Quotes from Jen Hatmaker

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. That's what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first. . . .

One decent sermon cannot influence a disoriented person in the same way your consistent presence in her life can.

Cooking dinner is a sacred gateway from work to rest, from seven separate lives to one shared table.

Love God and follow Him. Really, nothing else matters. If you are ever unsure what to do, remember how Jesus loved people. He was the best at it. You can trust Him because anywhere He asks you to go, He has been there too. This is not an easy path, Lovies. Jesus went to hard places and did hard things; He loved folks everyone else hated or despised. But if you trust us at all, believe me: this is the life you want, this Jesus life.

Thank you, Department Stores, for the flickering fluorescent lights, dingy yellow wall paint, and adjustable mirrors in the dressing room where I try on bathing suits. You are why I drink.

Leaving is hard, even when a great adventure awaits you.

Stewardship is like that. I won't answer for the way another Christian mismanaged money. I won't be charged with another person's irresponsible consumption. Nor will I get credit for how another faith community shared or sacrificed luxuries for the marginalized. I'll answer for my choices.

Once we belong to Him, we know where to look for sweet communion,

I am being lured back to the way of Jesus. I am finding it - sorry for this - spiritual. I'd kind of forgotten how compelling the Spirit is. He is the fresh wind everyone is looking for. He reminds me I am a member of a grand assembly that inspires and stirs and empowers. On bad days, when I secretly whisper, "Is this all there is?" the Spirit urges me to join Him at the bottom, where the best grassroots movements have always begun.

A worthy life involves loving as loved folks do, sharing the ridiculous mercy God spoiled us with first. (It really is ridiculous.) It means restoring people, in ordinary conversations and regular encounters. A worthy life means showing up when showing up is the only thing to do.

Something weird happens to your brain. This brain has served you well for so long, but it starts punking you. You can't remember directions, you forget why you walked into a room, and for the life of you, you can't recall your third kid's name (

I turned forty this year. Forty! Which is so weird because I've always been young. I've been young my whole life, as a matter of fact. No matter how I dissect this, I've aged out of the "young" category and graduated to the "middle" group. My brain feels confused about this because I am so juvenile. I make up my own words to hip-hop songs and quote Paul Rudd as a parenting strategy. Surely I am a preteen.

But God will span the universe to meet the believer who is real. He'd take an honest mess over a pretty lie any day.

The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self.

The careful study of the Word has a goal, which is not the careful study of the Word. The objective is to discover Jesus and allow Him to change our trajectory. Meaning, a genuine study of the Word results in believers who feed poor people and open up their guest rooms; they're adopting and sharing, mentoring and intervening.

chronic homelessness, most having experienced at least one year on the street. The marks of such homelessness go much deeper than can be solved solely by the acquisition of a home.

You are not pigeonholed into a brand; that is not the way God works. He is on the move, which means, if we are paying attention, we are on the move with Him. It's so exciting! Possibility and adventure and love and life await us all.

If Jesus is the heart of the church, people are the lifeblood. There is a reason He created community and told us to practice grace and love and camaraderie and presence. People

Except for a year or two in my parenting tenure, I've always been a working mom. Sometimes part time, sometimes from home, sometimes full time, but always working. With five kids, this means putting my head down and handling it while they are at school.

Love means saying to someone else's story or pain or anger or experience: "I'm listening. Tell me more." Love refuses to deny or dismantle another's perspective simply because I don't share it.

My mom went back to college when she had four kids in high school, middle school, and elementary school, and it has always been a source of pride for me. She was a teacher in her heart and needed the degree to match, so she chased the dream long before it was convenient or well-timed or easy. Yes, she fell off the oat bran wagon (kindly recall 1990) and we got store-bought prom dresses, but we watched her fly. It never occurred to us to settle for less.

Life is severe and coping is harder for some than others. We can make the journey trickier or easier, smoothing the path with grace or complicating it with more obstacles. This person is here to stay for the foreseeable future or forever, so he is a necessary member of your tribe. You can exercise compassion without enabling misconduct.

When people are forced to reap what they sow, the benefit of consequence is appropriately placed, and health and healing become possible.

Jesus created a motley crew, plucking us from every context and inaugurating a piecemeal clan that has only ever functioned with mercy. We should be grabbing hands, throwing our heads back, and laughing that God saved us all, because surely this is the messiest family ever and He loves us anyway. Our shared redemption should keep us grateful and kind, because what other response even makes sense?