Jennifer Fulwiler - One Beautiful Dream: The Rollicking Tale of Family Chaos, Personal Passions, and Saying Yes to Them Both

Contents

Jennifer Fulwiler takes us on the wild ride of one womans struggle to balance work and family duties in a house full of babies. Readers will guffaw, cringe, and ultimately walk away inspired as they come to see their own dreams in One Beautiful Dream.

RAYMOND ARROYO, New York Times best-selling author and broadcaster

When I finished reading the very last line of One Beautiful Dream, I applauded. What a treat this book is! And if youve ever struggled with wanting to give family life everything you have but wondering how your God-given passions fit in with that, youre going to be so encouraged by Jens story. There is so much grace in these pages, so many accounts of how creatively the Lord cares and provides for us as we work out our callings with our families. One Beautiful Dream is hilarious, life-giving, and tenderan all-the-way-real reminder that sometimes, when life looks nothing like we expected, its so much better than we could have ever imagined.

SOPHIE HUDSON, author of Giddy Up, Eunice and cohost of The Big Boo Cast

I believe the family is the center of everything, but for those of us fighting the battle to hold ours together, the first casualty is often ourselves. One Beautiful Dream is a must-read for everyone who is pouring their whole heart and love into nurturing their children while struggling to maintain their own creativity and identity. You really can have it all, but it just may not be the way you expect. Jennifer Fulwilers funny, poignant, and oh-so-personal writing style makes reading this book like a fantastic conversation with a dear friend. You will find yourself crying and laughing along with this epic journey of personal discovery.

JEANNIE GAFFIGAN, executive producer, head writer, The Jim Gaffigan Show

All we need to do is be who God made us to be. Thats an arduous joy, and Jennifer Fulwiler is honest and heartfelt and funny about it. The universal call to holiness looks different for each one of usand is often something of a mess by worldly standards. Fulwiler is a tremendous friend to have on the journey. Jennifer Fulwilerand this bookwill help you and those you love. One Beautiful Dream will help you love with greater freedom, which, as Pope Francis has emphasized, is Gods dream for us. Reading this book is an encounter with Gods dream for you. Youll also laugh and cry with her and come to quickly love her and her family!

KATHRYN JEAN LOPEZ, senior fellow, The National Review Institute and editor-at-large, National Review

Marvelous! This book will breathe life into so many hollowed parents who feel stuck between their families and side passions. Most of us wonder: How can we do both? How can we be devoted family people and live out our personal dreams? This refreshing memoir shows the way. Its not a fluffy self-help guide. The book is deliciously witty, insightful, absorbing, and offers one motivational epiphany after another, each punching a hole in the Resistance blocking us from our dreams. If every parent read this, families would become dream incubators, not where passions go dormant.

BRANDON VOGT, bestselling author and founder of ClaritasU

It would be enough to read One Beautiful Dream for its hilarity. Enough to read it for its brilliant insights and powerful writing. Enough to read it for the rollicking story of how Jen Fulwiler found her best self while losing herself under laundry for eight and diapers and the weight of an audacious dream. But when you combine it all, youll find a breathtaking look at a modern family life built on ancient truths. Grab this book and devour it for the soul-satisfying nourishment it delivers.

JULIE LYLES CARR, author, Raising an Original: Parenting Each Child According to Their Unique God-Given Temperament and host of The Modern Motherhood Podcast

Jennifer Fulwiler is a great writer, plain and simple. And a deep thinker. Combine all that with a cutting sense of humor and youve got an immensely readable story. Oh, and it will change the way you think about family life forever. Other than that, this isnt much of a book.

PATRICK LENCIONI, best-selling author, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family, and cofounder, The Amazing Parish

ALSO BY JENNIFER FULWILER

Something Other Than God: How I Passionately

Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It

For Joe, Donnell, Lane, Lucy, Kate, Pammy, and JT.

You are my one beautiful dream.

I FIRST MET JEN FULWILER at a small Mexican restaurant in San Marcos, Texas, in 2007. We had read each others blogs and kind of gotten to know each other through a series of emails, but this was back when it still felt a little weird to go meet someone in person you only knew through the internet. I convinced myself it would be okay because she was a devout Christian and I believed that her faith probably didnt go hand in hand with being a serial killer. Fortunately, this turned out to be true.

But what struck me about Jen that first day at lunch was how intelligent she is about so many things. Shed be the first to laugh and roll her eyes and make a sarcastic comment about this, but its true. She is smart and witty, which are two characteristics that rank high on my imaginary priority list of what I like in a friend. We talked much longer than I planned for at lunch that day about everything from blog algorithms and coding (she talked; I listened because... what?) to our families, our faith, and our hopes and dreams. And I walked away that day knowing that Id just experienced an online friendship becoming a real life friendship because I adored Jen Fulwiler.

We have continued to meet for lunch somewhere between Austin and San Antonio a couple of times a year. Every time I see her, Im struck again by what an unexpected gift she has been in my life. What are the odds that two self-proclaimed introverts would take the initiative to meet in real life and then continue to do so on a regular basis?

A huge part of our friendship for me is that Jen inspires me. Her story of transitioning from being an atheist to a Christian is unusual enough, but when you add in the part about a driven, ambitious woman who never really aspired to be a mother finding herself with six kids and yet still manages to pursue her dreams? Now that is someone I want in my life.

Heres the thing about Jen. She is real, she is raw, and she is funny. She isnt one to sugarcoat anything or try to make life seem like its always magical and wonderful. Shes the first to say that having six kids and being married and juggling a radio-and-writing career is at times exhausting and may occasionally cause her to lose her mind. She balances all these things, yet is the first to admit that maybe the reality is women can kind of sort of have it all as long as they dont mind doing it with a spit-up stain on their shoulder and a screaming toddler in the background.

Jen is a constant reminder to me that God has dreams for all of us that go so far beyond what we can imagine and most certainly take our lives in a direction that we never planned, but following him will never be boring. Shes a picture of what God can do with a woman who will say yes even when it looks messy, even when it looks hard, and even when its so different from the picture you had in your head. And as you read the pages of One Beautiful Dream, you will find yourself wishing you could meet her for Mexican food in a small little restaurant in San Marcos because once you get to know her, its hard to get enough of Jen Fulwiler.