Jen Hatmaker - Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire: The Guide to Being Glorious You

PRAISE FOR FIERCE, FREE, AND FULL OF FIRE

Heres the truth: Jen has been pushing me out of my comfort zone like a loving big sister for over a decade, and thats exactly what reading this book is like, in the best possible way: like sitting across from someone who loves you enough to tell you the truth and light up your heart and set you free. I want every woman in my life to read this bookevery single one.

Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author of Present Over Perfect

Some books are all in the head or all in the heart, others are all in the hustle or the habit, but this book is blood and bone and soul. It pulses with energy and heat, with sincerity and goodness, strength and truth. It is beautifully written, sincerely good, authentically lived absolutely, but I also believe it will literally save lives. I cannot wait to press this book into the hands of every woman I know. Jen has never settled for the wide and easy path. She chases after Jesus and redraws the margins as the center of Gods kin-dom but like any true disciple of Jesus, she always leaves a path for us to follow too. A good guide who is worthy of your trust, Jen has offered us more than a map or a guidebook, this is truly a path for transformation, wholeness, and freedom for the sake of the world. I love this book and I love her.

Sarah Bessey, author of Jesus Feminist and Miracles and Other Reasonable Things

You will be delighted by Jens stories of pre-adolescence. You will resonate with her moments of self-doubt. You will drink deeply from her words of affirmation. But in this book, the greatest gift Jen offers us is the language to navigate a world that is unkind to women, but desperately needs us. This is not the womens Christian living book of old. If we let them, Jens words just might release our fierceness, give us the push we need to choose freedom, and in so doing set the world on fire.

Austin Channing Brown, author of Im Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

Spending time with Jen Hatmaker, in person or on the page, invariably reminds me just how much possibility there is in this life. She is tuned for connection and offers up a pretty damn fearless point of view here, something we could all use a hearty dose of.

Kelly Corrigan, New York Times bestselling author of The Middle Place and Tell Me More

Our spiritual journeys are as personal, nuanced, and diverse as we women are, but they are also beautifully interdependent. More than ever, we need to cheer each other on, even and especially in spite of our differences. Jen leads this charge inviting us into her hard-won and often hilarious spiritual lessons learned, and in so doing, inspires us in our own good/hard work of uncovering who we are as women, who God is, and what we are to do with it.

Katherine Wolf, survivor, advocate, and author of Suffer Strong and Hope Heals

I often read books and find myself ferociously taking notes for myself to reference laterbut in Fierce, Free, and Full of Fire, I find myself taking notes for me, my friends, and my daughters. The message that we have to grant ourselves grace, while holding ourselves to a standard of excellence (not perfection!), is timeless and legacy worthy. This is a must-read book for todayand for generations to come.

Nicole Walters, CEO, Inherit Learning Company; TV personality, and Mama of three girls, www.NicoleWalters.com

What Jen gives us in this book is not solely inspiration, but the tools we need to help us live the life that is meant for us as individuals. There is no shame here, no shoulding. There is no hype or hustle culture. Not here, not in this book. Rather, there are illuminated paths for us to walk toward a life that feels more fully our own. You will finish this book feeling seen, respected, and ready to do the work not of changing yourself but uncovering yourself. This book is the work of a woman doing the work, an invitation to all of us to join in. We do not need to be reinvented, just rediscovered. Thank you, Jen, for walking alongside us.

Nora McInerny, author of No Happy Endings; host of Terrible, Thanks for Asking podcast

Only Jen can have you laughing during the second sentence of an introduction, standing to fist bump the air by the middle, and then crying in a heap by books end. Jen embraces the paradoxical tensions most of us want to ignore while encouraging us to hold space for the unfamiliar, scary, or seemingly unsafe things of this world. No matter where you are on lifes journey, you will find yourself in these pages.

Jessica Honneger, founder and co-CEO of Noonday Collection; author of Imperfect Courage

2020 Jen Hatmaker

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Scripture quotations marked THE MESSAGE are from The Message. Copyright by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation. 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-4002-2241-4 (signed)

ISBN 978-0-7180-8816-3 (eBook)

ISBN 978-0-7180-8814-9 (HC)

Epub Edition Feburary 2020 9780718088163

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020931914

Printed in the United States of America

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Please note that the endnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication

For the women in my family, some of the greatest loves of my life: my mom, Jana, and my sisters, Lindsay and Cortney; my mother-in-law, Jacki; my sisters-in-law, Lana and Sarah; and my nieces, Rachel and Rebekah. My beloved daughters, Sydney and Remy. What great luck to belong to this family of strong women. You are my North Star. This book is for you and because of you. May fierceness, freedom, and fire reign in our family for generations.

CONTENTS

I grew up around well-behaved women. They were mostly suburban church moms who didnt drink, never cussed, and sang in the Christmas cantatas. Do not get me wrong for one second: I loved them, my moms and grandmas friends, the consortium of bonus moms who helped raise me. But, seriously, they behaved. My mom drank a single glass of wine at Disney World once when I was in sixth grade, and I remember thinking this must be what it felt like just before your parent became an alcoholic.