Jen Hatmaker - Simple and Free: Staging Your Own Experiment Against Excess

Welcome! Welcome to this story, Risk Takers, Trouble Makers, Rule Breakers, Status Quo Upenders, World Changers, Question Askers, Rabble Rousers. Im guessing you fit in at least one of those categories or you wouldnt be interested in a story like this one. Something is under your skin. Something feelsoffabout how much you have, how much you spend, how much you waste. Maybe it is all completely undefined, as it was for me when I first began this adventure seven years ago. Or maybe you are just munching popcorn and here for the free show.

Either way, I couldnt be happier to welcome you into a little social experiment that changed our lives for good. I can say that now, because although this specific season is in my rearview mirror, as I read back through every word recorded during Simple & Free (formerly ), I was surprised how many ideas were new to me then, because they are the air we breathe today. Let that be good news to you: No matter if anything you read here seems too hard or too crazy or too overwhelming, maybe it will just be Step One into a new idea. And in seven years, youll discover an assimilation so deeply embedded in your life, you wont even remember not thinking that way.

Also, you may say in seven years: Im glad that part is over. Lets just be honest. Eating the same seven foods for four weeks is bananas (a food item I sadly did not partake of during that month). What we learned during and since Simple & Free was that the mechanics of it all were temporary but the lessons were permanent. And that is exactly why I am glad you are here.

Let me tell you what is different now than when I first wrote Simple & Free . This will be obvious if youve followed along with me since, but we had only three kids at the onset of this experiment. During the last month of Simple & Free, Stress, we were matched with Ben and Remy, our two youngest, adopted children from Ethiopia, and brought them home the year after Simple & Free was over. So now we have five kids, and they are such a normal, treasured part of our family, I cant even remember who is adopted. In fact, I felt something close to sadness going back through Simple & Free because Ben and Remy werent here for it. Shared memories before they joined our family are bittersweet, yet still precious, because those years count too, but with the reverse knowledge that our little tribe was incomplete. (But Ill tell you right now that Ben Hatmaker would have had exactly none of Food Month. Hed have moved in with my parents. That boy loves food.)

Life has also gotten a bit bigger and more public, which has made it a touch lonelier than I like. And there are certainly way more of you now, but that has been a joy, not a burden. Ive seen more of the world since, too; I got my very first passport during the writing of Simple & Free . Weve been to Africa a dozen times now, and even though I mentioned in the Intro that Id never been to Italy, Ive been there twice now. Ive fallen hard for the world, you guys. It is beautiful and marvelous, and it has much to teach us on living simply, living well, living smaller, slowing down. There is nothing like trying to visit a store in Spain around 1:00 p.m . and finding it closed for a siesta until 3:00, the owner having coffee with friends or a nap, lost profits be damned. The world has been my best teacher since the completion of Simple & Free, a continuing education program that awes me.

Other than that, I still love our beloved Austin New Church. I still have the same friends youll read about. We still retreat at my mom and dads ranch every Thanksgiving. We still eat pretty clean except when we dont. We still protect the Sabbath pretty fiercely, although we observe it on Sundays, the only true day of rest in our weird life with our weird schedule. We still live in Buda, Texas, just south of Austin, although we moved into a 1908 farmhouse four minutes away that we remodeled on HGTV, which I dont have time to explain here because what in the world.

I still love Jesus so much and believe in this life He asked us to live. I think He knew what He was talking about when He told us to not store up too many treasures on this earth but to live well and love well, because as it turns out, that is what matters more than anything.

On Day 15 of Month Four, I wrote: I giggle to imagine what 2017 Jen would come back to teach me; I dont even know what I dont know. I love that I wrote that. I love that I decided to be a lifelong learner who is less attached to certainty and being right and more interested in paying attention and developing. One thing the 2017 Jen would say to the 2010 Jen who originally experienced Simple & Free is this: Number one, use sunscreen. Im serious. You are in your final days of irresponsible sunning with no consequences. But number two, this weirdo little life you are constructing in which you follow Jesus to strange places doing bizarre things and taking risks is all worth it. Every day of it. It only gets more exciting and meaningful. When God asks you to do something, do it. He is such a trustworthy leader. Dont be afraid. Youve put all your chips on the right number.

I am delighted you are here, reader. As Ive said a thousand times since, Simple & Free is not a template. It is not a list of rules. It is not a program. It is simply an imperfect social experiment to help us find God in an overcrowded, overindulged, overscheduled life. And it did. If any word, any sentence, any section you read helps you cut through the chaos and simplify down to something meaningful, I will count it as nothing but privilege that I was able to walk alongside you in some small way. This has absolutely nothing to do with rules or guilt and everything to do with freedom.