Much like Amy Grant when she wrote her book (which I wrote about last week), Jen Hatmaker is writing this book in her early 40s. Bingo! I’m 42. Words from women my age truly are golden when they are from ladies who have lived their lives with honesty and humility, love and equality, striving to honor and be like Jesus, and creatively serving others.
This copy I hold of Jen’s book, Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire, has many dog-eared pages, and I want to process – briefly – just a few of the ones that shine brightest to me at this stage of my life.
The entire chapter of “I Am Strong in My Body” is so so so so important. I wish every girl to read this chapter, even if some parts come off too strongly for me personally. She talks about how heartbreaking it is to see women and girls not love and appreciate their bodies, but instead let the media and world tell them what they should obsess over and change and belittle and despise. How sad to think our lives are less than they could be because our thighs are more than we think they should be. She writes: What if we talked about our bodies as “she” and “her” instead of “it”? She lists the millions of miraculous things our bodies do and have done and will do. We have believed a lie when we believe something about our inches and pounds is holding us back from joy and worthiness. “She” has been through it, and “she” is a blessing!
In her chapter, “I Need More Connection”, I see how – although I am an introvert – how I need community in my life now more than ever. Like with homeschooling, songwriting, recording, running, nutrition, even in reading a book sometimes…I do not want to do it alone, anymore, ever again, please don’t make me. Pulling people together boosts EVERYTHING! I also love her encouragement to make community happen wherever you are. What is one of your favorite things? Ask around until you find others who are into that, and see if your passion and productivity doesn’t grow. Love it!
I’ve been realizing lately that I tend to be a people-pleaser. I have cared about being known as a certain type of person: Responsible, talented, deep, thorough, but also fun. (I kind of want to roll my eyes at myself right now! That’s kind of a lot to ask!) In Jen’s chapter, “I Want to Choose My Yeses”, she helps readers see why we say yes sometimes (when we really didn’t want to). Giving a clear no is very respectable. People who can’t handle that usually have some drama they are working out in their own lives. Times change, seasons change. We don’t have to be the Homeschool Co-op Mom for 20 years; we don’t have to be the secretary to someone forever either, even if they would be “lost without us”. We can say no to some things in order to say yes to others, and we can strategically and respectively make our move, without guilt, as we seek the Lord and undo some social tangles we have allowed ourselves into.
Right now, I’ll be honest. I feel like my time of homeschooling may be coming to a close in the next couple of years. I feel like my dream of being a counselor someday is actually being replaced with the desire to continue more in my music and writing. I feel like the Beachbody exercise and wellness ideas have been such a life changing thing for me that I want to continue coaching groups of ladies because we do so much more than just manage food and sweat. I feel like Jack, my husband of almost 20 years, is taking exciting steps to find healing and do ministry in the great outdoors, and I want to gravitate toward that for many reasons. My quiet natured self is just wanting to scream with the joy of this vision. My second half of life is going to be good, even though I know that overwhelming, emotional, unnavigated territory awaits! I have teenagers. My parents are in their 60s. Enough said.
The “1” in me wants everything to be neat and tidy.
It’s not.
It’s not going to be.
My journals have so many beautiful revelations, but I pray my best friends will burn them before anyone reads them, because for every pure and lovely thing written in those thousands of pages there are a dozen ridiculous, rude, and pitiful entries.
It’s too late. I can’t go back and live a straight line.
And it’s okay. It’s not going to get any straighter from this point on.
