Jen Hatmaker quotes:

I won't defile my blessings by imagining that I deserve them. Until every human receives the dignity I casually enjoy, I pray my heart aches with tension and my belly rumbles for injustice.

Obedience isn't a lack of fear. It's just doing it scared.

Unattended hurt, anger, and bitterness can destroy even the best marriage. Lean honestly into every hard place, each tender spot, because truthfulness hurts for a minute but silence is the kill shot.

We have this one life to offer; there is no second chance.

Usually the things we think we need become the very things we need a break from.

I see a strategy for fracturing humanity well in play: just keep people separated and let them reinforce invented boundaries in their imaginations. Because when people come together and really listen to each other, doing the hard work of human kindness, virtually every barrier is breached.

Mostly good is enough. Mostly good produces healthy kids who know they are valued and either forget the other parts or turn them into funny stories.

You will never have this day with your children again. Tomorrow they will be a little bigger then they are today. This day is a gift. Breathe and notice. Smell and touch them; study their faces and little feet and pay attention. Relish the charms of the present. Enjoy today mama. It will be over before you know it.

If a fast doesn't include any sacrifices, then it's not a fast. The discomfort is where the magic happens. Life zips along, unchecked and automatic. We default to our lifestyles, enjoying our privileges tra la la, but a fast interrupts that rote trajectory. Jesus gets a fresh platform in the empty space where indulgence resided.

There are only 24 hours in a day. We need to quit trying to be awesome and instead be wise.

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

Adoption is an answer to a tragedy that has already happened, but may it never be the impetus for one that hasn't.

Faith does not always demand that God explains Himself.

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.

A worthy life means showing up when showing up is the only thing to do. Goodness bears itself out in millions of ordinary ways across the globe, for the rich and poor, the famous and unknown, in enormous measures and tiny, holy moments. It may involve a career and it may not. It may include traditional components and it may not.

A fast is not necessarily something we offer God, but it assists us in offering ourselves

I don't want my kids safe and comfortable. I want them BRAVE. ... I don't want to be the reason my kids choose safety over courage. I hope I never hear them say, 'Mom will freak out,' or 'My parents will never agree to this.' May my fear not bind their purpose here. Scared moms raise scared kids. Brave moms raise brave kids. Real disciples raise real disciples.

It is immature and lazy to imagine we know everything there is to know about someone before we know that someone. We don't know their stories, their histories, their real live human feelings. We don't know their favorite movies and best memories and what makes them afraid. It is unfair to take one fact, one thing they've said or we heard they said, or one thing they wrote, or someone else's experience, or a group they identify with and make a character sketch. If people did that to us, the picture would be so woefully incomplete, we wouldn't even recognize our own description.

Our children are humans and deserve to be treated respectfully. Discipline doesn't include raging, screaming, abusing, neglecting, humiliating, or shaming our kids. God never treats us like that. That sort of discipline never "produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.

We cannot carry the gospel to the poor and lowly while emulating the practices of the rich and powerful. We've been invited into a story that begins with humility and ends with glory; never the other way around.

Be patient. Do the best with what you know. When you know more, adjust the trajectory.

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. The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self.

Our stories affect one another whether we know it or not. Sometimes obedience isn't for us at all, but for another. We don't know how God holds the kingdom in balance or why he moves a chess piece at a crucial time; we might never see the results of his sovereignty [...] I might just be one shade of one color of one strand, but I'm a part of an elaborate tapestry that goes beyond my perception.

While the richest people on earth pray to get richer, the rest of the world begs for intervention with their faces pressed to the window, watching us drink our coffee, unruffled by their suffering.

When the jars of clay remember they are jars of clay, the treasure within gets all the glory, which seems somehow more fitting.

For whatever reason I was born into privilege; I've never known hunger, poverty, or despair. I have been blessed, blessed, blessed--relationally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

When we realize we can stop being Jesus defenders, we can start being Jesus representatives .

In so many ways I am the opposite of Jesus' lifestyle. This keeps me up at night. I can't have authentic communion with Him while mired in the trappings He begged me to avoid.

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.

Take something away, and your habits become clear.

The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self.