Quotes from Jen Hatmaker

If understood, believed, and lived out, God's plan would naturally place Christians at the epicenter of their communities, like hope magnets, like soft places to fall, like living sanctuaries. We'd be coveted neighbors and trusted advocates, friends to all and enemies of none. Our reputation would precede us, and we would be such a joy to the world.

What if all my silly little individual purchases do matter? What if I joined a different movement, one that was less enticed by luxuries and more interested in justice? What if I believed every dollar spent is vital, a potential soldier in the war on inequality?

We are never defeated, not even when all the evidence appears to the contrary. If you are still breathing, there is always tomorrow, and it can always be new. You don't have to be who you were.

Our only hope to speak with kindness, to lead with patience, and to not threaten our children with homicide is to ensure our spiritual reserves are not bone-dry. Moms are the middle of the flow chart; the arrows of exertion flow constantly out from us, but when no arrows of strength, grace, and peace are flowing in, the whole mechanism is in danger. Goodness in equals goodness out.

Ironically, we practically have to be sainted to get through the adoption process, but any fool can spawn and have a baby, tra la la.

For Jesus, who lived so lightly on this earth, He didn't even have a place to lay His head. I want so deeply to be like You.

Ah, marriage. The kind of union we have affects our children infinitely more than the schools we put them in, the activities we sign them up for, or the church we take them to. Our kids are learning relational habits by osmosis, and statistics say they'll likely imitate what they witness at home.

When we operate from the central concern of being seen a certain way, we can't develop healthy relationships in the messy soil of reality-- the only place they'll grow. Presenting a perfect, fake life to others generates fear in our own hearts and intimidation in everyone else's, and creates nice, fake relationships-- with our friends, with our family members, even with our own children.

Jesus always colored outside of the lines here, extending grace and healing to those well beyond His people group. He often healed people first; they believed second.

I don't need to have the most, be the best, or reach the top. It is okay to pursue a life marked by obscurity and simplicity. It doesn't matter what I own or how I'm perceived.

We should not cushion every blow. This is life. Learning to deal with struggle and to develop responsibility is crucial. A good parent prepares the child for the path, not the path for the child. We can still demonstrate gentle and attached parenting without raising children who melt on a warm day.

Flatten your feet, because nothing in your life is too dead for resurrection.

We "love" people the way we "love" ourselves, and if we are not good enough, then no one is.

So we spend, spend; amass, amass; indulge, indulge item by item, growing increasingly deaf to Jesus who described a simple life marked by generosity and underconsumption. Over time a new compartment develops for our spending habits, safely distanced from the other drawers like "discipleship" and "stewardship" (which has been helpfully reduced to tithing). And listen, I am first in line.

When you tell me the truth about yourself, I no longer hide from you. You become safe for me. So guess what? You are now a recipient of my truth too. I am drawn to you. Your vulnerability makes a path for my own. Your truth-telling says to me, "I will not despise, judge, or abandon you." Ironically, it gives me the courage to be afraid, the strength to be weak.

I choose you and I would choose you all over again. As Jane Eyre said of her Mr. Rochester, "I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blessed—blessed beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's life as fully as he is mine."1

It is no wonder humanity has long preferred legalism, which involves much cleaner territory. Give me a rule any day. Give me a clear "in" and "out" because boundaries make me feel safe. If I can clearly mark the borders, then I am assured of my insider status—the position I feel compelled to defend, the one thing I can be sure of. I want to stand before God having gotten it right.

things. If I am lying on my death bed clutching decades of anger, regret, jealousy, and fear, I will be so, so sad. Nanea Hoffman, CEO of Sweatpants and Coffee, wrote: "None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an afterthought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you're carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There's no time for anything else.

Isolation concentrates every struggle. The longer we keep our heartaches tucked away in the dark, the more menacing they become. Pulling them into the light among trusted people who love you is, I swear, 50 percent of the recovery process.

As Scott Stratten, author of UnMarketing says: "Don't try to win over the haters; you're not the jackass whisperer.

Maybe we don't recognize satisfaction because it is disguised as radical generosity, a strange misnomer in a consumer culture.

nothing hurts worse or steals more joy than broken relationships. We can heal and hurt each other, and we do.

Henri Nouwen wrote: "Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly. We need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. That is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.

If we've been in church for years yet aren't full, are we really hungry for more knowledge? In our busy lives, do we really need another program or event? Do we really need to be fed more of the Word, or are we simply undernourished from an absence of living the Word? Maybe we love God, but are we loving others? If our faith is about us, then we are not just hungry—our spirits are starving.