For the Love of Significance

Today is the Launch Day for Jen Hatmaker's book, For the Love.

And as part of the Launch Team, I have been asked to blog about this book/experience today.  Like August 18th, 2015.  It is 10pm Mountain Time, which means I missed the deadline on the East Coast, but whatever.  It's the day before school starts.  This is the best I can do.  And as Jen says:

I have had 5 months to figure out how to say what this book and experience has meant to me, and tonight, I still can't wrap the words around the awesome things that God has done through Jen's words.  5 months ago I was groggy and bloated and recovering from an appendectomy.  I was in a non-writing stage, wondering if anyone was ever going to read my blog and wondering if anything I ever wrote mattered to anyone.  Wondering if it ever would.

Yesterday I got an email from Jen. This is a best-selling author.  Her face is plastered all over stuff.  She's on TV.  She's queen of the hashtag.  She's legitimately famous.

And she sends out an email to her "Email Friends" the day before her new book launch day saying, "My biggest fear is that whatever I said or wrote won't matter.  I think about it all the time."

And I thought, you too?  Even you?  Successful writer? Even you who wrote these words that inspired me?

Well, good, Jen, you're human.  You struggle.  You struggle openly and beautifully.  And after writing the words that made me laugh and cry and grow in grace, I can reassure you that you matter.  What you do matters.  What you write matters.  How you mother and lead and grow and serve and struggle matters.

And you too, readers.  You matter.  What you do matters.  You are the only you there will ever be, and what you read and write and say and teach matters.  How you mother and serve matters.  You cleaning the toilets matters.  You wiping bottoms matters.  You apologizing after you scream your head off at your children matters.  You making 25 PB&Js matters.  You getting clothes and backpacks and lunches and notebooks and crayons and folders with or without prongs matters.  It seems fruitless and futile, but it matters.

And the honesty of it all matters most because

And maybe that's all I need to tell you about this book.  It is honesty and hilarity and truth and grace.  It brought together a group of 500 people who now consider themselves friends.  The Launch Team is a community of people sharing prayer and laughter and grace.  It is a place where I matter.  My voice, my thoughts, my needs, my prayers matter.  And when you read For the Love, I hope it reminds you that you matter.  I hope it reminds you that you, truth, and grace matter.