Wednesday, August 19, 2015

For the Love

Several months ago, I became one of the #500. This became a band of women (and four men) that rallied around Jen Hatmaker's new book For The Love that launched yesterday! (You can snag your copy here!)

It has been a joy and a privilege to partake in something like this. I have never so quickly been enveloped into community, where we were once all strangers and now feel like we know one another, truly. Never did I think that the Launch Team would result in community, but it has and it's been a HUGE blessing in my life.

When I received the book in March, I knew it was going to be a good one! 7 wrecked me and so did Interrupted, so I knew I was in for a treat. Jen's words were a breath of fresh air, especially as I was journeying into motherhood. The idea of letting myself off the hook to receive God's grace and then to give His grace freely to others, it is truly freeing. As a first time mother, I set standards for myself. Wanted to do this or not do that. Ultimately being judgmental. For the love! I knew I needed to let it go. Each of Jen's chapters is a short essay that I read through in a matter of a few days--quick and easy to read, packed with TRUTH and hilarity. My highlighter ran out of ink.

At this point, my daughter is 6 months old and I am nowhere near a perfect parent and I never will be (BLESS.); however, I know that God's grace covers all. That is the true message. Grace covers all. We can never be perfect, why do we expect that from ourselves and from others? It results in invented standards that will never be met, unrealistic expectations, and shackles. The message echoed from Jesus and Jen: we are free! We are free to be ourselves, play our note, live the life we've been given! Once we let ourselves off the hook, we can do that for everyone else and live our lives as they are intended.

If you aren't convinced to buy this book NOW,  I hope you enjoy the book trailer! OR, search #forthelove on IG, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Surely those posts alone would beckon one to add this lovely book to an Amazon cart or scurry to Barnes & Noble to pick up a copy! There are also several wonderful Launch Team Members that are giving away a copy--check out one of them here.

Below is a blurb about the book:

Best-selling author Jen Hatmaker is convinced life can be lovely and fun and courageous and kind. She knows how the squeeze of this life can make us competitive and judgmental, how we can lose love for others and then for ourselves. In For the Love, she reveals how to:
  • Break free of guilt and shame by dismantling the unattainable Pinterest life.
  • Learn to engage our culture’s controversial issues with a grace-first approach.
  • Be liberated to love and release the burden of always being right.
  • Identify the tools you already have to develop real-life, all-in, know-my-junk-but-love-me-anyway friendships.
  • Escape our impossible standards for parenting and marriage by accepting the standard of “mostly good.”
  • Laugh your butt off.
Below is one of my endorsements:
What a freeing read this book is! I’m so grateful for the words in this book, it is exactly what my soul needed. Pare down your life to grace and all else will follow suit. I look forward to sharing this message in my everyday life.
~ LaRae; wife, first time momma, lover of encouraging others, exploring the outdoors, & following Jesus. Austin, TX

By grace, we are called to live this life. Let's live it well!

This blog post is part of of blog tour to help launch Jen’s book, For The Love. The blog tour will take place August 18th through September 30, 2015.  To check out the other blogs click HERE!

No comments:

Post a Comment