The Summer of Seven

Last year, I stumbled across this incredibly witty, intelligent, deeply-in-love-with-Jesus woman.

Sometimes, the internet is truly a gift.

Her name is Jen Hatmaker. And her “thing” is loving Jesus as crazy as she can. I wish she lived next door. The article I stumbled across (because thankfully, I didn’t actually stumble across Jen herself, as that might have been painful for at least one of us) was this one called On Empty.  And I loved it because she sounded so much like me at the time: juggling a lot of plates, trying to love people in the midst of it, and coming up empty more often than she’d like.

So when I found out she’d written a book called 7: an Experimental Mutiny Against Excess (because she talked about it in that blog post I read–I’m genius like that) I knew I had to read it. Because if there’s anything I love more than a girl crazy in love with Jesus, it’s a girl willing to do something about it.

That may or may not have been a mistake, considering the current state of mind I find myself in. Reading that book added an awful lot of fuel to the fire raging through my life right now. Or perhaps a water metaphor is better. You know those cute bucket thingies at water parks that collect the spraying water from some brightly decorated monstrosity, then dump it all out on your head when they become full?

Apparently I’ve been living with one of those directly overhead. And Jen’s words in 7 contributed an awful lot of the water.

The book was an incredible look into her family’s decision (okay, okay, it was actually Jen’s decision, but who’s counting?) to take a deep look at seven areas in their lives and reduce them drastically. Food. Clothes. Spending. Media. Possessions. Waste. Stress. All found themselves under a microscope as she did crazy things like choosing 7 food items, 7 clothing items, 7 places to shop (you get the general idea) and used those and only those for 30 days. Amazing, right? Told ya.

So … it seems there are several of us who have been messed up by this book. And I’m willing to guess there are more out there. (If you haven’t read 7 yet, you can get a copyby clicking the picture above.) Someone got the brilliant idea of taking this summer to put Jen’s craziness into practice in our own lives, one week at a time. I think it may be because we do not want to be labelled crazy … permanently.

I know a good band when I hear one, so I’ve jumped on the wagon.

The other crazies ladies can be found here by clicking the link below.

http://www.thepoorganiclife.com/the-summer-of-7

We’re all working on one area at a time, in whatever order we like. Join us?? If you’re a writer, you can add the link to your blog about it at that page. If you don’t blog, do it anyway! You can even join the Facebook page just for “Summer of 7 Participants” (search it and request to be added.) Fun times.

Come on; you know you wanna.

Plus I don’t want to be the only one with an extremely limited range of motion all summer long; I need someone to hold hands and whine with once in awhile.

I’ll be sharing my journey here, and I’m starting with clothing this week, which should be interesting. At least, we all hope so. And if you need some inspiration to read the book (and/or join in) here’s a video trailer which might spur you along:

 

Happy summer!

This post contains affiliate links. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to support the Starbucks habit it requires for me to write it. Wait a minute, is coffee on my list for next week? Do I have to count the chocolate, sugar, and cream they put in it? What about the chocolate drizzle, the whipped cream, and the caramel? Oh dear …