Jen Hatmaker

Examining Adoption Ethics: Part One

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:30:24 +0000

When I was in college, a guy drank a bottle of hot sauce for $100. He was sick for four days. That sauce came out everywhere; both ends, pores, night sweats. He had to buy expensive medicine to help repair the lining of his stomach, you guys. No matter. Because 1.) the bragging rights, and 2.) the $100.

For the love.

I’m wading into difficult adoption territory today, a space wrought with defensiveness and Big Feelings and confusion. Let’s cover this conversation with grace and truth and move gently through it together, beginning with Part One today.

Disclaimer up front: There are so many children who are truly orphaned, with the numbers skewed toward older kids and sick kids. This is a real crisis. There are also adoption agencies with impeccable ethics both here and abroad. Plenty of adoptive families went in eyes wide open, prioritizing transparency and thoroughness. This is not an all-bad or all-good scenario, but a little yeast leavens the entire batch, and no decent parent I know wants to be complicit in corrupt adoptions. This conversation deserves its place among believers.

We can begin here: Sometimes when you wave a $100 in front of someone, he or she will do anything to get it, even something knowingly harmful. Let’s stipulate that rich Americans flooding impoverished countries with millions of dollars to adopt its children will absolutely garner attention. Money has always been a magnet for corruption. While there are obviously lots of true orphans, without question, that much cash flow will generate some “created orphans” to satisfy demand, especially for babies.

Now three years after our first steps, I’m connected to people living in all sorts of impoverished countries, and the word on the street is not good. There is the Christian adoption narrative we use over here, including inflated statistics, words like rescue and saving, and plenty of emotional ammunition (me = guilty), then there is the in-country story, which is something altogether different.

I so want this to not be true, but I keep hearing it over and over in Ethiopia, Haiti, Uganda, Congo, everywhere. The missionaries and locals are saying something very disturbing: so often vulnerable birth moms are coerced and misled, families are manipulated and deceived, children are flat out bought. International adoption is Big Business. I’ve read emails describing orphanage directors who paid $20 for birth certificates and $75 to take a baby right out of his mother’s hands. Paperwork is falsified and birth families are told their children are going to school, to triage while they stabilize, to receive health care then return home.

There are very real orphans all over the earth, but most of us don’t pursue the kids there are; we pursue the kids we want, and these countries know the score. Older kids stay on waiting children lists, while the baby line is hundreds deep. It doesn’t take long for opportunists to figure this out.

I’ve heard of too many devastated birth parents, shocked and confused their children were adopted to another family. Basic investigations have uncovered entire communities picked through for their children, like door-to-door salesmen. I’m not hearing enough about prioritizing birth families and empowering them to raise their own children, not even from well-meaning adoptive parents. Isn’t that what we want? Shouldn’t intact families be our highest goal? Shouldn’t we want for birth families exactly what we want for our own, if it is possible?

But birth families are not prioritized; adopters are. The system is geared to make us happy, to keep us coming. There is this silent belief that kids are better off with us, period. We say, “God chose this child for me. She is mine. She was always meant to be mine.” No. Our children were meant for their birth families, the way every child ever born is. God did not intend these children for my wealthy home and accidentally put them in Ethiopian wombs. Does God not weep for birth moms who were tricked? Who were coerced? Who were so vulnerable? Were their children gifts for us and not them? This perspective insidiously tricks us into overvaluing our "rights" and devaluing first families or reunification efforts.

With much of the adoption pipeline supplied by corruption and confusion, we cannot possibly claim God’s sovereignty. We need to call it what it is: an injustice God would never endorse. It is time to stop participating in the type of adoption that encourages able-bodied parents to give up their children or get pregnant to supply a baby for a paycheck. We cannot be complicit in what amounts to trafficking.

When we began the process, Brandon and I assumed we were adopting kids with no parents. We were shocked to discover most kids in our pipeline had one or both living parents, including our two. Without sharing too much of their stories, I’ll tell you that both kids could be raised by able-bodied birth parents or extended family. That doesn’t change the fact that they were both relinquished, Ben in an orphanage nearly three years when we met him at age 8, but we are haunted by the possibility that some simple development and intervention could’ve prevented them from ever entering the system.

“It’s too complicated.” “They cannot handle their own kids.” “They are too poor.” “Life is too unstable there.” These are the arguments we bandy around about birth parents. Frankly, this is an easy pill to swallow and goes down in seconds without much consideration. Just like that, I’ve severed the biological tie and discredited the argument for reunification.

Yet people working in impoverished countries tell me something totally different. My friends, Troy and Tara Livesay, work in maternal care in Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere. By every statistic and standard, it is a hot mess. Yet at Heartline, their organization that offers prenatal care, safe birthing facilities, and parenting and child development classes for vulnerable moms, their numbers disclose something astonishing: Out of roughly 300 births – and I’m talking very poor women, some raped, some teenagers, some single moms, extremely disadvantaged – only ONE birth mom has ever relinquished her baby. As Tara told me, “If our small, simple operation has virtually a 100% success rate, we are not trying hard enough for birth families.”

What would happen if we reallocated a percentage of the millions we spend on adoption toward community development? What if we prioritized first families and supported initiatives that train, empower, and equip them to parent? This would absolutely be Orphan Prevention, not to mention grief prevention, loss prevention, abandonment prevention, trauma prevention, broken family prevention. What if we asked important questions about supply and demand here, and broadened our definition of orphan care to include prevention and First Family empowerment?

Adoptive parents are so precious to me; this community is dear. I only feel safe raising these disturbing concerns because I know our hearts. You would not sit one of us down and discover evil motives or a calculated rejection of birth moms. The opposite is true, in fact. These are some of the best people I’ve ever known. This is no attack; rather it’s grabbing hands with my community and humbly acknowledging that where there is a lot of smoke, there is some fire, and none of us endorse international pyromania.

When the critics are primarily adult adoptees, misled first families, locals and missionaries, in-country nonprofits, and developing countries in general, we should listen.

I simply believe it is time to take our good hearts and add our good minds. Adoption is the worst place to enter armed with nothing but good intentions. Rather than get swept up in emotional jargon and moving videos, we must move forward soberly, carefully, thoroughly, setting any agenda aside and working like hell to protect children, birth families, communities, and the kingdom.

Dear Ones, again, adoption is complicated and nuanced, and corruption does not apply to every situation obviously. There are clearly scenarios dripping with abuse, neglect, total abandonment, and bad parents, which exist in every country. Orphans are real and some kids really need families, and I personally know scads of your above-board stories. So many of our kids had no option for reunification or extended family or in-country adoption.

Discussing unethical adoptions, I am not saying always; I am saying sometimes, and if there is a sometimes in the mix, then we must go on high alert. We have to. We cannot simply hope we have no part in the sometimes…

…we must insist on the never.

In Part Two, I’ll get down to the nitty gritty: What do we do? What questions do we ask? What are the red flags? How do we evaluate our agencies, since we must place so much trust in their integrity? How do we refuse complicity in unethical practices?

[Image courtesy of Free.Digital.Photos.net]

Wherever it Rises

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 08 May 2013 07:51:08 +0000

This thing has happened lately, and every single time it leaves me bumbling and fumbling and overwhelmed. A male pastor, in his 60s at least, attends a conference I’m teaching at, finds me afterward, and says something like:

“I am so moved by what you said. Will you pray for me?”

“I read a book you wrote, and it has changed our entire church because it changed me.”

“What do you think I should do about _______? How should I lead?”

Then, normally pretty composed, I get choked up and awkward and over-emote and act weirdly inappropriate like try to hold their hand or put my head on their shoulder. Not at all creepy.

I cannot explain how this moves me. First of all, the girl thing. These leaders are from a generation where women did not preach or speak at pastors’ conferences or advise men spiritually or write books they read. Men were at the helm, and women simply didn’t have a seat at the table. This paradigm comprised the majority of their ministry careers, unlike the young bucks who are more accustomed to leading alongside women.

The humility of these men my dad’s age, offering me gracious respect with teachable spirits just leaves me undone. I am so challenged by their humility and can’t help but contrast my fire and flash. This deference to the kingdom, treasuring it through whomever it rises, resisting the instinct to elevate an authority dispute, has changed me. Ironically, it hasn’t made me power drunk and proud like the fear rhetoric suggests but more tender, softer, bowed by humility, committed to imitating my brothers in Christ. (It also makes me want to hold their hands evidently. I don’t know. Thank you for understanding.) ............

Read the rest over at A Deeper Story... (Comments go over there too! So happy to join the Deeper Story writing team!)

Dear Teachers Everywhere...

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:08:04 +0000

Before there were any books or blogs or conferences or studies, I used to be a teacher. I know. Petrifying. I taught 4th grade for three years and 1st grade for one. And then I had a bunch of babies and can’t remember the next six years.

I was a very average elementary teacher who totally loved my students. And also? Sincerely sorry about all that homework, 4th grade parents. I wasn’t a mother yet. I figured you had nothing to do but complete my exhaustive weekly social studies packets utilizing your children’s higher level thinking skills and research techniques, because what every ten-year-old needs is five hours a week of additional geography work. I’m certain now you wished me dead. Bless it. (Several students have contacted me and they are all I’m an accountant now and I’m like um, do you mean an accountant for your high school math team? and they’re like I’m almost 30 and I’m all what exactly the heck just happened?)

Though I’ve switched to the fake job I currently have, I will never forget my classroom years, and I have a few things I want to tell you, Teachers Everywhere.

First of all, I’ve calculated your earnings by adding your classroom hours, pre- and post-school hours, conferences and phone calls, weekend work, after-hours grading, professional development requirements, lesson planning, team meetings, extracurricular clubs and teams, parent correspondence, district level seminars, and material preparation, and I believe you make approximately 19 cents an hour.

And then people say, yeah but teachers get three months off for summer, and then we all clutch our guts and die laughing because WHATEVER, MAN. Like teachers leave on the last day of school and just show up on the first with a miraculously prepared classroom and a month’s worth of lesson plans. But seriously, thanks for the laugh.

The amount of work and energy you pour into your work and our children is so astonishing, it is a crime that you don’t all make 150K a year. Since you couldn’t possibly do it for the money, we can only assume you love your job and love our kids. Can you understand how much we appreciate you?

You are doing far more than teaching our kids the building blocks of knowledge and learning; you are helping us raise our children. You provide a second environment in which they have to practice respect, obedience, teamwork, diligence. We tell them take initiative on your work and they are like this house is a drag, and then they come home from school and say I’m starting this project early because Mrs. Pulis says to take initiative, and we wonder if you have magic powers or if our children are just willfully obtuse. The answer is…yes.

That high standard you set for our kids? We freaking love it. Thank you. Thank you for insisting on kindness and respect, excellence and persistence. Thank you for sometimes saying, “This is junky work and you can do better. See you at recess.” BOOM. All day long, teachers. We stand behind you. Thanks for requiring their best.

And let me tell you something else: I’ve always had kids who mostly eased through school, but now I have two ESL kiddos and my heart for you has grown forty sizes bigger. My littles went to school with virtually no English, and I am telling you: we wouldn’t have made it through that first year without you, and I know what it cost. I can’t count how many papers came home last year with this stamp:

Don’t imagine I don’t know exactly what that means. Teachers, when you instruct our kids that struggle, I know you have, yet again, patiently pulled up a seat next to their desks, 24 other kids still in the room, and kindly helped them toward mastery. I know you modify, adapt, adjust for their success, which takes so much time and energy. Children with emotional or physical challenges, kids with language barriers and personal turmoil, those who struggle to learn and retain, test and succeed, they require so much of you in the midst of your regular responsibilities, and your patient attentiveness cannot possibly be overcelebrated. As a mom whose children blossomed under the weight of your investment, I could throw myself at your feet and weep with gratitude.

It’s one thing to have parents who sort of have to love you; it’s another to have a teacher affirm your goodness all year long. You know our kids come home and repeat every kind word you deliver, right? I close my eyes and thank God that another safe adult is building health into my children, especially since two of my kids have been subjected to such unsafe grown-ups. Your consistent presence is deeply healing for so many hurt kids. Your words are life-giving.

That is A LOT of daily affirmation. I feel exhausted just looking at this.

We know your task is incredibly difficult. Be creative and innovative…but also teach to this test, which by the way, your pay and security depends on. Challenge your gifted kids…aaaand modify for those with developmental delays. Keep all those parents happy! (<--- This alone should double your salary.) Use this new model, no this new one, now this new one. Surprise! We changed the entire district database. Please forfeit your Saturday for training. Stay on top of classroom communication. Attend all ARD/IEP/ESL evaluations for your students.

And oh, you do so much more. Serve on this additional committee. Volunteer to sponsor the Junior Class. Guess what you’re doing this weekend? Prom chaperone. You lead Destination Imagination Teams; it only takes 100 hours of your life. You coach, lead, sponsor, direct. You put on plays and programs, award ceremonies and graduations. You come early and stay late for the students who couldn’t get it, didn’t finish it, need your one-on-one help. You wear bandanas and paint your faces for Field Day. You are rock stars.

Administrators, we see and love you too. When you sat down with me holding your legal pads and pens, ready to learn how to care best for my incoming Ethiopians, and you wrote down every word I said and agreed to counter-intuitive requests like please don’t hold their hands at first and please don’t let them over-attach to you, you nodded and simply said…absolutely. I will never forget that. You are for us, for our kids, for our families, for our teachers, and we adore you.

You are amazing, Teachers and Administrators. From the bottom of my heart, I want you to hear it:

Thank you.

You are so loved, so important. Your work impacts kids for the rest of their lives. I am 38-years-old and still talking about Mrs. Palmer, Mr. Stranathan, Mrs. Thomas, Dr. Russell, Dr. Lyles. You don’t get the credit you deserve, so I am standing up today, applauding you, cherishing your investment in the next generation, in my kids. I see the incredible amount of work you do, and I am forever grateful. You are heroes; there is no lesser designation.

Please remember when you are grading papers at 10:30pm on Sunday night, or pinning another incredible idea to your Teacher Board, or writing our kids another encouraging note, or throwing a party because they survived the latest standardized test, we see you, we appreciate you, and we freaking love you.

BRAVO.

Your life matters so much and your legacy will go on long after you’re done teaching. You are sending out visionaries, thinkers, activists, and leaders into the world, and we owe you a debt of gratitude that we can never repay.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week! We honor you.

~

Have a teacher who needs to hear this applause? Send this to them. Teachers everywhere deserve this credit. Have a story about a teacher who altered the course of your life or your child’s life? Tell us. Are you a teacher? Take it in, because you are WONDERFUL.

When Is It Time to Walk Away?

Jen Hatmaker — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 20:02:44 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make toffee. Again. The first attempt, despite scant instructions and just three ingredients, emerged like a sheet of sand and made me resort to violence and hatred.

Round two: sand again. $&*%!!!!

So I consulted the interwebs to discover the error of my ways. Let me condense the instruction I received:

Keep stirring. Stir constantly. Stir occasionally. Don’t stir once it boils. The temperature is too hot. It’s not hot enough. Too hot, too fast. Oops, too long. Keep a steady boil. NOT A ROLLING BOIL, YOU MORON. Use a whisk. Use a spatula. Use a wooden spoon. Recalibrate your candy thermometer. Don’t use a candy thermometer. Pour immediate at 285 degrees. Drop toffee into ice water and it should be brittle. Oops, while you were doing that it reached 286 degrees. Dump contents. Don’t cook if there is rain within 500 miles. 12 minutes exactly. 7 and a half minutes. 4 minutes and not a second more. If it separates, add water. If it separates, keep stirring. If it separates, turn the heat down. If it separates, turn the heat up. If it separates, I’m sorry to tell you, but your life is in shambles.

These are what we refer to as Crazy Eyes.

This inspired a new Toffee Doctrine I’d like to discuss today, catalyzed by a Facebook comment of unusual depth: “Girl, sometimes the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.” And I bowed my head and said amen.

There is something to be said for hard work, diligence, for pushing through obstacles and emerging victorious. Heaven forbid we’re people for whom failure is a chronic deal-breaker. Some best things are won through perseverance, and there is simply no other path. Often triumph is seized on the 77th try, and every last effort in Attempts #1-76 was worth it, and not only do we emerge successful, but the false starts and failures became our greatest teachers, and no amount of instruction could replace them.

But there is another narrative to consider, which doesn’t smack of the Protestant Work Ethic we champion or provide a lovely headline, but it is no less essential to health, and confusing the two approaches is not only dangerous but destructive. Help a sister out, Kenny Rogers:

You got to know when to hold ‘em…know when to fold ‘em.

I recently discussed this with my 7th grade daughter. (Fact: 7th grade exists as an evolutionary natural selection process to weed out any tender, confident, precious traits from the adolescent species. Eat or be eaten, kids.) This has been a Challenging Friend Year, and she found herself on the outside, and I don’t even have to tell you what that means because we are all 7th Grade Survivors, am I right?

After a year of working and crying and trying again and crying and taking a different approach and crying more, I finally said, “Baby, some things are precious and worth the work it takes to keep them alive. Plenty of good things require hard work. But some things are too hard, and it’s time to cut bait.”

There is a tipping point when the work becomes exhausting beyond measure, useless. You can’t pour antidote into a vat of poison forever and expect it to transform into something safe, something healthy. In some cases, poison is poison, and the only sane answer is to move on.

Relationships, careers, churches, friendships, expectations, roles, tasks, organizations – these structures and connections can be the most life-giving elements on earth. They can lend meaning and purpose and belonging like nothing else. Within them, we find our tribes and passions, we come to life.

But anything that powerful has a downside, for they are the same things that can drain us dry and leave us for dead. When an endless amount of work and blood and sweat and tears leaves a situation or relationship or even an ambition (Perfect Mom, Size 4 Human, Person Who Has It All Together) as unhealthy as it ever was, when there is virtually no redemption, when the red flags have frantically waved for too long unheeded, the alarm bells receding into white noise after sustained disregard, sometimes the healthiest possible response is to walk away.

Assessing a circumstance as worthy of the toil is a discarded skill. Our culture doesn’t value safe boundaries like it should. We hold private disdain for the one who quit, the one who pulled out, drew a line in the sand, the one who said no more. We secretly wonder if they shouldn’t have tried harder, stayed longer, if this isn’t an indicator of their flimsy loyalty. Surely we would’ve done better in their shoes.

Locked in a toxic relationship or career or ambition or community, the levels of unhealth and spiritual pollution can murder everything tender and Christlike in us, and a watching world is not always privy to those private kill shots. It can destroy our hope, optimism, gentleness. We can lose our heart and lose our way. And here is the key: we can pour an endless amount of energy into the chasm, and it will never matter.

There is a time to put redemption in the hands of God where it belongs and walk away before you destroy your spirit on the altar of Futile Diligence. Not every battle has a winner; sometimes it is all losers, carnage everywhere. When healthy options exist, and there is a safer alternative right…over…there, often the bravest thing we can do is stop fighting for something that will never, ever be well.

Walk away gracefully; we need not fire parting shots over the bow. That only creates more losers, and you're better than that. Take your dignity and self-respect and precious humanity, and be proud of the way you handled yourself one year from now. You don't need to be proven right; much more is at stake than validation. You'll never regret being gracious, but you might deeply regret burning a bridge that might one day be safe enough to venture back over.

It is not ungodly to evaluate critically; it is the wisest thing we can do. Reaching a point where you say “enough” to a toxic environment is not cowardly – it is so very brave. It will free you up to expend your energy in worthy ways, protecting you and maybe even your people from brutal coping mechanisms. (Do we really want to teach our children that “identifying with your captor” is the best way? When all we do is defend our imprisoner, it’s time to take a hard look in the mirror.)

What is the tipping point? There is no formula here and I can’t give one. This requires honest self-evaluation, safe and wise counselors, the close leadership of the Holy Spirit, a sobering assessment of reality. Ask, “Is the juice worth the squeeze here?" and sometimes it is. You might discover signs of life and possibility rising up through the efforts, or the task at hand is simply too worthy to abandon, regardless. There may be necessary work left to do, and it’s too soon to assess. Or maybe the Spirit holds you in place for unclear reasons, which you may or may not ever know, but you will find peace in obedience and continue to listen for marching orders.

But the Toffee Doctrine bears adherence too: you got to know when to fold ‘em - for your health, your heart, purpose, family, your precious life. Certain goals are unattainable, and the means will never actually reach the end. And so often if you just turn a quarter degree, you’ll discover a healthier version just within reach. You’ll find the underlying value intact in a context that fits like a glove. You’ll hear yourself say, “Oh! I didn’t know it could be like this!” The toffee is still good elsewhere; maybe just need to rethink how you get it.

As for me, homemade is out, store bought is in. Now everyone is happy, the kitchen is no longer a war zone, and I know what I’m having with my coffee tomorrow morning. But there was that one recipe involving a microwave…

Someone stop me before I jump back into the crazy.

~

If your instinct is to counter with all the times we must stay the course, I’d ask you to carefully reread the blog and notice I already did that. My advice is for scenarios in which walking away is the right and necessary thing to do. My aim is not to lead a revolution of irresponsible quitters but of discerning disciples.

How are you struggling? Or when did you walk away for the greater good?

Stuck in the Doldrums: An Attack Plan

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:41:50 +0000

dol·drums
[dohl-druh mz, dol-, dawl-]
noun ( used with a plural verb )
1. a state of inactivity or stagnation, as in business or art: August is a time of doldrums for many enterprises.
2. a belt of calms and light baffling winds north of the equator between the northern and southern trade winds in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
3. a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits.

~

Conversation with Brandon two months ago:

Me:      Blah.
B:         What’s wrong.
Me:      Nothing. Just everything. Everything is bad.
B:         Specifically?
Me:      Just that our kids are probably all going to hate us and struggle with multiple incarcerations, I apparently will gain a pound a month until I die from diabetes, this house is a craphole of chaos, and my weird quirks are getting worse. I hid in the bathroom at another conference.
B:         Is that all?
Me:      And also, only two of my kids love to read, so obviously, Failure, your name is motherhood, and all I do is put out fires and discipline, so I’ve basically come to hate the sound of my own voice. I can’t stand myself and these kids aren’t faring much better on my Like-O-Meter, and I’m sorry to tell you, but your scores aren’t great either. I cannot even talk about emails. My Bible feels like a useless lead weight. I don’t feel like I’m taking skin care seriously enough. I also ate a tub of pimento cheese. All hope is lost.
B:         But at least you’re working on that melodramatic tendency.
Me:      Just lost another four points, Pal. Feels like a dangerous time to mess with me.

I essentially slid into a two-month case of the doldrums, trapped by inertia and overwhelmed by the escape requirements. On my best days, our life is heavy duty, but during my low days, Google search: “fake my own death and disappear,” which Brandon might dub melodramatic, but he is just a dude with a stable mind and can’t be trusted.

Here is the bummer about the doldrums: the very efforts needed to lift out are the same things you’ve lost energy for. The simplest remedies feel like weights drudged up from the bottom of the ocean. Your mind knows to do them, but your will refuses to cooperate. Which makes your mind furious and mired in shame, which makes your will dig its heels and wallow, which makes you realize you are turning on yourself, you are your own worst enemy. No one can oppress me like myself.

Nothing miraculous happened, except one day I said, this is enough. Virtually nothing changed that day. Or the next. These things aren’t overnight success stories, because if it took three months and 459 lazy, unhealthy, toxic choices to get stuck, it takes some time to climb out. Also, the work required is unsexy, ordinary, boring old labor that lacks the appeal of instant gratification and the pizzazz of an unsolicited miracle. I wish I had better news, but apparently we just have to grab a shovel and start digging.

For my dear readers stuck in the doldrums, and may I say that I love you and you are not alone, these are the labors that pulled me through, one teeny moment at a time:

First, make a list of everything you are behind on. The amount of emotional energy this steals from me is almost unbearable. Ironic too, because each line item could be accomplished in minutes at best, a day at worst: mail these things, return this, make those appointments, answer these emails (<--- just, omg), scan that contract over, send in the money for that school thing (this, times a zillion, free public school my eye), pick up that stuff, return that phone call (<--- just, omg), finish writing that article. Overdue tasks contribute heavily to my Shame Spiral, and writing them all down in one place and slowly crossing them off is an instant boon, literally. Unbelievable the weight that rolls off when the Behind Pile starts to shrink.

Second, the house. For the love of Mary Magdalene, the house. I am one of those annoying people who needs order and declutterfication. Oh to live in chaos and whirl and twirl amongst the piles instead of, say, barking like a seal at the humans who live here and begrudging everyone for being such ~~slobs~~ unkempt people. But no.

So, brace yourselves, we launched another chore chart. This one is simple and repetitive. Everyone has one chore a day, and it is the same every week. This is not for pay, because their prize is getting to live in my house for free, oh my gosh. The kids did these tasks before but with no regularity and primarily after I turned into a lunatic. Not allowing the house to slip into entropy is mentally healing. The chart is imperfect, but even loose structure restores order to my inner turmoil.

Yes, I succumbed to chalkboard paint. Next up: Chevron.

Third, parenting. Obviously my five kids are perfect and make straight A’s and speak loving words to each other constantly, but clearly their classmates have poorly influenced them lately, because they’ve turned into savages. (This surely has nothing to do with their mother’s two-month doldrum disorder, because children are never the thermometer simply reflecting the temperature of their parents. I’m sure their digression is just a coincidence.)

So this cute thing happened where the kids were horrible and fighting and I went to my room to cry about these terrible children God stuck me with, and He said a little thing to me: He immediately brought to mind six, six lovely moments my kids engineered that very day, and He said, “You are only noticing the bad moments and completely ignoring all the good ones.”

God never coddles me when I want him to, GAH!

So we started the Brag Board. Anytime we catch someone being kind, helpful, gracious, or awesome, we write it down, big or small. It has to be about someone else, because the first thing my humble offspring would write is It was so incredible how I unloaded the dishwasher. Funny thing: I’m not positive they’ve had more shining moments than before, but I’m sure noticing them now. Evidently we will see exactly what we’re looking for. Does this mean I’ve had to follow a certain child around, searching for one tiny good thing to say? Yes. But catching kids in their goodness totally beats reprimanding them only in their struggles, and the Brag Board has pulled the whole family up a few degrees.

To be clear, Ben was recyling, not resicking, which we frown upon.

Finally, I made a list of all the practices that make me feel healthy. Not surprisingly, I noticed most absent in my doldrums: cooking, reading good books, limiting screen time, eating well, date nights, taking walks, scheduling time with a counselor, being outside, praying, changing out of my pajamas (this is a thing), my friends. All ordinary, nothing new or dramatic. These are mainly things that fit in the gaps of life. But I just committed some time back to my staples, maybe just one a day.

None of these were executed at once. Over a few weeks, I just implemented healthier practices, one at a time. It was not revolutionary when I sat down with Alan Bradley’s latest novel finally (“Whenever I’m a little blue, I think about cyanide which so perfectly reflects my mood” ~Flavia), nor did my world tilt back on its axis when I wrote the first entry on the Brag Board. The chore chart didn’t solve the crisis, and neither did catching up on emails.

But all together, over weeks, just doing the work, bit by bit, digging deep for diligence and grace and best practices, the doldrums receded. These things make us healthy and whole for a reason, because we are not succumbing to disorder and shame anymore. It’s not fancy or quick work unfortunately, but it is effective.

If you feel stuck today, can I suggest approaching the doldrums in a reasonable way, one tiny element at a time? Alone, none of these are monumental, but together they begin to lay small paver stones out of the mire, forging a path back to health. It will be imperfect with incremental steps forward and back, but God can use your brave movement to soothe the shame of stagnation and restore peace to the chaos.

Grab my hand. Let’s do this.

~

Two things: This is not a post for you to tell me my family is awesome, so thank you for refraining. I am writing this precisely because we have been so unawesome. Second, this does not apply to serious trauma or depression. The doldrums are a funk, not a severe crisis. Sometimes our hearts require therapy, intervention, and possibly medication, and the practices I described are inadequate. Readers, how else do you beat back the doldrums?

A Broken Hallelujah

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:25:22 +0000

My friend Amy is a hot mess in December. At the slightest mention of the Baby Jesus, she dissolves into weepy, sentimental tears. She hangs red curtains in her house, plays Christmas hymns on an eternal loop, and falls apart every day until December 26th. Do not even make eye contact with her in church during the Christmas season. Her poor husband Brad practically has to sedate her to make it through. It is simply her most tender holy season.

Easter is mine.

I keep thinking this will be the year I manage without feeling painfully raw. How many Easters in a row can I plainly come undone? Apparently, infinity. For instance, at church yesterday, a few folks simply read the Passover story out loud in sections between songs. That was our whole church service, beautiful and haunting. I was assigned the passage about Jesus in the garden, asking God to take the cup from him. The other readers delivered their Scripture in clear, strong voices. I, conversely, croaked and cracked and bawled and inserted eternal awkward pauses and blubbered through my entire part. (I sat down by Brandon and said, “Well, I think that went well.”)

The story of our redemption breaks me. I simply cannot get over Jesus. His humanity moves me beyond words. His suffering shatters my heart. His courage leaves me undone. I am aching, so gratefully devastated. By his wounds I am healed, but his scars mark me too, and I am tender to the touch. The story that crushes me also saves me, and there is nothing to do but worship through the tears.

Easter will always be a broken hallelujah for me.

I want to ascribe to Jesus all the glory he was denied when they mocked his kingship and crushed his body. The crown of thorns, the robe on open flesh, the taunts of false worship, the sign above his head ridiculing his position…I find myself declaring his authority in defiance; Jesus is King, Lord of All, The First and the Last, The Bright and Morning Star, The Head of Every Man, I AM. May his glory eternally surpass his suffering, for he has saved the world and saved our lives. Let all the earth rejoice, for the Lamb became the King and grace beat back the darkness.

His kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This is the week Jesus rose to his task and split history in two. This is the week he rode on a donkey, cried in the garden, suffered on the cross, rose into glory. This is the week that sinful, broken humans were granted a pardon, justified to perfection and set free. It is too miraculous for words. Songs and sermons fail us; we huddle at the cross, overwhelmed by the punishment that brought us peace.

It is with a heavy heart that I join hands with my brothers and sisters, fellow sinners saved by this grace, and come collectively before the Light of the World, declaring our broken hallelujah. We bow in heartbroken reverence, thankful grief. We want our lives to scream WORSHIP, for our Redeemer lives and his kingdom cannot be shaken. Jesus reigns and we are his. There is nothing else to say. It is finished indeed.

Family, what does worship look like in light of this miracle? How do awe and wonder and gratitude and humility mark our lives as we honor the cross? As I’ve said before here and here, it seems barely worth mentioning that chocolate bunnies and fancy new dresses not only miss the gravity, but miss the point. I daresay the American response to Easter is insulting, devastating even.

Jesus gave us a hint during his last week, providing an appropriate response for us, understanding the cross would wreck and ruin and confound his followers. He laid a plumb line, offering a responsive script that would stand the test of time and culture and millenia:

“And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” (Luke 22:19-20)

My body, broken for you…do this.

My blood, poured out for you…do this.

And lest we imagine it means anything less, anything cheap, John tells us Jesus stood up from table, the King, wrapped his waist, knelt down, and washed the filthy feet of his disciples. The least the greatest, the last first, the humble soon to be lifted. The Savior the servant, turning the rules upside down and changing the template for the rest of history.

My body, broken…do this.

My blood, poured out…do this.

For me.

What does this look like for us? How do we worship in light of this Savior? For it is past time we, too, turn the rules upside down and change the template. Broken and poured out, may it be. Oh that his people would mimic the cross in worship this week, bypassing plastic eggs and patent leather shoes for servanthood, responding in a way befitting the sacrifice.

What if we calculated the money we’d spend on new clothes, anything having to do with a bunny and chocolate, and used that investment for great good, pouring out for someone in need of mercy? Maybe instead of matching outfits from Dillards, we invest in family t-shirts benefiting someone’s adoption, someone's mission for Christ. Perhaps rather than time and energy spent on ourselves, we ask: “Who can our family serve? Where can we put our hands and hearts to use in Jesus’ name?” Who in your city desperately needs hope but won’t find their way to the sanctuary Sunday filled by people dressed to the nines?

Where does the gospel need to go?

There is no better question to ask in response to the cross where Jesus was broken and poured out and the gospel was sealed. May we do the same in remembrance of him, not cheapening his sacrifice with self-serving, invented practices or neutering the miracle by missing the point entirely.

Church, let’s bring Jesus’ hope into the darkness this Easter – the lonely street corners, the strip clubs, the shelters, the prisons, the sad places. We can push back the darkness, because God “in his great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). Good has triumphed; Jesus won the day.

Jesus, our Almighty King, our brother and Savior, is in glory, his suffering is done and our salvation is secure. This is our celebration. May Jesus find the Bride honoring the cross exactly like he told us to, for we are so terribly unworthy but somehow, miraculously, against all sense and reason, we are saved.

“…to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”

An Exclusive Interview with...Celebrity Pastor!!

Jen Hatmaker — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 08:54:04 +0000

Maybe I’ve been getting this whole thing wrong, good readers. Perhaps while I’ve been pulling my hair out over 4 million dollar fish tanks in church lobbies and the most expensive building campaign in American church history, what I should’ve been doing was listening to solid, reliable, extraordinarily famous and revered leaders explain what’s what. Maybe I just need a better guide through the maze of Christian superstardom and the genius of excess.

Why am I getting all bogged down with the poor and marginalized when I could be running with the bulls? So I decided to go straight to the top; no mamby-pamby middle dwellers, no mediocre Nancy boys. I sought wisdom from the crème de la crème of Christian leadership. You may know him from his world-renowned sound bytes on Twitter (@CelebrityPastor), what with his sharp wit and attention to greatness. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you an exclusive interview with:

CELEBRITY PASTOR!

He has graciously offered us minions his time and brilliance, and we should all be grateful, for the heavens are surely smiling on us today.

CP, when did you first know you wanted to be a pastor?

I knew from the moment I was born. According to my mother (bless her soul), I actually came out of the womb holding a Bible (The Message Matrix Version). And, oddly enough, I was preaching a full-length sermon. It was obvious to everyone from a young age that I was destined for greatness of epic proportions. Plus, I was able to accurately throw a ninja star by age three.

Did you go to seminary? Or does this level of awesomeness just come naturally?

Yes I did go to a seminary: The Seminary of Hard Knocks. To be honest, your average seminary doesn't teach you a lot of what you really need to know for pastoral ministry. For example, have you ever heard of a seminary offering a class in falconing? I think not! Or bull riding? Or fog machine use? Or how to reenact the entire ending scene of "Braveheart"? As you can see, there are some serious problems with today's seminaries.

Describe your church to us.

Wow. Perhaps you'd like me to describe heaven next. You enter the lobby and you immediately feel like you are home. You feel warm, welcome, and fuzzy inside, like you just ate a Hot Pocket. You also immediately feel like you are at a U2 concert. So perhaps the only people who can truly know what my church is like are the members of U2.

What can other so-called pastors learn from you?

I think you nailed it on the head when you said, "so-called". To be a pastor of my caliber takes a level of commitment that is usually only found in Olympic athletes. You have to be willing to go all in, to go big or go home, to kick butt now and apologize later...or possibly never. You have to be willing to do you own stunts. Pastors, are you willing to go head-to-head in a cage match with a rabid mother bear? If not, it's time to give up the calling.

Where do you get your inspiration?

I find my inspiration in unexpected places. One weekend I took my wife, LaFonda, to the circus. I was blown away by those dudes who blow fire and swallow swords. The next week I incorporated sword swallowing into my sermon. Of course, I ended up in the hospital for a week with a deeply cut esophagus, but that's beside the point. Inspiration is everywhere!

What's the hardest thing about being you?

Well, keep this on the down low, but the hardest part about being me is working with my staff. As a spiritual leader of 100% Shock and Awe, I expect nothing less from my staff. Yet so often I run into road blocks. I'll come up with a brilliant idea and my faithless elders will say something like, "We can't do that! It's illegal!" Or my interns will chicken out on the extreme team building, faith building exercises that I create for them, such as a trust fall off a 40 foot cliff into a fiery pit of vipers.

You're a spiritual leader. What can you tell us to blow our minds?

I'll give you the advice I give everyone: only follow me if you want all your hopes and dreams to come true. If you would prefer something else, I can give you the name of some churches.

Do you have any pics, memes, or icons we can use as our screensavers?

Sorry, my only picture is my icon on Twitter. Any other pictures would probably cause your screen to melt.

~

I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve been schooled. Thank you, Celebrity Pastor, thank you. You can access this brand of genius daily by following Celebrity Pastor on Twitter. If you are smart, you can also check out his book, “Shock and Awe,” (forward by Thomas Jefferson), and don’t just take my word for it:

"When I read this book I wanted to stand up and applaud!" - Winston Churchill
"You can burn all your other books on leadership. This is all you'll need." - George Patton
"George Washington. Martin Luther King Jr. And now Celebrity Pastor. You won't regret buying this book." - Ghandi
"I'm sorry, who wrote this book?" - John Piper
"I never agreed to endorse this book." - Mark Driscoll
"I've never refused to endorse a book. Until now." - J.I. Packer

Be sure to show your gratitude to CP in the comment section, because praise for Caesar is certainly due in this case.

And Then the Conference Uninvited Me to Speak

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:45:13 +0000

Like most graduating high school classes, mine rewarded our parents and educators by perpetuating Senior Skip Day right before finals. I can only imagine these satisfying gestures are why secondary teachers are able to get out of bed in the morning.

In a slightly innocent twist, my class of clowns decided on the Wichita Zoo for our naughty excursion, so off we went in our scrunched socks and Keds, Z Cavaricci jorts, and oversized striped rugbies.

Note my cool shades on the front row that are so dated, they are now "ironic."
My seventh grade daughter has a pair. Hold me.

I begged my mom to call in a feigned illness for me, and when she refused, I tracked the soft target, because Dad would’ve assuredly provided an alibi, but he was missing in my hour of need, so I…simply skipped. The only attendance bail in my high school history, and despite the breezy, cool aura I’m clearly projecting, I spent the day with my stomach in knots. (When I received the subsequent day of in-school suspension, I cried silent, hot tears the second I entered the ISS room, and the monitor found me pitiful and let me sit in her office playing solitaire all day.)

For such a prim rule-follower, it was surprising when they started strangling me.

I grew up immersed in typical Christian subculture: heavy emphasis on morality, fairly dogmatic, linear and authoritative. Because my experience was so homogenous and my skill set included Flying Right, I found wild success in the paradigm. My interpretations were rarely challenged by diversity, suffering, or disparity. Since the bulls-eye was behaving (we called it “holiness”), I earned an A.

But careening into adulthood, my firm foundation endured some havoc. I noticed very few of my Third Day Acquire The Fire Disciple Now Weekend Mercy Me compatriots stuck with church after high school. Evidently, that is absolutely the trend: According to Rainer Research, approximately 70 percent of American youth drop out of church between the age of 18 and 22. The Barna Group estimates that 80 percent of those reared in the church will be "disengaged" by the time they are 29.

80 percent. Gone.

A recent nationwide poll on religious identification noted that respondents citing “no religion” (The Nones) made up the only group that grew in every state, most numerous among the young: a whopping 22 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds claimed no religion, up from 11 percent in 1990. Worse yet: the study also found that 73 percent of Nones came from religious homes; 66 percent were described by the study as ‘de-converts.’

This gave me pause, because the mechanism was not holding. More precisely, the church I grew up in was not making disciples. The religion I knew was leaving young adults disinterested at best, hostile at worst. It failed to capture their loyalty. Dechurched adults cited grievances that gave definition to my own inner struggles:

Emphasis on morality and voting records to the exclusion of weightier matters like justice and transformation
A suspicious amalgamation of the American Dream and Armed Forces
A me-and-mine stance as opposed to you-and-yours
Persistent defensive posture, treating unchurched or dechurched people like enemies instead of future brothers and sisters in Christ
Narrow talking points that slice and wound and slash; principles over people
A boring religion of behaving instead of an adventurous life of true discipleship
An unreasonable opposition to science
Arrogance over humility, using the Bible as a bludgeon instead of a balm

But here was the Good News: upon heavy scrutiny, none of this remotely sounded like Jesus, so He wasn’t the problem, which was a relief because when having a faith crisis, you don’t want to discover your Main Character is a fraud. As far as I can tell, Jesus is still the easiest sell on earth, because if you don’t love a guy who healed lepers and pulled children onto His lap and silenced the religious elite and ate and drank with sinners, then you just don’t know Him.

Jesus remained politically neutral, unswervingly, despite the teeny tiny fact that the Savior was expected to engineer freedom through political upheaval. He never once pandered to the powerful and prominent. He was called a drunkard and a fool for the company He kept. Jesus committed His kingdom to the most unlikely: the sick, children, women, the poor, the marginalized. Everyone else? Blind, deaf, according to Jesus.

So if it wasn’t Jesus making enemies out of the adopted, it had to be the structure in which we contained Him.

This was the point my ministry took a hard left.

If you’ve been around me at all in the last six years, you’ve heard me pushing for reform, asking the church to stretch, to become the new wineskins my generation is begging for. I’m hungry for a church less known for sanctimony and more for their shocking intervention for hungry babies and human trafficking and racism and injustice. Christianity is too thrilling to reduce to middle/upper-middle class First World Problems, encapsulated in issues and gauged by a nebulous moral compass that lost its bearing decades ago.

People are starving – spiritually and physically – and this world needs some Good News, but they can’t decode what is actually good about us. Good is finding a safe place to struggle, to doubt, to ask hard questions. Good is food when you’re hungry. Good is warm, kind, genuine love extended, no strings attached. Good is clean water, medicine for your sick baby, education, family. Good is community, even before ‘belief’ binds us tight. Good is sustainable work, dignity. Good is Jesus and His backwards, upside-down ways.

I constantly ask these hard questions of the Bride, of myself, of my own little family.

Because of this, I was recently uninvited to speak by a large church. They cited my struggle with the church, concerned that “these disparaging glimpses at the church certainly can be helpful to a more mature follower but cause great confusion to those who are not quite so far along in their walk with the Lord.” In fact, it is the exact opposite. It is the young believers asking the questions and finding very few safe places to do so. Sanitized Christianity in which the church is propped up and healthy criticism is labeled as “spiritual attack” is the head-in-the-sand approach turning away the next generation.

Second, and not surprisingly, a blog was cited in which my hilarious friend jokingly brought a bottle of margarita mix to a Lifeway taping, hoping to cast us as boozers in front of my very conservative publisher. (To their credit, the filmmakers just laughed and carried on because, you know, it was a joke, and my LW peeps totally get me. We are guilty of many offenses, but taking ourselves too seriously is not one of them.) This satire pushed an envelope that is still licked shut, and the uninvitation was sent.

It doesn’t matter what church it was or where, but here is what I want to tell them:

I understand. I really, really do. Not only did I appreciate your gracious tone, but I genuinely know where you are coming from. I get the things that make you uncomfortable and why, and I realize we will likely never see eye to eye, and that is okay. Unquestioningly, you love Jesus and the church, and I have no doubt you are serving your community and each other. Within your tribe in your demographic in your city in your tradition, you are exactly how and where you should be. My feelings toward you are terribly warm, seasoned with familiar memories of the church that raised and loved me.

But what makes me unsafe to you is exactly what makes me safe to others. The skeptic, the cynic, the doubter; my arms are wide open. Their questions and disbelief don’t scare me; I am unthreatened. The loosey-goosey, tambourine shaking, barefoot liberal who loves Jesus and the earth and votes straight-ticket Democrat? I love her. The young adult generation who is leaving the church but running to Jesus in unfamiliar, new ways – I gather them to me like a Mama because they are going to change the world.

I am not put off by creed or denomination or sexual orientation or terrifying doubt or outright anger or nationality or socioeconomic status or issues or weirdness or politics. I’m not going to make a deal out of a glass of wine when 25,000 people will die today of starvation. I just can’t muster the energy. (And since Jesus’ first miracle was turning 150 gallons of water into wine at a wedding in Cana, I’m pretty sure He hedges left here.)

With nearly 8 million people leaving the American church a year, we need some renegades closer to the margins, building bridges, creating safe spaces to question, wrestle, rethink. Plenty of churches exist to serve the 20 percent already connected. For them, I am grateful. Enough shepherds are on the ground for those sheep. They have a deep well of leadership, and my absence will not even be felt. They are brothers and sisters, and I’ll see them on the other side.

As for me, I’m throwing my lot in with the other 80 percent, the ones with their arms crossed, their hearts broken, their worth unrealized. The ones who shake their fists and shake their heads, but still crave hope and redemption, because we all do. Bring me your doubts, your fear. My Jesus can handle it all and then some. He is all of our dreams come true. If you don’t believe me, start in Matthew and read until the end of John. Jesus is a hero, a brother, a Savior in every since of the word. He is everything good and gracious. His love for us is embarrassing, boundless, without standards at all.

Along the way, if I make some of my brothers and sisters uncomfortable and we must part, I hope we can throw our arms around each other and promise to write. I trust you will do your part over there, and I’ll do mine out here where life is sticky and faith is less a blueprint and more a compass, gently leading all us ragamuffins north. I’m willing to wrap us all in grace, because one day we’ll both discover we got some parts right and other parts wrong. Jesus’ mercy is going to be enough for us all.

So if anyone wants to venture out to the margins, past familiar boundaries, through sanctioned Christian staples, beyond guilt-by-association fears, outside traditional approval – I’ll be here with my people, with Jesus, making others crazy and getting uninvited from things…

…unless it is a wedding in Cana and the wine has run out.

More Grace: On Not Being Mean, Hateful, and Horrible

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 11:37:02 +0000

I’ve had a rash of negative missives lately (see: Facebook), and it’s had me thinking for weeks. Questions like, when did we become so mean? And, have we lost all semblance of kindness? And, is criticism the plague of our generation? And, is the Christian community marked by callousness? And, should I give lessons on satire?

So I turned those questions inward and didn’t like what I found. I struggle with an impulse to critique, to deconstruct, to dismantle. I too easily write people off and assume the worst. I am undoubtedly my own worst enemy. I see sharp edges that need softened, and I realize every problem has the same answer:

More grace.

This just might heal the world, mend relationships, sooth our inner turmoil. It could grease the machine of humanity and keep it running rather than grinding to a halt, stalled out for lack of mercy. It reminds us we are brothers and sisters, not demigods over one another. It is the way Jesus came, and it is precisely what saved our souls.

So in an attempt to be the change I hope to see, these are the goals in front of me:

MORE GRACE FOR MYSELF

I will stop the inner voice that batters me day and night. I’ll not listen to the whispers assuring me all hope is lost, nothing good is happening, I could be doing so much better. That voice is so debilitating. She is like the gang leader of a prison mafia. You blew off the fifth chore chart in two years? I will shank you!

No more. I will name the little lovely things, the beautiful moments, the good parts. Small victories deserve noticing. None of us are good at everything, but all of us are great at something. No rule requires focus on the parts we get wrong. There is always, always something worthy to honor if we’re brave enough to live like that.

We will show grace to ourselves, because how dare we rob our transformed hearts of the mercy Jesus won for us already. Living in guilt and despair is such a drag. There is too much goodness, too much love, too much possibility to go on like that. Enough of it. Let us live in the wide open spaces we’ve been granted, and laugh and dance and celebrate and notice the ordinary little wonders we are conditioned to minimize.

MORE GRACE FOR MY HUSBAND

I will stop expecting him to read my mind, decode my body language, meet all my needs, and shut the cabinet doors (<---okay, just please, this one). We’ve logged 19 years of marriage, and that sort of longevity deserves more mercy, more apologies, more celebrating.

I can hardly think of a ~~horrible fight~~ disagreement we’ve had that grace wouldn’t have unscrambled. Every misunderstanding could’ve been truncated. Every ounce of tension lessened. Now, we’ll never be that lovey-dovey couple who writes sappy things on Facebook to each other. We don’t get vows renewed; we get tattoos. We are who we are. In our marriage, grace won’t mean what it might in yours. All I know is, rather than a list of techniques to work on (“What I hear you saying is my refusal to put things in our shared iCalendar makes you want to put my paper calendar in the wood chipper…”), all our junk can be soothed if not solved altogether by the simple addition of more grace.

What do any of us face together where this isn’t true? Imagine the most pressing issue you are dealing with in your marriage. Now take away the need to be right, to be the winner, to nurture the injury like a little pet, keeping it safe and thriving and growing. Now add grace – undeserved maybe, unexpected perhaps. Persistent, warm, selfless mercy can turn even the biggest ship around.

MORE GRACE FOR MY KIDS

I spoke at an adoption conference last weekend, and although unclear on my actual contribution, I left with renewed resolve to show my children far more grace than ~~they deserve~~ I have offered lately. You know what’s hard? Being a kid. Remember the fears you harbored and the weird ideas that confused you and the secret worry that everything might careen off course? You know what else is hard? Being adopted internationally. You know what else? Welcoming in two new siblings and Figuring.All.That.Out. You know what else? Having us as parents. Also, apparently it is very hard to put socks in the dirty clothes basket and take turns talking (my full car is God’s tool for my personal sanctification).

There is a reason God told us His kindness leads us to repentance. His holiness awes me. His righteousness humbles me. His power shocks me. But it is His kindness that moves me to repentance, to adoration, to transformation. Grace just wears down your defenses after awhile. At some point, it becomes clear: this person is really for me.

So I’m going to try to lead with grace for my kids. I hope to laugh first, listen longer, forgive quicker, surprise them with mercy. I will attempt to find the gracious response, even in discipline, even in exhaustion, even in pull-my-hair-out-rend-my-garments frustration. For instance, if a son, hypothetically, didn’t complete his reading minutes and upon an inquiry by his teacher he replied, “I can’t do my homework because we have very late dinners,” although we eat at 6:00pm and blaming your mother for your personal abdication is for chumps, well, I suppose grace has a place in there somewhere, though I didn’t necessarily find that gear last week. Hypothetically.

MORE GRACE FOR THE CHURCH, CAPITAL C

It is no secret that I struggle with the Church. Trust me, I didn’t want the role of a prophet, yet I find myself hungering for a better Bride, pushing for reform, traveling further away from the safe confines of American Christendom, finding my own spiritual heartbeat in the words of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, Amos. Sometimes my discontent with the Church I see is so intense, I fight the urge to run away from the whole mechanism and search for something that looks more like a hospital for the sick and a sanctuary for sinners. I think more Jesus is the answer, not more staff, more buildings, more mailers, more landscaping, more fish tanks.

