Jen Hatmaker

When I retired from teaching school two years ago, I started this little blog.  I think I inherently understood that after spending eight hours a day teaching and interacting with people that there was no way I would be able to go without that daily interaction.  

When I call this a "little blog" I am not exaggerating!  My most loyal reader is my Aunt Ruth, who is in her nineties. (Aunt Ruth you are probably the only ninety year old who knows what a blog is and can find one consistently on your computer- I'm totally impressed!) There are other family members and friends who are kind enough to follow the simple goings on here at Turkey Creek Gardens, a place that is so special to me and James, but this is not a big, fancy operation.

When I started blogging I read that it was good to list other blogs you follow.  Well, I didn't follow any. So I called my youngest sister, as I often do when I want to sound "current" and "hip" and am so obviously not, and asked her what other blogger I should follow.  She immediately recommended Jen Hatmaker.

http://jenhatmaker.com/about.htm

I listed Jen's blog on my home page, but other than reading a few random blog post of hers, I more or less forgot about her.  Then this summer her new book, For The Love, came out and I decided it was time to read some of her work.

I didn't start with For The Love, instead I started with 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess . I had just finished a pretty massive closet clean-out and reorganization effort (see "Tidying Up" 9/10/15) and was feeling weighed down by the excess stuff we have in this house.  The complete title of  7 grabbed my attention. Here is a description of the book from Jen's website:

www.jenhatmaker.com

SEVEN

American life can be excessive, to say the least. That’s what Jen Hatmaker had to admit after taking in 

hurricane victims who commented on the extravagance of her family’s upper middle class home.

 She once considered herself unmotivated by the lure of prosperity, but upon being called “rich” by an 

undeniably poor child, evidence to the contrary mounted, and a social experiment turned spiritual was born.

7 is the true story of how Jen (along with her husband and her children to varying degrees) took seven months,

 identified seven areas of excess, and made seven simple choices to fight back against the modern-day 

diseases of greed, materialism, and overindulgence.

I thoroughly enjoyed it!  Jen is easy to read; honestly and humorously sharing her thoughts and experiences. I came away from this book convinced that I must, can, and want do better with the excess in my life.

I enjoyed 7 so much that I followed it up with For The Love and have rarely laughed so much while reading a book! But as you're laughing, you are being convicted by Jen's simple take on God's requirements of us, and comforted by His promises to us.

www.jenhatmaker.com

FOR THE LOVE

The majority of our joys, struggles, thrills, and heartbreaks relate to people, beginning first 

with ourselves and then the people we came from, married, birthed, live by, live for, 

go to church with, don’t like, don’t understand, fear, struggle with, compare ourselves to, 

and judge. People are the best and worst thing about the human life.

Jen Hatmaker knows this all too well, and so she reveals how to practice kindness, grace,

 truthfulness, vision, and love to ourselves and those around us. By doing this, For the Love 

leads our generation to reimagine Jesus’ grace as a way of life, and it does it in a funny 

yet profound manner that Christian readers will love. Along the way, Hatmaker shows 

readers how to reclaim their prophetic voices and become Good News again to a 

hurting, polarized world.

Here's a favorite quote from each book:

     "As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live - we die to

 selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation giving life to 

community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love"  (7)

    

     "The best I offer the world is the truth - my highest gift.  What the world does with it is not 

up to me. I am not in charge of outcomes, opinions, assessments.  I am not in the business of 

damage control." (For the Love) 

I highly recommend both books, but more importantly, my sister, Jamie, does and she's

young, "hip", and "with it"!! :)

Love ya'll,

Shelli 

"Don't try to win over the haters; you're not the jackass whisperer."

Jen Hatmaker