Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life

by Jen Hatmaker

Obviously, good reader, I understand the dilemma. In this very book you are holding, I seriously discuss trauma recovery and abusive

churches as well as Netflix and junior football leagues. I love people. I love curry. I love God. I love coffee tables. I care about the church, and I also care about dinner. Justice and humor are equal heavy hitters for me. I live in several categories wholeheartedly, sometimes in the same hour. In the complicated

Winner Island with all the other missionaries. (People who don’t own TVs live on the island too.)

This world is hard and scary, and it is also phenomenal and gorgeous and thrilling and amazing. Reader, there is a middle place, holy ground, where we learn to embrace the fasting and the feast, for both are God ordained.

Christian in tune with God’s whole character neither regards herself as too important or too unworthy to enjoy this life. Yes, we are part of God’s plan to heal the world, but we are also sons and daughters in the family. We are not just the distributors of God’s abundant mercies but also their recipients. Back to Ethiopia. As I

despite suffering, even in the midst of suffering. God gives us

hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.1 — OSCAR WILDE

forced my whole family to watch Food, Inc. and Super Size Me, and we listened to Forks Over Knives on audio on a road trip once (the Hatmakers know how to party).

“In this world you will have trouble” (John

Somewhere deep within, from the place I’d deposited God’s Word my entire life, finally rose a quiet truth that laid the first paver stone out of anguish: “God has not given you a spirit of fear.

fear is a liar.

The Bible is so incredibly helpful because, truly, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind (2 Timothy

practice the spiritual disciplines I preach. First at bat: declaring faithfulness—not so much mine (as I kicked a piece of our fence down in fury) but God’s. I remembered: He is good. He has always been good. He loves us, and He is here. He is paying attention, and He heals. He can redeem what has been harmed. I do believe this.

community.

Isolation concentrates every struggle.

Then: do the work.

The truth is, God created us with resiliency.

Rock bottom teaches us that God is who He says He is and He can do what He says He can do.

• Breakfast: egg white and veggie omelet • Lunch: kale salad with 2-ounce chicken breast, assorted veggies, dressing on the side • Snack: ½ cup of plain Greek yogurt with berries • Dinner: 4 pieces of deep dish pizza, leftover mashed potatoes, chips and guac, 2 granola bars, and a sleeve of Thin Mints dunked in a mocha • Late snack: another sleeve of Thin Mints and a glass of wine • Pre-bed final snack: shame and regret

Ha!!!

We should expect the same benchmarks Paul gave the early church: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (I sang it in my head. Cannot be helped. Thanks, Vacation Bible School circa 1981.)

Do we cling too tightly to dogma and too loosely to love? When Being Right is our highest aim, our most intimate bedfellows are academics, apologetics, and rigorous defense, and we have to use the tools of the world to secure our rank.

Loved people love people. Forgiven people forgive people. Adored people adore people. Freed people free people. But when we are still locked in our own prisons, it is impossible to crave the liberation of others. Misery prefers company.

Which is: What does love look like in the ordinary connection between two human people?

Love means saying to someone else’s story or pain or anger or experience: “I’m listening. Tell me more.” Love refuses to deny or dismantle another’s perspective simply because I don’t share it. At its core, love means caring more about that person’s soul than anything else.

The Internet has made us casually offensive (because the repercussions are mitigated)

It takes a fairly high level of humility, empathy, and courage to keep a space open and healthy. It is a developed skill that takes practice. To me, that is what love looks and feels like. The Christian cliché “love the

Love is a genuine solution.

half-used tape to record Kids Incorporated, come

back later that night to watch it, and it would cut off right in the middle of a crucial moment when Stacy (i.e., Fergie) considered smoking a cigarette given to her by an unsavory traveling rock band member because she was sick and tired of being treated like a child, like we all were, man. Did she smoke the cigarette? Did she become an addict? Did Gloria and The Kid talk her out of it? We never knew. (The online synopsis of Kids Incorporated says: “A group of kids sing songs at a club for kids. They solve problems in between performances.” This was my dream job description in 1986.) We thought we’d arrived when

we move on to episode eleven of Gilmore Girls

and log our fifth straight hour on the couch.

you are worthy and capable of creating. Full stop. Making art or literature or music isn’t reserved for the elite. We are all seeded with creative gifts and the corresponding urges to bring them forth. I know that craving so well; it feels like a balloon expanding in my chest, filled with words, filled with ideas, filled with longing.

It isn’t valuable only if it rescues or raises money or makes an enormous impact. It can be simply for the love of it.

creating requires work

you have to make room for it.

Take yourself seriously. Take your art seriously. You are both worth this. And by the way, do not become immobilized by good art already out there. Stop that this instant.

There is no scarcity in creativity. The world always needs good offerings. We cannot have too much beauty. There is no such thing as too much wisdom and literature and story and craftsmanship. There is room for you.

Creating is a synonym for perseverance.

We’re all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.1 — DR. SEUSS

Consequently, intense communication fries a circuit for me. It is all too immediate, too unconsidered, too many careless words flying around. I am like one of those fainting goats; I just freeze and keel over. Because I deal with life in my head, I am not comfortable navigating assertiveness, word overload, and half-formed ideas alongside conflict resolution. I feel manhandled, confused, or unheard. On the other side, Brandon feels ignored, disrespected, or punished.

After twenty-three years, we’ve discovered deference and preference—deferring to the other’s process and preferring each other’s needs.

There is a fake idea swirling around out there that says if marriage is hard, we’re doing it wrong.

eternal optimist,

All I’m saying is that healing is possible between two truth-telling, committed people willing to hope for resurrection.

We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

(Hebrews

The thing is, we all want to belong, we all crave sanctuary, we are all invited guests.

For those of us in the dominant narrative, it means not defaulting to our own demographic. Just like a white person is so embedded in majority culture, he or she has to deliberately seek racism to see it, the Marrieds with Children must choose to pay attention to folks outside the mainlined category. It is natural to filter language, community, needs, and perspectives through our own grid, but a simple mental channel change would expose how many of our church structures are isolating and narrow.

When our spiritual spaces are homogenous, it silences the hundreds of alternative stories that experience vibrancy or suffering outside the “

Raise your voice, tell your story, take your place.