I want to be a part of the answer, but so often I’m still part of the problem.

But when I get quiet and still and drop down from the 30,000-foot view, and I look around at real people and real life, I see the Church rising up everywhere in all her glory. I see brave, ordinary disciples literally changing the world. People are being loved, lives are being honored, bellies are being fed. I see this, because it is happening. It is happening, because regular people are following Jesus into the kingdom. They are doing this, and I love them for it so intensely, these brothers and sisters of mine. I am so proud. These are my people, my family, and I treasure their stories as my own, tucked into my heart, giving me ridiculous courage.

The Church needs more grace, and I am going to give it to her. Since when did anything but grace comprise the family of God? If all we have is doctrine and theology and morality, or if all we have is prophecy and fire and deconstruction, then we are nothing, a resounding gong, a clanging cymbal. If grace doesn’t bind us, then religion will destroy us.

I will still beg for more from this little family of ours, I still hope justice becomes our brand and mercy our calling card, but I will also remember that some are far, far ahead of me and I am further down the road than others, yet we are all moving forward, navigating the narrow path.

So many of us are trying, and that deserves grace.

As life carries on, I hope my edges soften, my defenses weaken. I so desperately want it said of me that I loved well. I don’t want to be the theologically-fierce, prophetically-intense rock that everyone else breaks against, nor do I care to be the critical, bitter cynic that suffocates people with critiques from the wings. That is so exhausting and numbing.

Rather, I want to gather my own little chicks, my husband I’ve been married to as many years as I haven’t, and I want to open my arms to this messy, complicated spiritual family of ours and call forth everything beautiful, lovely, brave, call out each wonderful moment, act of courage, show of mercy, and walk gently forward together, letting grace fill the spaces and offering the benefit of the doubt with abandon.

Grace is the beginning of freedom, and there isn’t a corner of earth that doesn’t need more of it.

So let’s give it.

Need to show more grace? To yourself? Spouse or kids? And…how ‘bout the Church? (That crazy Bride.) Tell me. Let’s hold hands and pray for grace to ruin us all.

Brave Moms Raise Brave Kids

Jen Hatmaker — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 10:14:46 +0000

Over delicious Greek food with my girlfriends, we had this conversation:

Me: I was made to parent boys, yall. I love boys. I love them dirty and reckless and dumb as a sack of diapers. I love their ridiculous “projects” and adventures and all that. I love how they are always one step away from dismemberment or death. It’s so fun. Boys are the best.

[Blank stares from my girlfriends]

Me: What?

Amy (mom of 4 boys): Last week, I caught Grey (3-years-old) on top of my dresser fetching a hunting knife from Brad’s “hiding place” so he could cut the top off a water bottle because he couldn’t get it opened and I was still sleeping. I believe we have two different definitions of “fun.”

Lynde: Um, you do remember that I wouldn’t let my 14-year-old high school son go to our suburban neighborhood park because I was convinced people might be selling drugs there, right? You’re barking up the wrong tree, sister.

They are totally right. I’m cut from a weird cloth here. I have the parenting sensibilities of a typical 1970’s mom whose only concern with her children was that were under her feet and needed to get outside.

What?? Oh, I guess 8 kids on the trampoline with no net is
FROWNED UPON IN THIS ESTABLISHMENT!

The first line of Remy's prayer last night: "Dear Lord, I wish my mom and dad were ninja."
She lives in a house of boys, Lord. Just ignore it.

This picture is my whole life's happiness. Please note his friend's bare chest and football pads, in which he looked in the mirror and said, "Caleb, dude, this makes me look buff."

Oh sure, when my kids were babies I lived in total fear, because obviously now that they were living outside my body, the universe was conspiring to kidnap/maim/emotionally injure/murder them. It was just a matter of time. Were it not for my diligent oversight, our neighborhood would undoubtedly be overrun by white vans with dark windows waiting for me to simply turn my back whilst they zipped my kids over to the black market.

But then I kept having more babies, and you know, those chillins started wearing me out. I began to use my precious mental margin less on strategies for rescuing us from a submerged car and more on just getting everyone the freak through each day. We emerged from several potentially life-ending scenarios unscathed: public restrooms, parks, driving over bridges, eating raw carrots, not-washing-hands-after-pee-pee, and I began to lighten up.

As a product of my own parents’ philosophy, perhaps this scene from 1985 might illustrate my point:

We were at our family cabin outside Colorado Springs for our summer vacay. My brother, 7, and our cousin Dorie, just 9, were outside at night in our family station wagon, curled up in blankets with the portable VHS TV, watching – wait for it – Candyman, which despite the enchanting name, is actually a petrifying horror movie for grown adults. (TV timeout: Really, Mom and Dad? Candyman?? For a 2nd and 4th grader?? You understand my generation won’t let their kids watch Scooby Doo because of the fake ghosts, right?)

So as the two elementary-aged children were watching a parent-sanctioned horror movie in the middle of a dark forest, my dad and uncle decided it would be “hilarious” to sneak up on the car, make weird scratching noises, then scream and bang on the car in unison. Twenty years later, my brother and cousin will still pee their pants at the mere mention of it.

While Candyman and subsequent terror might have pushed the boundaries, I miss the days-gone-by of laidback parenting. I love boys to be boys, kids to be kids. I like to send them straight into the forest with hammers, knives, nails, duct tape, and hand-drawn blueprints and not hear boo from them in five hours. When they come home filthy and scratched, telling tales of skateboard ramps gone wrong and forts, I cannot express how much this thrills me.

I often feel like I’m surrounded by parenting books and mom blogs that are just…so precious…so earnest…I struggle to find connection and walk away discouraged and disillusioned and frustrated. We Hatmakers are simply not precious people. From Precious Ones we did not come, and Precious Ones we will never be.

Honestly? I like a little grit in my story. I often feel suffocated by my generation’s insistence on safety and control and perfection and hegemony. I genuinely like my kids to be a little wild and free. I want to have to say to my sons, “Only boys would think something like this up,” and pretend to be put out when really I’m enamored.

We are on a spectrum as parents, aren't we? At the beginning, it is full control, total adult responsibility. At the end of the main session, when they crush our hearts and leave for college, we they need to be weaned off. Somewhere in the middle, the needle has to move toward launch. What better place to practice growing up than under our roofs, still protected from total self-destruction by the safety net of childhood?

I’ve seen older kids babied within an inch of their lives, headed off to higher learning with no clue on how to be resourceful, how to figure it out, how to handle life’s knocks and bruises. Over-protection has its place for, say, kindergarteners, but at some point we need to put down the bumpers on the bowling lane.

Psychology Today stated, “According to a recent study by University College London, risk-taking behavior peeks during adolescence, suggesting that teens are "programmed" to take risks more often than other age groups… Contrary to popular belief, not all risk-taking is bad. In fact, many risks are not only good, but promote healthy neurological development and growth during the critical adolescent period.”

Not all risk-taking is bad risk-taking. For the love, don’t we want to raise kids who go for it? Who are brave and headstrong? These are not just the marks of achievers; they are the hallmarks of disciples. If we expect our kids to engage this broken world one day, safety has to be somewhere around #14 on the list. Our children will be totally ineffective if they are still afraid of their own shadow.

Are they going to blow it or fail or struggle in this parenting tract? Of course! Erwin McManus said his teen son asked him once: “Dad? Would you ever let me be in a dangerous situation?” Erwin answered, “YES! Totally!” and his son said, “I thought so. I was just making sure.”

We love Romans 8:28 for our kids: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” But can we accept the very next verse?

“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

Being conformed into the image of Jesus is not a pretty process, because our kids are born into sin and God has messy, real work to do to transform them into disciples. This process involves sacrifice and loss and struggle and failure and courage and maybe even danger and cultivating a single-minded obsession with the kingdom. They may embarrass or disappoint or scare us as they wrestle with God, but can we see his redemptive hand in their lives even then?

When have you grown the most? Changed the deepest? STRUGGLE. Failure. Loss. Risky obedience. Messy relationship mending. Our kids are the same. Our job is not to shield them from everything hard, but to parent them through it with wisdom and discernment. We should not pull our kids completely out of this culture in some parallel Christian universe, but teach them to navigate the real world with grace and conviction. This requires a gradual process of letting go, so our kids can actually live a real life with real people and real problems and discover the real God who shows up there.

I don’t want my kids safe and comfortable. I want them BRAVE. I don’t want to teach them to see danger under every rock, avoiding anything hard or not guaranteed or risky. They are going to encounter a very broken world soon, and if they aren’t prepared to wade into difficult territory and contend for the kingdom against obstacles and tragedies and hardships, they are going to be terrible disciples.

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.

May we let the leash out, bit by bit, and allow our children to take big giant gulps of LIFE. Because their time under our roofs is waning as we speak, and we get one shot at this. One more quip from Erwin McManus, because THIS, this is the stuff:

One summer Aaron went to a youth camp. He was just a little guy, and I was kind of glad because it was a church camp. I figured he wasn't going to hear all those ghost stories, because ghost stories can really cause a kid to have nightmares. But unfortunately, since it was a Christian camp and they didn't tell ghost stories, because we don't believe in ghosts, they told demon and Satan stories instead. And so when Aaron got home, he was terrified.

"Dad, don't turn off the light!" he said before going to bed. "No, Daddy, could you stay here with me? Daddy, I'm afraid. They told all these stories about demons."

And I wanted to say, "They're not real."

He goes, "Daddy, Daddy, would you pray for me that I would be safe?"

I could feel it. I could feel warm-blanket Christianity beginning to wrap around him, a life of safety, safety, safety.

I said, "Aaron, I will not pray for you to be safe. I will pray that God will make you dangerous, so dangerous that demons will flee when you enter the room."

And he goes, "All right. But pray I would be really, really dangerous, Daddy."

----------

Tough, right?? I'm with you, Mamas and Daddies. Knowing when to let go is hard. Have any tips or stories to help us become brave parents?

And Then Half the Council Picked Winners...

Jen Hatmaker — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:03:34 +0000

I cannot tell you how excited I am to announce the three winners of the The 7 Experiment Bible study kit and Skype session! People, your entries...oh my word. So many amazing people, fabulous small groups, unlikely communities, all ages, all stages. I was so moved by you. I wanted to ship off kits to each and every one of you.

Then I realized I had to pick three winners.

Impossible.

So I outsourced this task to three of the six Council members. They combed through each and every response, every single beautiful, hilarious, meaningful, hysterical entry. (I particularly enjoyed the guy who said, "I like cheese." I see what you did there: connected with me on a soul level.) Each Council member handpicked a winner and wrote a little note, so without further ado, I not only give you the winners, but some pictorial evidence of these Council members and a potentially incriminating video attesting to our maturity level:

These are the people choosing your fate:

Shonna, Jenny, Moi, and Molly...spiritual giants.

Let's start with Council member Molly, since she was the first one to pick her winner. Molly was the Council member who thought it would be so hilarious to bring a jug of frozen margaritas to our filming session for The 7 Experiment. At 9:00am. Ha ha. Now all these men from Lifeway think we're a bunch of lushes. But the joke is on her...I quietly told them she had a drinking problem and we were seeking help for her.

Molly and I couple skating until I fell down and she left me for dead, laughing.

And Molly's winner is...Lizzie! Who posted on January 7 at 11:28am:

Oh shucks. I read your book. Devoured it. Emptied my closet and refrigerator. Gave to the homeless and prayed for orphans with the zeal of the newly converted. It was all my husband heard me talk about - I even tried to take the coat off his back - in February - and give it to the guy with the "will work for food" sign we pass every Sunday on our way to church. (What? I totally would have given my jacket, but I'm a girl, see. And it was purple...)

But then March happened, and rolled into April, and here we are almost a year later and I need help. On my to-do list today is "find the clothes that need returning." Find them. Because we have so many, in a house so full of stuff, that they've gone missing in less time than it took the wise men to get to baby Jesus.

My new small group has agreed to start the year off doing Seven together - the bible study kit (and Skype session with you!) would be such a gift!

FROM MOLLY:

Lizzie,

I loved your post. I also love that you tried to give your husbands jacket away, no need to give away your girly purple one to a dude!

It's easy to feel convicted to do something right after you hear/read something that inspires you. It's the follow through a few months later that I struggle with too. During and right after completing 7 I was ready to give everything away, make all my own clothes and open my home as the newest homeless shelter in the Austin area. It's been a couple of years and I'm finding myself back into some less than desirable patterns. I think it's the journey of trying to do better that changes us and our hearts. (Sorry that was cheesy!)

Have fun with the study and don't be afraid to give yourself some grace/cheat a little....like on food month when you just need a teeny bite of something sweet.

Molly

In NYC on a girlcation. Do you see those happy faces? Because we were in NYC with no kids.
I don't know why I have to explain this to you.

Let's move on to Shonna. After eating like Haitians in Food Month, Shonna has since been to Haiti twice and taken her kids. It turned into a thing. Which is how this stuff goes, so you've been warned. Evidently God can turn a molehill into a mountain. If I need a partner to justify my procrastination or lack of productivity in favor of sitting on a porch in the sunshine, Shonna is my girl. She has never failed me. No two girls can waste time better than these two:

We're cute, but I was in a bangs phase. Thank you for overlooking it.
Brandon is still in therapy.

In Seattle visiting Council Member Becky who listened to the devil and moved away from us.

And Shonna's winner is...Mary Marks! Who posted on January 7 at 11:39am and wrote:

Honestly, I've been terrified to read your book. Ignorance is bliss and all that.... But after going to El Salvador for the last three years, I need to do it. I need to have my living match my heart. And in turn help my friends understand so I don't look like I've gone off the deep end :)

FROM SHONNA:

Hi Mari!

Congratulations, you were my choice to win Jen’s study! I loved that you admitted your fear and how you have been blissful in your ignorance. I felt the same way before I did 7, went to Haiti and before I adopted. It might just be easier to not know- but it takes a lot of courage to put God’s will above your own. Especially when you know that what he has for you might not be as easy.

On my journey I have been called “eccentric” by some friends that didn’t understand why I was doing what I was doing. So getting your friends involved from the get go to be in the “deep end” with you is the best way to fully experience this study! Without my friends on the council beside me every step I would have given up week one.

Good luck to you and your “council”!

Shonna

“Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.”
Psalm 31:24

In Vegas being awesome.

Finally, let's wrap up with Jenny, clearly the most lenient member of the Council. She tried to let me cheat at every turn, which is why she was the first one I picked. I'm no dummy. We live on the same street, started ANC together, and get in trouble. That is our legacy. Jenny is from Alabama (what I'm trying to say is that she is country), and when I sent her a hot-topic blog to read before I posted it, she wrote me back and said, "I don't know what 'belie' means. Stop using big words."

Real friends karaoke. Look how serious Jenny is. And our song choice is also boss.

This pic took us six takes. Apparently, white girls can't jump.

And Jenny's winner is...Kenna Scott! Who posted on January 7 at 12:37pm and wrote:

PICK US JEN!!

We're a group of poor, busy, overwhelmed college students in Colorado who are doing the study together. Not to guilt trip you or anything;) But we are just a group of 10 crazy girls who love the Lord, love each other, and have quickly started to love you!! WE WOULD LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE TO SKYPE WITH YOU!

If you wanted, you could even come over and we would make you dinner--but our cooking might make your month of 7 foods sound appealing again.

Thanks for the challenge you have created for us this next semester!

FROM JENNY:

Dear Kenna,

I PICK YOU AND YOUR GIRLFRIENDS!!!

I know you girls will love the study and LOVE to Skype with Jen. And as a bonus, I know she will enjoy you guys!

I have such a heart for high school and college students….I know your generation WILL be the ones that change the world.

The fact that you are a crazy bunch of girls just reminded me of how much fun we had doing this thing together as Jen wrote it. You've got to be a little crazy…or this thing just won't work!
Congrats and happy 7 to all of you!

Jenny
the "lenient" council member

Please, I beg you, watch the following video when Jenny and I were in Ethiopia and I had a, um, toilet problem in our hotel and found myself in need of a plunger but the hotel manager couldn't understand me:

Please rethink keeping me as a spiritual mentor.

Winners, look for an email from me, and we'll work out the details! For the rest of you, please believe me: I wish I had a set for every single one of you. Thank you for sharing your stories and your lives with me. I am so grateful and I love you. If you decide to do The 7 Experiment anyway, I am cheering you on from Austin! May your own "Council" be as crazy as mine, may the project be so spiritually meaningful, and may God's kingdom come in your life.

And now I'm thinking up a new way to introduce you to the other three Council members, because they are a hot awesome mess too.

Need a New Bible Study? I Have a Deal...

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 10:34:43 +0000

It’s January 7th, which means a bunch of us have eaten raw spinach and quinoa this week, made a new chore chart, rewrote our vows, or have read the Bible for seven straight days for the first time since last January. Some people, I’ve heard, are even making a “Kind Words” jar where sassy children can make deposits to cash in for rewards or, more likely, withdrawals for saying such things to their brother like, “You smell like a diaper that’s been left in a hot car.” I’ve heard about a family like this.

It’s just that time to think about new beginnings.

Coming off the hustle and bustle and consumption of Christmas, I know many of my fellow travelers feel a little beleaguered, sort of worn down by the “too much” of it all yet again. Our new stuff is still strewed all over the house, struggling to compete for space with all the old stuff we still have. Half the gifts are already forgotten or shoved aside. Some folks are opening dreaded credit card bills, and the shine has come plumb off.

Is 2013 the year we live lighter, freer, more simply on this earth?

Is this the year we break free from the machine and find a whole new kind of abundance?

I want to help. I’m kicking off this year with a deal. 2012 was an incredible year to share “7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess” with you (No idea? Catch up here.). You formed groups, wrote blogs, led discussions, created book clubs, jumped in feet first, bullied your pastors, tricked your friends, wrote me one zillion emails and letters, and I truly believe the needle moved forward on the kingdom. It was incredible. I cannot believe what God has done. You moved, downsized, switched jobs, sold your possessions, decided to adopt, launched new ministries, served the marginalized, inspired your children, changed your lives. You were so brave, so obedient. I stood over on the side with my mouth hanging open.

Did you know that in the original experiment during a discussion with The Council, one of them said something about making a detail “reproducible” and I laughed in her face? “What??? No one is going to do this! Are you crazy? Are THEY crazy? This isn’t that kind of book! This is just to read! Who would do this??”

This is the only time I’ve ever been wrong in my life. Ask Brandon.

I had no idea anyone would want to try this, or some version of it. I didn’t write 7 that way in the slightest. I am still stunned out of my mind. I’ve seen the face of crazy, and it isn’t just in the mirror apparently. You’ve gone mad right alongside me.

So I wrote a study version of 7 intended to be, ahem, a reproducible project with many, many, many options and adaptations included. It’s Bible heavy, because evidently the Bible actually has much to say about excess and consumerism and true freedom. It’s hands-on, meaning each week you will be reducing, scaling back, restraining in seven areas: food, clothing, possessions, media, waste, spending, and stress. This isn’t just information for your head; it’s a social experiment and your life is the subject. It’s new material, interactive, and we even shot a bunch of cool videos for it at my house. (I let a bunch of men from Lifeway into my closet to shoot one session, and I was so nervous as they walked into my bedroom that I hollered out, “Well, this is where the magic happens!” And then I tried to move to Canada.)

The 7 Experiment: Staging Your Own Mutiny Against Excess is a 9-week study, including an intro, seven weeks tackling one area of excess per week, and a conclusion. The Leader Kit includes one member book (the workbook each participant will need), all the DVD’s, and leader helps. This is for small groups, a bunch of friends, Sunday School classes, roommates, youth groups (MANY youth pastors took their students through 7 this year!), families, Bible study groups, women AND men, any old renegades.

Here’s the deal: I have three sets of The 7 Experiment for three selected small groups. Each set includes the Leader Kit, 10 additional member books (all signed)…and…a Skype with me at the conclusion of your study! I get to offer each set at half price – worth $200, but you can get it here, with the Skype, for $100.

I only have three sets.

You interested? Can you ~~trick~~ inspire 10 others to join you for nine weeks? And don’t imagine you need to be some hippie minimalist to “lead” this study. Hardly. If you can press play on a DVD player and keep a discussion on the rails, you can do this. This isn’t for folks who’ve arrived but rather for those of us in progress. This isn’t a guilt trip, a strict formula, an impossible template, or a comparison game. There is wiggle room and flex for everyone; all is grace here.

So, I am going to draw three names from the comment section to send the whole kit n’ caboodle to for the bargain price of $100. From there, we’ll schedule a time for me to Skype into your group and we’ll laugh our heads off at all the ways you cheated along the way.

Tell me, why do you want The 7 Experiment and who will you ask to join you?

Women of Valor...Pinterest Aside

Jen Hatmaker — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 11:22:07 +0000

This fall brought some wonderful things with it, starting with Back to School (whatever, this thrills me and I don’t care what you say), Haiti and The Legacy Project, kids who can read (this is a thing), a sister/mom trip, the discovery of When Parents Text, Uganda, Remy’s prayers, good friends, good times.

[Click below to listen to Remy’s prayer in two parts…you won’t be sorry. Note: 1.) Gavin and Ben lost Brandon's hammer in the woods and had one day to find it until they had to pay the piper, and 2.) part of the Elm Grove Elementary Leadership Curriculum includes the concept of being “proactive” which will become apparent to you in two minutes.]

"Thank you, THANK YOU for...me."

But it also brought something else for me: a crushing sense of failure. My inner critic is destroying me. I can’t escape this nagging sense that I am doing bad at everything.

Sound byte: Brandon and I are speaking at two marriage conferences this spring, and we sat down to hammer out material, looked at each other and said, “Um. Who thought we were good candidates for this?” Parenting? I can’t even talk about it except to tell you that as my kids left for school Tuesday, these were my parting words: “If you come home fighting, I will turn this house into a monastery and every one of you will be forbidden to speak until tomorrow. Not one word. Have a good day!” Fitness? I can only hope my unused gym membership at the YMCA is somehow going to feed orphans or whatever it is the Young Christian Men do with my cash.

And then my friend Kristen convinced me to join Pinterest.

Now it’s confirmed: I am a failure, because evidently I haven’t taken a fall picture in my size zero skinny jeans and haphazard scarf standing on railroad tracks, I haven’t chalkboard painted mason jars to organize my Arborio rice and lentils, I clearly don’t know how to do eye makeup, and I’ve never cut my children’s sandwiches and apples and carrots into a whimsical seascape. Nor have I made this craft with my kids, but it is only because I love them:

Pinterest, please put yourself in timeout.

Between the Top 10 Lists everywhere, impending New Year’s Resolutions, freaking Pinterest, and the Advent Calendar (excuse me, but I have never done anything for 25 straight days in my life), I am in dire need of some different goals. Not the “try this new behavior system” kind. Not the “how to be more organized” type. Not the “becoming more awesome” lists.

No, I need something different this year. We all do.

I came across some profound teaching by my friend, Rachel Held Evans, that I can only deduce was divinely timed. After I read it the first time, I literally thought about it for weeks. It was so liberating, so refreshing, so carefully examined and studied in Scripture. She took a biblical passage that women have used as a battering ram - on themselves - for far too long, and it's high time we begin to change the banner we wave over one another, over ourselves.

From Rachel:

Why You Don't Need Pinterest to be a Proverbs 31 Woman

Okay, I’ll admit it. I never loved the Proverbs 31 Woman.

Actually, that may be an understatement. Truth be told, I secretly hated her.

The subject of a twenty-two line acrostic poem found in the last chapter of the book of Proverbs, the “wife of noble character” is cited at nearly every Christian women’s conference as the ideal to which all godly women must strive. The bad news for the domestically-challenged among us is that the life of the Proverbs 31 woman is like a Pinterest board come to life: She rises before dawn each day, provides exotic food for her children, runs a profitable textile business, invests in real estate, cares for the poor, spends hours at the loom making clothes and coverings for her bed, and crafts holiday wreaths out of coffee filters. (Okay, so that last one was straight from Pinterest, but you get the idea.)

Growing up in the Church, I sat through many a sermon explaining how domestic exploits like these represented the essence of true womanhood, and over time, I began to see myself as less-than, falling short of God’s ideal each time I turned to Sara Lee for dessert or called my mom to help me hem my own slacks.

So when I decided to commit one year of my life to studying (and at times, practicing) everything the Bible says about women as part of my “Year of Biblical Womanhood,” I knew I’d have to come face-to-face with the Proverbs 31 Woman in a way I hadn’t before.

I started by attempting to turn the poem into a to-do list, which resulted in a 16-item list that included everything from lifting weights each morning (“she girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong”), to making a purple dress to wear (“she makes coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple”), to knitting scarves for my husband (“when it snows, she has no fear for her household, for all of them are clothed in scarlet”), to making a homemade sign and literally praising my husband at the city gate (“her husband is respected at the city gate, where he takes his seat among the elders of the land”).

I had a bit of fun with that last one, but the rest proved exhausting. Within a few weeks, I’d started and unraveled at least two scarves, broken the old second-hand sewing machine I’d dug out of my closet, cursed at the picture of Martha Stewart smiling glibly from the cover of my cookbook, and embarrassed myself at Hobby Lobby by crying in the fabric aisle.

Finally, I consulted Ahava, an Orthodox Jewish woman I had befriended during the project.

“So do Jewish women struggle with this passage as much as Christian women?” I asked.

Ahava seemed a bit bewildered.

“Not at all!” she said. “In my culture, Proverbs 31 is a blessing.”

Ahava repeated a finding I’d discovered in my research, that the first line of the Proverbs 31 poem—“a virtuous woman who can find?”—is best translated, “a woman of valor who can find?” In fact, the structure and diction employed in the poem closely resembles that of a heroic poem celebrating the exploits of a warrior.

“I get called an eshet chayil (woman of valor) all the time,” Ahava explained. “Make your own challah instead of buying? Eshet chayil! Work to earn some extra money for the family? Eshet chayil! Get promoted at your work? Eshet chayil! Make balloon animals for the kids at a party? Eshet chayil! Every week at the Sabbath table, my husband sings the Proverbs 31 poem to me. It’s special because I know that no matter what I do or don’t do, he praises me for blessing the family with my energy and creativity. All women can do that in their own way. I bet you do as well.”

I looked into this, and sure enough, in Jewish culture it is not the women who memorize Proverbs 31, but the men. Husband commit each line of the poem to memory, so they can recite it to their wives at the Sabbath meal, usually in a song. (The astute reader will notice that the only actual instruction found in the entire poem is that a husband celebrate his wife for “all her hands have done.”) The praise is meant to be unconditional.

But the blessing goes beyond the family. Ahava explained that her Jewish friends cheer one another on with the blessing, celebrating everything from promotions, to pregnancies, to acts of mercy and justice, to battles with cancer with a hearty “eshet chayil!”—woman of valor.

The biblical heroine Ruth is called an “eshet chayil,” in fact. And she is called that at a time when her life looked nothing like the life of the Proverbs 31 woman, when she was a poor, childless, widow, who, far from exchanging fine linens with the merchants, spent her days gleaning leftover grain from the fields.

“All the people of my town know that you are a woman of noble character (eshet chayil),” Boaz says to her.

I liked it.

No, I loved it.

So I set aside my to-do list and began using Proverbs 31 as it was meant to be used—not as yet another impossible standard by which to measure our failures, but as a celebration of what we’ve already accomplished as women of valor. When my friend Tiffany’s pharmacy aced its accreditation, I congratulated her with “eshet chayil!” When my sister beat out about a million applicants for the job she wanted in North Carolina, I called her up and shouted “woman of valor!” When my mom overcame breast cancer, I made a card that said “eshet chayil” on the front. When I learned that three women had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I shared the new with my readers in a blog post entitled, “Meet Three Women of Valor.”

As I saw how powerful and affirming this ancient blessing could be, I decided it was time for Christian women to take back Proverbs 31. Somewhere along the way, we surrendered it to the same people who invented airbrushing and Auto-Tune. We abandoned the meaning of the poem by focusing on the specifics, and it became just another impossible standard by which to measure our failures. We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description.

But according to Ahava, the woman described in Proverbs 31 is not some ideal that exists out there; she is present in each one of us when we do even the smallest things with valor.

And that’s worth celebrating…with or without a Pinterest board.

Rachel Held Evans is a popular blogger and the author of A Year of Biblical Womanhood, which recently released. She has recently been featured in Christianity Today, NPR, The Huffington Post, Slate, The Today Show, People Magazine, and The View.

~

AMEN, Rachel. Thank you for this profound teaching that has so liberated me from yet another list I cannot conquer. Women, as we tie up 2012 and head into 2013, may we call forth the best in one another, the best in ourselves. Rather than listening to the voices that assure us we are failing, lacking, losing, let's celebrate moments of honor and valor with a loud, strong "eshet chayil!" For we are indeed surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and we strengthen each other when we name the goodness we see, when we cheer one another on. Let's take back Proverbs 31 indeed.

Mamas raising the littles and toddlers and babies...eshet chayil!

Women working so hard, using your gifts...eshet chayil!

Wives committed to their marriages, digging deep...eshet chayil!

Those of you teaching your children of Jesus this Christmas...eshet chayil!

To those who care so much and serve so beautifully...eshet chayil!

Women of valor, I HONOR YOU. So proud to be your sister.

Who can we honor together today? Tell us about the women of valor in your life, and let us speak "eshet chayil!" over their lives. Who has loved you? Inspired you? Moved you? Cared for you? Done something worth celebrating? Done something worth celebrating that would never ordinarily be celebrated? May this feed turn into a cheering section, because I think we can all agree the ugly, critical voices have gone on long enough.

Lamentations

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 11:26:58 +0000

My hands are moving, doing things. I cut carrots and parsnips. I picked up some shoes and told kids to fold laundry. I drove my car to some places and sat on the front row at church yesterday.

But I am dumbstruck with sadness.

I feel numb, then totally not numb, aching, angry, despondent. I need to scream and cry and I had some severe words with God this morning. I did. Because for just this moment in time, not forever, but for these days right now, I’ve hit my limit.

I’ve seen too much Tent City in Haiti. I’ve heard too many stories about 10-year-old Ugandan girls treated for STD’s contracted from fathers, uncles, neighbors, sleeping on the steps of the police station, begging for intervention, only to find total apathy. I’ve held the hands of trafficked women, exploited and brutalized. I’ve seen scars on children’s bodies from beatings. There are too many abandoned children, too many five-year-olds trained to sexually service depraved men, too much hunger, too much suffering.

And now these children in Connecticut. The teachers huddled in closets, reading them books and saving their lives. The fear, the parents, I literally feel glued to my seat, frozen in grief. The horror, it can’t be believed, it can’t be real. How could this life careen so far of course? How could it? Why are children, the ones least able to mitigate evil and abuse and terror, so often the victims, the targets?

I told God today that I didn’t want to do this anymore. That He couldn’t make me. That telling me to hold a torch of hope was too much to ask. What are we supposed to do, just live this life? How are we supposed to handle this, all of this? How do we hold the torch high with all this darkness and evil and perversion and torture? How much does He expect us to take in? He chose poorly when He chose me, I said. I’m too fragile for this evidently. Why He put the prophet’s fire in my belly is confounding. I can’t do it. I told Him. I want out.

I cried. I’m crying still. God knows I don’t mean it. I don’t want out. But it felt so good to say it. I miss my last life, when I was oblivious and carefree as a jaybird. I miss giving conference talks on “How to be Confident.” I liked it when that was my deep end. Nothing really hurt. There was no real cost. It was so easy.

So I told God I missed the old me, which I totally don’t. I didn’t mean a stitch of it, even as the words were pouring out, furious, heartbroken. I just needed a safe place to fall apart, to grieve and wail and lose it completely, and God is that place for me. He is safe and I can do that with Him. I just needed to beat on His chest and scream, so I did. I am Jeremiah, my eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within. My heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.

The scope of suffering and evil is so wide, the hate and fear and disgusting sexual perversions and darkness takes so many innocents, that today I have no idea what to do but grieve. I know others are going to deal in different ways, through other avenues; they are going to rebound quicker or push back sooner, and I’m so grateful for them. The helpful words are already there, or their hope is undaunted, unshaken, undisturbed. We take turns being strong in the family of God, which is such a gift; everyone gets their turn to hold one another up, everyone gets their turn to rend their garments and weep.

I’m in the weaker group today, smearing ashes on my forehead and mourning.

It’s all I can do. I’ve reached my threshold. I am begging for morning, praying for the dawn. I am truly in a season of Advent, waiting. Jesus, when are you going to come and make all things new? When will you redeem these losses and heal this land? When will children be safe? When are you coming? We are waiting, a groaning earth. We are aliens and strangers, reaching toward the kingdom, gasping. The hope torch is so heavy.

My only answer in the face of all this madness is Jesus. I literally have no other words, no better narrative. I believe Him. Just like He came the first time, in the margins, and the earth received her King, I know He is still here, ruling the world with truth and grace. I know He cares and He sees and He will be found. I know He is the light of the world, even though the night is so dark, so pitch black.

That is all I know.

So for today, all I can offer the Body of Christ is this small space, here, to grieve. For those of you struggling for sense or paralyzed in horror, I am gathering you to me, our tears, our prayers, our gasps safe in this place. Answers are far away, elusive. Christian platitudes are woefully inadequate. Our shoulders stoop with the weight of suffering, and all we can do is light a candle, gather, grieve. We hold a silent vigil for the brokenhearted, trusting Jesus to bring beauty from ashes.

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1,4

“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord…
Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him.
Let him bury his face in the dust – there may be hope yet.”
Lamentations 3:25-29

For Freedom

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 10:22:51 +0000

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners..."
~Isaiah 61:1

This month, I'm freshly reminded that so many of the fancy products that we'll buy, wrapped in darling brown paper and tied with elaborate bows were made by the hands of slaves. It is one the greatest tragedies of our generation; 27 million slaves forced to supply the consumer machine for rich people with money to burn, addicted to artificially low prices.

This is absolutely an injustice we can fight. Absolutely. We have all the power here actually: consumer power. At the root of slave labor is one driving motive: profits. This is a supply and demand issue, and if we insist on demanding our goodies without carefully and responsibly scrutinizing the supply chain, I truly believe we'll answer for it one day. We can do better. We must.

So it with great joy I get to showcase organizations like Freeset, where you and I can find beautiful, well-crafted products while simultaneously fighting human trafficking.

Freeset is in business for freedom. Freedom from human trafficking. Freeset is a fair trade business that sells bags and t-shirts, made by women freed from human trafficking in Calcutta, India. The women are able to have a job with dignity, making products, instead of being the product. Every woman receives three times the wage they would receive in line (the prostitution line), learn to read and write, daycare for their children, have medical insurance and retirement benefits. Women were tricked, trapped, or trade and find themselves seemingly without a choice. Their goal is to change the economic scope of Sonagacchi, Calcutta's largest red light district, to one of freedom, instead of the sex trade. Watch their video, buy their bags, change lives.

May I tell you about one of the Freeset workers, Nandita? Before working at Freeset, Nandita was trying to move out of the sex trade. She volunteered to distribute condoms among sex workers, as well as working as a house maid. They were tough years, “In those days we had to starve most of the time,” she says.

Ten years ago she was presented with the opportunity to join Freeset. As one of the original 20 women she remembers her feelings at the time, “I was hopeful but also skeptical about the job as I had never done any sewing before. I was also skeptical about Kerry and Annie (the founders of Freeset) as they were foreigners. Everybody used to make promises to pay us but we were never paid, except for a few months in seven years.” It was only when she started getting paid for her work at Freeset that Nandita allowed herself to really trust these foreigners that were making big promises.

Like many, Nandita found learning to use a pedal sewing machine difficult. “When I started sewing on a machine, I couldn’t do it - I could never sew straight - I had no control over the machine! I couldn’t even hold the scissors properly. One time I scratched the marble floor while cutting ropes. I was not very good at sewing, but I am good at cutting and finishing bags, and I enjoy it.”

Nandita takes pride in the fact that she was one of the first 20 women who started Freeset and who have nurtured the business into what it is today. She dreams of Freeset becoming a place of freedom for many more women in the future, “People in the community can see Freeset has given a new life to the women in line. Freeset really helps the women in line who are getting old and can’t earn much anymore.”

These women are our sisters. They are mothers, like us. Daughters, like us. Wives and friends and neighbors, like us. Their souls are precious, their lives full of value. Their dreams and hopes are real, palpable like ours. Their children are beloved and deserve a life free of abuse and terror.

I am so proud of Freeset, speaking up for these women, stepping in, refusing apathy. Freedom doesn't come through good intentions and fairy dust. Freedom has always required a fight. Like our Savior who came to filthy earth, polluted, ruined, hopeless, and he fought the good fight for our liberation. He sweat, he bled, he suffered, and he won it.

He won it for us.

It was for freedom that He set us free.

Let's help win freedom for these sisters. Supply and demand still works here; the more we demand, the more jobs are created through this healthy supply chain interlaced with liberty. Let's direct our dollar with purpose, remembering it is a powerful tool, capable of calling an unjust system to reform and creating jobs and saying yes to freedom and no to slavery. We will not be complicit in abuse. The way we spend matters. May we never forget it.

And if you get this daaaaarling "Hope Bag" out of the deal, well, you can just have that cake and eat it too.

Thank you, Freeset, for your courageous example. Thank you for your work on behalf of our sisters in India. Thank you for refusing to sit on the sidelines, overwhelmed. Thank you for doing your part, for playing your note, for filling your spot. Thank you for showing us the way to freedom.

Nancy Rue, The Reluctant Prophet, and a Giveaway

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 08:09:35 +0000

Let's see, it's 4:47am, and I've been wide awake since 3:16 for the second night in a row. Dear Jet Lag, how not nice to see you again. I especially appreciate how you are robbing me of sleep but also of all clarity so that these early morning hours are basically useless, as I want to write about Uganda, but I can't seem to string a sentence together yet. Too soon. (Re: "too soon"... see also: Christmas Tree Decoration/Hot Cocoa Fantastic Family Night last night, 20 hours after arriving home, where 4 of the 7 of us had total meltdowns, 1 went to bed crying, 1 went to bed brooding, 2 went to bed fighting, and 1 went to bed babbling like a baby. Awesome.)

So good news, readers! I have someone else's amazing words and ideas to share today that are not contingent upon my personal mental status. You're welcome.

If you haven't already, please meet my friend Nancy Rue. As a wise and prolific author, she was guiding me as I began parenting a tween girl long before I actually got to meet her. Then, two summers ago, at a glorious, intimate writer's retreat with just six of us, I spent an entire week with her. You know you can trust me here: Nancy is profoundly wonderful.

Not only is she a gifted fiction AND nonfiction writer (Really, universe? If she can also sing, I'm pulling out of this unjust lottery), but she is a teeny, tiny bit ~~irreverent~~ hilarious, and well, you know, that's my lane. She has written a stunning trilogy, unpacking all sorts of complicated and difficult issues with grace and wisdom called, "The Reluctant Prophet" (anyone have any clue why I'm drawn to this? No? K.)

Without further ado, please meet my friend, Nancy:

WHEN THE NUDGE DRIVES A WEDGE

I am SO jazzed to be a guest on Jen Hatmaker’s blog! This is a lady I have admired (and been humbled by and challenged by and nudged by) ever since I met her two summers ago. I’ve watched her conscience-pricking, action-inspiring ministry grow as only the real God-things do, and now it’s an honor to be able to bring my community of Nudgees to hers – to you – who share our joy in being nudged by God and our, okay, let’s call it, um, apprehension that where we’re nudged to go is way out of our comfort zone. So thank you, Jen, and all of you.

You’re the third stop on the hop (more on that below) so just to catch you up: we’re talking about the tough questions that the trilogy The Reluctant Prophet sets before us. As in, throws it right in our faces. Today’s is this: What if God’s nudge puts you at odds with your church family – or even your own family for that matter? Do you not agree that Jen is the perfect person to host this question?

In this trilogy, protagonist Allison Chamberlain is Nudged to buy a Harley and go into the darkest part of St. Augustine, Florida, to minister to the prostitutes – as in, bring them into her home, take care of them, take care of one of their kids, provide opportunities for them to deal with their addictions, hold them while they vomit. You get the idea. She’s doing Jesus.

But she’s shocked to discover that the very people who shepherded her when she was a new Christian and have become her family are appalled at what she’s doing. It has, after all, cost Allison her job, gotten her crosswise with the law, and put her in considerable physical danger. “It’s not going to end well, Allison,” they tell her, “and we wouldn’t be your brothers and sisters in Christ if we didn’t tell you that.”

You have to admit they have a point. They even provide her with information regarding various social services “these people” could turn to, and offer her money to get back on her feet. “We care about you Allison,” one of them says with tears in her eyes.

They have a point, but they don’t get the point: that Allison is doing what she’s called to do. And as a prophet (albeit a reluctant one) she sees even deeper than that. As she says to them after she has invited them to come into her home and see what she and “these people” are doing:

“Oh, wait – you wouldn’t come in my house now because it’s full of people who’ve made huge, ugly mistakes, and even though they’re repentant and forgiven – gosh – you might catch something from them. Like, I don’t know, humility. Courage. Yeah, that would be a whole lot harder than sitting in a pew saying ‘amen.’ Forget my invitation. Pharisees aren’t welcome in our house.”

Okay, so she comes on a little strong. And a little snarky. But here’s the deal – if God’s calling, that call has to be louder than any other voice. Jesus tells us in the Gospel that we’re going to have to put up with all kinds of persecution for his sake.

I had to leave a church that became very sick and was determined to stay that way – and in the process I gave up a group of friends I miss terribly. I had to let a very effective assistant go because we were no longer on the same spiritual page. I’ve been “uninvited” as a speaker when the powers-that-be read my belief statement. I’m taking a risk right now in these five blog hop posts by asking unsettling questions.

You’ve probably made similar sacrifices, or even more soul-wrenching ones that involved sons, daughters, parents, spouses. So what do we do when that happens? Just drift out there alone and hurt – and become prey to self-pity and its buddy self-righteousness?

Wise woman Hank D’Angelo in The Reluctant Prophet trilogy says no. She says, “You still need a community of fellow believers to worship with.” I found one in the very church that inspired these books, St. Augustine’s Chapel at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Allison and Hank created their own. And in the final book of the three, Too Far To Say Far Enough, we see hope that the church can fill both its members needs and the desperate needs of the community.

Besides all that we have to forgive. Because as Hank says, “We’re all a mess.” Perhaps with the grace we’re called on by our Lord Christ to extend, we won’t have to drive that wedge after all.

Um, can you see why I love Nancy and particularly this trilogy? Prostitutes, a love/pull-my-hair-out relationship with the church, and - let's be honest - the Harley: these are my little pet things. Nancy is a trustworthy guide, a fantastic writer, and you should know her.

Now what you have probably been waiting for…winning books! Nancy’s publisher, David C. Cook is giving away:

Reluctant Prophet series (3 books) to 10 winners,
PLUS 10 copies of Reluctant Prophet to each winner’s recipient of choice.

Nancy will personally sign each book as well as include a letter with Reluctant Prophet to your person of choice. Visit here for the Rafflecopter entry form and official rules.

If you are joining the hop mid-way through and not sure where to go, here are all the stops for each day. That way you are able to maximize your entries into the giveaway, as well as capture Nancy’s heart as she wrote this series:

Monday: Nancy Rue, The Nudge “What Hank Says . . . About Leaving the Pew”
Tuesday: Mocha With Linda “Will the “Real” Christians Please Stand Up?”
Wednesday: Jen Hatmaker “When the Nudge Drives a Wedge”
Thursday: Julie Cantrell “That Whole ‘Unequally Yoked’ Thing
Friday: Far From Perfect MaMMa “Is It Worth Having a Record?”

If you would like to connect with Nancy, she can be found here:

Website: www.nancyrue.com
facebook (adult fans): www.facebook.com/nnrue
facebook (for teen fans): www.facebook.com/nnrueforteens
twitter: www.twitter.com/NNRue
pinterest: www.pinterest.com/nnrue
In addition to Nancy’s blog, The Nudge, (for her adult audience), she also has a blog for teens (In Real Life) and for tweens (Tween You and Me)

I really appreciate the question Nancy raises in the story, particularly because it is so reflective of real life. So I ask you, good reader, what if God’s nudge puts you at odds with your church family – or even your own family for that matter? Has this happened in your life? Can you relate? If so, can you share a bit of your story with us?

The Legacy Project

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 09:29:57 +0000

Scene: Haiti

On my right, buildings and homes still left in rubble three years after the earthquake, amid much reconstruction, but still.

On my right, men, young men, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, sitting on the curbs, nowhere to go, apparently nothing to do.

Stretched out in front of me as far as the eye can see, Tent City, still home to over 20,000 displaced people, a city of sewage and deterioration and fear.

In my ear, our Haitian leaders telling us, “There is no local economic stimulus here. There simply aren’t jobs. We have no export or international trade or strong industry. We have no insurance system. There is no safety net.”

And some small part of me simply despaired.

Because how can I help stimulate an entire economy? What could I possibly do to move the Haitian government toward reform? These systemic problems are beyond my scope, out of reach of my understanding. This is not my lane, and I feel helpless, frustrated, useless.

Then this from our leader:

“In Haiti, only 5 out of 10 children attend elementary school at all. Once they reach middle and high school, only 2 out of 10 kids get to go.”

Wait. Just. A. Minute.

No. Unacceptable.

I may not understand the nuances of economic stimulus and viable international exports, but I do know this: No country will ever lift out of extreme poverty with education stats like that. With 50% of the nation’s children totally uneducated and only 20% entering adulthood with even just a high school diploma, we are staring down endless cycles of poverty and disempowerment. We can pile on programs and initiatives and business models ad nauseum, but if half the future generation can’t even read, the ceiling will be reached before hope even got off the ground.

So…let’s build a school.

It’s so attainable, so easy, so sustainable and long-term. At Yaveh Shamma, the kids' home supported by Help One Now, Pastor Gaetan is raising 30 children. Additionally, 120 vulnerable kids from the community who couldn’t afford school otherwise traipse in the big metal doors of the kids' home five days a week in their little proud uniforms to attend the school as well.

This is what they are currently meeting in:

Another tent in a nation of temporary solutions. It is open, exposed to every gust of wind, every sheet of rain, every swirl of dust, every decibel of Haitian noise. The children outgrew the space ages ago. A few desks, one chalkboard, a thin partition of canvas between grades…I am awed by their resourcefulness. No shelves, no books, no other learning materials. Where would they put them? As is, it is simply a rudimentary roof over their heads where they are receiving the basic building blocks of a future.

Pastor Gaetan has the space. What he doesn’t have is the funding. Top to bottom, bricks and floors and roof and walls and windows: 90K. That’s it. The cost of a small, inexpensive home in America. It's so doable between us all, I almost want to laugh. The entire Haiti blogging team is rallying around this Legacy Project, and I daresay God sovereignly directed us toward this very task while in Haiti last month. He set it before us and said, “Champion it.”

The team, dreaming this thing up in Haiti, after our day was "randomly" derailed.

Let’s build it for him. For the kids. For the community. For Haiti.

It’s going to be so easy:

1. If you haven’t already, sign up for Pure Charity. "Follow" me through that link, and that is your ticket in the door. Then create your own account. (Missed that part? Read here.)
2. Back our Legacy Project. ("Fund this project" is the same thing.)
3. DONATE into your own personal Pure Charity account to get the ball rolling! I did it. All the cool kids are.
4. Continue to funnel your Christmas and holiday spending and just regular old boring necessary life spending through Pure Charity partners online and in-stores, and your personal giving account will continue to grow. With the Legacy Project backed, those precious dollars will start funding windows, floors, doors, walls. AMEN.
5. Invite your people into this dream. Share the Pure Charity Legacy Project page with your friends. Let’s move this sideways, out, and up.

We’re going to fund the school in seven phases, one building stage at a time. Not only does this break it down into manageable chunks, but let’s just say your church, your small group, your Sunday School class, your extended family wants to make a big dent together…$3000 for Phase 1? Take it. Run with it. Raise it together.

150 children impacted forever, with new students able to join every year. 12 teachers hired. At least 30 jobs created for Haitians in the construction. Building materials bought locally as economic stimulus. Families able to lift out of extreme poverty. This small project will literally impact thousands of Haitians over time and create a pocket of possibility where Jesus reins and hope rises.

Jesus always told us that the kingdom would come in small ways: like a seed, like yeast in dough, like a small pearl in a shell, through children and the meek. It may not feel fancy or totally comprehensive or enormous. But it is in the million small moments of obedience, of sacrifice, of trust in the power of Jesus that the kingdom advances. It's in your little offering and my small part and all of that added together turns into hope and a future. Building a school in the middle of poverty will not change everything…

But it’s a start.

It counts.

This is it, the stuff of the kingdom, the intercession for the vulnerable, the joy of mission. This school will be a safe place for a small community to send their children, providing them with everything they need to rise up and change their country. We might never know the ripple effects or see how far this one small safe haven reached, but in God’s capable hands, justice will roll on like a river and righteousness like a never-failing stream.

God, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Let’s do this.

Before You Spend Another Penny...

Jen Hatmaker — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 15:13:38 +0000

You know sometimes when you hear an idea, and in no small way, it totally blows your mind, and you think I am so happy to live in a world where smart people think up smart stuff like this? Well. Sit down. Because do I EVER have the best idea to share with you, and I am going to ~~absolutely insist upon penalty of death~~ gently encourage you to join me in it.

Step 1: Watch this. Seriously. It's like one minute, and this is THE STUFF:

So here's the deal: We spend money. All the time. Sometimes it's exciting things like vacations and iPads. Other times it's slightly less glamorous, like diapers and Windex. But we're spending. And the stores we spend at have historically managed their own charitable giving. They give a portion of their proceeds to amazing work like...well...we have no idea. There is a major disconnect between our purchasing dollars and their corporate philanthropic giving.

But Pure Charity gets this great idea: Let's bridge that gap and allow the consumers to decide where their little percentage goes. If Target agrees to donate 1.5% of your total purchase, then how about you decide what project that 1.5% funds? And so, like magic, the way we are already spending, already consuming, just living our lives turns into generosity.

