Free For The Love: Fighting For Grace In A World Of Impossible Standards Ebooks To Download
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. 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. In this raucous ride to freedom for modern women, Jen Hatmaker bares the refreshing wisdom, wry humor, no-nonsense faith, liberating insight, and fearless honesty that have made her beloved by women worldwide.
Audible Audio Edition
Listening Length: 5 hours and 42 minutes
Program Type: Audiobook
Version: Unabridged
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers
Audible.com Release Date: August 18, 2015
Whispersync for Voice: Ready
Language: English
ASIN: B011J3TVCE
Best Sellers Rank: #33 in Books > Audible Audiobooks > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity #293 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Christian Living #1063 in Books > Religion & Spirituality
This book is worth more than 3 stars, but in light of all the 5-star reviews (written by young bloggers, probably) I find myself compelled to provide a counterpoint. For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards is a fun stream-of-consciousness roller coaster ride through the rants and raves of a Jesus-loving, preacher's wife and mother-of-5, sprinkled with a little minor celebrity glitz. It is, therefore, not what I expected.The book is truly funny, easy to read in small snatches and occasionally makes a great point of practical theology. (“If you can make a pot of chili and use a cell phone, then you can create community.” Or, “Anytime the rich and poor combine, we should listen to whoever has the least power.”) However, it is not what I expected because the title suckered me. I thought it was going to be a straight-up education about grace applied to ourselves primarily and others secondarily, something we all sorely need, whether we are coming from the get-your-life-in-line end of the spectrum or the let-it-all-hang-out end. But it's not. After the wonderful Introduction, grace is never directly addressed again, and there are whole chapters which don't even use the word. There IS a chapter on fashion, multiple chapters addressing pet peeves, Jen's life in Facebook posts and several intricate recipes. Yes, there are a couple more serious chapters about missions (seemingly borrowed from When Helping Hurts) and church leaders, but there is approximately one Bible reference (ok, I found three more in the second-to-last, confusing chapter encouraging women to lead more) and for a book touting grace, I felt kind of ragged on a few times.
You guys, I’m not even sure what to say about For the Love. I read listened to 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess several months ago and loved it. Everything from the message to the voice to the audio narrator was inviting. When I saw that Jen Hatmaker had a new book coming out, I jumped on it. I hesitate when requesting religious books for review because while I do read these type of books regularly, I don’t read them frequently enough or fast enough to really feel good about being able to review them by the release date. However, For the Love’s release date was so far in advance from when I requested it and the book so short (only right at 200 pages) that I thought I could make it work. Little did I know that I would read this one just as quickly as a fiction book. That just doesn’t happen to me very often. After reading several books recently that either felt irreverent as a whole or at least partially irreverent I felt like I needed a good dose of some reaffirming religious content. Jen Hatmaker seemed like a good bet.The first twenty to thirty percent of For the Love had me highlighting large sections of text a time, emailing them to my friend Kay (the one who suggested I read 7 to begin with), and generally laughing out loud. This lady is hilarious. And on point. Only Jen Hatmaker could write an entire chapter dedicated to “Leggings are not pants” and “Tights are not leggings.” But there were serious subjects too, about the pressure we put on ourselves to be not a jack of all trades but a master of all trades—especially in the mom category. Even being an expected mother, I can totally see myself already placing these burdensome standards on myself that she discusses. Plus the first section of “thank you notes” in the style of Jimmy Fallon were also hilarious.
October 15, 2015: I chose to change my rating from 3 to 2 stars. I think this change better reflects my view of the book.Note: I was chosen to be part of the "For the Love" book launch team earlier this year. My advance apologies for the length of this review.I wish that allowed for half-stars, because this book, for me, lands in the 2.5 range. Neither fantastic nor the worst I've ever read. The following initially appeared on my blog, "Along the Way" (mlsgregg.com) on August 23, 2015 -PART 1 -The toughest position I ever held during my time on a college newspaper was that of a reviewer. It is difficult for me to put into practice the instruction of my professor – observe and dissect – knowing how intensely artists labor over their work. They practically bleed onto the page or the canvas. Nevertheless, it is important to strive to be as even-handed and objective as possible. That is my goal in this piece, and the one that follows.Setting the StageWhen a friend of mine mentioned in early spring that Jen Hatmaker was taking applications for her book launch team, my interest was piqued. I’d never done anything like that. I knew a little about Hatmaker, having heard her speak at different venues a couple of times and through some of her writing, mostly online stuff. Nothing of hers that I’d been exposed to was “out there.”Mostly, she was funny – and I always appreciate good, clean humor. So I thought, “Why not? I’ll apply.” I didn’t really expect to be chosen. (I also never expected that my brief endorsement would appear in the front of the published book).Color me surprised when the email arrived in my inbox. Given a link to a pdf download, I began to read.
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