A house can become one of the most powerful places on earth—not because of its size, beauty, or location, but because of the people who live there and the love they choose to cultivate within its walls.
In the new release At Home Within, Maya Murphy shares a practical and faith-centered roadmap for creating a house that feels peaceful, ordered, and deeply personal. Drawing from 20 renovations and her own family’s journey, she reveals how true homemaking begins long before paint colors and furniture placement.
This is about becoming at home within yourself, so your outer space reflects calm instead of chaos. It’s about simple routines that create flow, financial foundations that bring freedom, and design decisions that support the life God has called you to live.
We sat down with Maya to discuss her inspiration, background, and purpose a bit more deeply. If you’re ready to start creating a home that strengthens you from the inside out, At Home Within may just be your next read. Let’s get into it!
Book Title: At Home Within: A Practical Christian Guide to Creating Peace, Order, and Beauty at Home
Genre: Christian Living, House & Home
Website: athomewithin.org
Hello, Maya! Thanks for chatting with us. Can you tell us a little about yourself and what inspired you to write this book?
Raised with a deep appreciation for faith, family, hard work, and adventure, I’ve spent my life pursuing both meaningful experiences and meaningful relationships. I graduated summa cum laude from Texas State University with a degree in Business Management and quickly discovered that success alone was never enough. I was drawn to a larger question: How can we use the gifts we've been given to serve others and glorify God?
My entrepreneurial journey began with a simple desire to create opportunity and serve others well. Alongside my husband, Dave, I built and operated a successful real estate investing business, renovating nearly twenty homes and helping families achieve homeownership through rent-to-own opportunities. Together, we also founded and managed a private lending company for seven years, providing capital to real estate investors and entrepreneurs. Through disciplined investing, hard work, living below their means, and God's provision, we achieved financial independence and became self-made millionaires. Yet, the financial success itself was never the goal. Instead, it became a tool that allowed us to invest generously in people, causes, and communities both near and far.
When we did our 20th renovation, the first one for us, I found the process so inspiring that it led to this book. I realized that while the budgeting, remodeling, and design were part of it, there was more to creating a home. There was something unseen. The answer to that question is in these pages.
Given you have such a deep background in this topic, why was now the right time for you to share what you’ve learned?
As we renovated our own home, I started having these “aha” moments and would run to the computer to jot them down. This book started out being written 15 minutes at a time from those discoveries. I want that process to be simpler and faster for other people than it was for me.
Who do you think will benefit most from this book, and what are some lessons they’ll come away with?
At Home Within is for everyone who wants a space in the world that feels like them, where they can kick off their shoes and their worries and just be who God made them. Christian wives and moms absolutely must read this!
The top 3 things someone will learn are:
- Beauty — Design a home that reflects your values and inspires those who live there.
- Peace — Create a home that nurtures rest, faith, and connection.
- Order — Establish systems, routines, and spaces that support daily life.
Can you share some of the behind the scenes from your writing process?
This was written in about the most inefficient way possible! Since it started as about two years of “aha” moments and stories that worked as parables to each demonstrate a lesson, I ended up with 70,000 words and no order. Then was the process of extrapolating what were the commonalities in these stories and moments, how do they weave together to create a whole picture of home, and how do we order them so that the most important pieces come first?
What my brilliant editor and I realized is that first there was internal work. This work didn't cost any money, and like exercise, is something we revisit. When our thoughts, priorities, and values are aligned, then we're in a space to be able to make good decisions about organization, decluttering, systems that serve us, remodeling, budgeting and design that we actually love instead of what's just trendy.
What was the hardest part about turning your expertise into a book?
This book is vulnerable, which I think is what makes it relatable as well and makes it feel doable. The challenge for me as the author is that it feels a bit like everyone is reading my diary! I've overcome this with the clarity that it is more important to me for others to have these lessons than for me to not have to be vulnerable.
The second challenge was in discovering from the inside out what this book is meant to be. Early on, I knew it wasn't a design book but rather a home book with a design chapter. It was an organic process of discovery to fill in answers to all those questions about the rest of the puzzle.
What was your favorite part about this process?
My favorite part of this process has been how unexpectedly it has challenged me, grown me and even healed me. Since we as human beings have imperfect memories, since we forget and relearn, even when I read through bits of At Home Within, it brings me peace. Ed Vizenor, who helps me with media, said it's because that's the fruits of truth. I think that's just how God works in His infinite generosity. As I've worked to bring this out into the world, it has also blessed me.
It's also been humbling to see people's responses. They've been telling me it has taken them from stressed out and anxious to excited and peaceful, even in the middle of a move in a room full of boxes! This is the power of this work we can do between our ears and in our hearts and souls. They've said they love how it feels like a conversation and feels doable. They said it helped them make peace with the stuff posted on the refrigerator. And from that place, we are prepared for launch.
What are your plans for the future?
My work is to simply get this into the hands it is meant to be in. I have the feeling it's a lot of hands, because this is the battle of our generation, the attack on the home, on marriages and on the family. When we lay a foundation of peace from the place we wake up in, then we're ready.
More about Maya Murphy:
A lifelong believer in stewardship and generosity, Maya and her husband have helped fund multiple homes and a chapel abroad, supported charitable efforts around the world, and served their local community through schools, churches, and nonprofit organizations. Maya has volunteered with Special Olympics, Relay for Life, her church finance council, and her local school community council. As a college student, she co-founded and led a campus fundraising effort that raised more than $10,000 for disaster relief.
Adventure has always been one of Maya's favorite teachers. She has explored nineteen countries, lived in Hawaii, backpacked the legendary Kalalau Trail, dived the Great Barrier Reef, swum with whale sharks, surfed ocean waves, jumped from waterfalls, flown upside down in an aerobatic airplane, and stepped out of one at 13,000 feet. She has walked through the Jubilee Doors in Rome, climbed mountains in Poland, wandered castles in Scotland, enjoyed sunsets in Bordeaux, and ridden a motorcycle through the streets of Barcelona. Along the way, she has discovered that some of life's greatest treasures aren't found in destinations but in the people and stories encountered along the journey.
Her love of challenge has also carried into athletics. Maya has completed both a marathon and an Olympic-distance triathlon, experiences that reinforced her belief that perseverance often matters more than talent and that extraordinary things are usually accomplished one faithful step at a time.
At heart, Maya is a people person. She loves meaningful conversations, hearing people's stories, and encouraging others to pursue lives marked by purpose, faith, and intentionality. Whether she's writing, traveling, serving, or sitting around a kitchen table with friends, she believes that authentic connection is one of God's greatest gifts.
Maya's greatest earthly blessing is her marriage to her husband, Dave, whom she considers her favorite adventure and closest companion. Together they are raising their four children and building a life centered on faith, generosity, and intentional living. Whether navigating the challenges of family life, business, or ministry, they strive to keep Christ at the center of their home.
Her two biggest goals are simple: to celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary with Dave and, by God's grace, to help as many people as possible get to Heaven along the way.
When she's not writing, Maya can usually be found near the water, on a hiking trail, planning her next family adventure, or creating a home where faith, laughter, and hospitality flourish.
Has Maya’s story inspired you to share your own? Learn more about the book writing support, editing services, book coaching, and more she received as a part of the Author Advantage Accelerator Elite Program? Schedule a consultation today or take the quiz above to find the right program for you and your book!
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