It's the easiest, easiest thing ever, and I'm going to walk you through the steps:

1. Sign up for a Pure Charity account. ("Follow" me then scroll down to "Get Started" to make your own account. Following one another compounds our giving, because that is another way Pure Charity WINS THE UNIVERSE.) If you're on Facebook, you can sign in through that (which is great for sharing in the future), or you can sign up the old-fashioned way.

2. Install the browser plugin. This causes a cute little icon to pop up when you're shopping online at participating vendors, and with a simple *click*, a percentage of your purchase will be routed into your personal giving account with Pure Charity. And when I say participating vendors, yall, I'm talking about over 1000 stores like:

Target Gap Best Buy
Groupon Priceline Sam's Club
Apple Sephora Petsmart
Walmart Lowe's Forever 21

Are you kidding me with this???? I'm telling you, Pure Charity has convinced virtually all of our favorite stores to drink the PC kool-aid. These are the places we already shop. Can you imagine if we collectively harnessed a percentage of our regular spending for good? (Never mind. Pure Charity already imagined that.)

3. Register your main credit/debit card with Pure Charity. This is so brilliant, because every time you use that card at a participating vendor IN STORE, a percentage is automatically zipped over to your personal giving account. You have to do absolutely nothing at all. (Not every online vendor has an in-store partnership, so when in doubt, online shopping will always build up your personal giving account. Plus, who wants to shop in the store when you can do it online?? asks the shopping-hater.)

4. Now, browse the projects. Well...JUST WAIT A MINUTE. For perhaps, just perhaps I have an idea here already. Oh sure, you'll see clean water initiatives and AIDS interventions and whatnot, but if you'll ~~not get distracted by inferior projects~~ just wait a few more teeny days, I have something awesome we can pool our collective impact for, and you're going to want to know about it. I promise.

5. Support your favorite project. (You can change the amount you support…it starts with $5 increments…by clicking the dollar amount and changing it.) These are time specific projects with a set amount of $. If that project doesn’t fund by the finish date, Pure Charity refunds the money back into your giving account. But again...kindly wait just a few baby days, because I clearly have an ulterior motive here.

6. Share it with friends! There’s a strong social connection to this, where you can share buttons and widgets with your friends and followers, to generate interest in a cause you’re passionate about.

Pure Charity offers a redemptive opportunity to harness consumerism for great good. It's just so brilliant. Good reader, please make a Pure Charity account. Please share this blog with every person you know. Did you know that in the next two months, Americans will dole out roughly 40% of our entire annual spending? If ever there was a time to capitalize on capitalism, it is surely now.

Christmas spending...harnessed for good.

Holiday travel...used for charity.

Spending on our families...equals spending on others.

May I ask you to share this blog like it's your job? Let's get everyone we know signed up for Pure Charity, because with virtually no effort, it will redeem our regular spending, bit by bit, purchase by purchase, to change the world.

And once you all have your accounts in place...I have a little project to back. We're going to do something amazing together between now and December 25th. Oh, yes we are. YES WE ARE.

Haiti, Personal Crisis, and a Manifesto

Jen Hatmaker — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:05:27 +0000

“There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, “Business as usual.” But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.” ~Life of Pi

I read this international bestseller on the way home from Haiti one week ago today, where I’d been writing on behalf of Help One Now and the extraordinary people of Haiti for a week. The reader response was terribly sincere but small. Gains on child sponsorship were modest. The content was just so difficult, for the writers, readers, all of us. What do we do with Tent City, horrifically dubbed “rape camp”? What do we do with all these orphaned kids? What do we do with these heroic pastors pouring their very lives out for their people? We don’t know. Tears? Yes. Action? Maybe not.

Then I came home and wrote a piece on the election, which has apparently gone to the ends of the earth. I’ve been called dangerous, scary, stupid, sinful, liberal of course, and apparently I’m “living on the fence with the devil.” (I had no idea.) (But someone also offered to drive to Austin and buy me a margarita, so it wasn’t all bad news.) And to be fair, the positive reaction, by far the largest majority, was equally strong. For better or worse, readers felt strong enough to repost, refute, rejoice, retweet, rebut, repin, and reread.

The dichotomy put me into mild despair.

And I’m not pointing my finger at you, good readers. I am, after all, the girl who found the emotional energy to write such a charged piece three days after returning from Haiti. How was I able to suspend the emotional turmoil that quickly? It’s so easy to get incensed over American politics; that pill goes down like a dream compared to rape camp. Identify with Jesus in His sufferings? Pass. Identify with a political party? Sign me the freak up.

I woke up this morning with my heart aching with the words of the prophets, so often my plumb line. I hear God’s anguish fresh, His disbelief at the priorities of the assembly. Read them carefully, for they reek of relevance:

“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:21-24)

“Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations – I cannot bear your worthless assemblies… When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood! Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong. Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:13-17)

“Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed?’…Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:3-4, 6-7)

“Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:7-8)

What makes me truly angry? For whom does my passionate soul cry? What leaves my blood boiling, my heart aching, my belly rumbling for injustice? What prophetic story am I telling with my life? I can assure you I do not hate my own sin nearly as much as I hate everyone else’s. Nor is any injustice as grave as those done unto me, in my First World setting, where I imagine I know the slightest meaning of persecution.

When it is all over, what is my legacy in Christ?

Readers, I want you to hear me now. I’m saying this out loud, having been reproved by the prophets, redirected by God’s holy heartbeat. I receive it, this correction. I hear you, God; I recognize what you grieve for. I see this world, of which I reside in the top 1% of wealth, and I will not imagine that much is not required from whom much has been given. I refuse to identify myself somewhere in the middle of the pack, because I am so far removed from the common human experience, I know I cannot trust my perspective.

While babies are born in tent camps and pastors are sleeping outdoors on mattresses next to the orphans they are raising, I will not defile my holy task by turning your Word into a metaphor, imagining that orphans doesn’t mean orphans and hungry doesn’t mean hungry. So help me, if I ever claim American Christians are "the oppressed" again, strike me dead. I mean it. Put me out of my misery, for I am on a fool’s errand at that point.

I will wield hate indeed, but only for the things you hate, Jesus: injustice, self-righteousness, the substitution of religion for discipleship, brokenness. And I will hate those things in myself first, until your mysterious love somehow transforms them into your glory. I will not lay my privileged head on my pillow every night having spent the day protecting my station. If I never enjoy a good night’s sleep the rest of my life, may injustice keep me up at night, beckoning me to hold a vigil with Jesus over those suffering.

Here are my hands. They are yours.

Here is my wallet. Take it.

Here are my powerful prayer words. Direct them.

Here is my comfortable happiness. Ruin it.

Here is my sin. Transform me.

Here is my heart. Break it.

I hope one day I’ll write of Haiti and the outcry will reach past our eyes, through our minds, beyond our heartstrings, and all the way to our hands. May Loving Mercy be the battle cry of the assembly, to the detriment of our own safety and insulation. Expose our own sin, Lord, for repentance is the beginning of revelation. I beg you, do not leave us in our selfishness of the side of the road, disabled by our own blindness, but tear off the scales and teach us to see.

“These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defense, not God’s, that the self-righteous should rush.” ~Life of Pi

The Election: Thoughts From a Christian Independent

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 12:36:36 +0000

I have a thing for pomp and circumstance. I famously watched all four hours of President Nixon’s funeral. I watch every second of every inauguration. The peaceful transfer of power in America moves me; it’s all so civilized. All the naughty behavior of the election season is brushed under the carpet, and grown men exchange the reins of leading the most powerful country on earth. And I’m no American elitist in this department…I also woke up at 3:30am to watch William and Kate’s wedding live at my friend Molly’s house, who answered the door in her wedding veil.

Ironic, because I put very little stock in politics. I like the dressings – the traditions, the ceremony, the legacy – but the inner workings of polarized government actually leave me very cold. My optimism was deflowered in middle school when I found out about the Electoral College…

“So my vote doesn’t actually count??” said the disillusioned 8th grader.
“Well, yes, it technically does.”
“But technically can someone win the election and lose the Electoral College??”
“Virtually impossible.”
“BUT FEASIBLE??”
“Technically, yes,” said the annoyed government teacher.
“All truth is dead.”

…and it really never recovered. So it is with no small degree of dismay I watch my Christian community engage the current election. I’m no stranger to the Christian Republican narrative; after all, my home church used to put an election insert into the bulletin on Sunday to tell us who to vote for (straight-ticket Republican). I, like most of my fellow DC Talk totin’ youth group pals, assumed that Christians hedged right, because of obvious reasons, which were actually not obvious at all, but we didn’t ask questions back then.

Let me jump ahead and tell you where I’ve landed: I am a registered independent AND WILL ALWAYS BE. I will never get in bed with a political party, because full allegiance forfeits the right to call a party to reform, and both parties are in dire need of reform. Full allegiance tempts us to place our hope in secular government fueled by greed and power, and both parties are fueled by greed and power. Full allegiance silences our prophetic voice in favor of touting party lines and demands we turn our fellow citizens into enemies for differing viewpoints.

I’m concerned, sisters and brothers in Christ, with this unyielding group identification with a political party. And I know what you’re going to say: Abortion. This is the veritable end of every discussion as a single-issue decision. To be clear: I am fully in favor of protecting our unborn. I believe history will not look kindly on this page of society. And for my Right to Choose friends who want to holler rape and incest, I’ll remind us those tragic cases account for less than 1% of all abortions. We have an unprecedented loss of life on our hands. It is a dark day indeed.

But in many ways, abortion is a straw issue in this election. It is not up for repeal. It is not on the docket as pending legislation. It will certainly not be outlawed by either candidate ("There's no legislation regarding, with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda.” ~Romney told the Des Moines Register). No vote will result in a repeal, so perhaps we should not so quickly malign citizens who vote toward policies that reduce.

In fact, after it was legalized in 1973, abortions surged under Democratic and Republican presidents alike, remaining legal through seven Republican-appointed and only four Democratic-appointed Supreme Court justices, reaching their peak of 1.6 million in 1990. Since then, abortions have steadily decreased, with the largest decline under the Clinton administration then plateauing during the younger Bush years. (source)

The lack of far-reaching advocacy demonstrated by most Pro-Life folks is discouraging. The Right to Life focus usually omits the crucial before and after parts of the issue, as I see the same people fighting against universal pre- and postnatal care, easier access to contraception (2/3rds of all US citizens are unchurched, so it is unrealistic to expect them to adhere to Christian abstinence, you know, like all the Christian singles are...ahem), better nutrition for new mothers, affordable health care for all, the offer of true community to young and vulnerable pregnant women…as these are the tools that will actually reduce abortions. There is a high correlation between social policies like family planning, contraception promotion, comprehensive sex education, and increased health insurance coverage and lower abortion rates.

But I digress.

Perhaps most discouraging is the irrational, unreasonable hope I find fellow believers placing in a political party, and lest you think I’m just picking on Republicans, my Christian Democratic friends ‘bout drove me to drinkin’ during the Bush years. And may we touch on the irony of an inherent value of the right – electing a Christian president – and observe the suspension of “biblical truth” necessary to endorse a Mormon candidate? The Christian Right has gone strangely silent over this tiny detail (but should a Mormon secure the Democratic nomination, please prepare your Facebook feed for 1000 posts a day about the anti-Christ and the end of the world).

None of this smacks of gospel.

Politics are rife with power-plays, hypocrisy, corruption, agendas, contradictions, good platforms, bad platforms, men and women who love their country, men and women who’ve lost their moral compass, good policy, dangerous policy…in the red and blue camps alike. That any believer imagines a political platform will either usher in or threaten the kingdom of God is worse than dramatic; it is unbelief.

No president can take the Kingdom out of our hearts. No candidate can steal what Jesus has already won. As the Kingdom came, so will it continue – not through Empire but through radical, subversive faith. It cannot be shaken, it cannot be removed. It lives and breathes through the work of Jesus on the cross, not the position of any human on the throne. Nor can any man in the sphere of government ever represent the comprehensive gospel of Christ. Never. He may reflect elements, but rest assured, those tenets will be contradicted elsewhere in his platform.

Our faith and outrage and hope and trust is misplaced in any leadership model other than Jesus’, who resisted all earthly power and position and rejected any political identification:

The last shall be first.

The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

My kingdom is not of this world.

The greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.

Jesus’ subversive teaching taught his followers to shame and expose the evils of political oppression by audacious acts of humility, not through bedding down within the system. I particularly like how John Piper discussed voting in his post “Let Christians Vote As Though They Were Not Voting”, referencing 1 Corinthians 7:29-31 (by the way, do not google “John Piper election” in hopes of pulling up this article, because you will find seven hundred thousand pages of predestination sermon links):

“So it is with voting. There are losses. We mourn. But not as those who have no hope. We vote and we lose, or we vote and we win. In either case, we win or lose as if we were not winning or losing. Our expectations and frustrations are modest. The best this world can offer is short and small. The worst it can offer has been predicted in the book of Revelation. And no vote will hold it back.”

These things remain: God’s kingdom exists anywhere believers are choosing love and grace and reckless obedience; it is undeterred by a red or blue context. Sisters and brothers in Christ will vote differently, because as we all must, we simply have to choose between two platforms that each include some gospel-centric policies and others that contradict. Either way, we will swallow some ideologies that belie the message of Jesus. Regardless, God is still on His throne, and our true allegiance rests in His sovereignty. Four or eight years of an administration cannot compromise the historical work of a holy God.

If discipleship means loving the broken, then love the broken.

If following Jesus means abandoning our rights, then abandon them.

If you care about the sanctity of life, then devote yourself to its care – womb to grave.

If you worry about the vulnerable, then give your life away for them.

If Scripture tells us perfect love drives out fear, then it does.

If your trust is in a Servant Savior, then put it there and leave it there.

As children of God, we should be unthreatened by secular power. The Law was never able to bring redemption, and it is still insufficient to make all things new. The healing and hope and goodness we long for is realized fully in Jesus, extended through His people despite hardship or distance or the passage of time or the changing of guards. No political party can see it through or take it away. It was finished on the cross, and the discussion is over.

So may we deal kindly with one another in a manner befitting the Bride, as a people who loosely engage the system of the day, retaining our prophetic voice and refusing to malign one another for a false kingdom that will soon pass away. May we preach Jesus crucified and risen, the only hope of the world. And whether we vote red or blue, may we reach across the lines, join hands, and proclaim:

“To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen.” ~Romans 16:27

The Upside (and Lighter Side) of Haiti

Jen Hatmaker — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 22:37:38 +0000

When I read Mike Rusch’s first blog from this week in Haiti, I told him the next morning: “I loved your blog. So manly. Bullet points, facts, short sentences, action steps. My blog was 1300 words of emoting.” Good reader, you are not a machine. I cannot expect you to keep coming back day after day for this punishment. You have jobs and children; you can’t be crying into your laptop all day long.

Here is the good news: Haiti is beautiful, joyful, hilarious, hopeful. People laugh here too. Folks are onery and silly and happy and sarcastic. Goodness abounds in the midst of struggle. There is so much to celebrate. (And confess.)

Therefore, I give you the highlight reel. Grab a Prestige and enjoy:

First World Problems: Excerpts from Actual Conversations This Week

“Oh my gosh! I’m so hot! Why is it so hot here? I have rivers of sweat running down my back. Can you point the air vent this way a bit? How do those tap-tap people do it??”

“Surely I am not out of antibacterial gel again. How am I supposed to touch my sandwich?”

“If you guys wake up tomorrow morning and discover a vicious chicken massacre in the streets, look the other way.”

“Internet down again. Can’t stream Downton Abbey.”

“Why are these roads so bumpy?? I think Help One Now needs to offer a massage voucher for blog trips from now on.”

“Is it okay to drink this delicious fresh-squeezed pineapple juice? I forgot to bring antidiarrheal medicine and I just don’t know how to deal with bowel distress in this country.”

“It’s so hard to nap here.”

“Guys, don’t use that peppermint soap while taking your cold shower. Double whammy. I think I just developed mild hypothermia and I’m pretty sure my heart stopped beating for forty seconds.”

“Have you ever been snarked on by that hate site for your blog? Mean people make me sad. And also all this poverty, of course.”

(On a video project for Help One Now) Blogger #1: “I can’t speak on camera.” Blogger #2: “Why do you hate the orphans?”

Happy, Hopeful, Hilarious Haitian Things

The sound of children reading in unison in their tent school.

Salting chocolate ice cream. Thank you, Kristen. Our lives are changed.

Baskets of shallots and just-picked carrots on the side of the road.

Big, floppy bows in every little girl’s hair.

The sound of Creole. It’s like a lullaby.

A litany of inappropriate comments followed by: “Tweet that.”

Troy and Tara Livesay and the remarkable work of Heartline. BFF alert.

Little Haitian hands writing letters to sponsors with such concentration.

Heroes who stayed. They are everywhere here.

Heroes who keep coming to help. We traveled with them this week.

Van conversation ranging from zombie ethics to prison tattoos. Ask Jacob.

Big dreams. Dreaming with big dreamers. Dreams rising.

A worship service in the middle of Tent City. Beauty from ashes.

The roads. (This one is a lie.)

Haitian pastors. These men will be famous in heaven.

“Bonjour…” “Bonsoir…” Sing it. It’s the only way.

Help One Now. These are the gospel-bearers Jesus spoke of.

“If I had the power to put all the orphans in one safe place, I would. But I will wait on God who has all the power and loves us.” ~Pastor Gaetan

Kristen’s Aunt Janet. This induced a hysterical laughing fit at 2:30am.

Our Haitian crushes, I mean, translators. Cougar alert. Dario, Rodney, Jay, Evens. Love.

The dogged, resilient spirit of Haiti. You can’t believe it.

The hills. OH MY GOSH, the hills.

Haitian school uniforms. And the backpacks. The cute factor is too much.

The women of this country. They work so hard. Proud of my sisters.

Bigfoot costume. Ask Jacob again.

Pure Charity. Just you wait until I tell you about these guys. Mike Rusch. The end.

Tent City, down from 60,000 to 20,000.

Prestige toasts in the van every night. Grime, sweat, exhaustion, Haitian beer. Cheers.

Haitian artists, creatives, writers, musicians.

New friends: Haitian, American, Canadian. I’m in love.

The Kid’s Home bunkroom for girls that looked like a Tiger Beat explosion. Girls are girls, precious everywhere they live.

The humility and deference shown by every single Haitian leader we met.

The homerun that an iPhone is in the hands of children worldwide.

Mary’s descriptor of her wedding night. You’ll have to ask her.

Our photographers and filmmakers who laid on their bellies in the dirt and sun and crouched on hillsides and showcased all the beautiful things. Mollie, Chris, Scott. Super stars.

The astonishing balance thing Haitians can do with giant buckets of things on their heads. Feats of strength!

Pastor St. Cyr to his people after the earthquake: “This is not God’s judgment, and He still loves us.” Man of God, we honor you.

The love for God in this place. It is a marvel. The faithful live here.

Avocados, red beans and rice, Creole sauce, fried potatoes, pumpkin soup, cheese grits, corn with lime, braised chicken, plantains. All this went into our mouths.

Prestige. Oh wait, I already said that.

This team. I will never, ever forget this week with you. I love you. Belong to me.

Readers who say: Yes. Moved. Moving. Praying. Listening. Caring. THIS.

Children doing their homework in Tent City. Let hope rise.

Bret’s prophetic word over dinner that left us UNDONE: “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Amen.

The people of Haiti, the land, the heart, the hope of God here. I am at your service.

The American Church, who I’ve been so proud of this week. You have mattered in Haiti so much, and you matter still. Rise up, Church.

Considering sponsorship? This is the sustainable engine that keeps the monthly wheels on at Yaveh Shamma Kid’s Home. Click here to SIGN UP IMMEDIATELY, I mean, for more info. Please stay tuned, for the team has a Legacy Project to pitch, and you’re going to want a piece of this action.

HAVE YOU BEEN TO HAITI? Add to the list! What beautiful things do you love about Haiti? (Or feel free to add to our First World Problems list…don’t imagine humor doesn’t abound down here too.)

"My Heart is Hot..."

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 23:40:19 +0000

This cannot quite be quantified; it’s not an exact science. Experts might disagree on the precise time frame or progression. But somewhere between your 12th and 36th hour in a Third-World country, you ask yourself the same question Francis Schaeffer posed:

“How then shall we live?”

You can’t help it. You want to shove this chaos onto other people, the brave ones, the resourced ones, or whatever attributes you assign to heroes who live and breathe the redemption of places like Haiti or Kenya or wherever it is We Who Have Normal Lives do not bear responsibility for.

But then you can’t help it. Their poverty holds a mirror up to your privileges at the exact same time their preciousness firmly identifies them as brothers and sisters, and you’re a goner. Like Pastor Gaetan of Yaveh Shamma Orphanage told us today of his resolve for the children, as he searched for the right English words:

“My heart is hot…”

Our hearts become hot, ablaze with the gospel, on fire against the injustice, melting with Jesus’ words: These are the least…however you treat them is how you’ve treated Me. This goes well past charity or basic humanitarian aid. This is sacred. This is worship. This is holy, holy spiritual space. This matters as much as anything can matter. How then shall we live?

We visited Yaveh Shamma Orphanage today, led by the heroic Pastor Gaetan, and at one point, my heart was so inflamed, I took my shoes off, for I was standing on holy ground.

Backstory: Pastor Gaetan cared for 14 children before the earthquake, and when it hit, claiming the life of his own brother, he immediately took in 16 more kids virtually on the spot. His brother lay dead on the premises, unburied, deteriorating, and Pastor couldn’t bury him for two weeks, so relentlessly was he working every waking hour, spending 14 hours a day simply trying to find food for the kids. While his small home was damaged but not destroyed, he slept outside with the children on a hospital mattress. When asked why he didn’t sleep inside his house, he replied: “A shepherd never takes his eyes off his little sheep.”

Chris Marlow of Help One Now connected with Pastor Gaetan soon after, committing to him as a brother to help – a promise met with skepticism as “many Americans made big promises and never came back.” (We’ve heard this story repeatedly from Haitian leaders this week.)

Over the last two years, Help developed a sponsorship program for Yaveh Shamma, built a house for the children, dug a well on the campus, built a playground (in addition to these 30, 120 other vulnerable children from the community who cannot afford school attend their site school), and held Garage Sales for Orphans to fund a number of development projects.

Two years ago when this partnership first emerged, Chris Marlow, founder of Help One Now and a dear friend of Austin New Church, visited on Sunday to tell us of Haiti. While we listened in wide-eyed horror, he told of the earthquake aftermath and about Pastor and the kids. He spoke of their hollow eyes and unspeakable grief. We heard of their hunger and filthy water and post-traumatic stress and the courageous couple attempting to raise them alone. He mentioned a brand-new sponsorship opportunity at Yaveh Shamma.

And the people of Austin New Church promptly sponsored every single child that very day, prophetic words of old from Joshua 2 finding fresh life in that old rented sanctuary:

“Our lives for your lives…”

So today, helping the kids write letters to their sponsors, my heart grew hot. The children raced, raced to their rooms to bring back every letter, every picture, every drawing, every kind word their sponsor families had ever sent them, hungry to show us how loved they’ve been, how valued and precious they were to someone.

They brought worn out letters, read hundreds of times, creased and soft. Pictures smudged with a thousand fingerprints. Envelopes carefully refolded to hold their treasured correspondence. Broken English shouted out names as they happily identified their sponsors: Emilie! Tyler! Scott! Mees Linda!

And then it started.

“Oh my goodness! Your sponsors are my sweet friends, the Stones!”

"Look at your sponsors! That is my friend, Alissa!"

“Ruth, I brought you letters from my sister-in-law and her family!”

“Snaicise, those boys writing you letters belong to one of my dearest friends, Amy!”

And as I leaned over the most darling boy in the history of life, just wanting to snap a picture of his concentrated, oh-so-serious work on his letter, and as I glanced at his French writing, two American names popped out:

"Claudnet, your sponsors? Larry and Jana? That’s my mom and dad.”

Shoes. Off.

I knew in my head but I was seeing with my heart now that our faith community in America really was helping raise another community in Haiti. Our little rag-tag church in South Austin with rudimentary tools like letters and drawings from 4-year-olds and printed pictures and Paypal accounts were funding the water well, speaking worth into broken little lives, paying the teachers’ salaries, empowering this dear shepherd, buying the uniforms, purchasing the red beans and rice. It was really happening. There is the well! Here is the bunkhouse! Look at all these pictures of my friends and family in these dear little brown hands!

What if those old prophetic words took on new meaning for us all?

“Love your neighbor as yourself…”

Help’s goal is to sponsor every child 5 times, which just covers monthly costs. What if we went one for one, four for four, or fifty for fifty, loving our neighbors in equal proportions that we love our own? What if we sponsored as many children as we are raising at home? What if you gathered five of your best people – your mom, sisters, cousin, and aunt – and you sponsored the same child…our lives for your lives? What if your small group of ten sponsored ten children together? What if your faith community decided to raise the money so the heroes on the ground could raise the kids?

This equitable worldview is certainly not popular, for who really wants to love their neighbor as themselves? It makes for a lovely door hanger but terribly inconvenient practice. We don’t like a 50/50 policy. That sounds dangerous and costly. We spend every last ounce on our own; who wants to reserve half for our neighbor?

But then we see our neighbor, we really see them, somewhere between hour 12 and 36, and love them we must. Harbor them we will. Die to self for them we shall. Sacrifice for them we should. For we belong to one another and we are Christ's, and the family of God cares for one another or dies trying, Church.

How then shall we live?

Our lives for your lives. Hearts on fire.

Would you consider sponsoring one of these beauties? Or would you gather your troops and double or triple or quintuple (?) sponsor one, raising a child up together? Or rally your people and sponsor in mass? Let me tell you: seeing a whole orphanage sponsored by your whole church is HOLY GROUND. Click here for more information.

Photos courtesy of the talented Molly Donovan Burpo and Scott Wade. You can follow our Twitter and Instagram feeds at #Help1Haiti this week.

Mopping Haiti

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 23:36:46 +0000

Today was my first day in Haiti. Now, I’ve sent money here. I’ve sponsored kids here. I’ve gotten behind some amazing initiatives through Help One Now here. I’ve put pictures on my fridge and thrown garage sales for Haitian orphans and prayed for this country and cried a good deal past reasonable over it all.

But this was my first day here. In real Haiti. On her soil. With her people.

Haiti is a study in contradictions, and it left me a little breathless today. I’ve been awake for slightly more than 12 hours, and I’ve laughed, cried, sung, testified to a church in Tent City, marveled, despaired, fallen in love, and fallen to pieces. Haiti is not just one thing; it is a song with many chords.

First of all, entire swatches of countryside, quite simply, are paradise. It is so gorgeous, that upon turning a corner and taking in this expansive view this morning, I lost all train of thought and couldn’t finish my sentence:

But what do we do with a country smaller than Maryland that has 10,000 NGO’s yet is still the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? And lest we imagine the earthquake unmoored a previously thriving country, like Pastor St. Cyr told us today: “Haiti was not moving forward before; the earthquake just made it naked.”

Two and a half years after the earthquake in January 2010, despite billions of dollars in reconstruction aid, the most obvious, pressing need — safe, stable housing for all displaced people — remains unmet. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians were displaced into tent communities where conditions are dismal; sewage running like rivers, water shortages, brutality, trafficking, disease.

As we walked through Tent City today, 971 days after the earthquake, it stretched as far as the eye could see. Climbing through the steep pathways full of sewage, I kept thinking: “How could I take care of my family here for even one day? Even one day?” The conditions are deplorable; you can’t imagine it. The tales of children lost to trafficking and innocence lost to violence and dignity lost to despair here froze the blood in my veins.

But then.

Then there are these bright brown eyes everywhere and peals of laughter drifting across the tops of tarps. Then there are little tiny braided girls chasing after us and a church right in the middle of the chaos, where they sang How Great Thou Art in Creole while I sobbed through it in English. Then the lilting, inflected greeting fills my ears a hundred times: “Bonsoir…” sung like a melody.

Then I see this girl. What is she…eight-years-old? She is outside her deteriorating tent, dark as night and hot as a sauna inside. She is wearing a shirt that won’t fit her for ten more years, filthy. No shoes. No grown-ups around, only two small boys she appears to be in charge of.

And she is mopping dirt.

And something in my heart went…snap. I want to take the makeshift mop out of her tiny hands and break it into one million pieces. I want to scream and pull every hair out of my head. I want her to not be mopping the dirt outside of her filthy tent where she has lived for nearly two years. I want her not to be here in this terrifying place while my five babes are being tucked neatly into their safe, warm beds with their bellies full and our life the picture of security. I want her to stop mopping that damn dirt, because it is so futile and unfair and broken and everything, everything about this is wrong.

I am on the verge of rupturing, when she looks at me...and smiles. And the little ones behind her, they smile too.

And she keeps mopping the dirt, humming, grinning.

Because her life is hard, but she is going to make it more beautiful. She is. Her presence here alone, with her eyes shining and determined resiliency, is an oasis. We lock eyes and I think, “You’re going to make it, dear one.”

There is hope here. I can’t explain it, but it’s here, I can feel it, I can even see it. It’s literally everywhere. It’s a mopping dirt kind of hope – frustrating, decisive, complicated, dogged, wearisome, inspiring.

It’s in the Guibert community, nearly entirely displaced by the earthquake, when their pastor rose up and said, “Let’s make a list: most vulnerable to the least. We start rebuilding homes from the top of the list down.” And with their bare hands and sweat and moxy, they rebuilt homes for the most broken members of their community while the rest of them still lived in tents.

Hope is in Fifi and Earnest’s new house, the first project in Help One Now’s 100 Homes Campaign. For $6000, this family of five has a new home, 20 jobs were created in its construction, and a small microloan from Help supplied them with rabbits and gardening supplies, which she proudly showed off behind her house.

Hope is in Pastor St. Cyr, who has tenaciously served Tent City, providing free schooling for the children (an exorbitant luxury), aid for tens of thousands of people, and who preached in the middle of Tent City every single night for seven straight months after the hurricane. He is a hero who sold his home in Florida and returned to his country to serve them. When pressed on his fiery determination and contagious hope, he said, “When the earthquake happened, God was still on His throne. If I’m still alive, I have the right to say that God loves us. All I see is God’s grace and mercy for Haiti.”

Hope is in the love of neighbors here and the love of Jesus. It’s in hands lifted in praise at a worship service in the middle of abject poverty. Hope is in people like Chris Marlow with Help One Now who is such a friend and fierce advocate for Haiti, spending his life on setting the captives free and loosening the chains of injustice. Hope is in the courageous people of Haiti, declaring God’s goodness and assuring us all day that God has never left them.

So it may feel like mopping dirt down here, but let me tell you something:

I’m grabbing a mop.

Will You Take a Trip With Me?

Jen Hatmaker — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:23:11 +0000

I know, I know. All you want to do is watch election coverage on CNN day in and day out. It’s all so reasonable and non-polarizing (more on this later, good readers). It’s so edifying to watch your Hatebook feed plunge entirely off the edge of civility during these final weeks of the campaigns. “How I wish the election season could be longer!” said no regular person ever.

May I offer an alternative next week?

If you aren’t convinced that the fate of God’s dominion rests upon the American election, if you’d prefer glimpses of the kingdom to the political posturing hijacking every mode of media, I’d like to invite you to come with me next week…to Haiti.

It is with no small amount of loyalty that I join the inaugural blog tour with Help One Now all next week. Along with six other bloggers, three filmmakers and photographers, and three team leaders, we are heading to Haiti to tell the stories of the people, celebrate their spirit, champion their cause, and worship with our brothers and sisters. My fellow bloggers are:

Jennie Allen
Sarah Bessey
Mary DeMuth
Kristen Howerton
Deidra Riggs
Duane Scott

We are going to see incredible work and incredible need, which is daunting. I’m so hungry to lend my voice to the people of Haiti but so reluctant to mishandle their dignity in any way. I want to treat their stories with great care, not as an American writer with a laptop but as a sister and friend and advocate. It is with a tender heart I travel south to the poorest country in the western hemisphere, knowing that alongside debilitating poverty I will also find beauty, warmth, hope, and courage.

Will you join me?

You can find out more on our Help One Now page.

I’d LOVE for you to grab a Help badge for your blog; every one of us has a voice to use for kingdom work.

You can also follow us on Twitter; we'll be using the hashtag: #Help1Haiti

Will you follow our blogs next week? We’ll be posting every night, and as you might imagine, we need not fly to Haiti to seek justice for its people. I’ll be sharing all sorts of ways we can act justly for this country that has endured such suffering. When we truly recognize and love the mercy we’ve been shown, we will love it for everyone else.

So if you want a better place to invest your emotional energy than the debates, come with me to Haiti. Pray with me to see God’s kingdom come.

Will you pray for us? Will you pray for Haiti? I believe God is instilling a love for Haiti in the hearts of His American disciples. Mighty are His plans for this country. Can't wait to bring you with me, friends.

Not a Fan

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 19:25:18 +0000

My friend Doug once described me in an article he wrote like this:

“Imagine if George Carlin and Beth Moore had a kid…”

The ease with which deep, important spiritual ideas cohabitate with absolute drivel in my brain space is probably disturbing. I crave comedy and laughter so viscerally, that when my thoughts have hung out in the deep end too long, I physically ache to watch a Will Ferrell movie.

I don't know which is funnier: The perfect comedic timing of calling Will Ferrell "Sporty Spice" or bowing up on this tiny woman. Consequently, I say "ARE WE DOING THIS?" to my kids constantly.

So after the last few For Real Blogs about basements and adoption and life-changing books, the drivel is begging to be penned. It needs a voice. It says, “Hey there, Mrs. Important Topics. We matter too. We are legit. You know you’re thinking us, so give us our just due in print.”

So I was thinking, my Beth Moore side is often disturbed by true injustices, like human trafficking and self-righteousness and greed. But my George Carlin side has a bone to pick with some stuff, too. In no particular order, what follows are some grievances I have with the universe, for these are the things in which I am…NOT A FAN.

1. Party favors…not a fan.

Okay, listen, I am not a party mom. I’m just not. First of all, I have five kids. Second of all, four of their birthdays are one-two-three-four in rapid succession. Third, I’m not a detail person and I’ve been trying to tell you people this for some time. For instance, I jammed my youngest two sons birthdays into one party (veteran move) scheduled for this Saturday, September 8th: Caleb’s actual birthday was June 4th and Ben’s was August 7th. You picking up what I’m laying down here?

So it’s a bloody miracle I’m giving any of their little friends something to come to at all. If there is cake and an activity, I feel like I should be nominated for an award. Why do we have to give prizes for coming to a party? You got to have fun and I paid for it. That’s your prize. I once omitted party favors for one of Gavin’s birthdays, and a boy came up to me as he was leaving and asked, “Where is my present?” and I said, “I’ll give you one on your birthday, kid.”

I have friends who go so over-the-top on kids’ birthdays, I’m talking about from the time they are 1-year-old, that I often marvel we are friends. My girlfriend Christi did a whole sushi party for her 3-year-old daughter complete with kimonos, bento boxes, hand-rolled sushi, and Japanese CD’s. I just lost consciousness typing that sentence.

2. Shredding cheese…not a fan.

Some people hate war. Others hate politics. I hate shredding cheese. Of course, it must be done, because the waxy preshredded bags of cheese just won’t do. I can’t explain it, but when the recipe calls for cheese, I just despair. The process of grating the block of cheddar over the shredder until I develop Muppet Arm has literally caused me to abandon a recipe in midstream. It’s an irrational aversion and I DON’T CARE BLAH BLAH BLAH YOU CAN’T FIX ME.

The downside of being a pretentious ingredient snob is that you must shred your own cheese, proof your own dough, blend your own sauces, and hand-batter your own okra. It’s a mess. Your kitchen always looks like a frat house. Every recipe takes approximately ten times longer. You end up saying pompous things like, “Grocery store tomatoes are not 1/100th the quality of my Cherokee Purples in the backyard.” This actually makes people hate you, like when you complain about shredding cheese and someone says just buy the preshredded bag and you call it waxy and unacceptable and they are like I kind of wish you were dead.

3. Hot tubs…not a fan.

This is especially tragic because my hubs would spend 16 hours a day in a hot tub if he could. The first time I went to Brandon’s house in Colorado after dating a few months, he made the casual suggestion that we head to the hot tub one night (veteran move). While he clearly had making out on his mind, I was entertaining a different mental thread: how to not puke. Reaching my threshold, my peripheral vision started shutting down and his face became a pinpointed, prickly, spotted mass of light. The next thing I knew, I was face down on the cold tile half-passed out, which as anyone can imagine, is super sexy. You like this, Boyfriend? There’s more where this came from, you lucky man.

My core temp simply cannot be raised. This is devastating, because now I’ll never star in The Bachelor.

4. Talking on airplanes…not a fan.

I know. You had the most amazing conversation of your life on a plane once. Your seatmate ended up converting to Christianity and now he is a missionary in Peru. And once? You sat next to a girl who turned out to be your long lost identical twin. What are the odds?

Let me explain what a plane ride is to me: FREE TIME. I’ve downloaded or packed at least two books for this. I might even have a People magazine to get caught up on my news. If you look closely, you’ll see not one child in tow. I am going to sit there for two or four hours, and not one person will ask me to tie their skates or cut up a peach or count how many days till her “birfday” (149). It’s like a vacation and while, yes, sad and pathetic, this is my life and that’s the end of it. Have I ever put headphones on and acted like I was listening to music so I didn’t have to talk? Maybe.

(Disclaimer: If I breach this rule, I go big. Idle chitchat is not my medium. The last couple I talked to on a plane were flying to Austin for their first ever visit before moving here, and by the time we deplaned, they had a list of 12 restaurants, 10 notable excursions, 15 must-see spots, 3 potential pediatricians, and my phone number. Bless them. I’m sure they were terrified. I completely ignore you or over-love you. I have no middle lane.)

5. Signing kids’ folders…not a fan.

Not only is this daily, every kid is different. Sign here for my daily behavior, here for my homework, here for my reading minutes, here for next week’s assignments. This one is once a week, this one is every day, this one is only if the behavior chart is signed, this one is only if your apple got moved.

YOU FORGOT TO SIGN MY CHART AND I HAD TO MISS TEN MINUTES OF REEEEEECEEEEESS!!! YOU SIGNED MY READING MINUTES BUT NOT MY BEHAVIOR CHART AND I HAD TO MOVE MY CARD TO YEEEELLOOOOW LIIIIIGHT!!

You want to know what is awesome sauce? Middle school. The teachers virtually never communicate with parents. No homework folders. No reading minutes. No 459 pieces of paper in every Friday Folder. They are like, “Play time is over, kiddies. Do your homework or flunk out. What do we care? Mommy can’t bail you out anymore, chumps.” If you’ve been paying attention, I subscribe to the same sink-or-swim philosophy in this house, so I’m buyin’ what they’re sellin’.

(Dear Elementary Teachers, you KNOW I’d take a bullet straight through my brain for you, but the paperwork/correspondence occasionally makes me consider homeschooling.) (This is a bold-faced lie.) (Never leave me, Elm Grove Elementary staff, oh my gosh.)

George Carlin Jen has spoken, and she is not a fan of party favors, shredding cheese, hot tubs, talking on planes, and signing kids’ folders. It’s a hard-knock life for my inner GC, clearly. Someone put me on your prayer chain.

How about you? What first-world problems does your inner George have a gripe with? (Not world hunger and orphan stuff, but ketchup that squirts out too fast and Blu-tooth stuff.)

The Truth About Adoption: One Year Later

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 14:40:38 +0000

Yesterday, we got up at the crack of 8:30 (farewell Summer Sleep Schedule, parting is such sweet sorrow), threw dirty clothes into hampers behind closed doors, yanked our bedspreads up, wiped the crumbs off the kitchen counters, and made sure everyone was wearing mostly clean clothes.

This was as much as we prepared for our social worker’s final 12-month visit.

12 month visit.

Our kids have been in our family for one year.

I get asked all the time: “What is adoption really like?” Well, sit down, my curious friends, because I’m going to walk you through the first year of adoption with ~~absolutely no~~ only a moderate amount of hyperbole.

Of course, our story is not everyone’s story – we adopted unrelated, older kids from Ethiopia with no major health issues, and we already had three bios at home. This might look very different with babies or foster kids or domestic adoptions or kids from other countries or kids with severe physical needs or families with no other kiddos. But some stages will be identical, no matter. Adopters, if you are in the waiting part (WE HATE YOU, WAITING PART), or the early days, or the later days, or maybe you’ve got an adoption itch you can’t shake, let me share the fairly common stages to expect:

Pre-Stage: Waiting for Your Kiddo

I just want to touch on this stage, as it bears virtually no resemblance to every single phase that follows. This is the hungry, manic process of paperwork, dossiers, referrals, court dates, in-country travel, Embassy appointments, and deferred hope. Maybe 5% of my adoption friends sailed through this stage. For the other 95% of us, expect delays, frustrations, snags, unforeseen interruptions, bottlenecks, slow-downs, obstructions, and an obliterated “timeline.” (Dear People Who Give Us Timelines, please stop doing that.)

Here is the upside: This is the stage you realize God can put a vicious fight in you for a kid without your blood coursing through his veins. Those early doubts about loving a child without the helpful instincts of biology are put to rest. Of course, you don’t know this kid yet, but you love him in your heart, in your bones. You’ll fight like hell to get to him. You can’t think of anything else. You are obsessed. You dream about him like you did when you were pregnant. You realize that when God said He sets the lonely in families, He meant it, and He doesn’t just transform the “lonely” but also the “families.” He changes us for one another. God can create a family across countries, beyond genetics, through impossible circumstances, and past reason.

Stage 1: The First 4-6 Weeks (Honeymoon)

She is home. You can’t believe it. It’s been 18 months or two or three-and-a-half years since you started this process, and here she is, sitting at your dining room table. Look at her sitting at the table! Look at her eating eggs! Look at her in her pajamas! Your bio kids are treating her like a pet. All outside life has stopped. People are dropping food off on your porch. You are in lockdown, circling the wagons around your treasured one and spending more time with your kids than you have in the last three years combined.

This is Fake Life, and everyone is smiling. Your bios are more helpful than they will ever be again ever, and it’s like you are at Weird Family Camp. Nothing is normal. Everything is fragile and bizarre and unfamiliar. Your new one appears compliant and easy-going and obedient, and dear ones, this is because she is about to have the Most Epic Freak Out in the History of Life.

For her, this is like the part of the sleepover when you just get there, and the games and toys are awesome…but then all of a sudden it’s bedtime, and you’re like: wait a minute. This is not my bed. That is not my mom. This is not my space. Good feelings are gone.

Stage 2: Spaz Out (4-6 Weeks – 3-4 Months)

Who knows what the straw on the camel’s back will be – maybe one more food he hates, maybe one final conversation he can’t decode, a moment of discipline, just a smell might trigger it – but something will happen, and your little one will finally lose it. Honeymoon is over. Once the damn has broken, it will flood for months.

There is screaming, kicking, hysterical hysterics. There is wailing and tantrums and full-out meltdowns. You may chase your beefy 8-year-old down the street where he ran screaming barefoot into traffic, throw him over your shoulder and lug him back home where the two of you hunker down for the next two hours, drenched in sweat, while you hold him tight and whisper love into his ears and he thrashes and yells and finally passes out. It is so helpful that your husband is out of town on this day.

Your sweet one is grieving. This is sorrow and loss and fear and trauma; it is visceral. It is devastating. You and your spouse are haunted, unshowered, unhinged, unmoored. You stare into each other’s eyes, begging the other one to fix this: What have we done? What are we doing? What are we going to do?

The house is a disaster. Your bios are huddled up in the corner, begging grandparents to come rescue them. You can’t talk to anyone. Everyone is still beaming at you, asking: “Isn’t this the best thing?? Is this just the happiest time of your life?” You are starving for truth-tellers in adoption. You scour blogs and Yahoo groups, desperate for one morsel of truth, one brave person to say how hard this in and give you a shred of hope. You only find adorable pictures and cute stories, and you despair. You feel so alone. You’ve ruined your life. You’ve ruined your kids’ lives. Your marriage is doomed. Your adopted child hates you. You want to go back to that person pining away in the Pre-Stage and punch her in the liver.

Stage 3: Triage (4 Months – 8 Months)

Somewhere around the 4th or 5th month, you realize the fits are under ten minutes and only happening every fourth day. This alone is reason to live. You’re out of the weeds. Your little one has been pulled from the burning building and subsequent terror and spaz-o-rama, and she is now in triage. You are definitely not out of the woods – the assessments, the precision surgery, the rehab is still to come – but she is out of immediate danger and stabilizing.

Evidence of her preciousness keeps peeking out. You see her real self more and more frequently. She is feeling a teeny bit safer, just beginning to trust your love. Some of those tricks Dr. Purvis taught us are working. (Except for those bitterly frustrating “scenarios” in The Connected Child when the kid follows the script to a tee, auto-corrects immediately, and goes back to playing blocks, nodding his head like, “Lesson learned, Mom. You do indeed know best.”)

As for you, you’re coming out of the fog. You start returning phone calls. You brave a Date Night. You look at your bio kids and ask, “Oh, hi there. So how have you been the last seven months?” Maybe your new role as Trauma Counselor won’t be permanent after all. You color your two inches of gray and get a haircut. You step on the scale and realize you’ve either lost or gained ten pounds from stress. Okay, it’s gained. I’m just trying to give you hope.

Stage 4: Rehab (8-12 Months)

The meltdowns are over. You wave praise banners and start speaking in tongues over this. Your new son is telling jokes in English. He is reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid by himself. He is a soccer phenom. You start grooming him for the Olympics. (No you don’t.) (Yes I do.)

You start dealing. You engage Life Books and play therapy and creative ways to honor his birth parents and birth country. You get serious about addressing his brooding and manipulations or whatever coping skills he’s trotting out. He is giving you more amazing reasons to praise him, and you’re no longer resorting to things like, “Um, I really like the way you buckle your seatbelt. You, uh, click that thing right in place every time. Totally nail it.”

While typing this very blog, I was serenaded with happy "music."
This is only slightly better than Stage 2.

You remember how your dear social worker told you on your 3-month visit, as she looked into your bloodshot eyes and you burst into tears, that attachment takes time…for everyone. Adoption is not the normal way, biology is, which helps us love that screaming, no-sleeping baby just madly, irrationally. But in adoption, it takes everyone time to fall in love.

And that’s okay.

So in those first few stages, you might feel like you are raising someone else’s hysterical kid. You might be chockfull of resentment, anger, disappointment, and regret. Love may feel elusive, even impossible for awhile. You might wonder if God called you to something then left you.

Normal, dear ones. So very normal. You are not a terrible person, nor is your new son or daughter a lemon. There is so much hope for everyone.

I read this paragraph by Melissa Fay Greene on the first year of adoption, and I’ve never forgotten it:

"Put Feelings on a back-burner. This is not the time for Feelings. If you could express your feelings right now, you’d be saying things like, “Oh my God, I must have lost my mind to think that I can handle this, to think that I wanted a child like this. I’ll never manage to raise this child; I’m way way way way over my head. I’ll never spend time with my spouse or friends again; my older children are going to waste away in profound neglect; my career is finished. I am completely and utterly trapped.” You see? What’s the point of expressing all that right now? Put Feelings in the deep freeze. Live a material life instead: wake, dress, eat, walk. Let your hands and words mother the new child, don’t pause to look back, to reflect, or to experience emotions. “Shut up, Emotions,” you’ll say. “I’ll check back with you in six months to see if you’ve pulled yourselves together. But no whining meanwhile!”

Here is the good news: eventually, you can pull Feelings from the deep freeze, and you’ll discover surges of genuine love sneaking up on you for this kid. You’ll find out: Oh! He’s funny! She’s sassy! He’s good at science! She is compassionate! I had no idea! You’ve mothered with your hands and words, and God did the heavy lifting, just like He promised. You don’t have to be a miracle worker; that has always been God’s territory. You just have to be the ordinary disciple who says yes.

Is adoption easy? No it is not. Is this simple? Nope. Complicated and long-term. Will bonding be immediate and seamless? Maybe, but probably not. Will you struggle with guilt and fear that first year? Yes, but you shouldn’t. You’ve agreed to partner with God in some difficult, heart-wrenching work, and it’s no kum-by-yah party. Give grace to yourself; God already has.

Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting through, and adoption is one of them. I can hardly think of something closer to God’s character, who is the “Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy.” Certainly, we are his difficult children who spaz out and pull away and manipulate and struggle. We distrust His good love and sabotage our blessings, imagining our shame disqualifies us or that God couldn’t possibly be faithful to such orphans.

But He is. We are loved with an everlasting love, and it is enough to overwhelm our own fear and shame and humanity. In adoption, God is enough for us all. He can overcome our children’s grief. He can overshadow our own inadequacies. He can sweep up our families in a beautiful story of redemption and hope and healing. If you are afraid of adoption, trying to stiff-arm the call, God is the courage you don’t have. If you are waiting, suffering with longing for your child, God is the determination you need. If you are in the early days of chaos, God is the peace you and your child hunger for. If your family feels lost, He is the stability everyone is looking for. If you are working hard on healing, digging deep with your child, God is every ounce of the hope and restoration and safety and grace.

In Him, you can do this.

He is enough for us all.

Where are you in adoption, and how has God shown Himself to be enough? Our stories give each other hope and courage. Thank you for being truth-tellers for one another.

The Basement Manifesto

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 14:26:41 +0000

For my money, Jesus’ use of parable and metaphor was his crowning glory as a teacher. (As long as I live, I will never, ever get over the story of The Prodigal Son. Never.) His parables were beautifully crafted, if not weirdly vague. Folks were constantly scratching their heads, unable to decode the story, finally resorting to high-class conclusions like, “He be crazy.”

For instance, Jesus once told this detailed, nuanced parable about a farmer sowing his seeds; some fell on rocky soil, others on shallow soil, some among the thorns, and a few on fertile soil. He gave all sorts of details, predicted the outcome, then sat back and said:

“Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”

At this point, I envision the disciples turning to one another going:

“Pretty sure Jesus wants us to become farmers!”

“I don’t even know how to farm. I interpret tax code, for the love of Moses.”

“John, he’s talking about you, Mr. Shallow Soil. Stop talking about how you’re Jesus’ favorite all the time. We’re all sick of it, man.”

