Jen Hatmaker Reveals the Heartbreak That Led to Her Most Joyful, Empowered Chapter Yet (EXCLUSIVE)
After profound loss, Jen Hatmaker opens up about healing and the fearless new life she never expected
Beloved author, speaker, podcaster and mother of five, Jen Hatmaker has never shied away from sharing her truth throughout her decades of life in the spotlight. But in her latest book, Awake, she invites readers into the most vulnerable chapter of her life yet.
Jen faced public heartbreak in 2020 when her 26-year marriage ended following her husband’s infidelity. The unraveling of her relationship combined with the isolation of the pandemic and the collapse of the church she and her husband had built together. “I lost what I thought were God’s two favorite institutions — church and marriage,” she tells Woman’s World in an exclusive interview. But through that loss, she unexpectedly found freedom, peace, and personal power. Now, she’s helping other women awaken to the same.
Jen Hatmaker discovers how to flourish
“When my life first unraveled in 2020, I think the best hope I could even imagine for myself was: Maybe I just won’t be this sad forever,” Jen shares candidly. “So I’m actually still a little shocked to be here in the five-year mark and just go, My life feels truer than it ever felt. It feels beautiful. It feels brighter. I’m so grateful for the people in my life and this rebuilding process and all the helpers and healers that got me here. So what a nice surprise. We do recover. We do more than recover. We flourish.”
Jen emphasizes — against her boyfriend, Tyler Merritt’s wishes — that her transformation isn’t some extraordinary, unreachable feat.
“Tyler is like, ‘I don’t like that you say that,’ but I mean it,” Jen says with a laugh. “My story is not unique. I’m a normal person with a marriage, a family and kids. So that’s what I think makes this important. It really doesn’t matter what they’ve lost, even if it’s their fault, women are amazingly resilient. If I could recover to this degree, anyone can.”
Learning to own her story
Throughout her healing process, Jen could have cast herself as the victim and moved on, but she made a conscious decision to dig deeper. “The earliest version of the story was victim/villain, good/bad, guilty/innocent — which I loved,” she admits. “And it served me for a while, but when I could finally say, ‘Let me take a look at my own stuff. Let me look at my own patterns.’ Then I knew I would be able to write this book.”
Still, Jen is clear that self-reflection doesn’t mean excusing harm: “Which does not excuse any toxic behavior from my ex-husband,” she explains. “But I’m so thankful I did not write this three years ago.” Instead, she waited until she could approach her story with honesty, self-awareness, and no axe to grind. “My North Star was: Will I be proud of this book in five years?”
Jen stubbornly holds onto Jesus
Over the last two decades, Jen’s relationship with faith has evolved — especially in the wake of her divorce. “My faith has been an evolution for probably closer to 15 or 20 years,” she explains. “But I remain stubbornly connected to Jesus.” Though she no longer attends church, Jen doesn’t see that as a departure from faith but rather a realignment with what feeds her soul.
“I wrote something in Awake that I love. I think about it so often. I read an interview with Dallas Willard, and the interviewer said, ‘If you could describe Jesus with one word, what would you say?’
And Dr. Willard said, “Relaxed.”
And I was like, what? Relaxed? I have not had a relaxed God a day in my life.” Now, she embraces the idea of a relaxed Jesus, one who still loves her outside of the traditional structures. “I lost, what I thought were, God’s two favorite institutions — and I’m still loved.”
The surprise gift of fearlessness
“In the before times, when I had everything to lose, I was just afraid all the time,” Jen confesses. “Every interview was scary. Everything felt like a cost analysis. And I was always cautious, nervous, hair-triggered.”
But the shedding of her identity as a pastor’s wife and evangelical leader unexpectedly left her standing stronger. “I am just not afraid anymore. And you will see that in this book. This is a not-afraid person. What a great surprise — that loss can usher in a season of fearlessness.”
Jen Hatmaker reclaims her agency in ‘Awake’
Hatmaker says one of the biggest turning points in her healing was claiming her autonomy…for the first time ever. “Coming to terms with the truth of my own agency was monumental for me,” she says. “I did not realize how much of my life I framed up as ‘happening to me.’ I was a passive character in my own story.”
Now, Jen is basking in the reclaiming of her own agency. She’s taken the reins on her own finances — something that her ex-husband had full control over — and exploring how it feels to actually be independent.
“Exercising independence is disruptive. And it can be — if something needs disrupting, then disrupting it is disruptive,” she explains. “We get to want things. We get to have cravings and preferences and dreams. I don’t care how old we are.”
Three things Jen loves about herself today
When asked to name her favorite qualities in this new chapter of life, Jen lights up.
“Number one, my life has an ease to it that I’ve always wanted.” After years of walking on eggshells, she now lives in a more peaceful rhythm within her home and in her relationships with the people who matter most to her. “I was idling so high all the time,” she says.
Second, she celebrates her hard-won financial independence. “I finally exercised complete independence. I had to have so many helpers. It’s like I went to money school. Now, I am so good and responsible with money. I trust myself.”
And third, her relationships — once strained under the weight of personal crisis, heartbreak, and abandonment — have bloomed. “All of my relationships deepened because of this, and that just feels like such a grace.”
Why ‘Awake’?
“One thing I’m really hopeful for readers is that we can choose to be awake before our life is upended.” And for those who’ve already endured tragedy, she says, “I hope that Awake is a lantern for those people. This is not a how-to manual. I trust my reader to take exactly what they need out of my story and add it to theirs.”
Whether you’re grieving, navigating midlife reinvention, or longing for a way to find a deeper, truer version of yourself, Jen’s story reminds us that we are never too far gone, too old, or too late to flourish. “Everything is in front of us,” she says. “We have agency over it all.”
Pick up a copy of Awake at bookstores or on Amazon — on sale now!
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