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

by Jen Hatmaker

Here is the bummer about the doldrums: the very efforts needed to lift yourself out are the same things you’ve lost energy to do.

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.

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 about breaking free, but apparently we just have to grab a shovel and

A cluttered, disorganized house has a direct correlation

to my cluttered, disorganized mind. So, brace yourselves,

Evidently we will see exactly what we’re looking for.

Make the positive argument ❤️

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 measures make us healthy and whole, because we stop succumbing to disorder and shame.

forgiveness is not condoning evil, not forgetting, not brushing something under the

carpet, not a free pass. It does not mean minimizing the injury and, consequently, your pain.

Forgiveness is a one-man show. One

last thing: forgiveness rarely equals a one-and-done decision. Very few decide one day to forgive and never have to revisit that release. In most cases, it is a process that takes months and sometimes years of work, and just when you think you have laid an offense down, it creeps back up in memory and you have to battle it anew. Just because this work is stubborn does not mean you are failing or will never be free. Forgiveness is a long road in the same direction.

Keeping an offender on the hook leaves room for judgment, which we want deferred for our own sins but rigorously applied to those inflicted on us. But I’ve learned keeping someone on the hook really only keeps me on the

The work of forgiveness is so challenging—the actual work of it. The naming, grieving, empathizing, releasing. It’s like a death. A death of what we wanted, what we expected, what we’d hoped for, what we deserved and didn’t receive. Burying those expectations, because they are indeed dead, is truly cause for grief.

While forgiveness might feel like abandoning justice, it actually sets us free.

Second, forgiveness comes easier to people who regularly ask forgiveness themselves. It is mature Christian practice to own our offenses and remain humble enough to apologize when we’ve wounded, intentionally or not. This posture makes a tender people, a safer family with softer edges. All of us love poorly at some point, and infusing our community with ownership and repentance is contagious. Say you’re sorry. Ask forgiveness. This leads not only to stronger relationships but to better humans, and this world needs better humans.

Good morning, good morning, good mooooorning, it’s time to rise and shine!

Overvalue them, over-love them, over-encourage them

Fangirl the people who never get fangirled. You know the ones: the underdog, the quiet hero, the little guy. They are shy or behind the scenes or difficult or loners. It’s boring when the same old obvious people get all the enthusiasm; the spotlight naturally gravitates toward certain folks in our culture, those who fit the template.

sow seeds of affirmation and goodness and grace into others, and you

Be the friend you’d love to have, call to the deep, and you will attract the treasured kind of friends like sunlight, like a lightning rod,

Fangirl your friends.

You gave us real security, the kind that settles down in your bones and insulates you from fear. (To this day, I cannot muster up much fear. I am overconfident in this world and its people, which you can either take the blame or credit for.)

She “gave women just enough to feel connected to her” but nothing real. She and her husband were locked away on their own island, friendly with many but committed

Bob Goff said on Twitter about camps: “God didn’t give us anything to join, except Him.

I am no longer afraid of spiritual investigation. I’m confident in the end game, which is that God is good and He loves us

and He could not possibly be unfair, arbitrary, cold, or abusive.

It isn’t just that God is loving but that He ...

We want to understand God’s role because it goes to the heart of His character, which goes to the heart of our perceived belovedness. At its core, the question boils down to:

Am I just a bit part in the greater story of God’s glory? Or am I truly a loved daughter?