“I think you’re the thorn, Peter. Get a grip, dude. Take it down about ten zillion levels.”

“So are we the farmer? Or the birds? I’m confused.”

Jesus (clearly) sighed and said, “Don’t you understand this parable? How then will you understand any parable?” and He then explained every metaphorical detail. (And then Matthew was probably like, “So when do we take agricultural classes?” and Jesus facepalmed.)

Metaphors are like that. We interpret them through the grid of our own experiences, assumptions, and worldviews. We read between the lines words that aren’t there and attach meaning where it doesn’t belong. They are super easy to misunderstand.

So it is with The Basement. While most readers absolutely dug it, got it, and holla’d back at it (Gwen Stefani is Brandon’s celebrity crush), some of you wrung your hands, told me and my friends to “get our heads out of the sand” (did you collaborate on this phrase in a secret meeting?), and assumed the basement dwellers were checking out of life altogether.

I thought I made this clear, but let me use plain words instead of allegory: The basement is a metaphor for our posture, not our position. The storm I am permanently retreating from involves name-calling, Facebook bombing, cliché parroting, and overgeneralizing. I’m leaving the paradigm that lets me cherry pick the sins that make me most uncomfortable for condemnation while conveniently leaving my personal struggles out of the public sphere. I suspect I’d find it unpleasant if folks picketed my house waving signs that screamed: “PRIDE IS OF THE DEVIL! GOSSIPS ARE GOING TO HELL! SELFISH WIVES WILL GET WHAT’S COMING TO THEM!”

I’m leaving the storm where listening is usurped for lecturing, and where people are “them” and the issue at hand “an agenda.” Not only is that an unsafe place for civil discussion, but it virtually accomplishes nothing, because everyone is yelling and no one is listening. No winners there. The tactics render the conversation impotent, no matter how vital or essential or sincere the issue at hand.

However.

Don’t imagine because I’m leaving the bloodbath, I’m also walking away from hard conversations altogether. We’re working stuff out in the basement. We’re neck deep down here. We’re putting civil discourse at the center and fighting for respect. We’re having tough conversations and battling injustices and staging round-table discussions and working through our differences.

But we are not going to murder each other doing it.

This isn’t some Christian commune. This is a way of representing the Gospel. It is about our hearts and words, reaching across party lines and believing that love is the most excellent way, even in the hard stuff. It’s about becoming a slave to everyone to win anyone to Christ – quite the opposite of “defending our rights” all the time. In the basement, people matter. All of them. And we’ve discovered that kindness and dignity do wonders for forging healthy dialogue, especially the difficult ones.

Storm:

“Repost if you support ______ and are ready to take back this country from the liberal agenda!” or conversely, “My flying monkey can kick your guardian angel’s a**!”

Basement:

Vote. Don’t be hateful and trite. Stop using catchphrases and reduced soundbytes. Belittling someone with a different viewpoint has worked never, nor is it the way of Jesus, Christ-followers. Your Facebook post isn’t actually going to deter the “liberal agenda,” whatever that is, nor will it change someone’s faith dear to them, nonbelievers. Real conversations between reasonable, considerate, living people belong in the basement. No need to shoot digital missives across an invisible bow.

Storm:

“All of you are…” “Everyone who agrees with…” “No one ever…” “They always…” These gross generalizations are unfair, untrue, and put folks immediately on the defensive. Conversation over. Your argument is instantly invalidated.

Basement:

Not every Christian who believes in “traditional marriage” is full of hate. Not every Christian who supports the civil rights of gay folks is a Bible-rejecting defector. Not every gay man wears glitter and drag in Pride Parades. We are not caricatures. We are people, and life is nuanced. Until we stop assigning stereotypes to each other and do the hard work of actually getting to know one another as friends, or at least human beings, we are going to sabotage every good, productive possibility in front of us. Gross generalities are lazy, and they don’t belong in the basement.

Storm (from my comment feed this week, but may I say that most replies on every side were basement worthy…I had to scrooooooll to find examples):

One position: “I once heard a preacher say that homosexuality was the final straw for a nation before it is destroyed. I am reminded of a song that tells us we need to get back to the basics of life and back to what the founding fathers of this nation intended in order to be blessed again. We didn't have this problem until probably the last 10 years. It was kept very quiet before.”

According to this comment, homosexuality is predicating national destruction (according to “a pastor”…put another nail in the coffin between the faith and gay communities) and is responsible for the repealing of blessings in America (????????). Claiming “we” didn’t have this “problem” is extremely isolating and condescending, and there is absolutely no chance of further dialogue here, ever. This “us” and “them” mentality laced with judgment and hyperbole is exactly the sort of thing fueling the storm.

Another position: “What a load of twaddle. By disavowing any responsibility here and stepping out of the dialogue while supporting this business, you only *pretend* to wash your hands. That goes for each one of you. If you support tolerance so much as Jesus actually did, why would you still support an intolerant bigot? No prayers from anyone for Dan Christy to change his ways, I see, although I expect a few of you to pray for me. No shortage of hypocrisy here, ever. How sad, and what a good reason, on its own, for 50K people a week to leave the church.”

While exempting his comment that assumed I would never engage here (as this was a common misunderstanding on both sides), the rest of it is still accusatory, condescending, and over-generalized. So many other folks who shared his position wrote with intelligence, reasonableness, and earnestness. This is caustic, and there is little room for anything constructive to come.

Basement:

One position: “Hey Jen, can I ask an honest question? I appreciate the heart of what you said, and I think I understand where you're coming from even though we've never met face to face. I have points where I may disagree but am not entirely sure because it is so easy to read a post and miss tone of voice and intent. I'm just kinda processing this out loud for a sec, and I'm on limited "nap time" minutes, if you know what I mean, so I apologize if this gets discombobulated. There were parts of your post that caused me to pause because I wanted to make sure I really understood you.”

Then she proceeded to explain the places she was uncertain (which is part of the reason for this clarifying blog). This is terribly disarming, basement-level conversation. If we treated one another like this, giving the benefit of the doubt and not assuming the worst, I cannot imagine where we would be as a society. So engaging.

Another position: “There are a number of things in the Biblical moral code that people no longer consider "sin." Christians get tattoos. Women not only speak in church, but they are even ordained as pastors in many churches. Christians universally stand up against human slavery. Women can have short hair and men can have long hair, etc. But all of these were prohibited in the New Testament! If you take the very few passages about homosexuality in their historical contexts and original languages, they're far less "black and white" than we think. Pro-gay Christians have many valid arguments. A nuanced approach to the Bible will reveal that the issue isn't so cut and dry.”

This ↑ was in response to an opposing viewpoint. It was reasonable and intelligent, not charged with accusations and assumptions. I found it conciliatory, inviting the next round of conversation without putting the other person on the defensive or belittling her convictions. I’m taking notes.

Storm:

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”

Basement:

“But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.

Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
“No one, sir,” she said.
“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Oh, Jesus. It is impossible for me not to love you.

The basement is no place for lecturing and soapboxes and picking up stones. Leave the polarizing phraseology and stereotypes on the first floor. If you just want to be heard but have no interest in listening, stay upstairs and weather the storm; I wish you well and pray that when the dust settles, everything isn’t laying in shambles.

You know what belongs in the basement? Hard issues, folks with different convictions, difficult theology, struggle. Bring your frustrations and concerns, your passions and positions. The basement doesn’t require unanimity. We’re on all sorts of frontlines down here. Real life is going on underground. This is no place to hide from legitimate concerns and injustices; rather, a safe place to engage them wholeheartedly. The basement is a way, not a place. No one’s head is in the sand down here. Trust me, precious little is actually getting accomplished up there in the storm. Conversations are dead in the water, battle lines are drawn and defended, enemies are declared. It’s a bloodbath, and everyone is losing.

Activist, citizen, disciple…come on down.

We have a mantra in the basement, and I leave you with it, immensely grateful for brothers and sisters and the grace of Jesus, who is working on transforming all us ragamuffins down here into His beautiful image:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.”

In the Basement

Jen Hatmaker — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 14:57:00 +0000

I lived in Kansas from 8th-12th grade. In that time, I became well acquainted with Mr. Tornado and all his little friends: Siren, Tornado Watch, Basement, and False Alarm.

In April of my junior year, our house was hit by a tornado. The end of our street was flattened; we lost our fence and roof and trees. And evidently I lost my sense of security (21 years later, and I still have a tornado nightmare about once a month).

The most visceral memory of that day was crouching in the basement with my family and friend, Andrea, as we heard the tornado approaching. Everything started shaking, and the sound grew until it was deafening. I remember looking at my sister, both our mouths open, screaming, and we couldn’t hear each other. We were inside a train engine.

I’ll never forget hunkering down in the basement while the storm raged overhead.

This is precisely how I feel about the Chick-Fil-A debacle and all the other accouterments of the culture wars. I am so over it. I’m so over the fear mongering and hate propaganda. I’m over the political posturing and power plays. I’m over the finger pointing and name-calling. The storms are raging overhead, and let me tell you something:

I’m going to the basement.

This is obnoxious. So a business leader is no longer entitled to an opinion, even one that roughly half of America shares? Is that where we’re at? Now the mayors of Boston and Chicago and San Francisco are suggesting Chick-Fil-A be denied permits in their cities, and just like that, a hot-blooded difference in personal opinion – not lewd remarks, not discriminatory actions, not company policy – has turned into punitive legislation.

Mayor Bloomburg, also a supporter of gay rights, condemned the statements, saying “cities should not ask about political beliefs before issuing a permit.” Of course they shouldn’t. Where would it end? The CEO of the Phoenix Suns is gay; shall we all boycott their basketball games or deny their right to play in the public sphere? Is it time to quiz small-business owners on their positions on gun control, abortion, and immigration reform, and decide if their companies are “welcome in our cities”?

Because this will swing every way, you know. Perhaps Chick-Fil-A is banned in Boston, but we will also stand by if a Muslim business owner is banned from operating in Huntsville, Alabama? Mark Zuckerberg is an atheist; should Christians all delete their Facebook accounts? This affront to democracy is infinitely more dangerous than a CEO with an opinion, which, if you’ve ever paid attention, we are supposed to have the freedom to hold and express in this country without threat of commercial retribution.

Truett Cathy is a citizen; he has a right to an opinion. He gets to have that. He isn’t peddling theology…his currency is the Spicy Chicken Sandwich. There are certainly tens of thousands of gay folks who work for and patron CFA. No one has ever been asked to procure proof of their heterosexuality before dipping into their Polynesian sauce.

If you don’t like his personal policy, don’t eat there. Problem solved.

And lest you unfairly brand me as a mouthpiece for the right, I hate the culture wars on both sides of the party line. Christians, do you really think posting pithy statements on Facebook about “standing firm in our values” and “resisting the liberal media” is helping? The lines we draw in the sand do absolutely nothing except assure everyone else: YOU’RE OUT. When we turn to politics and power to legislate our brand of morality, we take the opposite approach of Jesus whose power was activated in the margins with the outcasts...humbly...peripherally.

I’m sick of the Jesus forwards and judgment. Sick of majoring on gay marriage. Enough, everyone. With every hate Tweet and finger jab and Bible bludgeon, you are telling my gay friends they are indeed unwelcome, unloved, unvalued, and uninvited. If your agenda is to battle homosexuality, how’s that going? How many gay folks read your Prop 8 yard sign, knocked on your door, and said, “Thank you for voicing your opinion to the neighbors in this manner. Would you kindly invite me in and teach me how to be straight? And do you have a Bible study I can join?”

When we resort to the same tactics being leveled at Truett Cathy, we sink to the least common denominator and – this is important – we make everything worse. How are these culture wars working out for us? Well, the church is losing around 50K folks a week, and the next generation downright refuses to come. The gay community is ostracized entirely (oh, they’ve gotten the message alright), and Christianity has turned into white noise.

Digging our heels in even harder is the problem, not the answer.

Love is, if you believe anything Jesus ever said or did.

Everyone is screaming and swearing at each other, pointing fingers and posting clichés on Pinterest. The storm is out of control. What happened to civil discourse? What happened to basic human respect? What happened to good men and women pulling up a seat at the table together and navigating differences with dignity and regard? What happened to listening? What happened to humility?

I'm done. I’m going to the basement, and I invite you to join me. Here is what we hate down in the basement:

We hate injustice.

We hate our own sin and pride and arrogance, and we grieve at how it has wounded, sliced, slashed, and humiliated.

We hate that 25,000 people will die today of hunger and we’re arguing gay marriage again.

We hate how the Gospel has been turned into a bludgeoning tool.

We hate pointless arguments that widen the gap and devalue real human people.

We hate abuse and violence and crowded orphanages and trafficked sixth-graders.

And it’s not all hate, lest you imagine the Basement Dwellers are a sorry lot indeed. We love some things down in the basement, too:

We love people. Because Jesus does. All of them.

We love grace, because it rescued all of us sinners.

We love healing and redemption, and we get to be a part of that every day, if we are brave enough to say yes.

We love that Jesus uses broken people, because that is our zip code and He chooses us anyway. Mercy is our only sane option.

We love the Body of Christ, when she isn’t being a bully or a tyrant or trying to take over the Oval Office and the Red Carpet. I swear, she can be beautiful.

We love Jesus, who was always in hot water with the religious folks for eating with sinners and offering scandalous grace not just to the leper but to the tax collector.

We love love, and we believe in its power.

If you are weary of the storm, come on downstairs. We’re going to get on with the business of loving people and battling real injustices and caring for the poor and loving Jesus. We’re going to go ahead and offer mercy to one another, even if it is viewed as “soft” or “cowardly” or “dangerous.” (But once I conquer all my own demons definitively, I’ll be happy to turn a critical eye on everyone else’s. Good?) We’re going to trust that Jesus is actually at work in this world like He said, and when he promised that “His kindness leads us to repentance,” we’re just going to believe Him.

Sure, the storm will rage on up there. But you can find refuge just down the stairs. We have a whole thing going on underground. Gay friends and family, you are welcome down here. Marginalized women, come on down. Isolated and confused by organized religion, afraid your questions aren’t welcomed? Join us. Activists and bleeding hearts, you are our heartbeat. Plain, old, ordinary sinners saved by grace, you belong here. Misfits, ragamuffins, and rebels, bring the party. Reformed legalists, you are my people. Pastors contending for God’s glory and people, help lead us. Dissenters, dreamers, visionaries, we need you.

Come on down to the basement. I ordered a Chick-Fil-A nugget platter.

You want to join me in the basement? You are loved down here. Kindly do not turn my comment feed into a culture war. I'm not here to argue issues, only the love of Jesus which has netted infinitely more converts than judgment. Tell me why you're retreating from the storm.

Winners!

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 11:46:26 +0000

Just a quick little blog to declare the winners of the book giveaway from last week!

To make good even better, three people offered to double the giveaway for Hugh Halter's book, Sacrilege, so I didn't have just two to give away...I had eight! I used random.org to select winners, and here they are:

Heather
Andi Weathersbee
Brenda Torres
Kelly Bollman
Tracey Young
Angie Osborne
D.L. Mayfield
Mindy W

(All the Heathers are like, IS IT MEEEEEE?????!!! The correct Heather, in addition to the other winners, has an email in her inbox. Boom goes the dynamite.)

For the 324 non-winners, may I humbly suggest you grab a copy anyway? Here is the trailer for Sacrilege to push you over the edge:

Next up: The two winners of Anything by Jennie Allen! So glad to send copies to:

Samantha Werner
Mary Clifford

Congrats, you two! And for the rest of you good readers, you're going to want to read this anyway. Need a nudge? Here is the trailer for Anything:

So humbled and grateful that these are my friends. So proud of their voices for the kingdom. So moved and challenged by their messages. You will be too. I promise. Thank you for your comments and vulnerability last week. Me and Hugh and Jennie read every one (Hugh texted me to say "he had something in his eye" after reading your responses). It is such a gift to be a believer in this time and place, surrounded by such courage and devotion and desire for Christ. Count on our prayers for you as we all "fail forward" together, hungry for the ways of Jesus and anxious to contend for His glory.

JEN'S MUST READS: Part 3

Jen Hatmaker — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 08:06:02 +0000

I lived in Houma, LA from 4th to 7th grade. Oh, how we loved that place. Within five days of moving there, I’d eaten crawfish and alligator and shrimp poboys, and that’s a true story. My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Crochet, was the Queen of Mardi Gras, and there are not enough superlatives to describe the loot and parties we scored that year as her students. (Then there was the year me and my friend Julie kyped Screwdrivers from her parents’ car trunk, which was doubling as a bar at a parade, and the rest is very fuzzy history and another story altogether.)

Anyhow, we had the hands-down, tip-top fabulous, best babysitter in the history of babysitters in Houma: Amy Bowen. Why she agreed to sit the four rowdy King kids is absolutely beyond me, but she did, and we loved her like a fat kid loves cake. She was fun and crazy and hilarious, and we basically wanted our parents to adopt her so we could have her every second of every day.

One time when I was in 4th grade, Amy was babysitting, and I don’t remember how it began, but she started tickling me. Because she’d let us all have Coke and Kool-aid and chocolate milk all night (GAH I loved her), my bladder was full, but because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t make sound much less produce words to tell her I was in trouble, right there, right in our living room, I peed my pants.

I have a point.

Somewhere between the emails this week that said, “STOP POSTING BOOKS THAT JACK WITH US” and “I like you so much but sometimes I wish all ten of your typing fingers were broken,” I realized that Book Week is about to make a bunch of you pee your pants. You’ve hit your limit. The bladder is full. Time to back off.

So. I’m still going to recommend books today, but these are guaranteed to not urge you to sell your house or move to Guatemala or start using recycled toilet paper. These are in a different category: fiction or memoir or humor or anything else in the genre of Lighten Up, Jen.

These are books I looooooooved. Loved. Loved. Lovelovelove. L.O.V.E.D. Loved. (Not all of these books are G-rated. The end. Great literature never has been. The Bible has some very X-rated material, in fact. Do not send me emails saying some of these books said ess aych eye tee.)

Bossypants

Tina Fey

Oh my gosh. OHMYGOSH. Help me, Lord. Help me not pee my pants again like in 4th grade. It’s like this: Tiny Fey is my comedy muse. How can anyone be this funny and smart?? I love her so much, I want to break into her house and whisper into her ear while she sleeps that Jen Hatmaker should be her best friend.

You cannot read this book in public, because it will induce snorting and outbursts and tears of hysterics. I have read this book four times, if that tells you anything. Funny, funny, funny, funny, funny! Especially if you’re a Saturday Night Live fan. Or a fan of comedy. Or laughter and joy. Or smiling.

Let me give you this excerpt from Tina’s “Prayer for my Daughter” in Bossypants and leave it at that, because if you don't think this is hilarious, all hope is lost:

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half and stick with Beer.

Guide her and protect her when crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.”

The Middle Place
Kelly Corrigan

SIGH. Sigh. Memoirs have been my favorite genre for the last three years, and it all began with The Middle Place. READ IT. I’m not even kidding. I’m not even afraid to boss you around right now. I cannot even tell you how much I loved this book. Every word. Every story. Every perfectly, beautifully, poignantly, endearingly captured moment. It is a masterpiece. Kelly Corrigan should be sainted as a writer. She is a glorious gift to literature. This family. This story. These people. It’s just too much. I can’t handle it. The writing and the stories and the love and the heartache…it’s too good. I’m sick.

Even writing about The Middle Place makes me want to run back to my tattered copy and read it for the 8th time. (Kelly’s dad, Greenie, bears such resemblance to my larger-than-life, beloved, infamous Dad, that as my sisters and I read this book individually, we’d text each other on breaks, in airports, and from workplace bathrooms to discuss which parts made us think of Dad while we were bawling and trying to act inconspicuous.)

I’ve mentioned before here that thanks to my Dad, I’ve been overvalued my entire life, so I’ll leave you with one of my favorite sections from The Middle Place:

In a revealing scene from the period right after she and Edward move in together, she gets in a snit when he isn't appropriately demonstrative following her midday phone call saying she's landed a new, high-paying job: Instead of arriving home that evening with a bottle of Champagne, he walks through the door and starts reading a bill from the day's mail. She explains her disappointment, and he smooths things over, but she knows she is inwardly comparing him to her dad, “a man who crowed about her ordinary achievements to strangers on the commuter train as if she had learned to live underwater.”

I Was Told There'd Be Cake
Sloane Crosley

Sometimes, when a writer reads other people's writing, she is overcome with a weird cocktail of awe, adoration, and envy, and that is exactly the narcotic that overwhelmed me when I stumbled upon Sloane Crosley. Smart. Hysterical. Nuanced. Inventive. This is the way Sloane Crosley writes her satirical essays. When will I ever be this funny and observant and awesome and bonkers?

She is a young New York resident and writer, which provides us its own bizarre demographic of retail, society, neurotic, and ambitious hilarity. She manages to draw you into the grief and confusion of life, as well as its outrageousness and irresponsibility. She is unique and endearing and hilarious, I’ll just leave you with some quotes from I Was Told There’d Be Cake and let you decide for yourself if you want to become one of her converts:

“I never asked my mother where babies came from but I remember clearly the day she volunteered the information....my mother called me to set the table for dinner. She sat me down in the kitchen, and under the classic caveat of 'loving each other very, very much,' explained that when a man and a woman hug tightly, the man plants a seed in the woman. The seed grows into a baby. Then she sent me to the pantry to get placemats. As a direct result of this conversation, I wouldn't hug my father for two months.”

“Because, ten-year-olds of the world, you shouldn't believe what your teachers tell you about the beauty and specialness and uniqueness of you. Or, believe it, little snowflake, but know it won't make a bit of difference until after puberty. It's Newton's lost law: anything that makes you unique later will get your chocolate milk stolen and your eye blackened as a kid. Won't it, Sebastian? Oh, yes, it will, my little Mandarin Chinese-learning, Poe-reciting, high-top-wearing friend. God bless you, wherever you are.”

“Life starts out with everyone clapping when you take a poo and goes downhill from there. ”

“…and there's something about having an especially different name that makes it difficult to imagine what you would be like as a Jennifer.” (Cry me a river, Sloane. I was the 7th Jennifer in every class EVER.)

The Book Thief
Markus Zusak

Well, I cannot possibly say anything that hasn’t already been said by every critic, every reader, every human with a beating heart that has read this book and gone straight mad over it.

This book grabbed my heart out of my chest, pulverized it into oblivion, and handed it back to me as if it could ever be the same. Fiction. Narrated by “Death.” Set in Nazi Germany. It describes a young girl's relationship with her foster parents, the other residents of their neighborhood, and a Jewish fist-fighter who hides in her home during the escalation of World War II.

I can only tell you that I sat in my reading chair, getting to The Critical Parts, and I sobbed like a sobbing, hysterical, inconsolable baby until I thought I would simply die, I would die from sorrow and love. I would die from this perfectly written story and these characters who belonged to me, they were mine, they were my precious people and I was devoted to them. I would perish without them. I was there. In the basement. In the terror. In the bravery. In the devotion. In the sorrow. In the elation.

Gavin told me a few weeks ago: “Mom, I have to read a book this summer for AP English. It’s called The Book Thief. Do you have it?”

And I came unraveled and overreacted and staged a reading schedule and book talk and made my 7th grade daughter read it too and said YES YES YES we will read this together and we will cry and we will be moved and inspired and we will never be the same, and they are reading it right now, and if my kids don’t respond like I need them to, I will be forced to send them to boarding school and pretend like they are not of my blood line.

~

So there you have it. And for the other emails saying, “You are making us poor with these book recs you’re forcing us to buy. Why do you hate us?” I’ll remind you that all of these gems are in your local library. You can have free awesomeness. Unless, of course, you never return your books on time, and by the time you actually do, you owe more fines that the books actually cost, and your little “money saving initiative” has basically turned into a bill.

I’ve heard of people like this.

Back me up, people. Did you love these books too? What else have you read lately that we just have to know about?

(Last day for comments on Sacrilege and Anything. I'll draw winners this weekend!)

JEN'S MUST READS: Part 2

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 17:16:29 +0000

A couple of years ago, I got an email from another pastor’s wife in Austin: “Can we meet?”

Transparent moment: I don’t always like meeting pastor’s wives (said the pastor’s wife). Sometimes, pastor’s wives are just so pastor’s wifeish. You know what I mean? Many of them leave my company desperate to get me on their prayer chains and utterly confused how I landed this role. I just don’t speak the language of my station. My gifts don’t fit into the packaged job description, and plus, organized religion and the people who organize the religion is all sometimes for the birds (said the girl who organizes some religion).

So I agreed to meet this girl, because we were going to Magnolia Café, which, if you know Austin food, is reason enough, amen and selah.

Imagine my thrill to meet this sharp, courageous, bold girl who I immediately upgraded to Major Friend before we even got our entrees. Jennie Allen and I dropped straight into the deep end together, which I appreciate more than I can tell you. This is my friend, my sister, y’all. I value her so highly. I love her. She is exactly the kind of Bible teacher you crave; the one who brings the rain and pulls no punches. She is obedient and intelligent and humble and loves Jesus and you can trust her. She is a faithful guide and friend leading us toward courage and abandon and lives set ablaze.

Please, please let me tell you about her book because it will jack with you and your family and your safe, comfortable life in the best possible way:

Anything: The Prayer that Unlocked My God and My Soul

Perhaps this is the best soundbyte for the content of Anything:

And this is the best soundbyte for what kind of special person Jennie is – the text she sent me this week immediately after hearing my daughter was in the ER:

Less about the blood offerings and more the "you hold my lot" part. She's not a weirdo, people.

I’m going to let Jennie share a bit about it with you in a second, but I want to tell you that if you want to be brave but you’re scared, or you want to say yes to the kingdom except when you’d rather say no, or you want your life to matter so much for Jesus but you prefer comfort and safety and want to break free from those chains so badly, this is the book for you. This is how I put it in my endorsement of Anything:

I recently learned to use Instagram and I fear I'm obsessed with the fancy photo tricks.

Oh, you’re going to love the way Jennie writes and talks. I asked her to tell you about the engine behind Anything, and this is what she said:

I knew that what was happening was common.

As real life and responsibilities pressed in, I felt God being pressed out. Religion, church, and Bible study were all in place—but truly surrendered lives, the kind God could use anywhere and in any way He chose, had quickly turned into planned and calculated lives that focused on things like saving for a Suburban or minivan.

There had to be more.

Three years ago in the middle of the night I sat on my bathroom floor reading the blog of a girl who had surrendered everything. Something started that night in me.

The following is an excerpt from Anything: The Prayer that Unlocked My God and My Soul

So here’s what’s been taking place, a revival of sorts:

1. It is as if everything I have said I believe is all of a sudden and miraculously real to me . . . heaven, God in me, freedom from bondage, my purpose here.

2. And because it is real, I am living as if it is real.

3. And living that way costs me something—costs me everything.

4. So we start to consider our priorities and realize we value things like comfort and people’s opinions and happiness.

5. Then God says to die and sell everything we own and hate this life.

6. And we say okay.

7. We start thinking things like, Should we sell our new house? Or we have an empty bed—let’s fill it with a child who needs a home and let’s invite our neighbors to Easter dinner.

8. And then the people around us start saying things like, “Don’t do it for the wrong reasons”—like the love of adventure or for our own glory. And we say, “Ok, thanks for the heads-up.”

9. Then we have people who are praying the same prayers and thinking the same thoughts, and something is happening—not a feeling or love of adventure or desire for glory but something within us that is from God, a call to more: to die—to live.

10. My heart is bleeding and I can’t make it stop. So we are praying and willing and dreaming of living for heaven instead of the American dream, and it is changing everything. And I am strangely okay with that.

We were ready and willing, and so were a lot of people around us. We knew that this was not about accomplishing some visually stunning display of martyrdom or philanthropy. This surrender was simply an agreement with the living, active God of the universe saying he could have us for anything.

We were His, and only through His Spirit would we know what to do—and only through His Spirit could we do it. The only thing we knew to do was pray.

So we prayed . . .

God- we will do anything.

It didn't feel fancy. It wasn’t even a big deal. But the prayer held in it a thousand little deaths. In saying anything, it meant we were handing him everything.

What are you most afraid of giving God?

What is your Anything?

~

GIVEAWAY!! I have copies for two lucky winners! Leave a comment answering the above question to enter for a chance to win a copy. What is your anything, readers? What are you most afraid of giving to God?

JEN'S MUST READS: Part 1

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 16:50:01 +0000

People ask me all the time: “How do maintain such order and balanced systems in your life and home?” No, wait. That’s not right. It’s this: “Please tell me your secrets for being an amazing, creative Classroom Mom.” Darn it. I keep getting confused. Oh yeah! This is what they actually ask:

“What are you reading that is moving you right now?”

Okay, this. If you’ve been around me for half a second, you probably know that I gravitate to books that shake crap up. Christian platitudes, thematic clichés, soft fluffy gospel writing…I’d rather stick freshly sharpened pencils into my calf meat. Give me something strong, something difficult and true, something to raise a little hell. I don’t like books that go down like butter; I like them full of shards and rough edges. I like them to push like a bully and make me wince with the truth of it all. I appreciate courageous writing so much.

I like to be stretched.

So this week, I’m going to share with you three books I’ve recently read that unlocked something deep within and left me alternatively cheering out loud and trying to creatively distance myself from their messages and shirk obedience. These are complete with giveaways and everything. It’s almost like I’m a real blogger.

First up:

Sacrilege: Finding Life in the Unorthodox Ways of Jesus
Hugh Halter

If you read Interrupted, you might remember that I quoted Hugh’s book The Tangible Kingdom approximately 359 times. At the time, we didn’t know Hugh, only the unconventional, razor-sharp, devil-be-damned way he talked about Jesus, community, and living on mission in such a way that people might actually be attracted to Jesus rather than repelled by the ungracious, unappealing, unChristlike way we represent Him. It literally turned our world upside-down and is still the material we use to disciple our people through missional community at ANC.

So we did what we do best: tracked him down in real life and made him be ours. The Hatmakers and Halters are all tangled up now in ministry and friendship; we just sat on their back patio in Denver two weeks ago and ate grilled bison and quinoa, and I daresay we solved nearly 68% of all the earth’s problems.

Our books are next to each in Barnes and Noble. Halter/Hatmaker. DESTINY.

But I digress. After reading The Tangible Kingdom, we received the language we needed for creating strong missional community. But after reading Sacrilege, I realized this was an instrument for bringing the disenfranchised, the church wounded, the cynical and angry, and the repelled back to Jesus. This wasn’t just a book to put in the hands of a church leader; this was a healing tool for everyone who cannot for the life of them figure out what is “good” about our Good News.

I’d love for you to peek at how Hugh talks about faith and Jesus, because it is utterly liberating and refreshing, so I asked him a few questions and used our friendship as leverage to make him answer:

I like how you try to get in trouble right away. Why did you title the book ‘Sacrilege’?

Simply put, it just means to remove religion from something or to tear away what some people might think is religious. Sacrilege isn't about defiling, defaming, or profaning anything good. But it is about stripping away anything that hides the real deal, the real Jesus, and the real story of the Gospel and kingdom living. I personally think the main reason people aren't coming toward Jesus is because they can't find him through all the mess of tradition, poor examples, judgment, rhetoric or religious activity...and that includes evangelical Christianity.

You’ve carved out a strong niche writing for church leaders. Why did you decide to write a book for “non-leaders”?

To be a bit crass, I think non-leaders are the new leaders. And unpaid saints are much better positioned to affect the lives of real people than the pros. As I have assessed the landscape of the lives of pastors, incarnational living seems to be quite elusive from those whose calling is to lead the church. The peasants, the plumbers, and baristas and bar managers can easily take the sacrilegious way of Jesus and make it their own … starting tomorrow!

I love the way you talk about Jesus. If you had to pick one, what lesson do you think most American believers need to rediscover about the unorthodox ways of Jesus?

I'm not sure if this is the main one, but the characteristic that I love the most is "meekness." Jesus teaches that this one, crazy little "istic" about our lives is actually what wins the hearts of our friends, our kids, and those we care about. Anything north of meekness is just religion and people can't stand it or stand for it.

The beatitudes are my absolute favorite. Why did you use them as the scaffolding for the book?

That's where Jesus started when he began to try to re-orient religious people toward an entirely new faith system he called the Kingdom of God. As each chapter takes a beatitude, and then shows the sacrilegious alternative to religiosity, I hope to also give people an angle that will challenge and release them into true incarnational living. I also wanted people to know that the Bible gives them permission to be with, love, accept, and befriend sinners; that the Bible gives them freedom to enjoy life and embrace the grey areas of life without fear, fundamentalism, or frigid faith.

So freeing, Hugh. People expect that you'd probably tip a few sacred cows over. Which ones do you think you'll take the most heat for?

For sure it would be the chapter where I address the Sunday practice of communion, or the Lord’s Supper. I suggest that Jesus never intended for the Eucharist to become an institution of the church available only for insiders. The symbolic act of “remembering him” is actually MORE IMPORTANT to Jesus than it naturally becomes when you administer it with the common practices of exclusion, judgment on the heart of someone in the crowd, or professional clergy controlling who gets to receive it.

The Table of the Lord has become another ‘false” line in the sand instead of what was truly intended to be…that of an invitation to eat with Jesus and experience his mercy. Three publishers said no to this book though they agreed with my biblical and historical sketch. They simply didn’t want to take the heat from retailers. I do want to add my view to the overall discussion of how Jesus would treat those not in the club because I think it’s central to His larger call. I’m proud of Baker Publishing for letting the honest discussion come out.

Who should read this book?

I’m not sure I would just hand it out to everyone. It's sort of like a brand new pair of scissors. It’s not safe for elementary users but could be highly practical for those in our congregations that are ready to engage the world like Jesus did. I'd give it to small groups who are trying to become missional communities, I would give it to all church planters, I would give it to all pastors, elders or anyone setting vision for a church. AND I would give it away like candy in at Halloween to jaded Christians who have tapped out of church, or friends who are not yet followers of Christ. It will help them see a completely different side of Christianity that they will like.

What do you think our communities would look like if we took the message of Sacrilege seriously?

Oh, that's easy. Church people would be afraid or annoyed by us, and the unchurched normal folks would love us, just as they did Jesus. If Christians were the most sacriligious people in the neighborhood, our cities would be transformed.

BOOM.

What do I have to do to get you and Cheryl back to Austin? Bribery? Extortion?

We love Austin except for May through October. Anything above 140 degrees is not good for my complexion. Cheryl however will come for good Mexican food and a nice glass of Tempernillo!

~

Readers, let me tell you something: this book is a safe tool with zero freak factor to use in creating natural dialogue with folks who’ve tapped out of organized religion and their Catholic/Protestant upbringing. Sacrilege is a conversation starter you need not fear. I know one girl who gave away 30 copies to unchurched/dechurched women in her life, and they held weekly discussions on each chapter. The women were so moved and won over, they invited Hugh to their gathering and bombarded him with stories of their own changed minds.

If you’re just up to here with Christian rhetoric and the blah blah blah white noise of religion, please do yourself a favor and grab a copy of Sacrilege. Hugh says everything we’re thinking but are sometimes afraid to murmur out loud. He asks the hard questions and runs headfirst into the messy gray of life. Not to mention the rock solid biblical case he makes for living like Jesus really lived, which if you’ve paid attention to your Bible, can get you into trouble with religious folks but might get you a whole lot closer to Jesus.

Who's in??

I have two copies to give away! Leave a comment about anything that resonated with you from this Q&A with Hugh, and I’ll draw two names at random and send you a copy!

How to Be Awesome at Everything

Jen Hatmaker — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 09:13:21 +0000

It’s a dog eat dog world, good readers (or as Gloria says on Modern Family: “doggy dog world”). We’re all just slogging forward, working on the chain gang, paying The Man. Folks, we all simply need an edge, small advantages to survive this cruel, cold world. If we could only do everything better, emerge as ever-so-slightly superior to everyone else, I believe we’d reach nirvana. So I’m here for you, friends. I care about your success and fame and fortune. I believe I’ve discovered some secrets to impressive achievement and because I love my neighbor like Jesus said, I shan’t hoard them for my own personal triumph. Without further ado, I serve up to you piping hot:

HOW TO BE AWESOME AT EVERYTHING

How to be awesome at blogging:

Let the experts say what they will about blogging three times a week to “increase traffic” and “gain readership” and “increase your Klout Google analytics Top Ten Mrs. Popular score.” Take it from me: if you want to be awesome, blog sporadically. Confuse your readers by posting twice in one week one month then go radio silent for three solid months. People love this. Regularity is overrated; readers want inconsistency in their blogs. It’s a little fun to waste time pulling up a blog only to find the last entry is still dated April 10th. That’s hilarious and whimsical! It makes everyone chuckle and resolve to check back every single day.

Specifically, spend concentrated energy focused on difficult and controversial subjects like white privilege and Trayvon Martin and Christian consumerism, tricking your readers into thinking you’re a heavy hitter, then totally disappear. People find this mysterious and endearing. It makes them want to come back for more. Or not. (See how exciting and unpredictable this is? So winning.)

How to be awesome at summer parenting:

First, ensure that you have a major deadline to meet in June. If you can, miss that deadline and push it back by two weeks, pushing into the next deadline, which includes a week of filming in your house complete with nine scripts and fourteen location changes. To make things adventurous, don’t really plan anything for your kids to do during this week. Talk about a hoot! You and your husband decide to “kind of wing it”… I mean, kids can stay upstairs without food and water with the TV off and the air conditioner turned to 80° so it won’t click on and mess up audio for way longer than you think. This is how to raise survivors instead of mamby pambies. Plus, your husband will love this! It’s like camping but right upstairs and with total silence! This promotes bonding between dads and kids, and let’s be honest, in this fatherless generation, you’ll just be keeping your children off the therapist’s couch. You’re welcome, kids.

Second, if you have any children who are still learning English, sign them up for three weeks of summer school and package it as “Language Camp.” Tell them aaaaall the kids want to go, but only special, privileged children get the nod. Whisper in their ears that we should pray for their poor siblings who have to stay home all summer and play Xbox, for theirs is a sorry lot. This provides you an opportunity to instruct them in intercessory prayer, making this particular parenting move a two-for. Three hours into the first day when they catch on that this is, in fact, school, in a classroom, with instruction and teachers and learning and work and they call bull butter, don’t despair, because in addition to aiding your children in English as a second language, evidently they will also pick up a fair amount of Spanish in Language Camp. Now your kids are trilingual and nipping at the heels of the students in Japan. Get ready to sign your book deal, for you are a parenting marvel.

Language Camp es muy mal! No me gusto!

How to be awesome at gardening:

If possible, plant your garden six to ten weeks late. This tells those plants who is boss. You won’t be ruled by the environment; The Lord is your only Commander in Chief. Jesus Juke your own produce. I believe this is what God meant when He said “subdue the earth.” Sure, you’ve shortened the lifespan of your bounty, but getting five squash out of your plant before the bores destroy it is a good return on the $2.50 you spent on the cut, the compost you’ve been tending for six months, and the $240 monthly water bill.

It’s also a great idea to let the weeds get out of control rather than pulling them daily. This way, you spend three hours weeding with sweat pouring off your face, waging war against the hostile takeover, and in addition to neutralizing the weeds that have been stealing your soil’s nutrients and moisture for two weeks too long, you are getting skinny. Sweating means weight loss, so this is basically a diet plan. (Free tip: Do this without gloves, because you’ll develop blisters and callouses that communicate a Protestant work ethic and make you seem trustworthy. Be sure to casually display your callouses during job interviews, specifically after the interviewer asks about your personal weaknesses…just humbly hold out your hands and say quietly: “I work too hard.” This is essentially your ticket out of the recession.)

This was pre-summer planting. Instead of raising produce last winter, I raised FIVE CHILDREN. Thank you for understanding and for not asking why Remy is shirtless.

How to be awesome at PR:

First of all, and this really cannot be duplicated, when hosting six men from Lifeway in your home for a week to film DVDs for your Bible study, make the clever suggestion to film one session in your closet, showing how many clothes you gave away during your little project. Go ahead and get nervous and anxious about ushering all these men through your bedroom and bathroom to set up their cameras and boom mikes and cables in your actual closet. Let your anxiety simmer, even boil, because that’s when the fun happens! For instance, as they are all walking into your bedroom, if your nerves get the better of you, tell these Baptist professional men: “Well...this is where the magic happens!” (Don’t despair if they all pretend like they didn’t hear you. They will definitely not be talking about this for the rest of their lives behind your back. Your purple face and sweaty armpits will not be a dead giveaway, in any case. Carry on with the Lord’s work.)

That fancy folded towel is pure folly. ACTING, THANK YOU!

Additionally, if you want to be taken seriously as an agent of the kingdom, invite your closest friends over, your Council perhaps, to take part in this filming. Mind you, be sure to include people who could give a crap about your “Christian job” and really just want to know if they will get rich and/or famous from this. If you’re lucky, one of them will fancy herself a funny type and bring over a GALLON of margarita mix at 9:00am in the morning when the Council is scheduled for hair and makeup. Everyone will be in stitches! Because it will appear that you and your friends are nothing but lushes! Oh, the hijinks! Between the “magic” and the margaritas, you’ll ensure a nice, long career in public ministry.

The Council, from left: Trina, Molly a.k.a. Margarita Girl, Jenny, Becky, Shonna, Susana

So there you have it, good readers…how to be awesome at everything. Follow these simple tips, and you’ll be the talk of the town in no time. Listen to me, and I’ll have you swimming in success…guaranteed.

So glad to see you back here! How have you been “awesome” lately?

Trisha Yearwood on the Back of a Harley

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:14:12 +0000

Some people struggle privately, in the safety of their family and close friends, tucked away from public scrutiny. They reach out to a small handful of trusted people and gallop towards stability in the comfortable cushion of dependable community.

Others, like for instance, me, post their mental breakdowns on the global internet and hope for the best.

Fortunately for me, my actual people read my digital meltdowns and intervene.

Thus, my husband whisked me away last week for a motorcycle ride through the Hill Country with friends, staying overnight in the most charming log cabin on the Frio River. It was for my mental health recovery, and let me tell you: I should fall apart more often.

On the back of the Harley (a gift from one of our favorite people on earth…true story…please don't hate on this outrageous kindness), riding through the most beautiful hills and rivers and wildflowers and scenery in our state, I plugged in my earbuds and tapped into The Gift From The Heavens: Pandora. I pulled up one of our current favorite stations: Carrie Underwood. Oh, Carrie. Let’s just make this easy: Be mine. Thank you.

After jamming to Before He Cheats and Undo It for a spell, my memory tapped me on the shoulder, reminding me of the former female country voices who clogged every corner of my mind with lyrics and longings for so many years.

Trisha...Faith...Alison...Shania...Martina...Jo Dee...Martie/Natalie/Emily...Reba; these girls, with their high-waisted jeans and belly shirts, sang the anthem over my college years and 20’s. They spied on me and stole my thoughts and experiences, then wrote songs about them.

They sang me through new independence and the sharp thrill of young adulthood. My college girlfriends rolled our windows down and turned the music up, belting out our freedom, and man…I DID feel like a woman. We’d bring our stereos down to the lake and lay out, slathered with baby oil, hastening our impending skin cancer, a testament to the folly of youth, singing Martina songs and dreaming of the day we’d have marriages like Tim and Faith.

Cinching our jeans approximately three inches below our boobs seemed like a good idea.

This was my attempt at "The Rachel" hair like everyone else in 1994. Bless it.

These singers watched me fall in love with Brandon, and they wrote songs declaring our glorious love to the world. After all, our very first date was on a country dance floor, twirling and spinning to Some Kind of Trouble by Tanya Tucker, feeling mildly positive we were headed into the hurricane of young love. These women made sure to capture every emotion of that raw, reckless season, so fragile and dramatic and visceral. Each song proclaimed my angst and happiness and hopes and self-indulgence. Trisha was right: She’s in love with the boy, and even if they have to run away, she’s gonna marry that boy someday.

"Anything I do or say better be okay when I have a bad hair day..."

With surgical precision, they then documented my life with that first baby, so overwhelmed and tender, my love bleeding out sideways. They wrote words to help the rest of humanity understand how my heart was now living outside my body, making me ache with helpless, hapless, hopeless love for this tiny boy. The songs gave it all flight; From This Moment On by Shania, This Kiss by Faith, You’ll Never Know by Mindy, played softly during middle of the night feedings when moonlight flooded my son’s face and I thought, well, this is it, this is how it ends for me; I’m just going to die of love, right here, right in this glider rocker. I was so grateful these women declared 1998 ‘The Year of New Motherhood Music’ for me.

This is how Ann Voskamp posts pics on her blog, too...
by taking pictures of old pictures with her iPhone.

For my generation, these women sang us through all those formative years, when we were only ankle deep into our own stories, humming the opening notes to a song that wasn’t yet written in us. They gave us confident words when we needed them and lyrics of grief and disappointment when life refused to cooperate like the books said it should. Their words resonated deeply, which of course I now know why; these women were mothers and wives and daughters singing their own stories, letting us borrow them for our weddings and relationships and dreams. These were heart lyrics, life narratives. Some things are just universal.

As I thought of this baton that has now been passed to Carrie and Taylor and Miranda and Kellie, I’ll admit, a few tears slid backwards on my cheeks, and my memories caught in my throat. So much is behind me. It happened so fast. One minute I was singing Born to Fly by Sara Evans with my toddler in the backyard, and the next minute I’m seeing him through his final six weeks of middle school.

I meant to savor every single moment, but life was harder than I envisioned and time went faster than I planned; my kids’ early years were like five minutes…underwater. These beautiful chaotic years of raising children are infinitely slow, but viciously fleeting. It’s the darndest thing. How I have a high schooler in four months is simply beyond me.

All those songs, markers through such precious, impossible years are obsolete today. They were stakes in time, but now they are just memories. They were so good, so very good, so right and true and special and timely, but now I have to dig them out like the old pictures of first birthdays and Christmas 1999 and preschool graduation programs I haven’t converted to digital copies yet, relics of a bygone era in more ways than one.

So on the back of the bike, I switched my Pandora channel to “Trisha Yearwood” and sang every note to every song, as familiar as the church hymns I can still sing harmony to. I threw out gratitude to these women for singing their lives out loud, and in that, helping so many of us find ours. I thanked them for anchoring so much life change in lyrics throughout college, early 20s, young marriage, young motherhood; they sang my story.

I dried up those tears, wrapped my arms around Brandon, my love of 18 years, threw my head back and sang with Jo Dee:

Well we had a lot of dreams when we were younger
They thought we were crazy but we had the hunger
We kept a lot of friends, skipped a lot of class
Been on top of the world and knocked on our ____
We lost touch, we lost in love
We lost our minds when things got tough, but
Beatin' time is a losin' fight and I guess I'm doin' alright

I'm all, I'm all, I'm alright
It's a beautiful day not a cloud in sight so I guess I'm doin' alright
Oh, o - oh, I'm alright
Got a good old friend here with me tonight and I guess I'm doin' alright…

FOR THE LOVE, I didn’t even pay homage to the Indigo Girls, the Cranberries, or Whitney Houston. Who sang the anthems over your life? Who sang your story? (Mamas and Daddies ahead of us: tell us to treasure these years. We hate when you say that, but please tell us again.)

The Easter Conundrum (Confession): Part 2

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:27:57 +0000

For the last few years, God used Easter to mess me up. I’ve mentioned the Easter I gave my boots away and life was forever altered. The next Easter, we launched Austin New Church and my story divided in half: before ANC and after. The following Easter was our church’s one-year anniversary as God delivered on his promise and ANC was legit; a monumental lesson on his faithfulness.

So let me finish the story about this Easter; there was more than NeNe and her little pink purse. When you bring your entire church downtown to feed 800 homeless people including a band, worship, a message, communion, and resource stations, it gets…messy. The sanitized version of church goes out the window. The rules to maintain an organized service simply don’t apply to an outdoor service dominated by the homeless.

So during Brandon’s brief message, one very sad, very lost woman screamed, “Where were all of you when these men were violating me?! Where were you??” There was more, none printable. It was raw and desperate, littered with expletives and sorrow. If we came to proclaim freedom for the oppressed like Jesus said, then we needn’t look further than this broken woman.

What did I do? How did her grief move me? Well, I motioned for Tray to “take care of her.” My instinct was to protect the service, keep everything decent. I mean, a shattered woman screaming during church is just too messy to indulge.

My church family, however, responded with grace befitting the Bride. Brandon spoke gently to her, Christi tried to embrace her, Ryan held out his hand, others interceded for this prodigal daughter. If Jesus really meant the church was a hospital for the sick, not a showcase of the healthy, then we were seriously having church.

Cut to the next day.

I was preparing to be the keynote speaker at an event two weeks away, the Ladies’ Retreat for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, around 3000 women. I was locked into Mark 10, where Jesus engaged blind Bartimaeus a week before he went to the cross. I got down to business studying.

I had so much to teach. Other people.

Ahem.

Bartimaeus: poor, blind, beggar. Probably looked like every homeless person I know. Outcast, shunned from the temple, unclean, discarded in every way – a true societal reject. And here comes Jesus with his entourage, headed to Jerusalem to be “king” (oops, they had a little misunderstanding about what that meant – their bad). Everyone is excited, everyone is cheering. Yay, Jesus! We’re getting our king and we’ll be free!

“As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’” (vs. 46-47)

Whoa up. Yikes. This is awkward. This is embarrassing actually. There is nothing dignified here. This reeks of desperation. I mean, Bartimaeus? Poor, blind Bartimaeus screaming at Jesus? Sheesh. What a mess, Jesus surrounded by normal, decent followers, forced to deal with this sad, sorry homeless guy screaming bloody murder.

“Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’ Jesus stopped and said, ‘Call him.’ So they called to the blind man, ‘Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you.’ Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus.
‘What do you want me to do for you? Jesus asked him. The blind man said, ‘Rabbi, I want to see.’ ‘Go,’ said Jesus, ‘your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.” (vs. 48-52)

And bam, right in the middle of my important studying to teach others how to follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit leveled me. Who was I in this scenario? Not Jesus, mercifully pausing for a blind beggar on his way to the cross, but the embarrassed “Christ followers” who scorned this humiliating interruption during their Christ-following and sanitized this awkward confrontation to get on with their holiness.

I cried for an hour.

I have so far to go.

