I know we are half way through June and here I am posting a book I read in March. I did make a commitment to try to share the books I am reading, as I'm reading them, but truthfully the world had much more important things going on. I felt that I needed to use my voice and my words for those issues. So my monthly book review posts took a backseat. I'll do my best to share April and May's books soon!
I was introduced to Jen Hatmaker in February of this year. As I was attending the RISE conference in Toronto I started to research the speakers that would be attending and Jen was one of them. I started to follow her on Instagram and I instantly liked her. She is a pastor's wife, a mother of five children, and a best selling author and speaker. I absolutely loved her talk at RISE. It was all about women empowerment and women encouraging each other instead of competing with each other. There were two things that I wrote down and highlighted from her talk. The first was; another women's success does not diminish yours. And the second was; that it's okay to dream big because the world needs our individual skills and talents.
Jen Hatmaker is a Christian and her book has many aspects of God, Jesus and the Church, so if that's not your interest or you aren't a religious person that may be an issue for you. Similar to my book in January (Present Over Perfect) I feel that you would still find the book very relatable and if you are more spiritual (than religious) you can replace God and Jesus with what your belief system is. That's just a disclaimer for my non-religious friends!
I will start out with saying that I really enjoyed this book and I do recommend it! It is a series of essays, making it easy to put down and come back to a few days later. The thing I liked most is the authors voice and humor comes through on every page. She uses her real life examples with hilarious storytelling to convey her message. The message is this, give yourself some grace and know that no one has it all together! Life is not perfect but it's still beautiful.
I wanted to highlight some things that really jumped out at me with this book. In the earlier chapters, she touches on the pressure to find your "calling" and how so many women put their current life on hold and search for their true purpose. I think why this struck me so much is that she was describing me. I am always pushing to do more and be better which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can distract me from the present which definitely is not a good thing. "In many ways, the perception of calling is a luxury of the privileged. A life's purpose need not be authenticated by a business plan, a 501c3, a website, a salary or an audience. We get to labor over our "calling" because we are educated and financially stable, so many of us eschew the honor of ordinary work and instead fret over the perception of wasting our lives. Our single mom in Haiti entertains none of this."
She touches on motherhood, and how we are often our own worst critics. One message she shares is that if we are worrying about being a good parent they you likely already are one. She also touches on marriage and she had ten things that she thought were crucial for marriage.
1) You are not good at the same things and that is okay.
2) I'm all for honesty, but pretending has it's place.
3) I'm all for pretending, but honesty has it's place.
4) Find best couple friends.
5) Lighten up.
6) Be nice.
7) Stick together spiritually.
8) Stop trying to change each other.
9) Have fun.
10) Have lots of sex.
She also goes on to share her favourite recipes! I know that doesn't seem to make sense with the context of the book, but it really does. I haven't tried any of them yet but I plan to!
If you are looking for an encouraging and uplifting book, that honestly made me laugh out loud in so many spots, I recommend you pick this book up!
Here is the link - For the Love
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