Inspirational Quotes

Top 7 Quotes from 7 Days of Christmas by Jen Hatmaker

  1. “After Jesus’ fast, He began healing, rescuing, redeeming. The spirit filled up the emptiness Jesus created, launching Him into ministry. In some supernatural way the abstinence from food was the catalyst for Jesus’ unveiling; the real fireworks were next. Never again would Jesus fly under the radar. His powerful ministry was activated, inviting worship and opposition, salvation and death. After thirty years on earth, His story truly began.” Pg 35


  1. “Jesus - our greatest Christmas gift - is a redeemer, a restorer in every way. His day on the cross looked like a colossal failure, but it was His finest moment. He launched a kingdom where the least will be the greatest and the last will be first, where the poor will be comforted and the meek will inherit the earth. Jesus brought together the homeless with the privileged and said, “You’re all poor, and you’re all beautiful.” The cross leveled the playing field, and no earthly distinction is valid anymore. It is the most epic miracle in history. That is why we celebrate. May we never become so enamored by the substitutions of this world that we forget.” Pg 80


  1. “So why don’t we care for the earth anywhere near to the degree we do our bodies? Why don’t we fuss and examine and steward creation with the same tenacity? Why aren’t we refusing complicity in the ravaging of our planet? Why aren’t we determined to stop pillaging the earth’s resources like savages? Why do we mock environmentalists and undermine their passion for conservation? Do we think ourselves so superior to the rest of creation that we are willing to deplete the earth to supply our luxuries? If so, we may be the last generation who gets that prerogative.” Pg 133


  1. “I’m done separating ecology from theology, pretending they don’t originate from the same source.” Pg 134


  1. “Half the time the kids don’t even want the toy. They’de rather we give them our time or give them a break, or give ourselves one so we’re not quite so cranky this time of year.” Pg 142


  1. “Your giving can effect extraordinary change. Pick a need, country, group of people, an organization focused on empowerment and sustainable independence. You could be an answer to countless prayers. The poor don’t lack ambition, imagination, or intelligence; most simply lack resources we have what they require and more than you need. We could share.” Pg 158-159


  1. “YOU can add kind words, generous responses, positive intent, and good jokes into the mix. You can up the ante on joy. You can shrug things off instead of going up in flames. You can compliment instead of criticize. You can walk outside and take a deep breath bring your eggnog. You can be the best thing happening in the room.” Pg 168


EXTRA: “We’re being encouraged to be generous with our grace and our time and our words. If we are gracious toward other people, it’s hard to be stressed about them. And that extends, too, to giving room for surprises and messedup surprises and things not going as planned.” Pg 168


EXTRA: “The sabbath is holy. Not lazy, not selfish, not unproductive; not helpful, not optional, not just a good idea. Holy.” Pg 188

My Top 12 Quotes from Missional Motherhood - The Everyday Ministry of Motherhood in the Grand Plan of God by Gloria Furman


  1. "This is the kind of prayeing that resonates in the heart of every mother: helpless yet hopeful. We pray as J.I. Packer describes in his book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God: The prayer of a Christian is not an attempt to force God’s hand, but a humble acknowledgement of helpless dependence. If there is a prayer pounding in your heart, pray it. God is honored by our confession of dependence on and our hope in him.” pg 82


  1. "We need to know that our home is not a projection of our image but a space in which we work to display the image of Christ. Home points to a peace that is beyond color schemes and adornments. It points to the fact that the Lord is our refuge. We find the shalom we seek in him. Your house is not your haven; Christ is.” Pg 115


  1. "Mothering women who feast on God’s word show the world that they’ve learned the secret of contentment. So let’s be word-dependent moms. Let’s consume God’s word to the hilt and shake the gates of hell with faith. Satan cannot make us trust our stuff (or wish we had stuff to trust). The gnawing pain of wanting stuff cannot destroy us, because Christ crushed the idol of consumerism on his cross. We will suffer no lack when we trust him. Our children will suffer no lack when they trust him. Let’s trust him to be our daily bread. Let’s trust him to be our children and our disciples’ daily bread. When we trust the Bread of Life in this way, we can be prepared for him to take us out into the world so we can start passing out loaves to others. Christ’s mession to glorify himself is our mission, and he delights in freeing moms from idolatrous consumerism so we can show the world that he is enough.” Pg 115 & 116


  1. "When our modern ears hear the word peace, we think of the absence of conflict, but the Hebrew word shalom speaks to the presence of wholeness.” 117


  1. "We do not serve the Lord in order to obtain forgiveness, but we serve him with joy because we have been forgiven.” Pg 127


  1. “We follow Christ, who laid down his life in order to nurture our lives. Serving others from a position of personal weakness is embarassing for us prideful people. We like to be seen as sufficient. We enjoy admiring glances. We brush off compliments of, “Wow. How do you do it?” but we relish those words and play them back in our minds. Distinctly Christian mothering is done from a posture of weakness and dependence.” Pg 127


  1. “We don’t mother in order to obtain forgiveness, but we mother out of our forgiven-ness. We are free from saving ourselves or pretending we are strong. We are free from mothering our children in certain ways in order to obtain approval from other women. Our children are free from the unfair burden of becoming our saviors or proving our worth.” Pg 128


  1. “Jesus redeemed our motherhood from the futility of sin. We follow in Christ’s pattern by laying down our lives. We serve with the power that he provides, and we look forward to the fruition of God’s promises by faith. We live out his big story, the story that says: Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. (2 Cor. 5:17) Pg 131


  1. “Women actively show forth the image of their Creator through the exercise of their God-given function and God-given calling (or, in other words, their vocation). We can use the terms vocation and mission synonymously. Our Father has designed for us a function \and called us to exercise it through fulfilling the mission he gave us. Working, ruling, speaking, serving, nurturing, leading, teaching, and building - all these abilities and more are gifts from God as provision for the mission he gave us to make disciples of all nations.” Pg 141-142


  1. We need to understand that our obsession with safety is not the gravest concern regarding helicopter parenting; risk intolerance is. When we spend unhealthy amounts of energy in training our children and disciples to be afraid, they will subconsciously adopt our anemic view of God.” Pg 169


  1. “You are on mission, and your labors are unto the Lord.” Pg 196


  1. “They may say you are just feeding a hungry child, just filling out paperwork, just folding laundry, or just paying the bills. But we know there is no just about nurturing life in the face of death. God gives us his own spiritual armor (Eph. 6:10-18)... Incidentally, this spiritual armor fits even over maternity elastic.” Pg 197