“Rabbi, I want to see.” Bartimaeus asked for the most basic human need. In biblical times, blindness meant he was considered cursed by God, which made him unclean, which made him an outcast, which made him a beggar. Unlike James and John who nine verses earlier asked to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand in glory (predicated by the awesome demand, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask”), Bartimaeus only asked for mercy.

This is like the starving asking for food, the orphan asking for parents, the homeless asking for shelter, the sick asking for medicine; basic human needs – food, shelter, care, love. These aren’t tangled up in power or position, they aren’t born out of entitlement or greed. They are a plea for mercy, the cry of every human heart.

Decorum has no relevance for the mother who prostitutes to feed her children or the nine-year-old who eats trash to survive the streets. The “rules on how to behave” are meaningless for the 66 children infected with HIV in the last hour or the 25,000 people who died today from starvation.

The poor world is begging for mercy like Bartimaus, while the rich world is asking for more favor like James and John.

I taught this mess at the BGCO Ladies’ Retreat, including my dismal failure on Easter. I wondered if the American church was like well-mannered nice-talkers, sitting in a living room sipping coffee, talking about choir practice, while the world burns down outside our windows. 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.

It’s just not right.

So I blubbered in front of 3000 women, bawling for the anguish of others and my own heinous disinterest, worried we were missing the point. I told the story about giving away my boots and asked if a similar moment wasn’t in order – not that shoes will change anyone’s life, but there is something spiritual and submissive about offering the shoes on your feet, the sweater off your back. It tells Jesus: I’m in.

It’s the engine behind this month of Seven: giving away is somehow sacred, connecting to the sacrificial heartbeat of Jesus. It’s as transformative for the giver as a blessing to the receiver. When God told us to give, I suspect he had spiritual formation in mind as much as meeting needs.

You might want to sit down.

Before I formalized this or offered any structure, women started pouring down the aisles, pulling their shoes off. They left jackets, Bibles, purses, diamond necklaces, wedding rings, cameras, iPhones, bags – I have never seen anything like it. Eventually, I just turned off my microphone as hundreds of women laid face down, sobbing, barefoot. The stage was covered in their offerings, falling onto the ground and taking over the room.

It filled 70 large moving boxes.

It was the greatest possible giveaway of Month Three.

I learned something: There is much hope for the American church. It’s too soon to declare the Bride hopelessly selfish or irrelevant. The fear my message would be received poorly was so debilitating, I hadn’t slept for a week. When women are accustomed to beauty and happiness messages, discussing a crumbling world caused me no end of anxiety.

I’ll repeat: 70 moving boxes full of offerings; thousands of women going home in the pouring rain, barefooted. The church is not beyond the movement of Jesus. A stirring is happening within the Bride. God is awakening the church from her slumber, initiating a profound advancement of the kingdom.

Please, don’t miss it because the American Dream seems a reasonable substitute, countering the apparent downside to living simply so others can live at all. Do not be fooled by the luxuries of this world; they cripple our faith. Like 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. Paul wrote, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” We want the life part without being united with Jesus in the death part, but that version of Christianity doesn’t exist – that is a false gospel, void of sacrifice.

The fertile soil of death is where the gospel forms roots and actually bears fruit. We have to die to live; we have to die so others can live. It almost sounds like Jesus’ mission. This is the church he was willing to die for, a Bride that inspires and changes the world. This vision is worthy of radical obedience. Don’t give up on the church.

There is hope for her yet.

This is the week Jesus made all things new and rescued us from ourselves. May worship and obedience and mercy and love reign in our hearts. Struggling with the church and all its mess? You are welcome here and I am glad to walk beside you.

The Easter Conundrum: Part 1

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:22:00 +0000

It’s Easter.

Between ages 0-32, I celebrated Easter the fun way: with bunnies, baskets, and expensive clothes. What better way to say “Jesus reigns” than dressing my preschooler in a $45 dress to show her off in the church lobby? (You’re welcome, Jesus. Be blessed.)

Now, let’s be clear, if you had asked me what my Easter priorities were as I stood all fancy in the lobby, I’d become grave and mention the resurrection. For crying out loud, I’m a Christian. But truthfully, between the outfit shopping, the Easter baskets, the egg ______ (dying, stuffing, hiding, hunting), the pictures, the lunch menu, and the gift buying, Jesus was flat last. I started thinking about him as the band started at church, and I thought about him for a whole hour.

That’s just true.

But for the last three years, Jesus has messed with me. Frankly, he’s hijacked all my holiday endeavors. I’ve always celebrated holidays with a Cultural Major and a Spiritual Minor. Take Christmas, for example. I endlessly spent on garbage no one needed and worked myself into a December frenzy and oh well. La de da. Now I’m overwhelmed by the poor and the disgusting consumerism cycle and the heinous neglect of Jesus and the appalling nature of it all.

Then we got to Easter, or as God called it, Passover. “Easter” is a little name picked up from the Anglo-Saxon fertility goddess of spring, ‘Eostre’, who saved a frozen bird from the harsh winter by turning it into a magical rabbit who could lay eggs. Hence: ‘Easter’, bunnies, and eggs. Why are elements of a pagan religion associated with the highest holy day of the Christian faith? (Oh bother. Can’t we just carry on and dye our Eostre eggs in peace?)

Assessing the typical American Easter, on one side I see Jesus on the cross, humiliated and mutilated, bearing the failures of every person past and present, rescuing humanity through an astonishing miracle of divine redemption, splitting history in two and transforming the human experience for eternity. On the other side, I see us celebrating this monumental heroism with chocolate bunnies and boiled eggs, with Jesus as an afterthought. It doesn’t make sense. (Insert some of you tossing this book in the garbage. Don’t mess with my Easter fun, you hippie chick.)

Austin New Church decided to rethink “The Traditional Easter Service That Brings In More People Than Any Other Day Of The Year.” It is our church’s two-year anniversary, and certainly we could stand more foot traffic, but I’m not sure Passover is best celebrated by a high-attendance Sunday of people who won’t be back until Christmas Eve.

We literally asked ourselves: What would Jesus do? Would he drop a bunch of cash on fancy clothes? Buy out the chocolate and plastic egg supply? Find the biggest church in town and spend twenty minutes posturing in the lobby?

Who in Austin might want to celebrate the astonishing hope of resurrected Jesus, but might feel uncomfortable surrounded by beautiful people dressed to the nines? Who needs the gospel spoken into their brokenness, but might not be welcomed by the saints in the sanctuaries? It came quickly to us:

The homeless.

If Jesus came to proclaim freedom for the captives and good news to the poor, then Passover uniquely belongs to the bottom dwellers. So we cancelled service and took church downtown to the corner of 7th and Neches, where our homeless community is concentrated. We grilled 1300 burgers and ate together. Our band led worship, then in a powerful moment of solidarity, we shared communion. It was a beautiful mess of dancing, tears, singing, and sharing. It wasn’t an “us” and “them” moment; it was just the church, remembering the Passover Lamb and celebrating our liberation together.

Now, if we get one repetitive request when serving our homeless friends, it’s this: “Do you have a bag?” (Could also be: Can I have that bag? Can I take that trash bag? Do you have a bag I can put this bag in?) So this was the perfect moment to give away seven of my nine purses, which were nice and roomy, just like the ladies want.

When the gals had a perfect view for maximum impact, I hollered:

“Hey girls! Anyone want one of…these?”

Cranberry red leather.
Green with gold buckles.
Chocolate brown bohemian bag.
Turquoise with short handles.
Burnt orange across-the-shoulder.
Shiny black backpack bag.

And one little purse I debated on bringing. It was a tiny thing, hot pink crocodile by Gianni Bini, functionally useless but fashionably magnificent. Our street girls want the biggest bags possible, since they carry everything they own. A wheelbarrow would be a huge hit. So my little vanity purse was a wildcard, but at the last second with a conspiratorial nudge from the Spirit, I threw it in.

Not surprisingly, it was the last purse left. What self-respecting homeless woman picks a hot pink purse that would barely carry her bus pass? Glamour handbags are only for women who have eight others and a house in which to stash them. So I stood there with my one little purse, when it’s rightful owner, the one for whom I daresay that purse was stitched together, made a beeline for me.

She had on her Easter finest, tights included, though it was ninety degrees. Flouncy dress with – what else? – hot pink flowers. Hair done in sections with matching beads, pink floppy hat on standby. Leather dress shoes polished to a sheen. Dainty ribbon necklace and rings on four fingers.

She was six-years-old. Her name was NeNe.

Never has a purse better matched its owner. She slipped that hot pink number over her arm and never put it down, not even to eat. Her mom looked at me and no words were necessary; mothers speak a silent language. I took her picture and fussed over her beauty and breathed a thank you to Jesus for the nudge.

I serve a Savior who finds a way to get pink purses to homeless six-year-old girls.

Jesus is a redeemer, a restorer in every way. His day on the cross looked like a colossal failure, but it was his finest moment. He launched a kingdom where the least will be the greatest and the last will be first, where the poor will be comforted and the meek will inherit the earth. Jesus brought together the homeless with the privileged and said, “You’re all poor, and you’re all beautiful.” The cross leveled the playing field, and no earthly distinction is valid anymore. There is a new “us” – people rescued by the Passover Lamb, adopted into the family and transformed into saints. It is the most epic miracle in history.

That is why we celebrate. May we never become so enamored by the substitutions of this world that we forget.

“It was just before the Passover Feast.
Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.
Having loved his own who were in the world,
he now showed them the full extent of his love.”
~John 13:1

How do you celebrate Resurrection Sunday? Have you been participating in Lent? What has God shown you? I'd love to hear your Easter story.

(This post is excerpted from "7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess")

Dear Trayvon's Mom

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 10:05:13 +0000

My name is Jen Hatmaker. I’m super white. I even have blue eyes. My hair was snow blonde then it was dirty brown and now it’s gray but I color it so who even knows anymore? (I’m sorry. I overshare when I’m nervous.) My husband and I cranked out three carbon copies of us.

Look at us. We were the poster family for white people.

I grew up in the lower middle class. In my early years, we lived in racially diverse cities. I was the only white girl in my second grade class in Little Rock, Arkansas, a fact I was oblivious to, because you get the luxury of being oblivious when you’re seven. I lived in south Louisiana, where there is every shade of skin color under God’s yellow sun. But I logged my formative middle and high school years in Wichita, Kansas…Haysville, Kansas to be exact. Pretty much total white bread.

I nonchalantly enjoyed my white privileges my entire adult life, one of those people who said “racism is dying” and “things are different now” and “we’re colorblind” and casual ignorance like that. I gushed and over-loved any black people in my life, of which there were very few; none in a real relationship with me that wasn’t exaggerated and a little contrived and over-zealous.

But then we decided to adopt two children from Ethiopia, and in November 2010, as I was shopping for their very first care package to send over, I was standing in the middle of the Target toy aisle, and I sent out this SOS text:

Where are all the black baby dolls?

I sat down in the middle of Target and cried my eyes out.

How did I never notice this? How was this my first sense of outrage over this discrepancy? How could I have yammered about the end of racism and “a fair system” when evidence to the contrary was staring me in the face every single day?

Sybrina, please envision me getting down on my knees in front of you, this white mama, and asking you to forgive me. I never understood the systemic racism that persists in this country, because I didn’t have to. The system is structured to grant me privileges and power through no merit of my own; simply by virtue of my skin color. This same system denies and protects this oppressive hierarchy, conditioning white people to not even see it.

We don’t get followed around in the store by suspicious security.

We don’t get singled out or searched by policemen.

The bandaids in Walmart all match our skin color.

The children’s section in the bookstore is full of covers with white kids.

If I ask to speak to a manager, he or she is usually white, like me.

And our sons don’t get murdered walking down our own street holding Skittles.

So because these things didn’t happen to me, I ignorantly assumed they were not happening to you. I casually consumed my white privileges – these unearned assets that granted me the benefit of the doubt and free passes and guaranteed security and permanent insider status – assuming that anyone else, anyone, could enjoy these same advantages by making good choices and working hard.

But it is simply not true, because the same system that keeps me on top keeps you on bottom. If anyone is automatically granted insider status, by definition that means someone has outsider status. We see this when a black student or man or woman accomplishes something extraordinary, and they are called “a credit to their race.” If a white person pulled off the same thing, he would just be called awesome. You have to work harder for acknowledgment, and then singling it out as an exception to the rule diminishes and demeans your merit.

I didn’t know about the Black Male Code, because I didn’t have to. I had the luxury of knowing my sons would breeze through applications and security lines and entrance exams and interviews, receiving unmerited approval at the first glance.

But then I got this son.

And I watched in horror as this son was cut down in the prime of his life.

And my heart was seized in terror. Because everyone loves my Ben right now. Who wouldn’t? He’s eight and the size of a first grader. He’s adorable and silly. His Ethiopian accent is the cutest thing that has ever entered your ears. He’s writing stories about “A Dog as the President” and he wears and a helmet and kneepads when he skates. He watches Power Rangers.

But I’m learning what is going to happen six years from now, Sybrina. People will start to suspect him for no reason, or train a watchful eye on him at the mall, or fear him. He may ask a white girl to prom, one he has gone to school with since these innocent years, and get his heart crushed when her daddy forbids it. He will have to be careful in public with his friends, as the most innocent activity will likely be interpreted as threatening…like walking down the street with candy and tea in his own neighborhood.

I have grieved endlessly for your son. I just keep trying to make sense of it, and sense won’t come. There is simply no sense in this injustice. You don’t get to murder a teenage boy because you’re paranoid and suspicious of him. You don’t get to do that. Would this have happened if Trayvon was a white kid named Troy? Would he have been viewed with the same fear? Will our black sons ever escape this treacherous plight and just be free to be children?

I’m ashamed that I haven’t seen or cared about this inequity until I had black kids under my roof, Sybrina. I’m so sorry. I would completely understand if you dismissed my solidarity here, because just two years ago I claimed America was a post-racial country, and that is a sorry state of willful ignorance. Neglecting the hard, important conversations about race, justice, ignorance, and inequity until I literally had skin in the game is appalling, and if you reject my concern now, I wouldn’t blame you.

But if you’ll have me, I’d like to stand with you.

I’d like to link arms and stand up for our black sons and daughters, calling the system so wrought with disparities to reform. I want to engage these challenging discussions with respect and commitment to one another, because I can no longer be complicit in the battle against equity.

We’re going to have to work hard here, because it’s tempting to make sweeping statements and unfair generalities. It's easy to say things are all bad or all good or never this or always that, and that's not true and won't get us far. Both of our races are wrought with fools and charlatans and bigots; none of us are perfect and this is complicated. It’s going to take respect and humility to navigate this well, to begin pulling the threads to unravel such an entrenched system. But I want to start here, with you:

I see Trayvon.

I know he wasn’t a perfect kid. He probably opened up a sassy mouth to you and whined about chores. His room might have been a pigsty no matter how much you fussed at him (but with a face like that, I’m sure he got away with it). Like all seventeen-year-old sons, he probably drove you crazy sometimes, pushing against the boundaries barely holding him back from young adulthood, anxious to spread his wings. But he was the son of your heart and he mattered and he deserved life.

I am devastated it was stolen.

Please know that as for me, I promise to do the hard work and ask the hard questions and enter the difficult places to turn the tides for my son and all the black sons, and I grieve that it is too late for yours. I hope the national outcry for Trayvon has comforted you; so many of us see him. We are hungry for a better world where our boys can walk down the street unafraid and unfeared.

Please accept my hand; I stand with you, two moms demanding more for our sons. I am sorry you’ve lost Trayvon, my sister. I’m so very sorry. May his legacy help us move into a wider space together, tearing down walls and stereotypes and fear and building communities where we truly love our neighbor once again.

All my love to you.

On Empty

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:22:15 +0000

In certain ways, I’m a typical first-born overachiever. I was filling calendars with due dates and meetings back in junior high. When I figured out you could wear a bunch of tassels on your robe if you graduated with honors, it became my life mission. I calculated how many B’s I could get in college and still graduate Magna Cum Laude, and I hunted that dog down, lobbying for every 89% like some sort of freak. Impending deadlines? I am an animal. I like my life to go by the book. Which book? Whichever one everyone is yammering about.

But in other ways I am a nincompoop.

I once employed a rather consistent habit of running out of gas. I was always perplexed to feel my car sputtering, assuming I was losing my tranny or throwing a piston. As it turns out, you need fuel to keep your car moving forward. Or it will sputter. And quit moving forward. Evidently, there is a little gauge to help you determine when this moment is drawing nigh, and one must pay attention to the little gauge. The gauge is helpful. The gauge is our friend. Except when you ignore the gauge and find yourself stranded on the side of I-35. Again.

May I so truthfully confess to you that I am running out of gas? I’m beyond the sputtering stage. The car is coasting to a dead stop, and I’m stuck on the side of the road, on empty.

Empty.

The gauge has been trying to tell me I was in trouble, but I had places to go, so I kept driving. These places are important, you see, and people were counting on me to get there, to show up. They still are.

This is a terrible time to discover I am out of gas. Why, just this morning, I signed a contract to write a 9-week DVD curriculum for 7. Due in less than three months, including a week of filming. I have a live webcast in one hour and four minutes. I have events the next two weekends, where women will tell me their stories, will need me to be present and engaged, where I’ll once again have to pour my heart out teaching, which is something like running a marathon without the weight loss. And then I’ll come home and not have three seconds to recover before every person in this family needs me, because that’s what families do; they need each other.

The signs have been there, dragging the gauge toward E: The loneliness and isolation, the disconnection from my community. The arguing and nitpicking and defensiveness. The shallow well of patience. The tears coming too easily, too quickly. The sense of being utterly overwhelmed. The feeling that expectations were snaking around me, entangling, dragging me to the bottom of a murky lake where there was no oxygen, because it is debilitating to keep hearing “you’re so awesome” when I know I’m not.

I hit a wall this morning where there was just nothing left.

A black pit lodged in my stomach and I ground to a halt.

I should’ve read the gauge several miles back, when I was disconnecting from real live human people because the ones on the computer were so abundant and urgent and insistent. You’re real too, good readers, but there are so many of you and you’re everywhere. Meanwhile, I have these people right here, right in front of me, connected to me by blood and love and proximity and community, and I’ve learned I can’t multiply like I thought; I mostly divide.

I should’ve read the gauge several miles back, when this feeling of impending doom would overtake me before an event, assuring me that I will never, never live up to the expectations people have of me. When I would read on Twitter: “Jen Hatmaker is up next! She is going to kill it!” and I wanted to dissolve, because maybe I won’t kill it at all; I don’t always kill it. That my life is way more ordinary than you think it is, and I feel like a caricature because the parts of me that you see are the parts I’ve let you see, and the picture is incomplete. This is heavy knowledge.

My marriage needs me. My kids need me. My friends need me. (You know what all my friends say to me these days: “I miss you.”) I need time with Jesus, without thinking about how I’m going to teach His life-giving words to others.

I want to loan every one of you my influence for your good causes, for your passions and adoptions and fundraisers and mission work, but I just can’t. I want to partner with all of you and help do it all, all the good work, all the important work that we care about so much, but I just can’t. I want to say yes to every conference you invite me to, I really do because I know you love your people so much and you want to see God’s kingdom come in your faith community, but I just can’t.

I wish I could Skype into all your 7 Book Clubs. I wish I could record a personal message for the launch of your Spring Bible Studies. I wish I could endorse every one of your books, because I’m so proud of you and know exactly how thrilling this is. I wish I could write a blog for all your important things. I wish I could move the needle forward on all your adoption questions. I wish I could have coffee with every one of you visiting Austin. I wish I could call you and talk about how to get your book published. I wish I could speak the exact, healing words you need as your marriage is crumbling in Michigan. I wish I could adequately express – with all the words and space necessary – how much every single kind, encouraging, inspiring email moves me and lifts me.

But I’m on empty, dear ones.

I’m reminded of (the most moving, amazing, brave, remarkable) blog series by Beth Moore’s sister, Gay, who charted her course from full-blown alcohol addiction to freedom. Oh, it’s so moving. So extraordinary and beautiful. But this one thing she wrote stuck with me:

“When God jerked me up off that concrete in mid-April 2009, He dropped me in AA, not in church…I had to do something different which was ANYTHING but sitting around waiting for Him to heal me and DOING nothing…He has required a lot of work from me, a lot of action, one day at a time, whatever He put in front of me that day.”

I so appreciate this brave statement. God isn’t going to magically restore healthy rhythms and boundaries in my life without my cooperation. He never asked me to spread too thin or nurture unhealthy habits or try to live up to some reputation. He didn’t say, “Do more. Do everything.” Those are on me. I did that. That’s my pride and selfishness and ego and ambition rising up, trampling down the beloved things, the necessary things.

I, too, need to do something different.

Some things that will take work and commitment, restraint and discipline. I don’t even know what they are yet. I need to remember what is “best” and refuse to let the “good” steal it away, because I could spend my last living breath on the good; it’s plentiful. These are going to be hard, because I’ve burrowed down into something of a dark place, and the very things needed to pull out are the same ones I’ve lost energy for, kind of like wanting to lose weight without dieting or working out.

Lastly, God has me thinking of you, as He so often does. It occurs to me that some of you are in the exact.same.place. Which comforts me, readers, but it also makes me sad for us. If you are on empty today, having expended all you have to give and sitting stranded on the side of the highway, may I suggest that perhaps this is not the very worst place to be, that sometimes the car running out of gas is a gift, because otherwise you'd never stop?

This very morning, as I was writing the third paragraph of this blog, my Lifeway event leader sent an email to the speaking team for our Abundance event in Houston this weekend from 2 Kings 3, when God led his people into the desert:

I wanted to pass along the devotion I shared with our team here this morning before we prayed over you, our attendees, and all aspects of the Abundance event this weekend.

I had this devo from Streams in the Desert back in December but saved it because it impacted me so. And as we prayed God impressed upon us that He is allowing us to come EMPTY that we may be FILLED.

“This is what the LORD says: I will fill this valley with pools of water. For this is what the LORD says: You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle and your other animals will drink. This is an easy thing in the eyes of the LORD…The next morning, about the time for offering the sacrifice, there it was—water flowing from the direction of Edom! And the land was filled with water.”

First of all, who prays for her SPEAKING TEAM to show up for an event empty? I guess someone who has been chatting with the Holy Spirit and knows that a handful of us are, indeed, coming dry. I could barely read the email through my tears.

Second, we serve a God who fills the desert with water, even if we didn’t see the rain. He accomplished this while the Israelites slept, while they rested. They woke up to water in the desert.

For me, maybe for you, dear one, we need a short season of rest, even though a battle is impending and we are surrounded by sand, parched. Maybe we need to trust God just enough to close our eyes and believe Him for water in the morning. After all, “this is an easy thing” for the One who has already redeemed humanity.

The night is upon us; our hands are spent from work. The only sane thing to do is rest. God sometimes does His best work while we entrust ourselves to his overnight keeping. Our responsibility is laying down the tasks, setting aside the duties, which is much harder than it sounds. There is never an end to the work; just an end to the day. Sometimes the very hardest obedience involves stopping for the night.

Somehow, God managed to fill the pools with water “about the time for offering the sacrifice.” This is so dear to me. I know how many people need you. I know that so many things depend on you showing up, same as me. But if we are obedient in this, God will renew us in time…in time for the kids, in time for our spouses, in time for our community, in time for our ministries. He will not restore us too late. He will renew us just in time.

His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness.

Thank you for letting me confess this to you. Are you on empty? Count on my prayers.

Kony Critics & Throwing Rocks

Jen Hatmaker — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:07:03 +0000

When I was a senior in college in 1996, the administration assigned us all an “email address.” I distinctly remember rolling my eyes, saying: “Who in the world is going to send me a [finger quotes] email? Like anyone is going to use this! How would they even know? If someone wants to talk to me, they’ll just call me, for cripes sake! What a waste of time!”

I got my first real email address in 2005. You read that right.

I am often slightly late to the proverbial party.

So it is today with my response to the Stop Kony campaign last week. (I like to strike when the iron is tepid.) The thing is, the response evoked such strong emotions in me, I decided to let the dust settle so I wouldn’t rip off a hysterical, manic blog while my cooler head was waiting to prevail.

With every new cynical response that hit the interwebs after the Stop Kony campaign was launched, parroting each other, citing the same (sometimes unvalidated) statistics and coining exact phrases, my blood boiled a little more. I wrote scathing rebuttals in my head. I had imaginary confrontations. I dug out my Lamaze breathing techniques and tried to go Zen.

Here is where I’ve landed:

There were plenty of good, solid points made on either side of the issue. (Rachel Held Evans did a great job compiling resources already here, if you'd like a glimpse into the controversy.) I’m always encouraged when a justice issue finds its place in the spotlight. It’s healthy to discuss integrity, empowerment, sustainability, and philanthropy ethics. These are often shoved into a corner, neglected and abused. I deeply appreciate people who address these matters with respect and intelligence. Discussing how to help well, how to serve well, how to live well, how to really, really improve Planet Earth as its citizens…I’m for this. I’m for learning. I’m for educating ourselves. I’m for reforming. I’m for constructive criticism. I’m for evaluating. I’m for reevaluating.

I’m not for throwing rocks at the soldiers from the sidelines.

After sifting through all the rubble, when I dug deep to discover what was upsetting me so deeply, a couple of things rose to the top.

The Invisible Children folks have been at this for almost ten years. They’ve sweat blood and tears over the carnage in Uganda. They’ve rallied students, Senators, soccer moms. They’ve begged policy makers to listen and care. They’ve stood side-by-side Ugandan children and families. This is their mission. It’s very unambiguous. They never claimed to be anything other than exactly what they are. Their records are transparent and available.

In their own words: “Our work in the United States focuses on advocacy and inspiring America’s youth to ‘do more than just watch.’ We believe that by uniting our voices we can use the systems, influence, and resources of the United States to expedite an end to the conflict.” This is what they do. And today, tens of millions of people know who Joseph Kony is and the atrocities he has committed because of IC. They’ve refused to sit silently by, choosing to raise their voices instead, telling victims: We see you. We are not okay with this.

So this aggressive, even brutal attack on them in the aftermath of the campaign explosion has me deeply unsettled. People have lobbed every sort of criticism their way. Why don’t you care about people in America? What about the other issues in Uganda? Why do you spend money on filmmaking? Why are you making a big deal out of something that occurred over 30 years and created fewer victims than other crises?

They’ve been called “self-aggrandizing foreigners”, “attention colonialists”, “slacktivists,” “soft bigots”, “delusional marketing experts out for an adventure,” “miserable frauds.” Then critics galore casually reduced this effort, including every single white American who dared be moved by the horrors in Kony history, as perpetrators of the “white man’s savior complex,” patting the poor Africans on their simple heads as we rush in to save the day.

What if it is just this:

We care so much about their suffering.

We ache for the seven-year-olds who were forced to kill their parents.

We grieve the loss of innocence and life.

We yearn for justice and stability for the people of Uganda.

In the scope of humanity, we consider Ugandans our brothers and sisters.

The critical spirit of this is what has me so down. If we can’t address it all, we shouldn’t address anything. If we can’t explain the complexities of this crisis in one sitting, then we shouldn’t explain anything. If we care, we have white savior complex. If we can’t advocate perfectly, how dare we advocate at all.

What if the IC folks never fancied themselves policy makers or international strategists or war tacticians? What if they simply raised their voices for justice, knowing US rainmakers would not rush in and invade the country or arm the Ugandan army or shoot down child soldiers because some activists suggested this nonsense end?

And this is crazy, but what if they also expected their advocacy to simply be the impetus for further education? They never claimed to be the end all to our knowledge of the Kony reign of terror and the recent history of Uganda. What if their role was to place the basic context in our line of vision – where it has been hidden for thirty years – and expect responsible justice to rise up?

Is that not exactly what has happened? We are not idiots. (Say what you will.) The IC folks have raised a humanitarian issue to global attention, and more people now know the nuances of Ugandan instability for the last half a century than ever in history. We read. We researched. We joined discussions. We asked questions. We listened.

Any injustice this complicated will take a plethora of advocates and revolutionaries and strategists and leaders to address it thoroughly. IC is just one piece here, which is all they ever claimed to be. They are simply working in conjunction with Ugandan leadership and citizens, government allies, and international supporters to bring justice to a people that deserve it. And among all the rhetoric and intricacies and dense data, this remains:

Joseph Kony should indeed be brought to justice.

I believe we can engage a complicated crisis with respect for one another. We need not resort to name calling and slandering and throwing rocks at the soldiers on the frontlines while we write blogs on the couch. The lowest common denominator should not be our benchmark any longer. If you want to take a stab at someone, go for child predators and human traffickers and corrupt officials and complacent, indulged elitists who have made a living out of criticizing while not lifting a finger for their fellow man. Or Joseph Kony.

As for me, I’m going to move with the movers.

When it is all said and done, when my grandchildren read about Joseph Kony and eleven-year-old sex slaves in Haiti and children sleeping on the streets in Ethiopia and foster kids in their fifteen home, and they say, “What did you do about all these tragedies?”

I am not going to say, “Well, I didn’t want to be labeled a white supremacist, so I wrote mean blogs about folks who threw their hat in the ring.”

I am not going to say, “It was complicated. So I didn’t do anything.”

I am not going to say, “People were extremely critical back then. It was PR suicide to engage difficult issues. I remained troubled but silent on the sidelines. I cared in my mind.”

I am not going to say, “I researched and debated and read a lot of books and articles. I was very, very informed. Believe me, I understood the issues. I waxed very poetic about it all.”

I hope to say, “I joined the fight, because justice denied anywhere means justice denied everywhere. I jumped in, imperfectly, even though I knew critics would come out of the woodwork, questioning my motives and methods and ignorance and intentions. I decided to use my voice and my resources, because that could be my daughter and my sister and my community. That mother is me. Those children are you. I didn’t get it perfectly right. I couldn't address it all. I couldn't even address the entire scope of one problem. I didn’t change the whole world. But I moved.”

May we not move foolishly.

Or arrogantly.

Or rashly.

Or naively.

But may we move.

I am inept. Thank you for understanding.

Jen Hatmaker — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:41:00 +0000

I spent last week at Verge 2012, teaching a teeny bit, but mostly listening to simpletons like David Platt and Alan Hirsch and Dr. John Perkins unpack Scriptures and exegete passages with such precision, I’ve decided it is a travesty people are ever subjected to my teaching and I am, in fact, a legitimate threat to the kingdom. Plus, half the other speakers had foreign accents, and I simply cannot compete with that. I simply cannot.

Because my mind is simmering with some bothersome little nuggets David Platt dropped on us, namely that I am in violation of the Great Commandment in terms of taking the gospel to all people groups, and every time I try to process it, my brain screeches in protest and says I DO NOT WANT TO FIGURE THIS OUT AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME LA LA LA LA, I’m going to write about something else instead.

Let’s talk about things I’m bad at, then you can tell me what you’re bad at.

Sound fun? Mkay.

I don’t mean things I possess no natural skill set for, like playing the pan flute or sticking the landing on a vault pass. I mean things I regularly fail at that I should be pulling off. Tasks that grown-up, mature, responsible people accomplish with ease, and my malfunctions suggest that perhaps I am a moron.

I cannot manage and maintain a chore schedule.

You don’t understand. I cannot do it. Please do not tell me your method. It doesn’t matter. I can’t keep up with it. I mean, I can, for like three to four-and-a-half weeks, and then it sinks under the weight of neglect. I find a way to sabotage the system every time. One inevitable Wednesday, I will let them play with their friends at the park instead of folding the laundry. Why? Because they are at the park instead of here. I don’t even know why I have to explain this to you.

Plus, after I get them all excited about scrubbing toilets because they are going to earn points or credits or Hatmaker Bucks™ to convert to cash, it turns out I never actually have cash, so I just tell them I’m “keeping track” of it all, which I may or may not actually be doing (not). So they may or may not actually ever get paid (not). I believe I owe my children approximately fourteen million dollars in defaulted allowance. This doesn’t bode well for team morale.

I am on par with those heinous fundraising abusers who come to the elementary schools, peddling their wares, working the kids into a frenzy over the junk they can earn if they sell $750 worth of processed cancer cookie dough, sending my spawn racing home screaming I CAN EARN A LIMO RIDE and I’M GOING TO WIN A LIGHT SABER MADE OF PLATINUM and I’m all, we’re not selling that crap and I throw their fundraising packets into the recycling bin and crush their little dreams.

I cannot answer my phone like a responsible grown up.

You might think answering your phone is not really a skill one needs to master, but you would be wrong. I don’t know how to defend my breakdown in this department, but this is simply how I am. I believe it has to do with my neurons or my atoms or the plasma science. My phone rings, and I think NO. I WILL NOT ANSWER IT. I just can’t. I just can’t answer the ringing phone. I just cannot talk. These irrational thoughts flood my brain and I think them. I listen to the thoughts tell me that answering my phone is just not doable, and I think, “Yes. My thoughts are correct.”

My friends – my friends, the ones I’m supposed to be friendly with – will tell you that I only answer my phone during one perfect storm: when I am driving somewhere. If I am doing absolutely anything else – sitting on the couch, doing important Facebook work, eating chips – I will let all calls go to voicemail.

Then, against all reason and explanation, I will not check the voicemails. My husband actually has nightmares about this. My thoughts have ideas here too; they tell me, “If you don’t listen to the message, then you don’t have to do anything about it. It’s like it doesn’t exist.” My thoughts are always looking out for me, helping me avoid the dark struggles of life, like talking and answering questions.

Right now, I have 17 unlistened to voicemails. I don’t know how I have any friends.

I have a small issue with planning ahead, meaning I don’t.

I mean well. I have good intentions here. My thoughts try to tell me three weeks or nine days or four hours in advance that I need to do some preliminary work, like arrange childcare or order books for an event or take a shower. They try their best, the thoughts.

But then I remember my thoughts also tell me that answering the phone could potentially ruin my life, so I don’t listen to them.

As I mentioned before here, I married a person who is exactly like me in this department. OPPOSITE DAY! This behavior actually makes Brandon hate me. I believe Mr. Planner wishes me physical harm for these transgressions. This is the man who can’t even handle a spontaneous invitation for lunch, because it messes with his “game plan.” (My dad also references his “game plan” approximately twelve times a day for the last 37 years of my entire life, so I frequently marvel that I married my father.)

I procrastinate, therefore, I scramble. I panic email. I pay double for expedited shipping. I beg and make promises and swear. I make my poor planning someone else’s problem, which is why I’m so popular. I create systems to check-and-balance myself, then I stage a mutiny against my own regulations. I am like Jim Carrey who beat the crap out of himself in the bathroom in Liar Liar. (“What are you doing??” “I’m kicking my own a**!”)

I’m super bad about getting ready. Worse than you think. Worse than you.

My high school BFF once wrote a paper on “contrasts.” She talked about how she was tailored pants and belts and I was jeans and a t-shirt; she was hot-rollers and I was ponytails. Yes, I was seventeen when she wrote this description, but I’m sorry to tell you I have not evolved in twenty years.

The universe is conspiring against me here. Listen, I have problem hair. You don’t understand. It is curly and course and it doesn’t ever feel like behaving. In order to be pretty, it must be round-brushed and smoothed with product then flat-ironed and coddled and baby-talked. Then my hair acts like Charlie Sheen and starts throwing punches and cussing innocent people out, getting all drunk and sloppy screaming, oh yeah? You think I’m goin’ down like this? I HATE YOU! I’ll do what the #!*$ I want!

And then I put it in a bun, because it is just so naughty.

And because I need to be somewhere in 20 minutes and it’s a 25-minute drive (see #3), I throw on jeans and a t-shirt and flip-flops and race out the door with my bun. This is how I look always. Also, I wear hats. In the winter, I wear a hoodie and TOMS. I barely wear make-up. I recently learned about the special spray that makes your filthy hair look not greasy, and I’m on my third can.

This is all well and good for a nineteen-year-old college student or a missionary in Kenya, but I’m a 37-year-old author and speaker with daily access to a shower and electricity. This is not okay. (Shut up, thoughts. You can’t shame me into caring.)

So until I’m ready to talk about taking the gospel to unreached people groups, this is where we are expending our emotional energy together, Reader. I know you’re not bad at anything other adults are perfectly capable of, but maybe you could share the deficiencies you see in other people?

What does everyone else manage that you could just perish over?

For the Cheaters, Shirkers, and Cherry-Pickers

Jen Hatmaker — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:35:00 +0000

When I take personality tests, I always bust the matrix. Just when they almost have me all figured out, I answer “strongly disagree” and the whole trajectory falls apart. On question #9, “I do a thorough job, valuing completion,” and on #10, “I am easily overwhelmed and often abandon projects.” I love people, sometimes, just certain ones. I am creative, except when I get stuck in a rut. I am kind, except when I’m mean. I am comfortable socially, but I’m a 75% introvert. I was always a super straight square, but I chose friends (and boyfriends) (and a husband) who were naughty.

And my whole life, I’ve been a total rule follower. Except when I’m so not.

You may not be shocked to hear that my teachers never really liked me, and they were often surprised I was smart. (My college professor examining my resume my senior year: “Really? Magna Cum Laude? Seriously?”) Perhaps this was because I would lay my head down and fall dead asleep in the middle of their lectures, or sail a note across the room to my friend while they were watching. Maybe they didn’t like the sullen girl who rolled her eyes and SIGHED VERY LOUDLY at the question-asker who lobbed her burning inquiry up with twelve seconds left in class.

Which is all very weird because I love to learn. (Certain things.)

And I’m a people pleaser. (But only sometimes.)

So it has delighted and amused me to receive a deluge of emails from 7 readers, professing their consent while confessing their shortcomings as they’ve launched into their own little mutinies against excess. It appears you are selective rule-followers too, cherry-pickers if you will. You like the ideas, but not the ones that make you give up coffee. You are all for spending less, except for restaurants and stores. For instance, from Twitter and Facebook friends just in the last few days:

Re: 7 month 3: If I buy I Coach purse, I won't have a problem giving away the rest of mine. #failingalready

First day of #7 and I have a Superbowl-gluttony-food-hangover. Oh, this is gonna take a lot of Jesus and spiritual caffeine.

Halfway through the book, and my wife already gave away half our clothes. WHATEVER. #classichusbandquote

Is this a book a nerdish football fanatic/Popsicle enthusiast such as myself would enjoy? Otherwise, I’m out.

Reading Food ch. of #7 & had to put it down. Had to finish Skittles before I could read in good conscience. #ohtheirony #repent

I bought the boots I had my eye on and felt a twinge of conviction at the checkout. It was probably the Holy Spirit, but I blamed your book instead, and may or may not have cursed your name under my breath. I'm going to hurry up and wear them a few times before I start your book, so I won't be able to return them.

These make me laugh every single day. People, I said 100 times that 7 wasn’t a template, wasn’t a prescription, wasn’t a challenge, wasn’t a program. I find it hilarious that most readers have jumped in, excited to emulate the experiment…sort of. You’re busting the matrix. You are so my people.

So I’m coming to your rescue today with seven mini-7-projects (See what I just did? That’s called synergy, y’all), giving you a pass from the Seven-Month Full Monty Version For Crazy People, and offering some simple, easily implemented ideas you can choose from without being labeled a “hippie granola” or “Commie Socialist.” If your mind is spinning and you need a focal point other than simply grabbing trash bags and throwing in everything you own, try just one of these on for size:

1. Pick one item you buy regularly, and go without it for a month. Reallocate the savings. (One reader went without soda, calculated the savings at $34 a month, which turned out to be the exact amount needed to sponsor a Compassion child. AWESOME SAUCE.)

2. Help a family in need. Call the counselor at the poorest school in your city and ask if he/she has a student or family with specific needs you might be able to meet. I am getting the coolest emails about folks doing this, taken from a tiny paragraph on page 92 in 7, ironically, the year I graduated from high school. Ninety-two! Ninety-two! Ninety ninety ninety ninety ninety-two!

These Prom queens now have 19 kids. Tomorrow came.

3. Put a "cell phone bowl" near your front door with this sign: "Be with the ones who are here." Ask family members and guests to leave their phones there as they enter. Maybe include a shelf for laptops if that is your poison.

4. Commit to eating the food you already have as well as all leftovers for two weeks. This throws a wrench in the waste machine. We often have a freezer, fridge, and pantry full of food and exclaim, “We don’t have anything to eat!” Bull butter. (I am currently doing this too. Last night, we had shrimp gumbo I had in the freezer, but we were out of rice and bread. So we ate it over pasta. With tortillas. It was Cajun Mextalian. Solidarity, people.)

5. Declare "screen free days" for your family: Pick two days with no TV, gaming, computers, phone apps, and games. Intentionally fill that space with time together. If you aren’t scared of a revolt, pick three days.

6. Freeze spending—do not buy anything you don’t need for a month (clothes, shoes, whatever). This stops the hemorrhaging so you can breathe and think. Just press pause and see what happens.

I’m super excited about Tip #7, so it is getting its own section. The most frequent response from 7 readers is that they just started purging the stacks, piles, drawers, and closets full of stuff until they knew what to do next. And I started thinking…

What if we harnessed this response for great good?

Because here is the deal: all those clothes and sheets and pots and mattresses and bicycles and jewelry represent a bunch of potential cash. We’ve already spent money on it once. What if we found a way to redeem those expenditures for something good and noble? Rather than simply gnashing our teeth and wailing over the indulgence of it all, what if we rolled up our sleeves and converted it to mission?

Enter my friends at Help End Local Poverty (H.E.L.P.), whose mission is this: “To be a global tribe dedicated to ending extreme poverty by helping to rescue orphans, restore their hope, and renew their communities.” They are pioneering innovative, sustainable initiatives in Haiti, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. They are bad to the bone and I want to be exactly like them when I grow up.

As you might remember, I’m into orphans.

I'm particularly fond of these two FO's (former orphans).

And this Zimbabwe punkin’ we sponsor through H.E.L.P.:

Caleb: "Mom? Let's pick the oldest kid to sponsor. No one wants the big kids." Oh my heart.

And these two Indian doll babies we sponsor through The Miracle Foundation:

I could put them on a plate, pour syrup on them, and eat them with a fork.

H.E.L.P. has this smart idea: Use our excess to serve the poor. Clever, right? And this is how: Garage Sale for Orphans. Sell what we’ve already bought and give the money to support the most vulnerable kids on earth.

There is a paper-thin line between orphans and human trafficking. Kids on the streets or those just aged-out of the system, children with no options and no advocates, are targeted almost immediately for sex and labor trafficking. They are exploited and abused relentlessly, low-hanging fruit for predators.

H.E.L.P. is stepping in, building safe homes in Haiti for the whopping price of $6000 each, out the door. This is how Chris Marlow, founder of H.E.L.P., explains it:

One of the best and most effective ways to fight trafficking is to prevent trafficking in the first place. Traffickers TARGET orphaned children.

We will build these homes within 20 minutes of the Dominican border. Kids are being sold at this border right now, into the Dominican Republic, where they will become sex and labor slaves. H.E.L.P., in partnership with Austin New Church and Restore.com, is going to build 12 preventative safe homes in 2012.

We will rescue "the worst case scenarios" orphans - kids that are homeless, doubled-orphaned, abandoned, etc. And we will rescue girls that age out of their current orphanage. Which means: 12- and 13-year-old girls kicked out of the orphanage because they're too old. These girls usually become prostitutes locally in Haiti or sold into the DR.

Each home will have an overseer, or house mom/dad, potentially a widow. We hope to create a family style orphan care. Our local leader in Haiti will oversee the entire project. The kids will be sponsored, so they will get food, water, clothing, and will also be able to attend school. Once we rescue a child, we will raise that child until they graduate college or trade school, so they can then take care of their own families.

DUDE.

Good reader, let’s knock out one of those homes together, yes? Two? Five? And by the revolutionary idea of selling what we’ve already bought. Redemption! What if we took trash bags and dollies through our homes and purged, purged, purged, converting our indulgences into bricks and mortar and safety and a future for these precious, beloved-by-Jesus Haitian girls? Plain old garage sales, reimagined. (Our little church does this once a year as a community and raised 12K in four hours. From our excess, yall. &!%$#.)

At our last ANC GS4O: Those are nearly ALL my books. I'm sorry. I need a moment.

You could do this with your little family. Or your community group. Or your neighbors. Or your soccer team. Or your Bible study group. Or your book club. Or your sisters. Gather the troops, price everything to sell, and turn your shoes and books and couches into cinder blocks and plaster and a roof.

H.E.L.P. set up a project page just for us, 7 Readers and Doers. The goal is 6K…one house. We could blow right past that if we all got crazy. Maybe you make $200 on your sale. Or perhaps you are a freak of nature like my friend Jenny who has never made less than a grand on any garage sale ever. Add it all together – your stuff, my stuff, their stuff – and we could do something amazing, literally changing girls’ lives who are headed into the sex trade as seventh graders otherwise.

Sell your stuff.

Go here and donate the proceeds. Or just donate period. For real, man. (Snag the button for your blog and trick your readers into joining us.)

Together, we’ll watch the little orange line move to “100% funded.”

And maybe we’ll need to start a new page for a second house.

So, the 7th tip (synergy again) (which is a word I keep including for 7 readers who are familiar with my horrid confession on page 204):

7. Turn your excess into justice. Help build a safe house for the most vulnerable Haitian girls through the Garage Sale for Orphans initiative at H.E.L.P.

Isn’t this fun? We have the potential to be the answer to so many problems. What we can pull off together is so powerful. I believe this is the gospel Jesus has called us to, the one burgeoning with teaching, proclaiming, feeding, housing, loving, sharing, studying, and worshipping. This gospel combines learning with loving, studying with serving; it emulates a Savior who fed and healed and touched and restored…AND taught and proclaimed and challenged and led. It is born in our hearts, expanded in our minds, declared with our mouths, and transferred to our hands.

It’s such an exciting, stirring time to follow Jesus, isn’t it?

See anything you might try? Or mind sharing what you’ve already done? How about sharing this blog with your people so we can KNOCK OUT THAT SAFE HOUSE IN HAITI?

An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:19:00 +0000

For some time, I’ve had this feeling messing with my faith. That one when you’re trying really hard and adhering to most of the rules and checking a lot of boxes, I mean, some boxes that seem really important, legit boxes, and yet…I don’t know. Something feels wrong. The mechanism is off. The parts are not creating the whole like people said it would. And despite my best efforts to kick that self-condemnation thing, I can't help but think:

"This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating."

To the other 99%, it’s probably obvious, but for me in my privileged 1% demographic, it left me puzzled and frustrated and discouraged. A bunch of my generation, millions if you want to get nitpicky, up and left the church over it, because the template didn’t end up changing the world or even changing lives. It left us with a laundry list of behaviors but conspicuously ignored way too many elephants in the room to be taken seriously. For me, the tension had many facets:

Why are we still starving for nourishment after our sixth Bible study in a row? How can people supposedly filled with the Spirit be so enamored with the luxuries of this world to the detriment of the other 99% who suffer so? How can be the richest people on earth still be so unhappy? Does my craving for more neutralize the enough that Jesus says He is? If I'm patterned after my Savior, why does my life look exactly like everyone else's, with the exception of some stellar church attendance? The tension finally pinpointed here:

As believers in the western church, how can we have so much and do so little with it?

We have so freaking much. So much money, education, resources, opportunities, knowledge, possessions, gifts, consumer power, privileges, advantages. We have every tool at our disposal, yet we are chronically plagued by ailments - social, spiritual, physical, emotional. Good reader, hands up if your heart is too peaceful, your life too simplified, your hands too generous, your spirit too content, your space too sacred, your stuff too unimportant, your devotion to Jesus too concentrated. Millions of voices are raising, some publicly, some in private turmoil still searching for the words, saying:

Enough.

Enough with the obscene excess while the rest of the world is burning down outside our windows. Enough with the waste as 25,000 people die today of hunger, while I throw away another pound of food we didn’t get around to eating. Enough with the debt, the spending, the amassing, the irresponsibility, the indulgence, the fake discipleship, the rat race, the hamster wheel, the power and positioning and posturing with a hunger still for more, more, more, all the while pretending to follow a Jesus who didn’t even have a place to lay his head.

This started making me crazy. I just wanted to be more like Jesus...except when I didn't.

*Sigh*

For the love of Michael, it's such a battle to be human and love Jesus well, isn't it? For people mired in luxury and privileges, the gospel is dangerously simple. It completely fails to secure our station. It's like it doesn't even care. It doesn't offer the exemptions I'm comfortable with or the clauses that keep everything decent. Worse, it outright threatens a bunch of things I like. I mean, I really like them and Jesus doesn't seem to give a flip. In fact, he talks kind of ugly about rich people and seems to think we will have the very hardest time finding his kingdom... the.very.hardest.time. Harder than a camel fitting through the eye of a needle. Harder than that. I'm no scientist, but one of these things appears harder, and Jesus chose the other one.

Now I'm freaked out, because Jesus also said, listen, a bunch of people think they are following me, that they "get" the gospel, but they so don't and are actually extremely self-deceived because you cannot love God and money. I'm not even playing. You cannot. You cannot say you love me yet hate your brother. That makes you a liar, not a disciple. The way is narrow. Kate Moss narrow. Few will find it, and the richer you are, sorry, but the harder it's going to be for you to actually give up everything you have and follow me, because you have so much to lose.

This stuff makes me hyperventilate, not just because Jesus said it, but because I feel it.

So my little family said, God, if too much stuff is standing in the way of your kingdom coming in our lives, then help us break up with it. If it has stolen our allegience and hijacked our obedience, give us the courage to wage war against everything that is ruining us for your gospel, substituting comfort for bravery, aquiring for sharing, appearances for obedience, personal glory for worship.

Enter 7.

A seven-month experimental mutiny against excess, tackling seven areas of overconsumption in the spirit of a fast; a fast from greed, irresponsibility, apathy, and insatiability. Each area boiled down to just seven choices for a month:

Food.
Clothes.
Possessions.
Media.
Waste.
Spending.
Stress.

Only seven foods for a month. Only seven pieces of clothes for a month. Give away seven things we own a day for a month. Eliminate seven forms of media for a month. Adopt seven substantial habits for a greener life. Spend money in only seven places. Practice "seven sacred pauses" a day and observe the Sabbath...a deeply reduced life to find a greatly increased God.

