would make merchandise based off that, but I love that everybody has a story. I think one of the biggest things that's in my heart is to show how God's light shines in each one of us. His fingerprints are on each one of us and He speaks something about who He is through each one of us. If we can find those things, we can find beauty and life and wisdom in every life.

No matter if we have got it all together or we're still journeying toward what truth is, God's fingerprints are on us, His breath is in us and to be able to honor life. I just feel like there's such a lack of honor of life and I want to be able to teach people to honor their own life and honor the lives of those that God has gifted with His breath.

For me, I have so many ideas about how to do that, but that's one of them. I really want an artist community to be able to help artists reach their potential spiritually, emotionally, and artistically. There's a lot.

That's incredible and I'm sure that would be a real life giving undertaking and I love that you have this umbrella idea of your calling being about celebrating life and treasuring life and valuing life. I think that's great. It goes so far beyond music and books. It's great to have that North Star in terms of what you're doing. Finally how can people pray for you?

Please pray for my family. If my family is great, then we have an overflow. If family is not great, we don't have anything to give and we never want to be striving. We always want to be living out of the overflow of what God's done in us and doing in our hearts and that's how all of this got started. The blogging. I started blogging out of an overflow of what God's doing in my family and that turned into a book and that turned into a CD. If we dry up in our family, we have nothing to offer.