Welcome to the Jesus Calling Podcast. Today we're talking with Jen Hatmaker who is

an author, a speaker, and a mom to five. Jen's latest book of Mess and Moxi, wrangling delight out of this wild and glorious life,

is a collection of stories from Jen's own life that encourages women to live in the moment,

undaunted, no matter what the moments hold.

Later in our program, we also talk with singer-songwriter

Nicole Nordeman, whose song, Slow Down,

and the accompanying music video touched millions of viewers everywhere

with its theme of cherishing every moment we have in raising children.

First up, here's Jen Hatmaker.

I'm Jen Hatmaker and I'm a mom of five. I'm wife to Brandon and church planner here in Austin.

And I'm a writer. I've written, I'm not honestly even sure 12 or 13 books and Bible studies and I get to travel all over the place and

speak and teach to women and it's just a dream.

So I'm the oldest of four kids.

My dad was in ministry from the time that I was three on,

and he's a very rogue pastor, incredibly rogue.

He was in recreation. And so he ran all the family life centers that were attached to our churches. We were in Fort Worth when my dad went to seminary and we were in Little Rock

Arkansas and we were in South Louisiana in a little town called Homer and every

single one of those places had a really important impact on my life. Our home life was loud and funny and fun.

Our dad is the funniest person I know, and so he's passed on that gene to all of us.

I have two sisters underneath me and then the baby is a boy and all of us except for sister, live now in Austin.

You can kind of look backwards and connect dots

to see sort of who God had created you to be,

...