I don't know how else to talk about 7 other than to say it changed our lives. The discipline of fasting from such cherished, abused luxuries was transformative in the most difficult, painful, beautiful way. It shined a spotlight on dark corners, corners I wanted hidden and kept from scrutiny. 7 held my life up to God's Word and said, "One of these things is not like the other." It pried our eyes open to needs and abuses and the far reaching effects of unchecked consumerism, and it would not let them close again in ignorance or obstinance, I tell you. It hurt. We bled out in parts. We celebrated in others. We pushed through the chaos of repentence and found liberation waiting on the other side.

I put it so humbly, so gently in your hands.

I simply cannot tell you how much I wish I could control your reaction to 7. With every thump of my beating heart, I hope you'll receive it like I'm offering it. This is not a template. This is not a formula. This is not a guilt-mongering, sanctimonious rant. 7 is not a prescription. I wrote it humbly, saturated in repentance, face down.

I wish I could sit next to you as you read it and explain things better, and then we could talk about it for hours, dreaming and scheming together. I wish you understood that my life is messy and so often I still feel like I am barely failing forward. I wish you would stop posting on Twitter and Facebook about how reading 7 on your Kindle makes you feel weird. Stop saying your Kindle makes you feel bad, man. I have a Kindle. Do you understand what I am saying?

This so isn't about some getting it wrong and us getting it right, because we are still struggling and wrestling and trying to choose 'dying to self' each day but often choosing just 'plain self' instead. I also wish I could stop you from turning a critical eye toward my little family, because writing this from the middle of the pack meant setting myself up as a hypocrite for everyone to scrutinize. And you'd be right. You would be so right, Jack.

That's why this cannot be about me. I'm a barely passable representative of the gospel. I'm struggling with the same tension and the same sin issues and the same double standards as everyone else. I just happened to have a laptop and a willing publisher and an editor who deleted all the ellipses I included. Please let's not compare or judge or self-condemn. Oh my stars, no self-condemnation, do you hear me? If you take the guilt route I will jump into an icy river and drown myself. Like I wrote in 7: Don't imagine I'm writing from the cardboard house I chose to live in next to the homeless refugees I feed with money diverted from our health insurance. Everyone be cool.

7 is for my brothers (yes it is, dudes...this is no chick book) and sisters who are looking around saying, "Something feels wrong about being at the top of the food chain and still clamoring for one more rung." I'm saying that. A bunch of you are saying that too. We are in this together. I have this vision of thousands, millions of us throwing wrenches in the machine and refusing complicity in the ravaging of the earth and its precious inhabitants. I see us transitioning bravely from the screaming voice that yells ME to the quiet one whispering we, the marginalized voice of the international community we belong to. I see us grabbing our friends and families and dreaming up ways to unhook from the system; I envision late night discussions between couples and roommates and sisters asking "what if?". I imagine a generation realizing that private consumer choices have social consequences and public outcomes, and when Jesus called the poor his brothers and sisters and our neighbors, those relational metaphors included deep ramifications for the way we spend our time, our money, our lives.

This is for people who are just ready. Maybe you've managed the tension as long as you can, and it's breaking you. Or you walked away from the church, hungry for Jesus but disenfranchised from a system that builds 60 million dollar buildings while the earth is groaning for intervention from the Bride. Perhaps you haven't even had the words yet, but your spirit is restless, roving. You could be like me and Brandon; frustrated with the ethos of the church, but in our most honest moments admitting we are part of the problem. Maybe you are looking at your storage unit, holding things that can't even fit into your house anymore, wondering what the point of all this is. Or you are camped under the steeple and still can't find God.

I believe something exciting is happening. I see it everywhere; I hear its whispers. And not just from the young revolutionaries, but from soccer moms, pastors, men in suits, students, urbanites, country folk, old, young, left, right, Christ-followers everywhere. God is stirring and moving us together. He wants to save our lives and save the world, and if the treasures of this earth are holding us back from the rushing wind of the Holy Spirit, setting our lives ablaze and sending us to the ends of the earth, Good News in the flesh like Jesus, then maybe it's time to wage war.

Join me. Let's start a little revolution.

Quirky

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:46:00 +0000

About this time of year, I become terribly enamored with people’s End of Year Lists shared on the interwebs (Top Ten Books I Read in 2011, Top Five Influencers in My Life This Year, Top Twenty Songs that Mattered in 2011). These blogs and articles discuss issues that matter, helping humanity evolve into a kinder, braver species. They give readers edifying information, important thinkers to listen to, profound books to read, noteworthy leaders to follow. These writers take their platforms and use their influence for great good. I admire them so much.

I’m joining their ranks, but with *slightly* less necessary information.

People, I have issues, and I believe it is time to air them. I’ve covered plenty of serious material on this blog, like this and this and this. I might have even tricked some readers into believing I operate only in deep thoughts and serious scholarship. Some of you haven’t recovered from my last post, when my family jumped off Santa’s sleigh and half the world came apart at the seams (let it never be said that I don’t employ a healthy amount of melodrama). So it’s time for some lighter fare, or as one of my commenters said on a previous blog about adoption: “You are the worst writer I’ve ever seen! This is exactly what I would expect from a girl from Texas, land of big hair bows and empty brains.” Good reader, I shall dabble in that of which you speak.

Here’s the deal: I’m plagued by a few idiosyncrasies, certain quirks, if you will. I exhibit some behaviors and tendencies that cause people to say, “Really? Get a grip.” I’m daring to believe there are more of you out there, and hear me say right up front: I expect you to offer some quid pro quo at the end of this little piece, because nothing fuels our eccentricities more than another human saying, “You think that’s weird? I’ve saved all my toenail clippings since 1991.”

So without further ado, I give you: Jen’s Five Top Quirks of 2011 (ok, and forever):

1. I’ve let on that I’m not a hovering Mama. My kids slide down banisters and build skateboard ramps and shoot each other with airsoft guns. I parent this behavior by saying, “Don’t cry about it if you get hurt. Or cry in your room where I can’t hear you.” But I have two issues that make me a candidate for Most Neurotic, Controlling Mom Ever: my kids’ sleep and their body temperature.

Since the day they were born, I’ve been a sleep Nazi. I count their hours. I watch the clock. When someone with credentials said, “Children needed ten hours of sleep at night. Believe me”…I did. I believed. I’m a believer. I enjoy my true comfort zone when they get twelve hours. I spaz out – one might say irrationally – when bedtime boundaries get pushed past my liking: “OHMYWORD. It’s 10:13pm and Gavin is still up. We might as well keep him home tomorrow, because he will not be able to lift his head from exhaustion.” I am a freak about a good night’s sleep. A full freak.

Also? I have a very weird fixation about their body temperature. Are you hot? Are you cold? Are you feeling chilly? Are you overheating? Do you need a coat? Where is your coat? Give me your coat. Are you hot? Take off your undershirt. Do you need some water? Do you need to sit in the shade? Do you need to sit in the sun? Do you have enough blankets? Is this blanket too heavy? If you get hot, push this blanket down. If you get cold, here is an extra blanket. Are you hands cold? Are your feet hot? You need a hat. Put on this hat. You can’t go out if you don’t wear this hat. Take off your hat; it’s too hot outside.

After asking Ben about his heat level 28 times from the sidelines at his soccer game, my friend Tonya was like, “Oh my gosh, Jen! Crazy alert! Leave him alone! You are even freaking me out.” I believe she was one second away from slapping me across the face.

I evidently don’t care a whit about other issues, for example, safety or ingesting poisons. This clearly doesn’t bother me:

"Don't worry, Babe. The eleven-year-old is in charge."

My kids could jump from a second-story window onto a mattress below while testing the feasibility of wind-resistant capes/umbrellas, and I believe my only concern would be if they were getting too hot or if was getting too close to bedtime.

2. For nearly my entire adult life, I’ve lived in Austin, “Live Music Capital of the World.” We are chock-full of serious musicians and indy singer-songwriters. We have actual producers and artists in our immediate friend circle. I can listen to interesting, unique, creative music any night of the week at two-dozen different venues. Austin hosts ACL and SXSW, two of the best music festivals in the country. This is a city where musical taste matters and is evaluated as a potential character flaw.

I love Top 40.

Like, love it. The sillier, the boppier, the more likely a twelve-year-old girl will have their poster on her walls, the higher the band is on my Love List. If it’s in Tiger Beat, I’m down. Almost every song I love ends up on a Kidz Bop CD. My musical preferences are fully juvenile and unsophisticated. My friends groove to bands called My Morning Jacket and Fleet Foxes, discussing the genius of the songwriting and creative brilliance. You know what I love? A sixteen-year old covering a Bruno Mars song on American Idol. (My friend Andy is a musician’s musician, and when Brandon mentioned my AI obsession and Andy gave me that look, I yelled at Brandon, “Why did you out me! I want him to take me seriously and now he pities me!”) Sydney, my sixth grader, and I were talking to a friend who casually mentioned Maroon 5 was coming to Austin, and we screamed in unison, “OH MY GAH!!!!”

Yes, I turn the channel when the raunchy fare comes on, and even I cannot listen to K$sha, but Flo Rida? Get in my ears. And don't mind me while I dance and sing at the top of my lungs. Whatever. This is my jam, keep me partying till the a.m. Yall don’t understand, make me throw my hands in the ayer, ay-ayer, ayer, ay-ayer…

3. This is unfortunate, because I’ve gone and put five kids in this family, but I have a teeny, tiny issue with sound. I call it Noise Pollution, and it makes me a little bit of a crazy person. White, background noise has been known to make me unravel like a lunatic. My family has been carrying on, just going about their business, talking to each other with a show on the TV and living a normal life, when all of a sudden, with no warning or even any red flags indicating an impending meltdown, I’ve flown into their midst like the Wicked Witch snatching remote controls out of hands, turning off every beeping, clicking, humming, buzzing, ticking electronic or instrument offending me, yelling at everyone about appropriate sound levels and demanding to know if they think causing deafness and anxiety in other human beings is acceptable. Usually, six bewildered people look back at me with mouths hanging open, as it might appear the punishment did not fit the crime.

Except that it so did.

The amount of sound trapped in my car between kids + music has actually made me consider sticking knitting needles into my eardrums. Once, the unceasing noise enclosed in the small space of my car pushed me to such despair, I pulled over on the side of I-35, locked my children in the car, walked fifty feet away and sat in the grass bawling, while my kids pressed their faces to the windows mouthing, “MOMMY! MOMMY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, MOMMY?!”

I cannot write one word, not one, if there is a single decibel of sound in the room. What? Try a little quiet Adele in the background? Are you trying to sabotage my career? Because that is what would happen. I would start typing song lyrics and lose fifteen minutes thinking about how to kidnap Adele and lock her in my closet and make her sing to me whenever I just feel like rolling in the deep because no one in my house understands me. I need an empty, dead silent house to eek out a ten-word sentence, so when “someone” who lives here with me, who doesn’t go to school and is sometimes home during the day when the quiet space is possible keeps asking me questions like how do you spell in lieu of and did you put that thing in our shared iCalendar and I’m thinking about getting a new tattoo, I might accidentally come freaking unglued and threaten to move into an apartment. (This scenario is hypothetical.) (No it’s not.)

4. I love humor. I love to laugh. I love funny, stupid movies. I love funny people. I love sarcasm and banter. I love witticisms. I love Will Ferrell. I love banal comedy. I am a recent convert to Melissa McCarthy and plan to be her loyal disciple until I die. I believe laughter is the best medicine, and laugh and the world laughs with you, or some such.

But I cannot handle pranks. Can. Not. Even. Handle. Them.

Remember The Tom Green Show and Punk’d and The Jamie Kennedy Experiment? These shows almost put me into a coma. When a bunch of people are in on it, and one person doesn’t know it, and they are forced into an awkward/horrifying/embarrassing/confusing/distressing situation, AND IT IS BEING FILMED, I start praying for the rapture. My anxiety goes straight through the roof. I spontaneously develop hysterical psychosis.

When we were caught in massive delays for our son’s adoption, my friend Missy decided to post a funny Youtube video on my Facebook wall every day until we passed court. It was her Youtube Ministry, and it gave us such gems as this:

This made me happy for like 11 hours.

But a couple of months in, she started posting some prank videos, and they strangely drew no response from me. Finally she was like, What up, Mrs. Ungrateful?? That video was GOLD and you didn’t even comment! And I was all, I JUST CAN’T DO IT, OKAY? *in a small voice*…I couldn’t even watch. Then she was like, you’re weird, weirdo.

So please just note, if you invite me in on a prank, I will be voted Most Likely To Prematurely Yell At The Top Of My Lungs:

It’s not true! She’s not really hurt!
Oh my gosh! It’s not even your real car!
The waiter is an actor!
Don’t cuss! He’s not cheating on you!

I will ruin the prank. Count on it. And if you pull one on me, you’re dead to me.

5. So, I hate good-byes. And not just the legitimate kind like when someone is moving to Boston or going back home after visiting. I just hate them all. I can’t explain this. I am absolutely that person who slips out of a party like a ninja rather than doing a big good-bye scene, which if you’re still with me and on your toes, you might recognize is WAY WORSE. If my purse is in the hostess’s line of vision and Brandon won’t indulge my eccentric exit habits by getting it for me, I will leave it behind and make her put it on her porch where I can retrieve it the next day. I can’t tell you how many texts like these I’ve received:

Hey! Where did you go?
Did you leave?
What happened to you?
Did someone kidnap you? Are you in a trunk?

Even if I am 100% positive that this is the last time I’ll see you for a year, your bags are packed and in your car, which is running, and everyone is buckled in except you, your husband is giving the wrap-it-up gesture, and we’re standing in front of your sold house where the moving van just pulled away to head to your new life in Atlanta, I will say, “Let’s just talk later. I’ll see you before you leave.” I will say this. I will find a way to not have the good-bye moment, even if it is clearly, clearly the good-bye moment.

I can talk in front of 5000 people without so much as twitch, but give me a farewell to navigate and I shut down, a tad bit fixated on just getting away to a safe place where no one is saying the good-bye words and/or watching me say the good-bye words and I’m just nice and happy in my own home, even though Brandon is all, knock it off and stop being rude and just get in there and say good-bye, and I’m like, I DON’T WANT TO AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME. I am like Rain Man and Brandon cannot handle my neuroses:

Charlie: What's it going to be Ray? What's it going to be?
Raymond: This is a very dangerous highway.
Charlie: How am I going to get to LA?
Raymond: Course driving your car on this interstate is very dangerous.
Charlie: You want to get off the highway will that make you happy?
Raymond: Yeah.
Charlie: Well, you gotta GET IN THE CAR SO THAT WE CAN GET OFF THE HIGHWAY!
Raymond: Course in 1986, 46,400 male drivers were definitely involved in fatal accidents.

Please someone diagnose what sort of weird social disorder I have.

So there you are, folks, the top five. Please trust me, there are many, many others, some that make even less sense than these. (I didn't even mention my physical need to use italics and ellipses. I can't explain my need to emote.) Now your job is to share your "issues," because I know you people are weirdos. I cannot be the only one.

What are your quirks, tendencies, neuroses, or bizarre fixations? And if you say “my strangest habit is being too kind,” I will delete your response. Fo’ realz. Spill it.

The Christmas Conundrum

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 17:46:00 +0000

When I was in sixth grade, I received two Christmas presents I distinctly remember:

1.) The most coveted, desired beautiful "Forenza" tag on a pair of black leggings with a corresponding purple and black plaid shirt. (The outfit could've been anything, as long as it was from The Limited. Outback Red, anyone? Omg. If I could've conjured riches back then, I would've spent every red cent on OBR.)

2.) A fun, quirky red "football jersey type" sweatshirt.

I loved them both. Loved, loved, loved. I was certain these gifts were my ticket out of Dorkville. The feathered, product-less boy haircut and Bargain Selection glasses would become moot in light of my new, stylish garb. The popular kids would wonder what they ever didn't see in me. The cute boys I pined over would fight over inviting me to Sadie Hawkins, and they would say things like, "Why haven't we noticed her before? We're like Saul after the scales fell from his eyes." Or at least something very, very similar to that.

Until one very unfortunate eavesdropping session.

Supposed to be in bed but creeping in the hall listening to my parents' conversation which simply seemed like a naughty, awesome thing to do, I heard my mom say this:

"Her red sweatshirt? I found it at Walmart for $3.00."

Oh.
No.
She.
Didn't.

And just like that, the sweatshirt was ruined. In front of my eyes, it lost all its charm and it simply became something a Walmart girl would wear because she couldn't afford Esprit and her mother refused to buy her Guess jeans. All of a sudden, it communicated: I'm poor. (I was in sixth grade, people. It was a very dramatic time.)

Here's why I tell you about my persecutions: That is the only thing I remember from Christmas 1985. Not Jesus. Not reverence. Not generosity. Not gratitude. Just a selfish, materialistic reaction because every single gift of mine wasn't from an overpriced store with a namebrand I could casually brag about wearing. What a brat.

This sort of bull crap is still happening every year.

What happened to Christmas? What on earth happened to it? When did it transform from something simple and beautiful to what it is now? How insiduously did the enemy work to slowly hijack Jesus' birth and hand it over on a silver platter to Big Marketing, tricking His own followers into financing the confiscation?

We all know it. We all feel it. Every year we bear this tension. Each December, the world feels off kilter. But in the absence of a better plan or an alternative rhythm or - let's just say it - courage, we feed the machine yet again, giving Jesus lip service while teaching our kids to ask Santa for whatever they want, because, you know, that's really what Christmas boils down to.

I just cannot take it anymore, yall. I cannot.

What if a bunch of us pulled out of the system? What if we said something very radical and un-American, like: "Our family is going to celebrate Jesus this year in a manner worthy of a humble Savior who was born to two poor teenagers in a barn and yet still managed to rescue humanity."

I'm going to throw out some ideas for what I hope is a more meaningful Christmas; you may take some and leave some. Good reader, you may take none. Maybe you'll tweak an idea to fit your family. You might say, "For the love of Baby Jesus! She's ruining everything! We'll try one little thing this year, ok?! And then we'll quit reading her blog." Here goes:

1.) Because I'm anxious to make enemies and isolate myself from any goodwill you've ever felt toward me, let me just start with a biggie: We've pulled out of the Santa charade. Our newest kids are 5 and 8, preparing for their first Christmas in America, and we're just not doing it, yall. Maybe because we've spent the last four years trying to unravel the mess we've presented to our other kids all these years, but hear me say it: We are giving Christmas back to Jesus. Not a corner of it; all of it.

There is no fake benefactor this year my kids can petition to get more stuff. Because honestly? For a five-year-old, how can Jesus compete with Santa? Our children don't have spiritual perspective; when faced with the choice of allegience, they have a baby in a manger, or they can get a jolly, twinkling, flying character who will bring them presents. This is going to be an easy choice for them. My friend Andrew, who identifies himself as a member of the "non-believer corner" put it this way:

I always thought it was strange how Christians will tell me they have this giant and awesome truth they know is true deep in their soul and want to share with me, but when 12/25 comes around they lie to their own progeny because, apparently, that giant, liberating, and awesomely simple truth is somehow just not enough. It may be a good narrative, but it needs a little something to give it some panache.

As importantly, it sets this tone for Christmas: Be good and you'll get stuff, which becomes so deeply seeded, undoing that position is almost impossible. When we teach our children to understand Christmas through this lens, then tell them at nine-years-old: "Never mind! It's all fake! Oh, and stop being so selfish because Christmas is about Jesus"...we shouldn't be surprised when our kids stage a mutiny and ask to move in with Grandma. Young parents, this is so much easier to do right the first time rather than try to undo later. Give your kids the gift of a Christmas obsessed with Jesus - and no other - when they are little, and it will be their truth all their lives. Some practical points:

* When faced with Santa everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, we told our kids the story of the original St. Nicholas from the 3rd century, and his devotion to Jesus and the poor. We explained that Santa is a character based on his life, but one was real and one is pretend. We also told them some children believe Santa is real, and it's their parents' job to talk about that with their friends, not theirs. In other words, DON'T BE THAT KID WHO MAKES EVERYONE CRY IN THE MIDDLE OF CLASS. You're welcome, teachers.

* For the most part, we are not watching TV this month. We're allowing movies and Netflix, but the less commercials our kids have to digest, the less confusing this month is for them. Um, ditto for all of us. When there are commercials that say, "Hey? You know how to avoid the terrible Disappointed Face when you give your loved one her gift? Buy her a Toyota!"...we have seriously derailed, folks.

* Take a big breath: I got rid of all my Santa paraphernalia this year. No more severed ceramic Santa heads up in here. Try not to flip out. (I am in the "undoing" category I mentioned above. So freaking hard.)

* This is big: I AM NOT JUDGING YOU. If you put carrots on your front lawn for the reindeer and stamp bootprints all over your living room from Santa's shoes, that is fully your prerogative. You don't need to hide your Santa wreath when I come over or defend your position to me or anyone. For us, Christmas has gone through four years of reconstruction, each year progressively more simplified. I know God is doing all sorts of different things with different families at different times; everybody be cool.

2.) While you're stewing over Santa, let's go ahead and tackle this one: spending. Whatintheworld? We recently watched a video from Christmas 2004 when our kids were six, four, and two. (Sidebar: Those of you with a 6-year-old, thinking he is so big? You will die one hundred thousand deaths in seven years when you look back at videos and realize he was just an infant baby. And then you will cry drippy, sad tears because you'll realize that when all those old women told you to enjoy early childhood because it will pass so quickly, and you wanted to kick them in the shins, they were right. It is over in a nanosecond and the next thing you know, your "six year old" is texting and getting ready for high school and smells like the inside of a trash can.)

I digress.

When we saw the mountains of presents in front of our P.R.E.S.C.H.O.O.L.E.R.S. and watched them rip through boxes so fast, they had no idea what they even received, I caught Brandon's eye across the room and mouthed, "We were freaks!" Not to mention all this bounty was brought into a home burgeoning with loot already, so we had to get rid of a bunch of toys just to shoehorn in the new stuff. Kindly note that the recipients of all this commerce couldn't even wipe their own butts yet.

Insane at best, sacrilegious at worst.

Four years ago, we started this gift-giving policy for each kid: Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read. That's it. (This year we are adding something to give, and I'll talk about that in a minute.) Brandon and I don't buy for each other, and we draw names with our extended families, so each adult only buys one gift.

Friends and countrymen, we simply need to spend less on ourselves. There are plenty of practical reasons, like debt and financial strain and untold energy and stress. But even if we could afford to spend $500 on every important person in our lives, that sort of egregious consumerism is unbecoming for the Bride of Christ during a season that is supposed to be marked by the worship of Jesus.

We can find alternative rhythms to show each other our love. My mother-in-law is so very, very good at giving meaningful gifts based on making memories together. She takes my kids to plays and museums and day trips. She invites them to her house individually and spends precious time with them. My kids gobble this time with her down. Let's give the gifts of time and experiences and our creative talents and words this year. They will last long after the electric griddle has been forgotten.

3.) Let's MAKE DADGUM SURE the products we do buy don't come to us courtesy of slave labor. Like Ashley Judd said in Call+Response, "I don't want to wear someone else's despair. I don't want to eat someone else's tragedy." Our little church has joined the dog fight against human trafficking, and let me tell you something: When I refuse to carefully examine the vendors I buy from because it is inconvenient or overwhelming or I just really want that, I am turning the key that shackles the enslaved hands forced to produce my little goodies. I am as complicit as the abusers who exploit these laborers. And please don't tell me, "Not buying this one thing produced through a corrupt supply chain isn't going to make a difference." All that means is I don't care. If it was our children forced to work relentlessly in bondage, we would we hope and pray rich consumers across the world would battle that injustice by directing their consumer dollar with purpose, communicating to capitalistic opportunists "NO WE WILL NOT." We will call unethical business leaders to task with our words, our votes, and our money.

So many fantastic resources to help us become responsible consumers, calling vendors to reform and repentence using the language they truly understand...lack of profits:

* Download the Free2Work app, which allows you to scan barcodes and find out if that product is made responsibly or by slave labor.

* New to this conversation? Learn from our friends at Not For Sale. They are LEGIT.

* Need convincing? Download this Slavery Footprint and see where you land: "How many slaves work for you?" (Holy moly.)

* Know the top products made by slave labor, so you can be extra diligent on who you purchase them from. Careful...some of your faves are on the list (coffee, chocolate, cotton, sugar).

* Learn trusted vendors and stick with them, even if they cost more. We will not finance the slave industry because we are addicted to artificially low prices made possible by not paying the labor force.

4.) On the other hand, we can do so much good with our dollar! I think about the Acts 4 church, redistributing their resources "to anyone who had need." Such beauty. We can direct our Christmas dollar in two ways for great good:

Buying Products with a Conscience

These products range from beautiful artisan crafts made by former sex slaves or recipients of microloans; they include companies who use profits for international justice or employ vulnerable workers. Fabulously, these options are legion, and you don't have to look hard to find them. I'll include a few, then hopefully readers will add to the list of responsible vendors in the comment section:

www.cometogethertrading.com
www.redearthtradingco.com
www.furnacehillscoffee.com/index
www.preemptivelove.org
www.noondaycollection.com
www.bethejoy.com
www.goodnewsgoods.com
www.theopenarmsshop.com
www.commonthreadz.org
www.globalgirlfriend.com
www.3seams.com
www.ravenandlily.com
www.tradeasone.com
www.thehungersite.org
www.funkyfishdesigns.com

Giving

The second stream we can choose to float down this Christmas is out from underneath the consumer umbrella altogether (mixed metaphors, anyone?), and it is simply sharing our resources with those who need intervention to break the cycles of poverty and despair. This year, we are giving each of our children $100 to spend on the vulnerable. This is part of their Christmas present, because as you and I know, it just feels so awesome to be a part of Jesus' redemptive story. We will give them some options, and they can distribute their money however they want. Here are some trusted, responsible organizations to partner with, donating in increments as low as $10:

www.IJM.org/GiftsofFreedom
www.worldvision.org
www.mercycorps.org
www.miraclefoundation.org

5.) Finally (and all the readers breathed a sigh of relief), instead of just pulling old habits off the shelf and leaving a vacuum of void and guilt, let's replace American practices with - and I mean this in the most sincerest sense - Christian practices. Let's fill our homes with Jesus and find ways to worship Him with our little families every day this month. Let's join the Advent Conspiracy, daring to believe that Christmas can still change the world. May beautiful words fill our houses; lyrics like Come and behold him, born the the King of angels. As much as possible, let's mute the competing chatter trying so hard to invade our spaces; turning it down, turning it off. Celebrate Advent with your kids with diligence and anticipation. We ordered a fun version of the Advent Calendar, and each night the kids open a new envelope full of Scriptures and family activities. (Tonight we are reading about Jesus, the Light of the World, talking about what being a light in the darkness means, then playing flashlight tag. Yes, I'm sure someone will get hurt.)

Believers, let's do beautiful things together this month like serve and share and spend time with one another. Let's invite the loneliest people we know into our homes and show them Jesus. How about we make lovely food together, then share it. Parents, talk about Jesus' impending birthday like it is the most precious, thrilling, miraculous moment you have ever heard of in your life. Can we be brave enough to say "enough" to any further ruination of Jesus' day? Can we risk difficult conversations with grandparents and friends and our own children, understanding that Jesus called it the narrow way for a reason, and he wasn't kidding when he said few would find it? Let's listen to divergent thinkers and spiritual leaders who are courageously leading us in the ways of Jesus this December, helping us resist consumerism and selfishness and giving voice to our radical thoughts and inner tension.

Despite what your mother might say when you tell her you're scaling back this year, I am not trying to ruin your Christmas. On the contrary. I'm dying to rediscover what is simple and magnificent about the Savior of the World coming to earth, putting on flesh and saving my life. I so want my kids to marvel that Jesus came, just like God said he would, and he split history in two, forever transforming the concepts of hope and peace and salvation. And I just feel like when I create a season revolving around wish lists, frenzy, and alternate characters of honor, my kids will never understand any of this.

And neither will I.

Together, we have the opportunity to show a watching world something truly hopeful and sincerely beautiful this Christmas. We can live alternative rhythms in front of people, showing them something better than stress and spending and tension and exhaustion. We can raise children who understand exactly why the songwriter wrote: Oh come let us adore Him. We can partner with Jesus and bring good news to the nations yet again, fighting injustices and carrying hope to the ends of the earth through something as simple as sharing our money. Most importantly, we can render to Jesus the reverence he is owed, pushing all substitutions to the side and making our homes holy ground. This is why (from my favorite singular lyric in any hymn ever):

Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Til He appeared and the soul felt it's worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn...

The weary world rejoices indeed. Thank you, Jesus, Lord at thy birth. Joy to the world.

Readers, how do you give Christmas to Jesus? What alternate rhythms have you established? What vendors do you love to support? And if you find yourself disagreeing, I welcome your comments as well. This is a worthy conversation and I'm just glad we're talking about it.

How to Be The Village

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 11:34:00 +0000

Sometimes being ever-so-slightly in the public eye is rough. With a mouth and discernment problem like mine, you can imagine. I basically offer my life on the altar of criticism daily, then douse the sacrifice with plenty of fuel to make disparagement a lay-up.

For instance, Brandon and I attended a Halloween party last weekend with the theme “Heroes and Super villains.” Our friends came in such costumes as Captain America and the Joker and Kim Possible. They were all very polished and adorable. We came as washed-up, possibly strung out Superman and Supergirl complete with ripped fishnets, smeared makeup, and pistol tattoo drawn with Sharpie. We may or may not have had unlit cigarettes dangling from the corners of our mouths.

These choices are often met with disapproval from the watching masses, as you might well guess. I know you wish I would only dress up as Little Bo Peep or Mary Mother of Jesus, but Brandon and I are very, very silly and immature, and I’ve been trying to tell you people this for some time.

But usually I am grateful for the connection to the greater world, if only through social media and the miracle of emails (plus embarrassing transparency). For example, just a few days ago, I received this email:

Our good friends just returned from Ethiopia last night with their two little boys. Ok, they've had their "airport" moment and we were right there with them. What are some things we can do now to support them in the "real life" journey without overstepping our boundaries? Thank you so much for your transparency and honesty. Everyone can benefit when you share from your heart.

I was so moved by this email. Having benefitted from a community that practically smothered us with support throughout our adoption journey, I am so grateful for all the other good friends out there, loving their people and asking how to help. Since reading this email, I’ve been marinating on her question, and I’ve decided to write this Field Guide to Supporting Adoptive Families. (And it will be brief because I will try to remember that this is a blog and not a manuscript and the rules of blogging include succinctness, so that is exactly how I’ll proceed today, except for the exact opposite of all that.)

Let’s break this down into two categories:

Supporting Families Before the Airport

Your friends are adopting. They’re in the middle of dossiers and home studies, and most of them are somewhere in the middle of Waiting Purgatory. Please let me explain something about WP: It sucks in every way. Oh sure, we try to make it sound better than it feels by using phrases like “We’re trusting in God’s plan” and “God is refining me” and “Sovereignty trumps my feelings” and crazy bidness like that. But we are crying and aching and getting angry and going bonkers when you’re not watching. It’s hard. It hurts. It feels like an eternity even though you can see that it is not. It is harder for us to see that, because many of us have pictures on our refrigerators of these beautiful darlings stuck in an orphanage somewhere while we’re bogged down in bureaucracy and delays.

How can you help? By not saying or doing these things:

1. “God’s timing is perfect!” (Could also insert: “This is all God’s plan!” “God is in charge!”) As exactly true as this may be, when you say it to a waiting parent, we want to scratch your eyebrows off and make you eat them with a spoon. Any trite answer that minimizes the struggle is as welcomed as a sack of dirty diapers. You are voicing something we probably already believe while not acknowledging that we are hurting and that somewhere a child is going to bed without a mother again. Please never say this again. Thank you.

2. “Are you going to have your own kids?” (Also in this category: “You’ll probably get pregnant the minute your adoption clears!” “Since this is so hard, why don’t you just try to have your own kids?” “Well, at least you have your own kids.”) The subtle message here is: You can always have legitimate biological kids if this thing tanks. It places adoption in the Back-up Plan Category, where it does not belong for us. When we flew to Ethiopia with our first travel group from our agency, out of 8 couples, we were the only parents with biological kids. The other 7 couples chose adoption first. Several of them were on birth control. Adoption counts as real parenting, and if you believe stuff Jesus said, it might even be closer to the heart of God than regular old procreation. (Not to mention the couples that grieved through infertility already. So when you say, “Are you going to have your own kids?” to a woman who tried for eight years, then don’t be surprised if she pulls your beating heart out like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.)

3. For those of you in Christian community, it is extremely frustrating to hear: “Don’t give up on God!” or “Don’t lose faith!” It implies that we are one nanosecond away from tossing our entire belief system in the compost pile because we are acting sad or discouraged. It’s condescending and misses the crux of our emotions. I can assure you, at no point in our story did we think about kicking Jesus to the curb, but we still get to cry tears and feel our feelings, folks. Jesus did. And I’m pretty sure he went to heaven when he died.

4. We’re happy to field your questions about becoming a transracial family or adopting a child of another race, but please don’t use this moment to trot out your bigotry. (Cluelessness is a different thing, and we try to shrug that off. Like when someone asked about our Ethiopian kids, “Will they be black?” Aw, sweet little dum-dum.) The most hurtful thing we heard during our wait was from a black pastor who said, “Whatever you do, don’t change their last name to Hatmaker, because they are NOT Hatmakers. They’ll never be Hatmakers. They are African.” What the??? I wonder if he’d launch the same grenade if we adopted white kids from Russia? If you’d like to know what we’re learning about raising children of another race or ask respectful, legitimate questions, by all means, do so. We care about this and take it seriously, and we realize we will traverse racial landmines with our family. You don’t need to point out that we are adopting black kids and we are, in fact, white. We’ve actually already thought of that.

5. Saying nothing is the opposite bad. I realize with blogs like this one, you can get skittish on how to talk to a crazed adopting Mama without getting under her paper-thin skin or inadvertently offending her. I get it. (We try hard not to act so hypersensitive. Just imagine that we are paper-pregnant with similar hormones surging through our bodies making us cry at Subaru commercials just like the 7-month preggo sitting next to us. And look at all this weight we’ve gained. See?) But acting like we’re not adopting or struggling or waiting or hoping or grieving is not helpful either. If I was pregnant with a baby in my belly, and no one ever asked how I was feeling or how much longer or is his nursery ready or can we plan a shower, I would have to audition new friend candidates immediately.

Here’s what we would love to hear Before the Airport:

1. Just kind, normal words of encouragement. Not the kind that assume we are one breath away from atheism. Not the kind that attempt to minimize the difficulties and tidy it all up with catchphrases. We don’t actually need for you to fix our wait. We just want you to be our friend and acknowledge that the process is hard and you care about us while we’re hurting. That is GOLD. I was once having lunch with my friend Lynde when AWAA called with more bad news about Ben’s case, and I laid my head down on the table in the middle of Galaxy Café and bawled. Having no idea what to do with such a hot mess, she just cried with me. Thank you for being perfect that day, Lynde.

2. Your questions are welcomed! We don’t mind telling you about the court system in Ethiopia or the in-country requirements in Nicaragua or the rules of the foster system. We’re glad to talk about adoption, and we’re thankful you care. I assure you we didn’t enter adoption lightly, so sharing details of this HUGE PIECE OF OUR LIVES is cathartic. Plus, we want you to know more because we’re all secretly hoping you’ll adopt later. (This is not true.) (Yes it is.)

3. When you say you’re praying for us and our waiting children, and you actually really are, not only does that soothe our troubled souls, but according to Scripture, it activates the heavens. So pray on, dear friends. Pray on. That is always the right thing to say. And please actually do it. We need people to stand in the gap for us when we are too tired and discouraged to keep praying the same words another day.

4. If you can, please become telepathic to determine which days we want to talk about adoption and which days we’d rather you just show up on our doorstep with fresh figs from the Farmer’s Market (thanks, Katie) or kidnap us away in the middle of the day to go see Bridesmaids. Sometimes we need you to make us laugh and remember what it feels like to be carefree for a few hours. If you’re not sure which day we’re having, just pre-buy movie tickets and show up with the figs, and when we answer the door, hold them all up and ask, “Would you like to talk for an hour uninterrupted about waiting for a court date?” We’ll respond to whichever one fits.

Supporting Families After the Airport

You went to the airport. The baby came down the escalator to cheers and balloons. The long adoption journey is over and your friends are home with their new baby / toddler / twins / siblings / teenager. Everyone is happy. Maybe Fox News even came out and filmed the big moment and “your friend” babbled like an idiot and didn’t say one constructive word about adoption and also she looked really sweaty during her interview. (Really? That happened to me too. Weird.)

How can you help? By not saying or doing these things:

1. I mean this nicely, but don’t come over for awhile. Most of us are going to hole up in our homes with our little tribe and attempt to create a stable routine without a lot of moving parts. This is not because we hate you; it’s because we are trying to establish the concept of “home” with our newbies, and lots of strangers coming and going makes them super nervous and unsure, especially strangers who are talking crazy language to them and trying to touch their hair.

2. Please do not touch, hug, kiss, or use physical affection with our kids for a few months. We absolutely know your intentions are good, but attachment is super tricky with abandoned kids, and they have had many caregivers, so when multiple adults (including extended family) continue to touch and hold them in their new environment, they become confused about who to bond with. This actually delays healthy attachment egregiously. It also teaches them that any adult or stranger can touch them without their permission, and believe me, many adoptive families are working HARD to undo the damage already done by this position. Thank you so much for respecting these physical boundaries.

3. For the next few months, do not assume the transition is easy. For 95% of us, it so is not. And this isn’t because our family is dysfunctional or our kids are lemons, but because this phase is so very hard on everyone. I can’t tell you how difficult it was to constantly hear: “You must be so happy!” and “Is life just so awesome now that they’re here??” and “Your family seems just perfect now!” I wanted that to be true so deeply, but I had no idea how to tell you that our home was actually a Trauma Center. (I did this in a passive aggressive way by writing this blog, which was more like “An Open Letter to Everyone Who Knows Us and Keeps Asking Us How Happy We Are.”) Starting with the right posture with your friends – this is hard right now – will totally help you become a safe friend to confide in / break down in front of / draw strength from.

4. Do not act shocked if we tell you how hard the early stages are. Do not assume adoption was a mistake. Do not worry we have ruined our lives. Do not talk behind our backs about how terribly we’re doing and how you’re worried that we are suicidal. Do not ask thinly veiled questions implying that we are obviously doing something very, very wrong. Do not say things like, “I was so afraid it was going to be like this” or “Our other friends didn’t seem to have these issues at all.” Just let us struggle. Be our friends in the mess of it. We’ll get better.

5. If we’ve adopted older kids, please do not ask them if they “love America so much” or are “so happy to live in Texas.” It’s this simple: adoption is born from horrible loss. In an ideal world, there would be no adoption, because our children would be with their birth families, the way God intended. I’ll not win any points here, but I bristle when people say, “Our adopted child was chosen for us by God before the beginning of time.” No he wasn’t. He was destined for his birth family. God did not create these kids to belong to us. He didn’t decide that they should be born into poverty or disease or abandonment or abuse and despair aaaaaaaall so they could finally make it into our homes, where God intended them to be. No. We are a very distant Plan B. Children are meant for their birth families, same as my biological kids were meant for mine. Adoption is one possible answer to a very real tragedy… after it has already happened, not before as the impetus for abandonment. There is genuine grief and sorrow when your biological family is disrupted by death and poverty, and our kids have endured all this and more. So when you ask my 8-year-old if he is thrilled to be in Texas, please understand that he is not. He misses his country, his language, his food, his family. Our kids came to us in the throes of grief, as well they should. Please don’t make them smile and lie to you about how happy they are to be here.

6. Please do not disappear. If I thought the waiting stage was hard, it does not even hold the barest candle to what comes after the airport. Not. The. Barest. Candle. Never have I felt so isolated and petrified. Never have I been so overwhelmed and exhausted. We need you after the airport way more than we ever needed you before. I know you’re scared of us, what with our dirty hair and wild eyes and mystery children we’re keeping behind closed doors so they don’t freak out more than they already have, but please find ways to stick around. Call. Email. Check in. Post on our Facebook walls. Send us funny cards. Keep this behavior up for longer than six days.

Here’s what we would love to hear or experience After the Airport:

1. Cook for your friends. Put together a meal calendar and recruit every person who even remotely cares about them. We didn’t cook dinners for one solid month, and folks, that may have single handedly saved my sanity. There simply are not words to describe how exhausting and overwhelming those first few weeks are, not to mention the lovely jetlag everyone came home with. And if your friends adopted domestically right up the street, this is all still true, minus the jetlag.

2. If we have them, offer to take our biological kids for an adventure or sleepover. Please believe me: their lives just got WHACKED OUT, and they need a break, but their parents can’t give them one because they are 1.) cleaning up pee and poop all day, 2.) holding screaming children, 3.) spending all their time at doctors’ offices, and 4.) falling asleep in their clothes at 8:15pm. Plus, they are in lockdown mode with the recently adopted, trying to shield them from the trauma that is Walmart.

3. Thank you for getting excited with us over our little victories. I realize it sounds like a very small deal when we tell you our kindergartener is now staying in the same room as the dog, but if you could’ve seen the epic level of freakoutedness this dog caused her for three weeks, you would understand that this is really something. When you encourage us over our incremental progress, it helps. You remind us that we ARE moving forward and these little moments are worth celebrating. If we come to you spazzing out, please remind us where we were a month ago. Force us to acknowledge their gains. Be a cheerleader for the healing process.

4. Come over one night after our kids are asleep and sit with us on our porch. Let me tell you: we are all lonely in those early weeks. We are home, home, home, home, home. Good-bye, date nights. Good-bye, GNO’s. Good-bye, spontaneous anything. Good-bye, church. Good-bye, big public outings. Good-bye, community group. Good-bye, nightlife. So please bring some community to our doorstep. Bring friendship back into our lives. Bring adult conversation and laughter. And bring an expensive bottle of wine.

5. If the shoe fits, tell adopting families how their story is affecting yours. If God has moved in you over the course of our adoption, whether before the airport or after, if you’ve made a change or a decision, if somewhere deep inside a fire was lit, tell us, because it is spiritual water on dry souls. There is nothing more encouraging than finding out God is using our families for greater kingdom work, beautiful things we would never know or see. We gather the holy moments in our hands every day, praying for eyes to see God’s presence, his purposes realized in our story. When you put more holy moments in our hands to meditate on, we are drawn deeper into the Jesus who led us here.

Here’s one last thing: As you watch us struggle and celebrate and cry and flail, we also want you to know that adoption is beautiful, and a thousand times we’ve looked at each other and said, “What if we would’ve said no?” God invited us into something monumental and lovely, and we would’ve missed endless moments of glory had we walked away. We need you during these difficult months of waiting and transitioning, but we also hope you see that we serve a faithful God who heals and actually sets the lonely in families, just like He said He would. And even through the tears and tantrums (ours), we look at our children and marvel that God counted us worthy to raise them. We are humbled. We’ve been gifted with a very holy task, and when you help us rise to the occasion, you have an inheritance in their story; your name will be counted in their legacy.

Because that day you brought us pulled pork tacos was the exact day I needed to skip dinner prep and hold my son on the couch for an hour, talking about Africa and beginning to bind up his emotional wounds. When you kidnapped me for two hours and took me to breakfast, I was at the very, very, absolute end that morning, but I came home renewed, able to greet my children after school with fresh love and patience. When you loved on my big kids and offered them sanctuary for a night, you kept the family rhythm in sync at the end of a hard week.

Thank you for being the village. You are so important.

Adoptive friends, what can you add? What has been helpful or hurtful? How has your community helped you raise your children? What do friends and family need to hear?

Words

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 07:35:00 +0000

Some of you are lucky enough to know my dad. If you fit that category, you just started smiling/laughing/shaking your head. Larry is legendary; to know him is to love him. And to marvel at his ability to wield inappropriateness and godliness at the same time. You kiss your wife with that mouth? Yes, yes he does.

My dad thought me and my siblings were the most spectacular children ever born to humans. From the time we took our first breath, we were encouraged within an inch of our lives. In the throes of teen angst but with no genuine parental grievances to moan about, we complained about Dad's long, never-ending encouragement tirades. ("Gah! It's so annoying how Dad is always affirming us and validating our passions and loving us. This house sucks!")

According to him, we were smart, almost embarrassingly gifted, our athletic prowess was Division 1 material obviously, and our collective skill sets should've been harnessed for world domination. Also? We were first-rate spellers. We could and should be varsity starters, class presidents, Most Likely to Succeed candidates, Homecoming Queens and Kings, National Merit Scholars, and award-winning break-dancers.

This was all obvious to Dad.

Also clear was this: Anyone who failed to recognize our awesomeness - teachers, Drew's 6th grade baseball coach, my 12th grade Media Arts instructor, the registrar at OBU, head hunters, colleagues, a smattering of ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, neighbors, youth pastors, arresting officers, principals - were not only imbeciles, but they were unfit for their careers and destined for personal ruin. They were, in fact, endangering civilized society. Can fresh water pertaining to your children and salt water regarding their enemies flow from the same mouth? Yes, yes it can.

What I'm trying to tell you is that I've been overvalued my entire life. My siblings and I grew up believing we were so incredibly important and special, that it wasn't until somewhere in our 20's that we realized we were just sort of medium. (Dad still refuses to swallow this pill and offers to contact my critics to "tell them a thing or two about what idiots they are." "Dad, I'm 37 years old." "Well, that doesn't make that guy any less of a fool. Fools need to be told they are fools.")

Dad is a country boy. He will be on Facebook the day Satan becomes a Christ-follower.

Say what you will about his tactics, but we grew up with a dad who had our backs, people. There was never any question where his loyalties rested. We were Club King, and he was our bouncer. Oppose us at your own risk; you will certainly pull back a nub.

Because of this, my sisters and brother and I were launched into this world loved. We grew up under the staggering weight of my parents' affirmation, and somewhere along the way, it accidentally made us secure. We never had to create enabling, pleasing personas because Dad battled injustices and taught us self-respect. We had no concept of the term passive aggressive. We didn't fall to (complete) shreds over every biting remark, because who cares what you think of me? Dad thinks I'm awesome, and he would never lie.

Along with a tangible love for Jesus, my parents gave us the gift of security - secure that we were loved and valued and precious and worthy of respect - and let me tell you, I'm not sure they could've given us anything more important.

And let me be clear: We didn't have cable, we didn't take fancy vacations, we didn't shop at the Limited. I had no idea kids my age went to Europe or had time shares. I often drove my mom's truly horrible station wagon (The Gray Ghost) to school because our family collection of Rabbits and Chevettes were all broken down. Our phone attached to the wall with a cord. We didn't consort with the famous or notorious or attend expensive concerts.

Folks, I got home perms.

We once walked outside and The Ghost was just sitting there, spontaneously on fire.

Do you know how often any of that mattered? Never. I didn't even know we didn't have money until I was an adult. What I did know is that my parents loved us; with words, with actions, with their presence. Dad covered us with encouragement in a near constant stream of words, then he lavished it after every failure or success. He spent copious amounts of time talking to us about our sports, our boyfriends/girlfriends, our clubs, our projects. Dad tried very hard to care about our stuff; before every single school dance, he told us we looked beautiful for "the prom."

It occurs to me now more than ever, as we have two children in our family now who've been wounded so deeply by words, that I have all the tools I need to become a healing parent for them. I learned the most important tricks of the trade not at an adoption conference, not between the pages of a book, but at 315 Basswood in Haysville, Kansas, growing up as Larry King's daughter.

I don't have to give my kids the motorized cars they've been begging for since arriving in America. (Thanks, All My Friends Who Own Them.) Because it's not the fancy cars that will heal. Nor must I ensure their playroom is stocked with hundreds of toys they'll play with for three days then forget because their choices are so vast. It's not the toys that will mend what is broken.

I don't have to be perfect or give them some perfectly controlled life. I don't have to wield adoptive phraseology with precision every time. I don't have to create the ideal environment where struggling is minimized and sanitized. I don't have to make up for a lifetime of their losses with a new world of unchecked materialism. I might not even need to make perfect injera.

My task is to tell my children they are beautiful and wanted, that God thought long and hard about how to create them exactly right, and the heavens burst into applause when they were born. I'll tell them that Jesus sometimes sent grown-ups away but always called the children right into his lap. I'll make sure they know being abandoned was not their fault; they are innocents in their trauma. They are good and precious and special and important. By gosh, they are first-rate spellers.

Like my dad, my job is to study Remy's artwork and act like Picasso himself would shrink in insecurity to compare his little silly drawings to hers. When Ben accomplishes the task of breathing deeply and controlling his anger, I will lavish praise on him as if he learned to split atoms. When my big kids show mercy as their moments are once again hijacked by the heavy needs of their new siblings, I will kiss their cheeks and hold them tightly and marvel at how proud I am to see so much Jesus in them.

I read this post by Christine Caine last week, and it really stuck with me.

It is the words we use that will raise our children out of the mire, healing words of love and belonging and affirmation. Similar words that God took great care to speak over us through Scripture, reminding us that even in our pain and sin, we are loved, adopted, important, valuable. It is not coming unglued over spilled drinks and lost shoes and daily mistakes, choosing not to further injure their little spirits over non-essentials.

This will never be encapsulated in one moment or even one year. It isn't wielding an adoption/parenting dialect better than the next frazzled Mama. It's thousands of ordinary sentences filled with millions of loving words spoken to our children while they live under our roofs. The collective impact of years of encouragement will imprint our children with ideas that will become so intrinsic, they will never question their truth:

You are loved.
We believe in you so much.
We are for you, always.
You belong with us.
You are valuable and important.
You are forever safe with us.

Will we raise little narcissists who think the world revolves around them and owes them a happy life? Listen, I'm not talking about neglecting discipline and allowing our cherubs to turn into miniature terrorists. Nor should we cushion every blow or clean up all their mistakes so they won't feeeeeeeeel bad. Believe me, we keep it real in the Hatmaker house. You open up a sassy mouth and you're gonna pay the piper. (When Gavin told me they were the only kids on earth who didn't get an allowance, I told him: "Listen, kid, I'm not going to pay you to live in my house. You want money? Get a job.")

But trust me, this world stands ready to criticize our children, mock their dreams, underestimate their potential, and pulverize their spirits. They have an enemy and he wants them destroyed. They will encounter antagonists and haters, and they'll be wounded by wounded people. They will get their fair share of humiliation. Our children will be betrayed and disappointed as sure as I'm sitting here. We need not worry about keeping our kids humble by withholding verbal praise or being stingy with affirmation and quick with criticism.

The world will do that for us.

Our job is to make sure our children know that no matter how messy life gets, regardless of how epically they fail, they will always find an open door at home. That family is forever, and our well of love for them will never run dry. And if along the way we accidentally make them believe they are the most gifted, hilarious, clever, wickedly talented children on the planet, well, perhaps it will just become fodder for their blogs one day, and they'll have to email us special links with instructions on how to open it because, BLAST IT, we can't figure out this newfangled technology these days on the internets and our laptops have scuff marks and dents where we banged them on the desk in frustration (hi, Dad).

Fake Family

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:48:00 +0000

The other day, I turned the corner and saw Remy straddling the banister, preparing for a leisurely slide down the stairs. (Related: This is why our banister has been pulled out of the sheetrock twice. We can't have anything nice. Our kids can find a way to destroy solid cement floors.)

Me: Remy, we don't do that. It's not safe.
Caleb: Yes we do.

Ok listen, some things have been happening around here that I feel the need to unload. Do we slide down banisters? Perhaps. And maybe my sons and their friends sometimes line the stairs with sleeping bags and surf down on boogie boards where they crash land on the pile of pillows arranged at the bottom. It's certainly not with my approval.

Um, that is not my voice. I would never condone this behavior.

I realize this video causes you alarm if your babies are all six and under or if you only have one precious cherub, but trust me, a few years and few kids later? You won't be nearly the Safety Susan you are now. You'll be all, "Oh well, it's just 22 miles away. Yall double buckle..." when you're out of seats in your car because all your kids' friends have piled in and you have to get to Schlitterbahn or die trying.

You will sell the "elbow and knee pads" in your garage sale to a mom with a preschooler.

Despite your best common sense, you will send your kid to school with a Lunchable.

You will leave the trampoline up long after the net has been torn down by your savage kids.

You will lighten up. And miraculously, your kids will still live despite the absence of your hypervigilance. (My mom didn't know where I was for approximately one-fourth of my elementary years. She saw me at dinner after I wandered home from my adventures. "Where did all those scrapes come from, Jen?" "I fell off some scaffolding at that abandoned construction site where me and Amy were hunting for scorpions." "Well, you seem fine. Set the table.")

Clearly, I'm not the hovering Mama I once was. As this picture demonstrates:

We add water to our Death Trap Trampoline to expedite the possibility of a broken femur.

But something has happened to me since the arrival of our newest Hatmakers from Ethiopia. I've taken a couple of steps backward...past caution, right through watchful, beyond fastidious, and all the way to fantasy, apparently. Conversation between me and Brandon:

J: I feel so frustrated.
B: Why?
J: We have a fresh slate with Ben and Remy. We haven't ruined them yet. This is the time to introduce our systems and chore charts and stuff. We need a marble jar for good behavior. I read about that somewhere. I really want to show them how we run a smooth, efficient home with teamwork and diligence.
B: (after five seconds of silence) What family are you talking about?
J: The Fake Family I invented in my head.
B: Uh-huh. And how's that working out for you?
J: It's awesome. I love Fake Family. Their kids wash their hands after using the bathroom every single time.
B: Because they have such organized, responsible parents?
J: Yes. And Gavin is the starting quarterback on the high school varsity team. As an eighth grader. He's that good. Mack Brown is interested; he started following me on Twitter. And in Fake Family, I'm a size four because I make better choices.
B: Wow. Fake Jen sounds awesome.
J: Really? Did I mention Fake Brandon always closes the cabinet doors after he opens them and he never complains when I ask him to "fix my iTunes" again? He is spectacular.

I had these ideas about bringing the kids home to a perfectly run household with impressive structures and systems; our food was all organic obviously, and our kids miraculously stopped fighting. In fact, after Ben and Remy arrived, there would never be another argument in our home. We would be the ideal prototype for responsible child-rearing. Our kids would track with math and science scores reported from Japan. They would certainly not become addicted to Movies on Demand or Angry Birds, because they could only earn a maximum of fifteen minutes of screen time a week after completing their required chores and "bonus exercise points" through the online job chart we complete by 6:30pm each night, after enjoying the traditional Ethiopian meal I made from scratch but before their systematic language instruction (their bedtime ritual), which would really just reinforce the conversational practice they'd enjoy with our Amharic tutor three days a week, refreshing their native tongue and instructing the rest of us as well. We'd all be pretty fluent by Halloween. (It's just because we love them so much. Don't make a big deal out of it.)

Fake Family is impressive. Let me tell you. They would sail through their post-adoption social worker visits. People would talk. You couldn't ignore their awesomeness for long. They would be invited on panels. Dr. Karyn Purvis would comment on their blogs.

But my actual family is just messing all this up, including the person typing this blog. As it turned out, Ben and Remy didn't join a perfect family; they joined a real family. Oh sure, we chased the dream of raising model children when our bio kids were tiny, but it didn't take long to release that delusion. Mainly because we weren't raising characters in books, but human children. We also accidentally discovered that we were human parents and capable of *occasional* missteps.

Our life is no prototype. If you wanted to find holes in our parenting resume, it would take you three seconds. Any critic or unsympathizer could make a quick list of our faults, hypocrisies, blind spots, and double standards (and then send them to me in a direct message...awesome). It would be so easy. We live a messy life in a messy world. There are a zillion ways we could be better. I have no idea if my kids will make the Top 10% of their graduating classes or 'Just Say No'. Will they choose organic? I feel the chances are slim; it seems certain their college pantries will be rife with Pop Tarts. If they fail half as epically as Brandon and I did as adolescents, we are in for some serious retribution.

I'm not sure when I got the idea that adoption required perfection or that there was some exacting formula that prevents grief and struggle. Maybe it was through the year and a half of daily discussions with my adoption community which: 1.) prepared me more than any other resource, 2.) encouraged, prayed, cheered, and commiserated with aplomb, and 3.) made me a teeny bit paranoid. You know when you over-talk about something, and it takes on this huge life of its own and increases your idling levels and fills your head with more ideas than you can execute, especially considering most of the advice is "before the airport" and super skewed toward other people's preferences, and it's kind of like reading those 80-pound bridal magazines that tell you no wedding is complete without pashmina shawls for the bridesmaids and a guided tour of a local museum for guests arriving early? No? Me neither.

Of course, manufactured entirely in my own brain was the notion that their lives have been so unfair and their circumstances so heart-breaking, that surely I owed it to Ben and Remy to bring them into a nearly perfect environment. I would do this so well.

As it turns out, I'm still susceptible to fatigue and discouragement. My other kids didn't kick that selfish gene. I still don't have a working laundry schedule that I stick to for more than two weeks. I fed my daughter Chick-Fil-A on her fourth day in America. My lentils don't taste right. Ben knows how to work the Apple TV by himself. All seven of us have cried in the last two months. The kids' closets are galloping toward entropy.

Ladies and gentlemen, we've had lice.

So for those of you trying to dodge the idea of adoption because your marriage is not perfect and you don't have your crap entirely together, please let me dispel the notion of "necessary impeccability." I'm learning this: Orphaned kids don't need a perfect family...they just need a loving one. You needn't be fit for display and ready for the adoption speakers' circuit.

Can you enter into the grief of a child and stay there until God heals? Do you have room on your lap for another daughter who would delight in the same "Carl Books" you read the rest of your kids? Could you direct your diligence toward becoming a healing parent, even if that just means listening and affirming and acknowledging and holding a child through the storm? Can you be miraculously, fantastically present for a child that is positive you too will disappear one day? Do you have the gumption to be oh-so-very consistent with boundaries and discipline, understanding that requiring their respect supplies them with the very security they crave in a parent who is actually in charge, freeing them up to be a kid instead of a survivor?

Then Kelly Ripa or not ("Be even more amazing!"), you can throw your hat in this ring.

I suspect one day our kids will not recall the laundry piled on our couches or every little time we blew it, but I hope they carry into adulthood the security that they were wanted, they were adored, they were cherished, and they were loved. So very loved. Parents, we might not get it all right even seven out of ten times, but failure is not a deal breaker inside the safety of a family. I pray one day we launch our kids into this world whole and healed, redeemed by the touch of their Savior and transformed simply because we loved and we stayed...imperfectly and beautifully.

Admittedly, I miss Fake Family. I loved them so much. On paper. I told Brandon:

J: I'm still holding out hope for Fake Family. I think I might be able to pull it off.
B: You put body lotion in our daughter's hair.
J: Alright. Never mind. Pass the Pringles.

After the Airport

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 09:50:00 +0000

I'm going to tell you something; a little confession, if you will. Some of you will pull your hair out and smear your faces with ashes and put all my books on eBay and quit believing in God, but I'm willing to take that risk:

I'm really, really glad all my kids are back in school.

There. I said it. The three children that I birthed and nursed and raised from scratch, and the two children we begged and cried and screeched for and fetched from Africa...all five of these kids are in school. And I am happy, so happy, happy, happy, happy, hip-hip-hooray Mary Poppins happy.

For my friends and readers who homeschool, I tip my hat and say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servants." And believe me, I have a couple of besties who paddle in that stream, and paddle it well. For some kids in some cities in some families in some districts, this is the very right thing. The end. Why people feel the need to make a fuss about how other parents decide to educate their children is beyond me. Let's live and let live, yall. For the love of Pete.

But I cannot educate my own children, people, unless I am OK with us all becoming homicidal.

Plus, we're in a nice little Bermuda triangle where our kids feed into fabulous schools with vested teachers that make me want to weep with gratitude. The language resources for my Amharic speakers is over the top, and I have a free pass to attend school each and every day, which I have exercised with zero restraint.

But this is not a post about homeschooling or public schooling. The reason I am happy my kids are in school is not because I lack the organization to educate five kids (which I do), it's not because I've chosen a career with a moderate workload (which I have), and it's not because I'm a little sloppy on details and my kids would likely graduate with a sixth-grade education (which they would).

It's because parenting right now is EXHAUSTING and the mental break is keeping me afloat.

On July 22nd we came down the escalator at the Austin airport with Remy. On August 21st we came down the same escalator with Ben. These were two of the happiest days of my life.

I am crying with joy. Remy is ready to sprint like FloJo from the screaming white people.

Insert audio of yelling and cheering. GAH, why was she so clingy?

One month later: Here comes my man and my boy. This pic makes me verclempt.

The 7 Hatmakers on the same continent. You've been warned, America.

After an arduous adoption journey, our kids were safe in our arms, tucked into their bunk beds their dad built with his own two hands, surrounded by the dearest, most sincere community we have ever known. God delivered them from poverty and abandonment back into a family, no longer alone in this big world; now wanted and loved and welcomed with great fervor.

The end.

Not.

Remy gave us about 12 hours of honeymooning until her terror burst onto the scene. Sometimes her fear is so palpable, it literally takes my breath away. New places: terror. New faces: total insecurity. Transitions: help us, Jesus. She has asked us every single day since July 22nd if she is going back to Ethiopia. Every. Single. Day. When I discovered cashews to be a winning legume for her impossible palate, I told her:

"Yay! Good job! Cashews are good for you and will help you grow big and strong!"
"Big? Ah-Rrrremy? Big? Cashews?"
"Yes!"
She pushes them away and starts crying.
Once again, I am bewildered and befuddled.
"No! No Ah-Rrremy grow big! Me big, then go back to Ethiopia! No! Dis is no!"

When a child fears that cashews will once again leave her abandoned on this earth because she will grow out of the age we might still want to parent her, you are dealing with heartbreaking fragility.

Her fear comes out as 1.) defiance, 2.) terror, and 3.) catatonic disassociation, in that order. We've been spit on, kicked, disobeyed, refused, clung to, begged for, adored, ignored, and rejected. Triggers are unpredictable. Yesterday, we entered an hour-long Armageddon because she wouldn't put her bike up. This turned into defiance and disrespect, deal breakers as we establish safe boundaries. When at long last her angry, dark face relented, and she finally uttered in the smallest voice: "I'm sorry, Mommy. I'm sorry, Daddy," the damn broke and she cried for thirty minutes, telling us over and over that we don't love her and she is going back to Africa.

Meanwhile, Ben sidled up quietly next to me as Brandon held Remy's flailing legs, and asked in a whisper: "Mom? Forever?"

Is this family forever, even with this hysterical girl? Are you forever, even though she is draining the lifeblood out of you and Dad? Am I forever, once my junk starts coming out that I'm holding in? Are you forever for her? For me? Should I be worried that you'll only put up with this level of chaos for so long?

God love them.

We are parenting damaged, traumatized children; don't let the pictures fool you. We're in the weeds. Every minute is on; there is no off. We've arrived late, cancelled altogether, hunkered down in therapy mode, missed appointments, failed to answer hundreds of emails in a timely manner, left voicemails unlistened to, texts unread, we've restructured, regrouped, replanned, reorganized, we've punted and called audibles, we've left the bigs on their own, hoping they are functioning well on auto-pilot after a lifetime of healthy stability, and sometimes, we put "Tangled" on for the eleventh time and cry in the bathroom.

We are exhausted beyond measure.

I know what you're thinking: You asked for this. Yes we did. And we'd ask for it again, with full disclosure and foreknowledge. We would. We would say yes to adoption, to Ben, to Remy. We would do it all over again. We might do it all over again in the future.

That does not mean we are not exhausted.

I know what else you might be thinking: Are you trying to scare people away from adoption? Because this is pretty good propaganda for turning a blind eye to this mess. No I'm not. While adoption is clearly not the answer for the 170 million orphans on earth, it is one answer, and I'll go to the grave begging more people to open their homes and minds and hearts to abandoned children who are praying for a Mom and Dad and a God who might still see them.

But Brandon and I decided some time ago to go at this honestly, with truthful words and actual experiences that might encourage the weary heart or battle some of the fluffy, damaging semi-truths about adopting. Because let me tell you something: If you are intrigued by the idea of adoption, with the crescendoing storyine and happy airport pictures and the sigh-inducing family portrait with the different skin colors and the feely-feel good parts of the narrative, please find another way to see God's kingdom come.

You cannot just be into adoption to adopt; you have to be into parenting.

And it is hard, hard, intentional, laborious work. Children who have been abused, abandoned, neglected, given away, given up, and left alone are shaken so deeply, so intrinsically, they absolutely require parents who are willing to wholly invest in their healing; through the screaming, the fits, the anger, the shame, the entitlement, the bed-wetting, the spitting, the rejection, the bone-chilling fear. Parents who are willing to become the safe place, the Forever these children hope for but are too terrified to believe in just yet.

But "yet" is a powerful word in the context of faith, if we are indeed to believe in the unseen and hope for what has not materialized.

I followed a God into this story who heals and redeems, who restores wasted years and mends broken places. This God specializes in the Destroyed. I've seen it. I've been a part of it. I have His ancient Word that tells of it. I love a Jesus who made reconciliation his whole mission. My children will not remain broken. They are loved by too good a Savior. I will not remain exhausted and spent. I am loved by too merciful a Father.

So today, I'm writing for you who are somewhere "after the airport." The big moment is over and you are living in the aftermath when the collective grief or euphoria has passed. You lost a parent, a sibling, a friend, a child. The experience mobilized every single human being who loves you, and they rallied, gathered, carried you. And now it's three months later on a random Tuesday, and the sting has worn off for everyone else, and you are left in your sorrow.

I'm writing for those of you who had the oh-so-wanted baby after the cheers and showers and Facebook fervor, and now you're struggling with a depression so dark and deep, you are afraid to say it out loud. To you who moved across the country in obedience - you left your family, church, community, your jobs - and now the headline has passed and you are lonely and unanchored. For my friends who've brought their adopted children home and the media frenzy has died down, and you are holding a screaming toddler, a fragile kindergartener, an angry teen, trying to catch your breath and make it through the day without bawling while everyone else has gone back to their regularly scheduled programs...I'm with you today.

More importantly, God is with you today. He remains in the chaos long after it has lost its shine. When the delivered meals have stopped and the attention has waned, Jesus remains. He sticks with us long after it is convenient or interesting. If you feel alone today in your new normal, would you please receive this bit of beauty: this simple Scripture recited billions of times throughout the ages, perhaps without the poetry of David or precision of Paul, but with enough truth to sustain the weariest traveler:

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you" (Deut. 31:6).

He will never leave.

Never forsake.

Never.

For my readers who love someone living "after the airport," the big moment - be it a blessed high or a devastating low - is never the completion. The grief and struggle, the work and effort, the healing and restoring comes later. Will you call your friend who lost her mom to cancer five months ago? Will you check in on your friends who adopted this spring? Email your neighbor who took a big risk and moved or changed jobs or quit to stay home. For the love of Moses, do you have a friend who stepped out and started a church last year? Bring him a lasagna and do not be alarmed if he sobs into his french bread.

Trust me when I tell you that although we are all having hilarious moments like this:

And precious moments like this:

...we are still in the thick of hard, exhausting work, so if you ask me if these are the happiest days of my life (which a ton of you have), and my eyes kind of glaze over and I say through a tight-lipped smile like a robot, "Yes. Sure. Of course. This is my dream life"...I am lying. I am lying so you won't feel uncomfortable when I tell you, "Actually, I haven't had a shower in three days, I lost my temper with my uncontrollable daughter this morning and had to walk outside, I'm constantly cleaning up pee because uncircumcised tee-tee goes sideways onto walls, and sometimes when my two littles are asleep and we're downstairs with the original three kids who are so stable and healthy and easy, it creates a nostalgia so intense, I think I might perish. But enough about me. How are you?"

But that would be weird. So I say, "Yes. I am so happy."

If you are living "after the airport," how I wish I could transplant my community into your life; friends who have loved us so completely and exhaustively, I could weep just thinking about it. Maybe one of the most brilliant ways God "never leaves us" and "never forsakes us" is through the love of each other. Maybe He knew that receiving love from people with skin on is the most excellent way, so He gave us an entire set of Scriptures founded upon community and sacrificial love for one another. I guess He realized that if we obeyed, if we became more like His Son, then no one would ever want for mercy when their chips were down. No one. Good plan.

Oh let us be a community who loves each other well. Because someone is always struggling through the "after the airport" phase, when the chords of human kindness become a lifeline of salvation. Let us watch for the struggling members of our tribe, faking it through sarcasm or self-deprecation or a cheerfully false report. May we refuse to let someone get swallowed up in isolation, drowning in grief or difficulties that seem too heavy to let anyone else carry. Let's live this big, beautiful Life together, rescuing each other from the brink and exposing the unending compassion of our Jesus who called us to this high level of community; past the romantic beginnings, through the messy and mundane middles, and all the way to the depths.

I'm Not Done Yet

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Please sit down, because I am about to reveal something monumental, perhaps never before seen. With Remy in our home the last four weeks, Ben's miraculous Embassy clearance, and Brandon's spectacular reunion with him yesterday, I've had so many, many things to say, things I wanted to write through, things I wanted to share and show...

But no words.

Contain your shock. It won't last. It's some sort of temporary disorder, as I've never been short on words since the day some woman handed my mom the book, "Parenting the Strong-Willed Child" when I was two-years-old.

But the things I have to say are so deep and personal, so profound and overwhelming and constant, I've not been able to wrestle one thought to the ground long enough to write about it. My heart is Purgatory and these ideas are all stuck there, somewhere between the actual seconds they happened and the coherent, developed, processed account of them later. I'm riding the fence between wrangling deep, life-changing observations out of this season and - let's just be real - surviving until the next hour.

So I'm lassoing one idea that keeps circulating through my thoughts in between fetching Remy her thirty-eighth granola bar of the day and bribing her to bed with the promise of Chick-Fil-A fries. (My No-Compromise Organic Food Plan is shoved in the corner, beaten down and bloody, looking at me with eyes that clearly communicate: "Really? Flax seed over Cheezits? And you thought that dog would hunt? Idiot.)

This adoption has been a long journey for us, with lots of unexpected turns. To be sure, other families have endured much longer, much worse. Different countries have programs that run upwards of ten years. Other parents have lost savings accounts, friends, years, referrals, children. We've read stories that absolutely drained the blood from our faces.

So ours is certainly not the worst story, but it is ours, and it's the only one we have to tell.

As I look back over the last year and a half, I see a rhythm between God, our leader, and us, his clueless followers. The tune changed as the story unfolded, but the rhythm stayed the same.

It started after God made it *crystal clear* that we were to adopt two children. We applied for two kids. We got approved for two kids. We planned for two kids. We prepared our bio children for two kids. We told everyone we were adopting two kids.

And then we got our referral. For one girl.

Our referral call. This is not how parents' faces are supposed to look on this happy day.

Yes, this girl was beautiful. Yes, she was the perfect age for our family. Yes, we died over her shy smile (that was a clear fake out). Yes, her story broke our hearts and reminded us why we decided to adopt older children in the first place.

But where was our second child?? We were positive about this one. We couldn't have missed God's leadership on the two-kid agenda; it was one of those ridiculously clear moments where you either respond obediently or prepare to be immediately struck with cholera.

So this rhythm emerged:

"God, we're confused."
And he answered, "I'm not done yet."

As we begged for clarity and tried to decide if we should reject this referral out of sheer blind obedience, God nudged us toward the same darling boy we'd been eyeing on the Waiting Children's List. The one I had emailed our family coordinator about three times. The one she told me we'd have to get special approval for. The one with the 1000-watt smile, on a waiting list for his crime of being 7 years-old.

God reminded us, "Yes I said two, but I never said they'd be related. Go fight for that boy." Well, listen lambs, God doesn't tell me to fight for something lightly. Do I need to reference "The Strong Willed Child" observation again? Fight? Oh, I'll fight alright. What? I need to explain in writing why this placement makes sense for our family? A FIGHT WITH WORDS?? Bless the poor receiver of the footnoted dissertation I sent. And the phone calls I made. And the passionate plea (harassment) I unleashed. And just like that, we got our boy.

This was Ben's WCL picture. Please note the Run DMC shirt. Destiny brought us together.

So three cheers! God really had a plan; an unconventional plan that required a half-crazed Mama who would enter the ring and use words and persuasion to win a referral. (My little eye spies some typecasting.) We had not one but two kids after all! And they happened to be the two cutest kids in the whole country, which we considered our prize for actually completing the 700,000 page dossier, which - let's get serious - was spearheaded by moi, and if you remember my bent toward details, well, this is really something noteworthy and please act impressed because (allegedly) I cannot remember to put gas in my car, yet I pulled off a completed dossier in three months including multiple check lists and a 50-pound page-protected binder that I would've rescued from a burning house before my three children.

This was the hot mess AWAA sent me in 98 attachments. "Here. Do this." Tra la la.

Instead of getting overwhelmed like usual, I got awesome.

Fast forward to March 10th, that blessed court date. Now understand that I had already informed God that I didn't want to be "one of those families." The sad, sorry folks who didn't pass and had all the troubles and waded through messy bureaucratic drivel and watched as everyone else passed them like they were going in reverse. The ones that clogged up the Facebook feed with bad news and had to answer the same questions twenty times a day about any movement? and who seemed like they had lost the will to live.

I mean, I thought I had made that clear.

So when Remy passed that very day like she was just taking a leisurely stroll through Central Park on holiday - exactly how I told God to work it out - we were devastated when Ben didn't pass. Devastated. And the rhythm repeated:

"God, we're confused."
"I'm not done yet."

We'd seen other families who didn't pass court get their clearance within a week or two, so we naturally assumed our happy phone call was coming any day now. Remy was submitted for Embassy. Any day now. One month. Any day now. The court asked for additional documents on Ben. Any day now. Remy was cleared for travel in April. Any day now. We turned in some other official decrees. Any day now. Two months. Any day now. Three months. Please, God. Please. Any day now. "It doesn't look good for this case." Any day now. Crying, begging, pleading, cursing. Any day now. Four months. No. No.

"God, we're confused."
"I'm not done yet."

Let me be fair: When I recount our line as "God, we're confused," that sounds tame, almost like a little old grandma who got lost at the corner of 5th and Lamar until a kindly police officer asked if he could help her and she chuckled and shook her head and said, "Well I guess I got a little confused!" and they shared a knowing laugh about who can figure out all these confounded streets down here? and he pointed her west and she made it to her destination just in time for the quilting guild.

When we said "we're confused", it involved crying and wailing and days when I couldn't get out of bed. It included a string of months where, I swear to you, time stood still. I sobbed over other people's happy adoption news as I typed nice words on their Facebook pages. It included a phone call from my mother-in-law after my daughter told her, "I'm worried about my mom." My hair started falling out in clumps and my fingernails peeled off in layers. I lashed out at Brandon and my kids and Jesus on bad days; on worse days, I wondered aloud if God had any control at all over this chaotic, broken world. I doubted his invervention and questioned his sovereignty.

So yeah, that's what I mean by "confused."

And then we got this: "We're getting a rejection letter for Beniam's adoption, and we think you should consider coming to get Remy." No. No. How could this possibly be our situation? How? We were the compassionate mother who refused to split the baby in half even if it meant separation from us. How could we go back to Ethiopia and fly away with just one of them? How could we break our son's heart like that? How could God possibly be in this? Is he just mean? Has he forgotten us? Has he forgotten Ben? This is not the story we signed on for. This chapter stinks. I'm starting to hate this book.

"God, we're confused."
"I'm not done yet."

In the dead of night as I sobbed into my pillow, begging God to comfort our son as we prepared to travel for Remy, he delivered "Love Ben" fully developed into my mind. And if you're the believing type who buys the "God works all things for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose" stuff, then you might not be surprised to hear that we witnessed hundreds of moments of glory through Love Ben.

Hundreds.

Like the 80-year-old outspoken racist who set his alarm for 1:00am to pray for Beniam at the start of the Ethiopian work day.

Like the multiple emails I got from adopted adults who were prompted to reconcile with birth parents, deal with decades-old wounds, and find peace.

Like the birth mother whose heart God healed after giving up her son 17 years ago.

Like the entire church who highlighted Ben's story and set up a Love Ben Photo Booth after both services.

Like the college friend who told me she was praying again for the first time in 20 years.

Like the bundles of you who emailed to say you've decided to adopt.

Like the mamas and daddies who taught their children about orphans and God's mercy and used Ben's little face as a tangible tool.

Please believe me, these could go on and on. Rays of God's light kept bursting through the dark. Just when I though my heart would expire, I'd get an email that said, "I told Ben's story at the camp we're running for foster kids, and they broke out in spontaneous prayer and singing for God to rescue him."

Evidently God can wrestle glory out of the hard parts of the story.

Ben passed court the week before we traveled to get Remy, but our agency prepared us for egregious delays and possible litigation at the Embassy stage because of his rejection letter (I assure you, this had nothing to do with his orphan status). So Brandon and I prepared for a fight. We threw down fighting words. We said stuff like, "What happens in fight club stays in fight club!" We kicked some chairs over and threw gang signs. We were all, "WHATEVER, HATERS! You messed with the wrong peeps!" It was all super aggressive with loads of swagger.

Then we flew to Ethiopia. And held our son while he threw up and sobbed in our laps and clung to our necks, as we drove away with Remy, his only family on the same continent. And all the bravado disappeared into sorrow. I cried for 24 hours without stopping.

"We're so confused, God."
"I'm not done yet."

Are you sure, God? Because I'm pretty convinced all our hearts are broken. Is there work left to be done? Is there something we can't see? Would you please just assure us that you haven't forgotten Ben and our family? Can we trust you to make this beautiful? Because it doesn't feel beautiful. It feels aching and devastating and horribly unjust. We believe you but we can't see.

But let it be said that God is still in the miracle business. As our agency prepared to submit Ben for Embassy, they were asked to try to secure his approval letter one last time, attempting to avoid the cluster ahead of us without it. Just as a courtesy, our agency went back to the government office, the same one who refused to write the letter for five months, in an effort I dubbed "the biggest waste of time on planet earth." They'd made their position clear on Ben's case, and had already died on this hill if you will. So whatever. Thanks for this great idea, Embassy. Maybe they can suck another five months of our lives away.

They wrote it.

SHUT UP. Yes they did. They wrote it on a Thursday, and Ben was submitted for Embassy the very next day. With all his paperwork intact. Every last piece of paper. They cleared him for travel four business days later on Thursday, and Brandon got on a plane three days later. Last Sunday.

This is what God does.

When God said he wasn't done yet, he just wasn't done yet. He wasn't speaking in code. It wasn't a trick. The story was still in the middle, but I wanted to flip ahead to the end, past the conflict and struggle and straight to the happy ending. As Keeper of the Story, God knew the whole plot. He promised us way back that he planned on seeing these two children all they way from brokenness and abandonment to our home in Texas, an unlikely journey if ever there was one. And at the risk of whitewashing the difficult middle, we have one of them here and the other will be here Sunday, so he was faithful.

God doesn't promise us a clean middle part of the story. He never said we wouldn't encounter antagonists and drama and surprise twists and heartbreak. We weren't assured a G-rated plot where good feelings are peddled and no one dies or leaves or fails or waits. God promised things like healing and restoration and redemption. Which implies there will be injuries and broken relationships and losses. When he speaks of beauty from ashes, he seems to know there will be actual ashes to resurrect beauty from.

If you are confused right now, if your story isn't going the way you thought, or if you're tangled up in the messy middle where hope is deferred, dear reader, it could just be that God isn't done yet. Your story is not finished. Every hero and heroine must wade through the conflict to get to the end, and you can trust God because he is good. If you have nothing else to cling to, remember this: God is good. He loves goodness and justice. He heals and redeems. He is on the side of love and beauty. He is for you. He is never against you. You may be against you, other people may be against you, but God is not against you.

It is okay to be confused; I'm afraid that is our lot as finite creatures dealing with an infinite God. Some of God's best heros were confused in their subplots. But I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on. Because God is good and he is for goodness.

And he just isn't done yet.

MOPS Session Notes: Letting Go

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 17:20:00 +0000

Last Friday, I woke up at 3:30am, caught the earliest flight to Nashville, hung out with a few thousand crazy women, taught for one hour, and flew home. It was the 2011 MOPS Convention, and trust me, this thing is always a good time. They brought in Max Lucado, Mandisa, Travis Cottrell, Lisa Harper, Jon Acuff, Steven Curtis Chapman, Kathi Lipp, and a bunch of other rock stars this year. I slid in and pretended like I had any business being there.

Women kept saying, "We can't believe you're here! How do you feel about being here?? Was it so hard to leave? With Remy at home??" And after deciding to say the true thing instead of the nice thing, I answered: "It feels awesome."

Whatever. It did.

Assuming we would bring home our two new darlings this SPRING, I basically took this year off from traveling and teaching. If you would've told me in February that we would bring only one kid home at the end of July, I would've punched you in the spleen. So I haven't taught this year at all, and lawd have mercy, I've missed it.

Of course, I laid awake the night before, fretting like I often do before a talk. Here I was headed to MOPS Convention, where all the mamas are measuring their days in poop blowouts and mourning the loss of peeing in private, and rather than bring a helpful message on how to just get through the freaking day, I'm bringing a discussion on our postmodern children and how to let them fail and maybe go to Africa instead of college.

You can see why I'm so popular.

But even after sweating it out pre-session in the bathroom (for 20 minutes), fussing over my notes and wondering for the thousandth time why God always makes me talk about these things when other speakers get to talk about fun things, I remembered after the session why this sort of stuff is my deal. When the women flood the book table with tears and stories and that look on their faces, and they nod and grab me by the hands and say:

Yes.
I get it.
This is how I've been feeling.
This is what my husband says.
This is what my kids say.
I was just having this conversation.
I've been trying to explain this.
My heart is saying there has got to be more.
This is my tension.

Then I remember: God is doing something big and deep and important in the body of Christ right now, and I am but one tiny little voice joining a chorus. The Holy Spirit is moving and messing a lot of us up right now, and I may have the words, but thousands, millions of us are having the same feelings.

So as promised, I'm posting all my "notes" from my session, a term I'm using loosely here since I went through my notes and expanded/decoded all the cryptic chicken scratch and basically transcribed the entire hour+ talk. I was going to include just the modern/postmodern discussion, but then I couldn't find a good stopping place and then all of a sudden I was at the end.

I would love to hear your input, folks, because this is stuff we better take seriously as parents and Christ-followers. We are raising a different generation than the one we grew up in. The tension many of us carry with the gospel and the church and authority in general is undoubtedly the theme song of our kids' generation, and they are headed into the next phase of culture, with or without us. Let's make sure it is "with."

Without further ado...the quantity of notes I'm about to post is ridiculous, the formatting is all jacked, and if you actually get through this and still have something coherent to add at the end, I will give you a cash prize.

Letting Go

Life is messy. Parenting is messy. Kids are messy. The Christian life is messy. And that is ok.
• Our worst enemy as moms is trying to maintain the illusion of control. And not just because it’s hard to keep that up, but because it actually sabotages our own and our kids’ spiritual development.
o It substitutes some “ideal, dream life” for the one we actually see in Scripture, which is laced with adventure and risk and failure and sacrifice and transparency.
o The whole concept of “letting go” begins in our hearts and minds. The practical application comes second, not first. This is something I wish I’d heard when my kids were babies. I think I would’ve found a lot of freedom I craved in those early years
o The time to define your parenting philosophy is now.

Defining characteristics of our kids’ generation:
• We are standing on the fault line of a huge paradigm shift in our culture, and it is a transition from one worldview to another. Most of us have a foot in both.
• Not an endorsement or a criticism - both views have the fingerprint of God in them…neutral information, but this is the world our kids are growing up in, so it is essential to our discussion of parenting. We can’t parent what we don’t understand.

BOIL THIS WAY DOWN, a total reductionist explanation:

Modern thought was the driving worldview for the last 3 centuries: Birthed through the Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, modern invention, opened up “The Age of Reason”:
• Marked by: rational linear thinking, pragmatic thought, science, education, dogmatism, individualism, fundamentalism and absolute truth, authority was unquestioned and respected…emphasis on the individual man’s capabilities, logic, and knowledge
o Modern soundbyte: “I have all the answers, and so can you.”
o Affected how the Christian life was interpreted: faith was proved through factual research (systematic theology classes abounded), apologetics was the primary evangelical tool, come to Christ as a logical, measurable decision (I walked the aisle when I was nine…)
• Christianity was tightly organized around gaining biblical knowledge -“discipleship”
o Modern thought affected Christian parenting:
• The drive to control our environment, plus black-and-white thinking created a very one-way relationship btw parents and kids:
• I am the authority. The end. That is all that should matter to you.
• The rhythm of family life was not a discussion or a group process
• “The way things are” and “the way we think and believe” was pretty much set by the parents, and questions weren’t encouraged.

Postmodern thought is the prevalent mindset/worldview of people today, specifically our kids. So love it or hate it or ignore it, this is the world our kids will grow up in and marry and have children and discover Jesus, so we owe it to them to take a careful look at what it is and be careful and humble learners:
• Marked by: spirituality, experience, community, betterment of the world, justice, creativity, relative truth, environmentalism, globalism, deconstruction/skepticism, and authenticity
o Postmodern soundbyte: “I don’t have all the answers, and neither do you.”
• Our kids are part of a postmodern generation who is highly skeptical of authority and aren’t going to believe or do something because of tradition
o They’ve been let down by parents, government, spiritual leaders…
o They are going to understand God through story and community and justice, not apologetics and dogmatic theology.
• Most churches are still operating out of a modern mindset, and you’ll notice that teens and young adults are FLOODING out of the church.
• PM’s have a genuine distrust of organized religion and perceive it to be arrogant and consumer-obsessed.
• They will respond to parenting marked by humility and authenticity, not control and power.
o They will be moved by how we live for Jesus far more than what we say about him.
o They want to experience the rich, meaningful Jesus…not be entertained or impressed.
o Consumerism to the neglect of a suffering world will turn our kids off. If we want to bring them deeper in the heart of Jesus, we are going to have to care about the people Jesus cared about.
o Our deeds will matter far more than our creed. PM’s want authenticity above all else, so empty words have no chance.
• We must consider this paradigm shift, because the words we’ve puppeted for years have lost their meaning and will be mostly ineffective with our kids.
o We can try to shove a square peg in a round hole, but maybe we should be willing to learn about this postmodern generation, let go a little here and parent the kids we have, not the kids we were.
o Bottom line: Knowing they WILL EVENTUALLY buck dogmatic authority and hyper-controlling Mamas, we have to parent our kids wisely, first through the grid of the gospel and second through the grid of their culture.

Phase 2: Letting go of some old dreams for our kids that are not only unbiblical, but they will rob our children of their true life’s work.
How can we unhinge our kids from the dream this world wants to sell them and attach them securely to God’s dream for their lives? Jesus made his dream for us very clear, and he called it “the kingdom.”
What is the kingdom?
• Jesus described the kingdom constantly, in sort of cryptic ways:
o It’s a new way of living, like a hidden treasure, like yeast changing the dough, it belongs to the poor and meek and the humble and children, it is precious and surprising, the arrogant can’t even recognize it in front of their faces, the lower you are, the easier the kingdom is to embrace
• “kingdom” = “dream”…Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven = God, may all your dreams for this planet come true.
o God has dreams for us: salvation, mission, redemption, community…
o God has dreams for this earth: no more hunger, healed families, healed land, justice, His glory…
• This is the dream we want to plant deeply into our children’s hearts.
• What dream are we giving them? Most of us are imprinting our kids with the American Dream
o Most of our parenting choices, goals, efforts are geared toward their success, happiness, security, comfort, and prosperity
o We sprinkle Jesus in there but not enough to alter their entire life’s course– more like a system for acting good
• We take our kids’ lives and add Jesus to it; don’t start with Jesus’ kingdom and process our kids lives through it. True biblical dreams for our kids are so rare:
• How many of us are dreaming that our kids will live among the poor one day? Or foster a bunch of kids? Or spend their lives on justice? Or love Jesus to the exclusion of every normal sounding achievement?

o This old way is not holding.
• We are not making disciples. The postmodern generation is rejecting the church in record numbers.
• Our kids are not going to be afraid of risk and sacrifice like we are, and they are unwilling to turn a blind eye to the brokenness of the world, so if the dream we teach them is about gaining the treasures of this world while behaving and tithing, that is not inspiring enough to keep their loyalty.
o Our goal is not to get them to behave well; our goal is to teach them to love Jesus in the most reckless, single-minded way.
• I have a daughter telling me she might bow out of college for awhile to live in Africa.
• I have a son who can’t stand children’s church because he cannot see what the silly songs and videos and craft projects have to do with the Jesus he knows from the Bible. 9 years old.
• A couple of months ago, our teenagers from church slept on the streets downtown for an entire weekend to identify with the homeless and walk a day in their shoes.
• Are we willing to get ok with this? Because this is the heartbeat of the next generation, WITH OR WITHOUT US.

• We love Romans 8:28 for our kids, but do we actually understand the very next verse?
o Being “conformed into the image of Jesus” is not a pretty process, because our kids are born into sin and God has messy, real work to do to transform them into disciples.
• This process involves sacrifice and loss and struggle and failure and courage and maybe even danger and cultivating a single-minded obsession with the kingdom.
• They may embarrass us or disappoint us or scare us as they wrestle with God, but can we see his redemptive hand in their lives even then?
• When have we grown the most? Changed the deepest? STRUGGLE. Failure. Loss. Risky obedience. Messy relationship mending.
• Our kids are the same. Our job is not to shield them from everything hard, but to parent them through it with wisdom and discernment.
• We should not pull our kids completely out of this culture in some sort of parallel Christian universe, but teach them to navigate the real world with grace and conviction.
o This requires a gradual process of letting go, so our kids can actually live a real life with real people and real problems and discover the real God who shows up there.

What do we do???

There are some postmodern ideals that line up nicely with the kingdom, and if we want to raise children who love Jesus passionately and pour their lives out for his kingdom, we need to capitalize on them.

1.) PM’s are wildly attracted to those who love the unlovely and care about the poor.
a. Guess who else is into that? Jesus. He’s obsessed.
b. Want to show your children the Jesus they’ll follow for life? Love broken, poor, marginalized people. Love them like crazy.
i. Your attention to the poor and unlovely will go a million miles further with your kids than checking off a devotional every night.
ii. Giving you permission to pull out of some Christian program to make space for actual ministry, particularly to the marginalized (Do we really need to serve the saved any more?)
c. Have littles? This can fit into your life.
i. Open your home, take sandwiches to the homeless in your city one afternoon, connect with foster kids and families, sponsor international kids, send care packages to orphanages, let your kids see you hug necks and kiss cheeks and pray with hurting people and welcome them into your life.
ii. Pepper your language and prayers with words about people at the bottom.
iii. Make tangible financial sacrifices YOUR KIDS CAN SEE and reallocate that money to the most desperate people you can find.
1. You cannot put a price on this sort of discipleship.
2. Be warned: this is transformative for you too.

2.) PM kids will respond to authenticity and honesty and genuine parents, as opposed to a very controlling, dogmatic appearance-based approach.
a. Don’t hear me say we should all be loosey-goosey, hippie-dippy parents who have no rules and just live by their feeeeeeeelings.
i. We are still responsible for leading our children in the ways of Jesus, but our kids will be watching for transparency…I cannot tell you how much this will matter.
b. This gets real tangled up with how we want people to think of us.
i. We’re uncomfortable with failure; ours and certainly our kids. Our instincts tell us to protect our image to a watching world as moms who are doing everything right and whose kids are always happy and well-behaved
ii. This creates bondage, because in the name of measuring up, we’re doing our kids a real disservice by robbing them of the messiness that is the actual Christian life and preparing them for an unreal world where sin and problems are hidden away and only accomplishments are paraded
1. Bible is clear: Hiding produces shame.
2. Shame sometimes prevents bad behavior, but it doesn’t bring life or freedom or grace

c. False or unrealistic expectations can destroy a healthy family.
i. Some of you didn’t expect what you have (more babies by now, less babies by now, difficult child, child with special needs, job situation you don’t want, you want to be home, you want to be back at work….)
1. Let go of what you expected, and embrace what you have
a. The tug of war between expected and actual is what kills the spirit.
ii. God does his best work in reality. That gap between expected and actual is where grace takes over.
1. Tell your kids: It’s ok to mess up. I don’t expect you to be perfect and I will not be a perfect parent. Say those words, and you’ll create a house of grace.
2. Let them risk something and fail…even if you knew they would.
3. Then teach them what to do with failure: this will serve them the rest of their lives: we apologize, we try again, we try a different way, we learn from it, we don’t regret every mistake.
4. Say “I’m sorry” often and sincerely. Accept your kids’ apologies.
5. Let them enter a hard or challenging or difficult relationship with your guidance….you do the same and let your kids watch you navigate it with grace and truth.
6. Help your kids make amends for their mistakes without shaming or humiliating them. Act proud of how they respond to failure, not just when they get things right the first time.
a. They’ll learn that they can mess up, and no one will die.

d. Imagine your role as a coach rather than a dictator; this perspective will help our kids move from dependence to independence, and it eliminates the controlling approach we know our kids will rebel against.
i. Shift in thinking: “What do you want to accomplish?” and guide them into making their own decisions on how to get there.
ii. A coach asks good questions: What would it look like if…?
iii. Keep their goals in front of them, and shut down the lecture circuit.
iv. Speak of God’s plan for their lives from the time they are in diapers:
1. “Well done, good and faithful servant.” What would ‘well done’ look like here? What would servanthood look like here?

3.) Trust God that he is playing a crucial role in our kids’ lives, and we are just one piece of their story; we can fail and make all sorts of heinous mistakes, and God is still sovereign over our children. We are not responsible for controlling every minute detail of their lives.
a. Our authority over them is only the first small fraction of their timeline, but God’s leadership lasts their entire lives. We better get them properly introduced.
i. Let’s teach our kids to love Jesus, not a set of rules. We should be talking about his character and love and passion and heroics as much as we are talking about biblical behaviors.
b. As we consider the scary concept of letting them go, hear this: Our kids will not get lost in culture if they have experienced the dynamic, loving, radical Jesus.
i. If they know him in a life-changing way, they will learn to engage culture as a change agent and advocate without getting tainted by its influence.
ii. This is how God designed the kingdom. He raises up disciples and releases them on the planet.
1. There is no prototype for this. Your kids don’t have to fit an image or a mold or follow a specific script and neither do you.
2. God has always allowed every sort of personality and quirk and unlikely disciple into the family.
c. Believe it or not, the kids who go to Sunday School and Awanas and don’t drink in high school and go to college and vote Republican and keep everything between the lines are not a discipleship-prototype. Just let go of that notion.
i. There are actually all sorts of radical, unconventional pathways in the kingdom.
1. It’s made up of artists and dreamers and rapscallions and risk-takers and strange birds and dark horses and redeemed screw-ups and even suburban moms.
2. Do not fear if you or your family or your child colors outside the lines or wanders down unlikely roads or zigs left when everyone else zigs right, because if they love Jesus and contend for his glory in their few days on this earth, then they will indeed hear one day, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

By Book and By Touch

Jen Hatmaker — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:38:00 +0000

We've had Remy home for one week. Much has gone down in 168 hours. Some of it has been awesome. Some has been precious. Some hilarious. Some of it has made me consider meth.

Brandon and I are engaging a dance between two approaches. We are learning to discern the moments that require parenting by the book from those that call for parenting by touch. If we lean too far one way, we could end up with a little brown robot. Too far the other way, and we might produce a serial killer.

I already mentioned our first category of by-touch parenting, which pulled the sister and brothers deeper into the process than is often recommended. We've yet to regret this, even when Remy cried for Caleb from her Time Out perch, correctly identifying the softest target in the house to spring her from her prison.

She's no dummy.

But even for a free-spirit like me, other things are by the book, and by "the book" I mean "The Connected Child," my adoption bible, among others. For instance, we've had some family and a couple of friends in the house for little bits of time this week, and we watched with fascination as Remy regressed. Besides amping up to Level 10 Hyperactivity and asking to eat every twelve minutes, in place of all the words and phrases she learned this week, she substituted the oh-so-very-annoying phrase "ba-ba-ba" instead:

Pointing at (fill in the blank): "Bababa."
Asking for yet another granola bar: "Bababa."
Speaking to me: "Bababa." (What the freak, kid?? What happened to "Mommy"??)

I could literally see her anxiety coming out sideways. Who are these people? Are they taking me? Are they replacing me? Is this yet another chapter? And - predictably - shall I start charming them too in case they are my new people and I must win them over?

So we're going back to parenting this one by the book: a closed-door policy for a bit longer.

Sidebar: I ABSOLUTELY understand if you think we are overreacting. I remember thinking the exact same thing when I read about adoptive parents pulling the reins tight. "Good grief! Lighten up, spazoids! She's just ______ (being four, being silly, being naughty, being a kid)."

But now that I am learning my own daughter's nuances, I see that the babbling, the hyperactivity, the aggression, the food insecurity, the extreme affection...these are not adorable quirks; they are red flags. They reek of anxiety and uncertainty, especially in contrast to her progression during the rest of the week. They tell me: "I feel nervous and unsure, so I am going to act a little crazy and hope it's cute or charming or hilarious enough to keep me in safe territory."

By the book it is.

Other issues we are parenting by touch. We are splitting the fence between parenting trauma and parenting drama. (This is ALL parenting, is it not? When loved, adored, attended-to Gavin was six, he told me, "I feel like I'm only getting 1% of the attention in this house." The books may have called for some sort of hippy, lovey-dovey answer, but my bull radar stepped in first. My by-touch response: "Seriously? Are you kidding me with this? You're about to get 100% of the attention, and you are going to hate it, kid.")

For example, yes, Remy has endured abandonment, and she has suffered more in her five years than I have in my entire life, but she can also wield some DRAMA, and guess what, lambs? Mama don't play like that.

Notably, bedtime. The very nanosecond we start the routine, she says, "Mommy? Ah-sleep-ah-no. Ah-sleep-ah-no" while wagging her finger and feigning sobs that miraculously have no actual tears.

Let me insert some dialect commentary: Remy's Amharic sounding English (Amharish? Englaric?) adds lots of consonants where they don't belong. Specifically, "ah" in front or after a word, like a little Italian.

Ah-Remy
Syd-ah-ney.
Ah-sleep-ah-no.
Dis is ah-no. (Applied to 98% of food options.)

And most notably, the lesson we reteach hourly, complete with soft hand gesture down the side of her face as a cue: "Gentle." As in, "Remy, be gentle with the dog." "Be gentle with Gavin." "Be gentle with the book." "Be gentle with your words."

Or as she says it: Gen-ah-tle.

Genital hands.

So when the fake tears start, I watch for legit red flags, find only thespian-worthy staging, and I basically call BS. Heaven as my witness, when I firm up and shut down the melodrama and resist the hysterics, she finally bursts out laughing, gives up the ruse, and says, "OK! Good-ah-night, Mommy!" She then falls asleep immediately, and - don't hate - slept until 9:36 a.m. today.

By touch.

But back to parenting by the book. Adopting 101 instructs (demands) that parents keep their children connected to their country. It is basically inferred that if you do a poor job of keeping their culture alive in your home, you will contract scabies and lose your salvation.

So while Gavin and Sydney were taking a much deserved break at a friend's house, as they have been Remy's indentured servants for a week, me and Brandon and Caleb and Remy went to Aster's Ethiopian Restaurant yesterday to pick up some berbere and injera to jar the new daughter off her peanut butter cracker fixation.

The first time I went to Aster's was in January 2010, the day I mailed our adoption application to AWAA. Four of my girlfriends, who made up part of The Council for "7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess" came with me (you'll just have to preorder the book to make sense of this). Not one of us had ever had a solitary bite of Ethiopian food or had the first clue about any of it.

We tried everything like big girls.

We fumbled over everything. What did she call this? Injury bread? Indentured? Angelina? And what is this hot red stuff? Burberry? Burby? Berburny? We didn't know how to tear our injera off and scoop the food into our mouths; we used forks like clueless Texans. And *someone* who I won't mention spit some food into her napkin when Aster wasn't looking.

Okay, it was me.

Fast forward a year and a half later, and we walked back into the restaurant with our very own daughter, home five days from Ethiopia. Because it was 3:00, past the lunch rush but before the dinner crowd, Aster and her whole extended family were gathered in the middle of the restaurant eating family dinner. We were the only other four people in there.

If you've been to Ethiopia or are familiar with the culture, they love their children, so Remy was an immediate star. Everyone started fawning over her, kissing her on both cheeks and speaking to her in Amharic, which, gauging by her face, she could not have been more shocked to hear in America than if I started communicating to her in chicken squawks.

Before we could even make the triple-kiss-on-the-cheek rounds, Aster had filled a huge family platter of injera, lentils, chicken legs, beef...um...stuff, greens, and of course, the hard boiled egg and set it down in front of us, inviting us into family dinner.

The cells have been burned off the inside of our mouths.

My heart almost burst into a thousand pieces. I marveled, because this time it all felt so...familiar. I know what injera is. I know how to eat this food. I remember these smells. I've been to this land. I've seen this artwork. I know how to greet Ethiopians. I understand some of the words they are saying. I've shared a family plate of food like this. I recognize their features. I can talk about the regions of Ethiopia with these folks. I happily reported on the weather in Addis, since I was just there last week, and we all groooooooaned, because we're stuck in Austin where it is hot as the devil, and for the love of Michael, don't we all wish we were back in Africa where it is sixty degrees and lush green and lovely and raining, and oh my goodness - sigh - don't we all just loooooove Ethiopia?

We stayed for an hour, just us and Aster and her family.

She packed up a bunch of food for us, refused our money, *kind of* instructed me on how to make her lentils ("Add garlic and shiro..." "How much, Aster?" "Just some."), and sent us out the door with kisses.

This is why we will forever keep Ethiopia alive in our home. The people are as beautiful as the country. Our children were born to a people with rich heritage and an ancient legacy. Their land is part of the seat of civilization, and their history is noble and strong. Ask anyone who has been there: Ethiopia is special. The kingdom of God is evidenced throughout the country, through their love and faith and joy and hospitality.

So we'll continue to parent by book and by touch, preserving the important parts of the story and inventing the rest as we go. We'll find the balance between guiding Remy into her new life and allowing her true self to always remain. We'll figure out what is trauma and what is just personality, and hopefully we'll have the wisdom to nurture one without squashing the other. But so far, I'd say her personality is in no immediate danger. Wouldn't you agree?

By book and by touch...you know what I mean? Am I the only one who throws out the books sometimes when my instincts call bull butter?

Sisters, Brothers, and Things

Jen Hatmaker — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 09:41:00 +0000

I was a model child, but sometimes bad kids influenced me toward sinfulness. I did my best to be a light in the world, but occassionally other people's darkness permeated my illumination, and they made me be bad.

When my sister Lindsay was six and I was nine, I manipulated her out of her piggy bank money so I could buy a stuffed animal I saw at the convenience store. Sidebar: I don't know how I walked a mile to the Quik Trip and spent my sister's money on crap without my mom's attention, but I assume it was a result of lax parenting in the early 80's when mothers let their fourth graders walk unattended to gas stations that still had cigarette vending machines (I remember these, um, because of the bad kids who bought their Capri cigs with their dads' change) and just hoped for the best.

Anyhow, when questioned, I told Mom I bought it with my own money, but since I spent cash within four seconds of obtaining it, thereby eliminating the need for the word "savings" permanently from my vocabulary, she smelled a rat and sniffed out the ruse. She made me write: "It is always best to tell the truth" 500 times in reference to my deception, which clearly would've never happened if I'd not been so poorly influenced by unsavory schoolmates.

You might think these sorts of shenanigans would've damaged any future relationship with my siblings, but you would be wrong. Me and my two sisters and brother are crazy close and are actually totally into each other. We crack one another up and badmouth each other's nasty bosses, exes, annoying neighbors, and enemies. We agree that we are really, really funny and we pity boring families. We ranch and travel and boat and grill out together. It is common knowledge that my sisters and I think our brother is nearly without fault and we regularly vie for his affection.

He's single, ladies. You may send inquiries with a bio and pic to me and my sisters.

I've read many, many adoption books leading up to this week, the Bringing A Child Home Week, and collected a wealth of information from the experiences of my adoption community. So although we are at the starting line with Remy, I have a decent idea of what to expect. I familiarized myself with the absolute worst case scenario in terms of attachment and transitioning, assumed that will be our lot, and if we end up a notch or two above Defcon 4, I'll consider it a bonus.

Parenting adopted children who've come from hard places is *quite* different than parenting our bio kids who were born into security and attachment and grew up in a healthy, safe family. Quite.

It's tricky, because often adopted kids look perfectly normal. They laugh and act cute as buttons. Their bodies and clothes and hair and faces and expressions and words look and sound just like all the other kids' their age. They may perform brilliantly in school and act like darlings to their teachers. You might be tempted to peek in on a twenty-minute segment of their lives and conclude, "Well, glory hallelujah! Now that they have permanent parents, they are right as rain! Close the books on this and let's all celebrate the happy ending."

You would be wrong.

The fear and insecurity and shame and abandonment these kids have endured is seeded deeply in their hearts, coloring the way they perceive everything: permanency, safety, parents, family, strangers, felt needs, security, trustworthiness, God.

Remy seems to be having a grand old time at our house for the most part, but her little mind has no concept yet of who we are to her and for how long. She's had transient caregivers her whole life, including her original family. Sure, she's getting lots of bananas and new clothes and attention, but she has no real security with us yet. She is simply charming us as often as possible in hopes that she can win us over and we might stick. (Next up: acting like a deranged, obstinate crazy child to test her theory that our presence in her life is indeed conditional and trying to just get on with the abandonment before she allows her heart to trust us. See Brandon's blog today for some of the woundedness we're encountering with Remy.)

Because of this deep insecurity, many adoption experts strongly counsel new parents to be THE ONLY NEED MEETERS in their new child's life for the first month or so. And I'm not even messing around. Like, no one else gets her a fork. No one else walks her across the street. No one else brushes her hair or wipes her face or gives her a bath or gets her juice or holds her hand.

We buy this, and because of it, we're drawing pretty tight boundaries around our family for these first few weeks. Not that the people in our world aren't fabulous, wonderful, incredible, precious; not that they haven't cried, prayed, cooked, encouraged, cheered, and loved us through this entire adoption; not that they don't adore our new kids with the fierce love God instills in his people for the broken members of our tribe. We know how special our people are.

But Remy only knows that people come and go despite affection, attention, and even biology. People cannot be counted on, and permanent parents certainly seem out of the question, so a steady stream of outsiders just reaffirms her lonely place in a big world with a lot of moving parts, all that seem mostly kind but none that she uniquely belongs to.

That's why we're holed up in our house like refugees for awhile. Katie, bar the door.

However, some experts recommend that within this attachment plan, only the Mommy and Daddy meet needs to the exclusion of the new siblings. The new sisters and brothers are certainly included in the permanent cast of characters, but they are bit players in terms of care-giving.

On our first night home with Remy, the initial house tour was exactly what you would expect: hilarious, manic, over-excited, thrilled...and that was our bio kids. They dragged her to every room, yammering in English she didn't understand, pointing out the corners and closets and shelves that hold our treasures and favorite memories. Happiness abounded, I tell you.

But just like an insecure kid who attends a sleepover and has a MARVELOUS time right up until bedtime when the tears erupt and the stand-in mom tries to soothe and comfort but eventually the mom is called to come pick up her bawling child at 10:45pm, we've learned that nighttime is when some of Remy's demons come out. Friends, I mean this in the most literal way. For the love of the land. Google search: exorcism.

That first night, when it became clear that sleep was imminent, the smile faded, the laughter ceased, and the tears started. No bed was right. No arrangement was satisfactory. No room was the winning destination. Fear jumped on her back like a monkey, and the meltdown began.

Brandon and I (tried to) snuggle with her in our bed, hoping for sleep to overcome this thrashing, petrified little girl who just traveled for 35 hours and landed in "America Texas" to an airport full of screaming people waving balloons and signs and yelling her name. Is that too much to ask??? She is so high-maintenance.

Anyhow, Caleb came into our room with tears flowing, as hearing her cries was just too much for him. (Despite evidence to the contrary, Caleb is actually our most tender-hearted kid, and his threshold for the suffering of others is nil. He has negative threshold.)

"Caleb, get on out, honey. Let us work this out with her."
"No, Mom. I'm going to sleep in here with her tonight."
"Sweetie, she's just scared and me and Dad need to be close to her."
"Move over, Mom."
"Um..."
"Move."

Caleb crawled right into my bed with all his clothes on and sidled up right next to her. She calmed down and quit crying, dare I say it, immediately. He reached under the covers to hold her hand, and she was asleep four minutes later. He was asleep five minutes later.

So on our first night home in nine days after traveling halfway around the world carrying a dead-weight kindergartener, I slept on a sliver of my own bed that the brown and pink children weren't sprawled all over, and Brandon got the couch. The new daughter woke up happy as a clam ten hours later and promoted Caleb to the top of her Love List.

Bed hogs.

My brain knows the experts recommend parent-only caregiving, but my heart is telling me a different story. Here is what I know: Parents are not the only healing agent in a traumatized child's life...family is. Big brothers that adore and protect you, an older sister who would take a bullet for you; this has healing power, exactly how God planned families.

Through the love and affection of parents and siblings, Remy is going to learn: You belong with us. This family is tight, girl, and these siblings are a gift to you. Forever. You can count on Mommy and Daddy. You can count on Gavin and Sydney and Caleb, just like you already count on Ben. You just got grafted into a unit; we're like a gang, and you've been granted membership without even having to be jumped in. You're welcome.

So yes, I'm letting Sydney lotion her arms and Gavin push her on the scooter and Caleb feed her cheese broccoli with his fingers (OMG, we found another food she will eat), because these are her people forever and ever amen. They will weather high school together and visit each other at college one day. They'll argue and get into trouble and cover for each other. They'll screen boyfriends and girlfriends and run interference for each other, and God help the first fool who makes fun of Ben or Remy's skin color; Caleb and Gavin can both throw a punch, and you better believe we'll look the other way. They will stand up for one another in their weddings and hold each other's babies. They will vacation together and talk about me and Brandon behind our backs and grow old beside each other, knit together long after we are gone. Their friends and coworkers and neighbors will come and go, but these five kids are for life. They are The Hatmaker Kids. Selah.

That bond matters. And we are going to let it heal and transform Ben and Remy.

The Cat that Swallowed the Canary

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:25:00 +0000

This is an apt description of me this last week and a half. While having a rather violent connotation which I had to explain to Caleb last week after he heard me say it, and seeing how he loves animals more than people, he did not like it Sam I am, nonetheless, it's fitting. I am the cat. I got a big, huge, luscious canary on Monday the 11th. I swallowed it whole. It was delectable. And I was instructed to digest this canary without telling anyone because it was "sensitive." Some canaries are like that.

Curtains open; begin scene:

Ring, ring.
Jen checks phone.
"AWAA: Anna"
Jen sighs, as she and Anna have done this dance 1000 times.
"Hey Anna," Jen says in a flat tone that suggests blah, blah, blah.
"Jen????? I am finally, finally, finally calling with good news!"
Jen freezes. Time stops. She considers jumping through the phone to make Anna talk quicker.
"OMG. What? WHAT?? Speak, girl!!"
"THE JUDGE PASSED BENIAM THIS MORNING!!!"
Jen screams bloody murder.
Then she starts bawling.
Anna considers Jen a decent candidate for bipolar disorder.
Anna says a bunch of words Jen didn't process.
Jen calls back 30 minutes later and asked, "Now what did you say after the Ben passed part?"

Curtains close; end scene.

And the crowd goes wild!!!

Ladies and gents, HE IS OURS. Let all the earth rejoice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The cat has been DYING to tell everyone that she ate a big, fat canary!! It has been giving me the worst indigestion! Oh happy day! That boy is ours, ours, ours! He is an orphan no longer! Now he is a Hatmaker, which, sure, creates a new set of issues for him, but STILL. Ours all ours.

Now, will Ben get to come home with us on this trip??? No. Boooooo. There is still quite a bit of procedural mumbo jumbo to wade through after passing court, and we are expecting delays at Embassy because the judge passed us without an approval letter, which makes things "dicey."

Side note: If I could, I would get down on my knees and kiss the soles of the judge's feet. She has been in Ben's corner since Day One. After our original court date on March 10th, she called Ben in the following day to hear from him herself. This was because he had a rough relinquishment, creating all this drama for the last few months, causing us "mental anxieties that are unpredictable!" But on March 11th, after hearing Ben's tearful plea to let him join our family, the judge looked him in the eye and said, "You will." And he is. Because she made good on her promise.

Dear Judge, you are my best friend. I would like to buy you a lifetime supply of puppies.

Here's what is next:

1.) The judge submitted the court decree to our agency yesterday (which she took great pains with).
2.) Our agency couriers this over to MOWYCA to see if they'd care to write the letter now that Ben has passed court via the judge. They may or may not give us the middle finger again.
3.) Our agency submits either just the court decree or the court degree + the MOWYCA letter to the Embassy to release Ben's vitals (birth certificate, visa, and passport). We are hoping for the second but expecting the first.
3.) We hope/pray/wish/beg/plead/dream that the Embassy will accept the court decree and release Ben's vitals without the cursed letter.
4.) The Embassy may open an investigation on our case, which we expect if the court decree is submitted without the letter.
5.) We will give the Embassy whatever they ask for so they will give us our kid.
6.) Once Embassy clears us for travel, we get on a dadgum plane and fetch our boy. Currently, Embassy appointments are being issued about 3 weeks after getting cleared.
7.) Our Ethiopian director told us, "Hopefully about one month." OMG. That is so soon.

But aaaaaaaaalllll these details can not erase the fact that Beniam is our son forever, and soon he will be sitting at our dining room table eating Lucky Charms. This is our son, our beautiful, hilarious, smart, sparky, funny, silly, brave, beloved son:

Thank you, Jesus. You remembered him like you promised. You are good, and we'll never stop telling of it. Our children will know that you are their Redeemer, and that your eye is always on the sparrow. They will hear every moment of your faithfulness, every detail of your heroics. This is your story, and until we take our last breath, we will make sure you get the glory for it. We serve a Savior who finds a way to get abandoned, broken children into families, and if you don't love a God like that, well, you just don't really know him.

“When we see Jesus for who He is, we must turn away or else shamelessly adore Him.”

~Dallas Willard

As for me, I will shamelessly adore Jesus for being a champion of the underdog, a defender of justice, and the Savior of the world. Thank you for bringing beauty from ashes and redefining "family" from a straightforward matter of biology to one bound together by faith, love, salvation, and adoption. You are good, and your mercy is forever.

Ethiopia: Day One

Jen Hatmaker — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 21:40:00 +0000

[Disclaimer: Sorry there are no pictures. We are having issues. In a city where donkeys roam the streets, the internet is something of a crapshoot.]

The second we deboarded into the Ethiopian airport, the smells hit me first. It is the smell of the country, and I'm not sure how to describe it, except that if you've been here, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Some sort of mixture of incense, coffee, earth, and bodies, and there is nothing exactly like it. We'll leave it behind Thursday only to get another reminder of it when we open our suitcases back home.

I love Ethiopia.

I especially love how we're here this time during the rainy season, where the temps are in the 60's and the rain falls at night, and the air is crispy clear awesome. (I do not love how the airlines take this opportunity to double all prices. Dear Airlines, WHATEVER.)

We are traveling right now with the most fantastic families with our agency. We've kind of hit the motherload of cool travel companions; there are about 20 of us or so, and it's rad (yes, I said it) to meet each other in person after being online friends all this time.

About half of us are here for Embassy (trip 2), which means we have our kids with us all week, and the other half are here for Court (trip 1), which means they actually have time to take one million pictures and go wherever they want because they are not toting around a kindergartener from morning till night who wants to be carried because she is just a teeny weeny bit freaked out and doesn't care one iota that she weighs 50 pounds and that we are at 7000 feet above sea level and her mom is freaking totally out of shape and her dad is all, my back is pinched, and there is not enough air to get into my lungs and my arms are on fire, and I should've just brought a Granola Girl Sling or whatever they are called like the baby mamas.

So we went to the Transition Home after lunch, and out came our darlings straight into our arms. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but they are the two cutest children on the continent of Africa, and that is not an opinion but mere fact, and if you'd like to argue it, I'll fight you. Remy has lost two more teeth, and Beniam was taller. BLAH. I'm totally over missing their days and months and birthdays and firsts and milestones.

I took my first deep breath in four months the second they ran to us.

As we kissed our sweet boy good-bye with a promise to see him tomorrow, our girl skippy skipped her way into the van with all her worldly possessions (approximately 1/100th of everything we've sent her and the clothes on her back), and she headed home with us to Jimmy and Rachel Gross's house, the most fabulous, kind, accomodating, laid back, precious, loveable, darling Texas-transplanted family living in Addis.

The second our driver pulled up to their house and let us all out and drove off, Remy had the most epic meltdown in the history of time. She was screaming and crying and muttering in her language, and she was clinging to our necks like her life depended on it. We left our bags and made a beeline for our rooms and sat with her on the bed, holding and whispering and kissing and rocking her, as tears streamed down her cheeks and her little body shook like a leaf.

This is the fear abandoned orphans carry.

She was terrified we were leaving her with this strange family, and her insecurity and fear came raging out of every pore. It was heart wrenching. No five year old should feel that scared that she will be left again. After ten minutes of terror, I started channeling Karyn Purvis. WWKPD? She would redirect. And folks, do you want to know what brought her out of her grief spiral and into giggles and smiles?

That's right. Her new clothes.

Dear Everyone Who Made Fun Of Me For Packing Too Much Frou-Frou Stuff For Remy, I will accept your apologies in writing.

Daddy started popping out one outfit after another, and within ten seconds, she transformed into a character from The Devil Wears Prada. For the clothes she liked, she'd nod and point, as in, "Put my treasured belongings in this pile, Tall White Man," and when she didn't like something, she'd shake her head once, wag her finger no, and point toward the Banished Pile; the Queen wanted the detestibles out of her sight.

She spent the entire night glued to our laps/hips/arms/sides. Being out in the house with the whole family made her extremely nervous; she never spoke a word and was clearly uneasy that we might leave her with these people who, although highly fashionable and superior in culinary taste, were strangers. Gone was the smiling, silly, happy girl we knew from the TH.

But as soon as the three of us went to our room for the night, and it became clear we were all staying, she popped right out of that shell. She giggled and chattered and did her little Ethiopian dance. She tried on clothes and played with her toys and fawned all over us, yammering the whole time about who knows what. The three of climbed into bed together, Remy sandwiched between us, and she was the happiest little lark in all the land. For 15 minutes, it went like this:

Mommy, I love you so much!
Doddy, I love you so much!
Mommy, Doddy, Matawi.
Mommy, Doddy, Matawi, Beniam, Gabin, Sinney, Cilab.
Giggles.
*She kisses her hand and puts in on my face.*
*She kisses her hand and puts in on Brandon's face.*
*She puts our hands to our lips and then to her face.*
Mommy, I love you so much!
Doddy, I love you so much!
Giggles.
Mommy, Doddy, Matawi!

Then she leached onto me like the little furnace she is, snaked her skinny brown legs all through mine like a pretzel, ran one arm around my neck with her hand in my hair, the other wrapped around my waist, fell asleep in less than two minutes, and didn't budge until morning.

It's been a long time since she got to fall asleep in a mother's arms, safely tucked in next to a daddy. Brandon and I caught each other's eyes over her curly head and just grinned.

We've got her.

Details

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 08:48:00 +0000

I’d like to think that the older I get, the more self-aware I am. I recognize my personality quirks and preferences. I can predict how I’ll respond to pretty much any scenario, because I know what makes me tick, what makes me crazy, what terrifies me, what motivates me. I get why I love what I love and hate what I hate. Now, am I bettering myself in these areas? Of course not. But I’m aware of them. I’m sooooo self-actualized, yall.

For instance.

I’m what you might call a “big picture girl.” I like ideas. I like gigantic, stimulating concepts. I’m totally into words and books and fascinating conversations. Adventure? Yes, please. I love the fun parts of the story. Give me an experience to feel any day. You want thoughts? Oh, I have thoughts. Tons of thoughts. Ladies and gentlemen, I think things. I love to bang out my little ideas on my MacBook Air and stand on stages teaching these truths and thoughts about Jesus and life and how it all intersects in this tiny sliver of time we occupy here on Planet Earth.

But details? Not. So. Much.

I would sever a limb if I could seize the adventure and the experience and The Big Moment without wading through the ten million steps to get there. Details utterly overwhelm me. It’s severe. I think I have a disorder. My brain doesn’t contain a satisfactory compartment for minutia. Concurrent details get all jumbled together into one giant potential aneurysm, and something just clicks off. *CLICK* *GOOD-BYE* *JEN HATMAKER…OUT*

Girlcation in NYC. My friends are planning our day and route. I'm on Twitter.

Now, take every word I've said and think of the exact opposite. Imagine: detail person, iCalendar, spreadsheets, ledgers, To-Do lists, phone alerts, long-range and short-range planning, time management, stability, and extreme left brain functionality: That is Brandon. (The first description under left brain is "logical, sequential, rational." Under right brain? "Random, subjective, looks at wholes instead of parts." Have these people been spying on us?) I'm the partner who takes our offspring swimming all day. Brandon is the one who keeps the electricity turned on.

He LOVES how I manage details.

This has never caused an ounce of tension in our marriage.

When it became clear that Ben's case was in distress and we needed to bring Remy home, we (meaning Brandon) looked at our adoption account and did some quick math. This added a third trip to Ethiopia onto the budget. If you'd like financial details here, you'll have to ask Brandon, because I don't know how much money we make, how much our bills are, how much it costs to fly to Ethiopia an extra time, or where our money comes from. (I tried to wade into these waters once, and after a rather aggravating conversation with me, Brandon said, "Awww. At least you're pretty.")

So for about a week, our plan was for me to fly to Ethiopia alone and bring Remy home, saving the exorbitant cost of a second round-trip ticket. I tried to act brave and self-assured, like, "Who can't get to Ethiopia and back with one smallish former orphan by herself?" Forget the fact that after 12 days in the country in March, I still have no idea how many birrs equal a dollar or what street the Guest Home is on even though we (Brandon) told cab drivers the address twenty times. With Mr. Responsible by my side, I had the luxury of kissing babies and taking pictures of camels and drinking the Best Coffee On Earth every day while he worried with exchanging money and making sure we got to court on time and littlestufflikethat.

Me reading under my mosquito net in Ethiopia while Brandon does important stuff.

So I'm certain the notion of me traveling to Ethiopia alone to bring Remy home petrified Brandon to no end. We probably had a 58% chance of making it home. That train could derail at the slightest curve. I've already jacked it up, in fact, and we haven't even left. I told my sister Lindsay in NYC that we'd be there Thursday for our layover and YAY I'll get to see you for nine hours, so get off work because we need to make the most of our time, which she did, and I tell Brandon aaaaaaall about it, because OMG I haven't seen my sister in a year so good on me for this awesome layover for once and I'm so glad her boss let her off on a busy Thursday, then Brandon tells me:

"We'll be there Friday, not Thursday, Genius."
"Oh my stars. Where did I get Thursday??"
"God only knows."

And now she has to work an overnight shift because the only person who would trade with her for Friday works graveyard. This is how Brandon feels about these moments with his beloved:

So back to the doomed single parent trip. Evidently, we had enough saved for him to make the trip too, but we needed to jettison some to fund the impending third trip to bring home Beniam. Until my sister-in-law Lana and her new hubby TJ stepped in and bought Brandon's ticket and wouldn't hear boo about it. *Insert warm, loving feelings toward Lana and TJ* This is their Love Ben picture. On their honeymoon. In Italy.

*Insert jealous, green-eyed feelings toward Lana and TJ*

So much love and thanks to them, because now Remy will probably actually get home with a mother who has not been thrown in Ethiopian jail for forgetting to exchange birr back to dollars before leaving the country (leaving with the equivalent of $23 is illegal, and "oops, my bad" would probably be ineffective). With Brandon on board, this trip is back on the rails.

However, the quantity of details I am managing would even overwhelm The Fly Lady (I once read four sentences of her website and curled up in the fetal position. She and I would never, ever be friends.) In a helpful twist, Brandon left yesterday for the week. That's right. The four days before our international trip, with three bio kids going in fifty different directions, bags to be packed, donations to be organized, church camp to engineer, Art Camp to figure out for Sydney next week, Caleb's football registration, getting phone numbers/paperwork/release forms/keys/suitcases/cars from this caregiver to that one (as every kid has 1-2 house transitions in the 8 days we're gone), and making sure we have a spotless house to bring our newest member home to, Brandon left to do the Lord's work.

"I'll just meet you in New York," said Brandon Hatmaker casually.

Tra la la.

So understanding my visceral reaction to a long list of details, this week I have:

Gone to Schlitterbahn.
Taken two naps.
Invited my friends over to sit on my porch.
Invited my sister and mom over to sit on my porch the next night.
Gone to the movies.
Read "The Postmistress."
Written a silly blog about avoiding details to avoid the details longer.
And I'm about to go to the pool.

Never fear, lambs, it will all get done. I'll cram it in at the last second and run around like a whirling dervish, annoying everyone and acting melodramatic. And even as my detail-laden brain is suffering overload and threatening to implode, I'll remember one last little detail and it will all be worth it:

Fighters

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:16:00 +0000

368.

That is how many people have submitted "Love Ben" pictures so far. Some of those pictures have 75+ people in them. There are thousands of smiling, encouraging, dear faces in those 368 pictures. Well, most are smiling.

This one seems to communicate: "Boy, you better get your &^%* home."

So I've written a few things in the last few years. Generally speaking, I write stuff down after I've learned it. I factor in plenty of time for research, first drafts, pilot groups, and perspective. Sometimes, this gives me the benefit of healing and distance, which slightly softens the raw edges. (Not always: Interrupted was like writing from the eye of a hurricane. It was borderline hysterical.) It's kind of like making a baby album on Shutterfly when your cherub is already dating; you gotta wade through several degrees of separation.

Not so with this little bloggy blog. I guess with a blog, you can write about something that happened four hours ago, hit "publish", and it immediately launches into the interwebbings. This has a downside for a loose cannon like me who clearly needs four editors between me and the general public [Note from my editor for 7: "Please just accept this edit. I'm saving you hundreds of emails"], but it also has an upside in that I can write without distance or perspective or resolution sanitizing the actual experience.

So I'd like to weigh in from the dead center of an excruciating adoption wait, long before homecomings and time erase the intensity of this season. In fact, just this morning we received our rejection letter for Ben's adoption, placing a huge question mark on the future, while our daughter has waited in the Transition Home three months longer than necessary. We are in the thick of disappointment, well past any date we thought we'd still be waiting, thrust into an unknown future for Ben with no precedence. We're in Crap Town...Population: us.

A month or two ago, after yet another disappointment in the battle to pass court for Ben, I posted something on Facebook from the deepest part of my broken heart; pretty raw, full of tears. A lady followed it up with:

"It's so good to know that even a woman like you can lose faith and fall short publicly."

Um.

In addition to that awesome statement, I've received the wagging finger from several Christians, essentially saying, "Stop whining. What sort of example are you setting with all these tears?" Ladies and gentlemen, grab a cup of coffee and settle in, because I have an opinion here and I'm about to broadcast it.

Faith has nothing to do with being stoic or "chipper" or falsely propped up. We have entered the suffering of the orphan, the mission of Jesus. It is hard and painful. It hurts and makes us cry. Suffering is like that. Spouting off Christian clichés or pretending to be strong isn’t helpful and it isn’t true. It cripples true community and confuses and isolates a watching world.

Adoption means we are willing to enter the devastation of fatherlessness and struggle mightily to free children from the bonds of orphanhood. It is OKAY to struggle and cry and grieve and mourn while we wait. That is exactly the kind of suffering we said “yes” to at the beginning of this journey. We are taking on the pain of our Ethiopian children, and guess what: Their pain is real. Who would dare look into their eyes full of loss and grief and say, "Buck up, kids. Someone might think you don't trust God."

And like my good friend Leslie reminded me, home with her adopted daughter for five years, adopting parents agree to suffer with their children long after the happy airport homecoming pictures are scrapbooked. It is only then we get a true picture of their trauma, fear, insecurity, and loss. Ask any Mama or Daddy who is parenting an adopted child about bringing their baby's suffering home.

Struggling isn’t a “lack of faith” like some have insinuated. It’s not that I doubt the calling or power of God at all; it’s that we've entered the pain of orphanhood and it hurts. Something about adoption seems to exempt waiting parents from permission to rage and wail. Would anyone observe an abused child, trapped in his own home, held captive because of senseless bureaucracy and say, "Well, it's God's timing"? Would we counsel a grieving mother whose child was wasting away with cancer to try not to "fall short publicly"? Of course not. But for some reason in adoption, waiting parents are expected to put on the brave face and whitewash the agony of it all.

So, fellow adoptive parents out there, I want to tell you something: I know your tears, and I know where they come from. I don't think you are doubting your God. Who can doubt the heart of a God who says, "Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; please the case of the widow" (Isaiah 1:17)? God is clearly on the side of the orphan and all those who harbor them.

I don't believe for a second that we are fighting against God who is withholding favor while we and our children wait. I'm totally with Paul on this one: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (Ephesians 6:12). To the degree that God loves something, we can expect our enemy to hate it in equal proportions. With a mission to steal, kill, and destroy, redeeming abandoned lives out of the rubble of injustice is surely at the top of his Hate List.

So go ahead: Cry. Grieve. Wail. Scream at the top of your lungs, "THIS IS NOT FAIR!!" Mourn for the birth mamas who can't raise their own babies. Rage at a system that keeps the rich richer and the poor poorer. Rant against corrupt bureaucracy and power politics that perpetually victimize the most vulnerable ones under its authority. Grieve every single second you are kept apart from your babies, because let me tell you something: If that is wrong, I do not want to be right.

That's why we are not mad at God; we are mad with God. We are not fighting against God; we are fighting alongside Him. We are not crying because God is failing us; we are crying out because 170 million children will go to bed tonight with no parents, and we can not stand this injustice one second longer. These are the tears of the heavens that have been shed since the beginning of time for the least and last, the forgotten and forsaken.

What might appear to be a faith crisis is not. Don't mistake our tears for doubt. It is something like Jesus crying over Jerusalem: "How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings..." (Matthew 23:37). It is the same brand of grief God displayed when He wept over His people: "Let my eyes overflow with tears night and day without ceasing; for the Virgin Daughter, my people, has suffered a grievous wound, a crushing blow" (Jeremiah 14:17).

Christian community, let us not fear real emotion attached to struggle, confusing it for a lack of faith. Like I heard recently: It makes sense that the Holy Spirit is called a Comforter, because if you actually follow where he leads you, you're going to need one. It would be easier to lead a safe, comfortable life, void of sorrow, unattached to human suffering and bubble wrapped within the predictable western Church. But alas, I can't find that brand of discipleship in Scripture, and believe me, I've looked.

So YES, we are fighting, but not against our good God who redeemed our own lives and invited us into a great mission. We trust that the God who begged us to care for the orphan actually cares about them and is weaving this beautiful story together right in front of our eyes. Enjoy these LOVE BEN pictures, because they represent the fight God has planted in us, the determination of our son, and the victory we are watching for through our Jesus.

It.

Is.

ON.

"Love Ben" Pic of the Day

Jen Hatmaker — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 16:19:00 +0000

What am I going to do with all of yall?? ("All of yall" is an agreed upon phrase in Texas. Can be shortened to "all yall" in a pinch.) Love Ben poster pictures have flooded in from state after state, from camps and vacations, from back porches and beaches, and as of today, Ben is an international sensation: We got our first picture from Australia. You could argue one jpeg file from Down Under doesn't make Ben an international phenom, but my response to that is, "Why do you hate orphans?"

Because I evidently have a bunch of Type A friends (read: Must.Be.First.Place.), Love Ben has turned into something of competition. You know the kind of Christian competition I mean, right? Like Sixth Grade Regional Bible Drill Finals when the announcer calls out Habakkuk 1:5 and you cut a sideways glance at the girl next to you like: So help me, you beat me out last year on that Nahum debacle, and if you get there before I do now, I will cut you.

I mean, I'm not like that, but I know people who are.

Oh sure, at first everyone was keeping it simple, sending the standard markers-on-a-poster-board-from-Walgreens pics. But recently it has started getting fierce. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you equines:

The signs say "Praying For You Beniam"...only elephants can top this.

I hope Ben doesn't assume horses are a part of the American Package, even here in God's country. The best we can give him is a lazy Springer Spaniel who eats airsoft gun pellets and chases lizards until she runs squarely into our fence.

And I don't mean to brag, but we have garnered celebrity attention with Love Ben. I mean, I wasn't even going to mention this, but since you just WON'T LET IT GO, here...feast your eyes.

Billy Graham is totally into us.

But the pic of the day goes to one of the simpler submissions, one with great meaning. When Brandon and I traveled to Ethiopia for our court date in early March, we had the privilege of bringing a beautiful little girl her very first care package from her new family. Her name was Nazeret. (That's right. As in "Nazareth." As in Jesus' hometown. Bestillmyheart.) She had not yet laid eyes on her parents or her two new sisters. Like most older orphaned kids, she had waited far too long for a family. We got to bring those precious first gifts, that hopeful first touch. We got to say the words, "You are so wanted. You are a beloved daughter."

I have a real problem respecting personal space.

We have felt connected to Nazeret ever since. I am so happy to tell you that she and her beautiful family sailed through court and Embassy, and she arrived in Texas three weeks ago forever and ever, amen. She'll never know another lonely night alone in this big world. Jesus be praised.

But just three weeks ago, she lived with Ben and Remy, one of 40 or so older kids orphaned by poverty or disease, young victims of an unjust, broken world. Those kids are like a pack of very, very cute wolves, closely knit and unified by survival. (Another adoption friend recounted a "goodbye" last month between the two oldest boys in the TH as one was leaving with his family, and she said the boys cried and clung to each other for 20 minutes. I came utterly undone.)

That is why the 'Love Ben Pic of the Day' is an easy choice. Because I know when he sees this picture, he will lean down and kiss the page. I know his heart will leap for joy when he sees his friend Nazeret, home forever in the very state Ben is headed for. I know this picture will communicate to him: "You are next, my friend Ben." This is the other side of abandonment; the side the kids dream of, pray for, hope to find. Ben will see this picture of one of his own, liberated from the despair of poverty and coloring barefoot on her back porch with a family who adores her...and hope will rise.

Your Prayers Have Been Answered: Another Blog

Jen Hatmaker — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 14:00:00 +0000

I was recently ruminating on the problems of this broken earth – poverty, orphans, homelessness, oppression – and after thinking many deep thoughts and pondering many possible solutions, I concluded: “You know what this world needs? Another blog. Not enough people are saying stuff.”

Ahem.

Anyhow, whatever. I’ve been writing plenty of stuff that no one reads for some time now, so what is one more tiny little blog launched into the blogosphere? Plus, I have a real reason: orphans. (Don’t you feel bad for rolling your eyes now? You’re forgiven. And I’ll pray for you.)

In addition to all my important writing on orphan care, I suspect a handful of other topics might sneak in, essential things like my training for So You Think You Can Dance reenactments with my friends and pictures of sandwiches. I’m very deep, yall.

Now I know several of you have popped over here because you heard about our adoption saga in Ethiopia. If you’ve not been lucky enough to be my Facebook friend for the last two years (missing riveting posts like “Dear Laundry, I hate you. I mean, I really hate you. I wish you were dead”), I’ve included some FB notes below as blog posts that should catch you up to speed on our adoption, the highs and lows, the recent developments, and the Love Ben campaign.

We have managed to get the two cutest kids in Ethiopia as our next two family members, and we’ll be bringing one of them home three weeks from today. Look at this face and tell me she isn’t so adorable that it makes you want to throw up:

I have in my possession Moroccan Oil, Miss Jessie’s Baby Buttercream, and four varieties of combs so that my little Baby Love does not end up looking like this (and kindly note the naked baby I sent her draped carelessly over her arm):

As for our handsome boy, we are in a real struggle for him. Brandon and I have rolled up our sleeves and said, “BRING IT ON.” We’re not even playing. Ben may be left behind on this next trip, but he will know he is loved, I guaran-darn-tee you that. For every person who has joined Love Ben, we say “thank you” from the bottom of our hearts and you all deserve cash prizes. Because how can THIS not help?

Anyways, if you would like to join the Love Ben campaign, make a poster, take a digital picture of your people holding it, and send it to me at jenhatmail@aol.com. Related: I am certainly the last living human on AOL. My account regularly gets hacked and sends out poorly worded solicitations like this gem last week: “Goodday!!! We wish to inform you that your overdue payment has be scheduled to pay to you through certified ATM Card which you will be only required to proceed to any ATM Cash Point to withdraw $50,000 per day till your complete payment fund are completed.”

You’re welcome, everyone.

"Love Ben".

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:59:00 +0000

Our daughter Remy passed court on her actual court date (WHAT??? That happens????) on March 10th. She has been cleared for travel since mid-April. At that point, we still believed we were going to pass court for Ben ANY SECOND. So we just hung on. Now our last chance to pass "the easy way" is shattered and we realize we are in for a huge fight. We have no idea what that means. Hopefully something clearer will emerge from the cluster fog this week, and we'll have a better idea what our next steps with his case are.

But we do know this: It will not be quick. If we are dealing with higher courts and lawyers and tricky documentation, we are in for the long haul.

Which is why we're going for Remy. She is a precious little gem too, and her last year (and whole life) has held too much tragedy to even comprehend for a five-year-old. She is a mess. She is like a feral cat. She needs us desperately. Yesterday. So we're getting her in 3 weeks.

Oh, Ben.

Ben and Remy are not biologically related, but he has taken to big brotherhood like you cannot imagine. They are too precious together. This separation is going to be devastating. Having me fly back to Ethiopia and taking Remy without him is pretty much the worst scenario we can think of. But here we are, choosing between two terrible things knowing that either way, it's crushing. I cannot sleep. I cannot think. I can hardly bear this. I'm so worried for him.

I was awake from 3:30-6:00 am last night, thinking, praying, crying, and brainstorming about Ben. God said, "How have I encouraged you more than anything else during this wait?" That's easy. People. Tons of people. Thousands even. "How about you ask your people to comfort Ben? What's good for you will be good for him."

This is where you come in.

I'd like to take Ben a photo album of friends and family and strangers even demonstrating your commitment to him in prayer and love. I'm asking for you (and your kids, or just your kids, or your whole family, or your neighbors, or your small group, or whoever) to make a simple poster that says something like:

We love you, Beniam!

We are praying for you, Beniam!

Can't wait until you are home, Beniam!

You are loved, Beniam!

You are so brave, Beniam!

Whatever. Pick one. Make one up. (Please use his full name: Beniam!) I want him to see people holding signs full of hope, saying his name. I want him to know YOU ARE LOVED, SON. You are not forgotten. Not for one second. You have an army of friends who are on your side, praying for your homecoming.

Take a digital pic of you and your people with the poster and email it to me at jenhatmail@aol.com. I'll print them all out and make a Love Ben photo album to bring with me. I leave on the 15th, and I'd love to have all these in by the 8th.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).

You have been such comforters to me and Brandon. We are so grateful and overwhelmed by it all. Nothing you could do would be more meaningful to us than helping us comfort our son.

Pretty People

Jen Hatmaker — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 00:54:00 +0000

I know everyone always says Ethiopians are beautiful, but let me tell you something: Ethiopians are beautiful. Like, so-beautiful-I-can’t-quit-staring-at-you beautiful. Ethiopians hit the genetic jackpot with features unique to this world. Now that I know them, I could spot them anywhere: lean bodies, high, wide forehead, pronounced cheekbones, almond shaped eyes, a creamy, chocolate-milk-colored skin tone – almost Indian in complexion. Their skin looks like chocolate butter. It appears the entire country invested in rhinoplasty, so exquisite are their noses.

The women are so gorgeous, it’s almost ridiculous. Most pull their hair straight back, giving their stunning faces center stage. I gape at them in utter appreciation and a moderate-to-high amount of envy. It’s all I can do not to kiss their high cheekbones, or at the very least ask to stroll down the street holding their hand and laughing like their other girlfriends are getting to do. I want them to love me like I love them, but I’m just an awkward white girl wearing a Freebirds t-shirt.

Most of the young Ethiopian guys are strikingly good-looking. Like cover-of-a-magazine-Taye-Diggs good-looking. They wouldn’t last a nanosecond on Match.com. The cutest ones are tall and lean with that crazy pretty Ethiopian face. They have a casual fashion sensibility, pulling off faded jeans and t-shirts like African Matthew McHonaheys. I particularly like the longer hair dreadlocked into three-inch coils sticking straight out from their heads. I cannot wait to do Ben’s hair like this. Brandon likes buzz cuts. He says we’re going to fight about this. I’m prepared to die on this hill.

Americans are a complete smorgasbord of races and features. There is no “American look.” Sure, we have our own beauty, but we are completely indistinct, a result of centuries of melding and crossbreeding. Ethiopians are completely homogenous. Everyone in Ethiopia is totally Ethiopian, except visiting white people who stand out like a donkey-drawn cart on a freeway. I spent most of my time in Africa feeling unexotic and stared at.

But here is the good news: I get two beautiful Ethiopians in my very own family, and one day they will give me grandbabies. BOOYAH.

Our Referral Story...

Jen Hatmaker — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:18:00 +0000

During the first week of October, I suffered inexplicable sadness for our Ethiopian kids, yet unknown to us. I couldn’t quit crying. I couldn’t stop worrying. I felt heavy and dark without knowing why. With tears burning at the slightest provocation, I threw my emotions into the Facebook ring for some backup. From adopting friends, a common thread rose up:

“God is prompting you to pray for your children for some reason. You don’t know them yet, but he knows they are yours. Intercede for them this week, then write these dates down. Once you receive your referral, check their paperwork and you might discover divine timing.” A slew of similar stories were posted.

So Brandon and I prayed desperately for our kids. Were they losing a parent? Were they suffering? Were they tender and lonely? Were they especially hopeless? Their need was unknown, but the ache was acute. So I cried the tears I just knew they were crying, and I begged Jesus to be so near, so gentle in their young, tragic lives while they waited for us, wishing a family wanted them but too afraid to hope.

Sensitive to their fragility, I spent that week checking (obsessing over) the Waiting Children’s List on our adoption agency’s website. I’ve been drawn to these kids since the beginning of our adoption journey. These children have not been requested or matched, unwanted even within the adoption community. Their crimes: 1.) Too old – meaning over five, 2.) too sick – HIV, TB, birth defects, or 3.) too many – siblings.

This very week a new little face hit the WCL: a darling, bright and shiny seven-year-old boy. I instantly loved his personality. He looked like Gavin in an African way. He seemed ornery, which I adore. So I pulled him up every day. Every day. Every day. I sent the link to Brandon. I sent the link to friends. I checked back in. I watched other WCL kids move from “available” to “file under review” while his smiling face remained “available.” On a Wednesday, I sent this to our family coordinator:

Hi Caitlin!

Sweet adorable Beniam is a healthy seven-year old on the WCL. He totally falls within our request range and since he's on there, I'm assuming there are no other requests for a seven-year-old boy. Would AWAA consider placing him with an unrelated younger girl and allowing us to consider them together?

We were exactly hoping for a seven-year-old boy and a younger girl. We would be so happy to apply for unrelated kiddos if this was a possibility.

Thoughts?

Jen Hatmaker

For a week, we emailed back and forth about unrelated kids (sweet, precious Caitlin – extra jewels in her crown for fielding my relentless emails). I cannot explain how drawn to Ben we were. Every time we looked at him, he became more beautiful, more precious, more Hatmaker-ish. Our social worker needed to approve us for an unrelated placement, as we were approved for siblings. That, friends, sounded like a formality, so we got our ducks in a row to speed that process up.

Exactly one week after that email, my phone rang the following Wednesday with that heart-attack-inducing-breath-stealing caller ID: “AWAA – Caitlin”. Adopting parents with submitted dossiers wait for that with such anxiety and anticipation, that should we be on a conference call with the President of the United States, we would scream in his ear, “I GOTTA GO!!!!!” and click over. Parents call their agencies ten billion times; they call us never, but when they do, this is what they say:

“Jen? It’s Caitlin. Sit down…this is your referral call.”

The world stopped spinning.

Time froze.

Nothing else existed.

“SHUT UP!!!” is how I responded as a mature, emotionally controlled girl. Our dossier was submitted 48 days ago; this referral was fast. I couldn’t think straight. The referral call includes sitting at your computer while your family coordinator introduces your child with the highly anticipated email file, including pictures.

I told Caitlin I’d call her back in ten minutes, because I needed to get Brandon home. Ring-ring:

“Are you stalking me? I just left! You know you can’t live without me.”

“Brandon, zip it! We. Just. Got. Our. Referral. Call.”

(Insert screeching brakes.)

We called Caitlin back and discovered our referral was one gorgeous, unbelievably perfect five-year-old girl. She was beautiful in every way. Brandon fell especially hard. With her little chicklet teeth and her shy smile, it seemed we might finally get a “gentle child,” which required adoption since our gene pool squashed that characteristic.

But besides “adopting” and “Ethiopia,” the other crystal clear detail was “two children.” Back in December when adopting from Ethiopia was imminent, Brandon kept bringing up two kids. Normally the bleeding heart, I was reluctant (could also be: defiant, obstinate, terrified) to consider two, knowing we are already a circus and doubting my ability to parent five kids. But Brandon couldn’t shake it, so we spent a week praying and fasting about one versus two.

On the final day of our fast, unknown to anyone but us, one of my dearest friends called: “Jen? I’ve been praying about your adoption. If this is irrelevant, just forget it, but every time I pray, I get the feeling you and Brandon are considering siblings…”

*Jen stops breathing*

“…I don’t know why I keep getting this message. But if you are, we’ve prayed about it, and we want to pay for the second child. Whatever the cost increase is for adopting two instead of one, we’ll cover the entire amount.”

*Jen bawls eyes out.*

God? We’re fasting to hear from you: One or two kids?

Insert: The Most Obvious Answer Ever Received In Our Lives.

Without question, we knew God had two kids for us, so this referral for just one was terribly confusing. We were starved for clarity, staring at each other like one of us had an explanation, the key to unlocking this baffling development. Our strategy has been, “Go back to what you know for sure. What was the last thing you heard?” The marching orders for two children was iron-clad, so I went three weeks back to those dark days full of prayer and sorrow. I confirmed the dates then searched this beautiful girl’s file:

It was the week she was brought to the orphanage.

Shipped twelve hours north of her village, her people, everything she knew to a crowded orphanage with children and workers who spoke a different language, it must’ve been devastating. She must’ve felt so alone. At age five. Except Jesus never leaves his little ones, his mostvulnerable. He was there in the scary van ride north. He was there in her confusion and fear. He was there as she was assigned a bed and communal clothes and had her beautiful head shaved. He was there that first heart-breaking night. And he made sure we were there in spirit, too.

I am telling you, we felt her grief. We carried her turmoil. We cried her tears. Jesus made sure we sat watch with Him over her. He invited us into the vigil he was keeping on her behalf. Exactly three weeks after her first lonely night in the orphanage, we got her referral.

She was ours. We knew it.

She was the “younger unrelated girl” we asked for when pursuing Ben. It all locked into place. Within hours of the call, we asked for him too. For four agonizing days, we fought for his referral, this bright, shiny boy who’d seen hundreds of babies and toddlers come and go while he waited for someone to want him. For four days, we pleaded our case against staunch resistance. For four days, prayers and emails and calls flooded in, as our Christian community rallied for this unwanted, yet so wanted boy.

Enter The Great Silence, Compline, the prayer of completion. Every Sunday night at 9pm, the parents adopting through our agency join in prayer all over the world. We pray for our children, the nannies, our paperwork, referrals, court dates, traveling mercies, approvals, and grace. I told my adoption community: “Please pray for our expanded referral. We want this boy so desperately, but the forces against his placement seem insurmountable.”

We were hanging on by a thread. We knew God said adopt two children from Ethiopia. We knew he connected us in prayer to our daughter’s traumatic abandonment. We knew he imprinted Ben on our hearts already, before we even had a referral. We knew these two children belonged to us, but the approval looked hopeless.

From nearly every state and several other countries, we prayed at 9pm, the hour of The Great Silence. We interceded for each other and begged God to move for the orphan. We voiced our impossible circumstances and trusted him to work the common, everyday miracles that surround adoption. We acknowledged his sovereignty over bureaucracy, embassies, social workers, and poverty. We prayed for completion: Our children home. Hesitantly, timidly, I said, “I trust you, God.” At 9:27pm, our social worker sent this:

“I am going to approve this referral.”

No words can describe the rejoicing in our house, and certainly in the heavens. Another orphan found his home, despite the odds, regardless of “the rules.” Yet again, God moved mountains for the very least; the most unwanted, unloved kids on earth. The day our Ethiopian children were born, the angels celebrated their immense value, the image of God they each bear. Their tragic circumstances didn’t lessen their worth but raised them to the highest level of divine attention:

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy.
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
God sets the lonely in families.
Blessed are you who are poor, for your is the kingdom of God.
Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.

We’ve been invited into a beautiful story, involving hundreds of saints in prayer for the redemption of two abandoned treasures. God captured an entire community with love for two children whose names were headed into the oblivion of poverty and despair. As selfish plans fail daily, and greedy dreams burn out as God removes his hand from endeavors we are using his name to endorse, Jesus gently placed two African orphans in the center of a faith community, restoring their names from a statistic back to the loved, precious, essential children they are.

I want you to know their names.

Our Beniam is seven, and we’ll call him Ben; the son we fought for. Our daughter’s name is Matawi, which means “Remembrance.” We will call her Remy, because she was never forgotten; not by her Creator, not by her Savior, and not by us. God walked with our children through every sorrow; their plight was ever before him. Though family and village and country and government and even the whole world turned from their distress, abdicating responsibility and ignoring their cries, God never forgot, never slept, never stopped working until his children were restored.

He remembered them.

For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.

See, I will beckon to the nations, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their hips. Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed.

Can plunder be taken from warriors, or captives be rescued from the fierce? But this is what the LORD says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.”

~Isaiah 49