Blogger and author Jen Hatmaker, who came out in favor of homosexuality in 2016 and revealed that one of her daughters is lesbian for this year’s Pride Month, has now announced that she and her husband are ending their marriage.
“I don’t know how to say this, and I still cannot believe I am even saying it, but Brandon and I are getting divorced,” she posted to social media on Monday. “Although the details are ours alone, this was completely unexpected, and I remain stunned as we speak. I am shocked, grief-stricken, and broken-hearted.”
A document obtained by blogger Julie Roys shows that Hatmaker is the petitioner for the divorce and filed the paperwork on Aug. 21.
Hatmaker told followers on July 31 that her family was going through an “unexpected crisis” and that they were “deeply hurting.”
“Our family is navigating an unexpected crisis, and I’ve taken a step back from socials and work to help steer toward healing and wholeness,” she wrote. “Please know that everyone is safe, and all our kids are okay.”
Hatmaker asked that supporters not “pry or ask or push, even out of sincere concern” but to pray. In subsequent posts, at times she spoke of going through an unnamed difficulty, including on Aug. 4, when she revealed that she was seeing a “body and soul healer” and described a “visualization” where she was drowning and her loved ones came in a boat to save her.
“[P]lease trust me when I tell you that Jesus is real in suffering. Not in a ‘let go and let God’ way. Ugh. Because what does ‘let go’ even mean pragmatically in a lived experience of loss and grief? I hate that [expletive]. Everybody stop saying stuff like that,” Hatmaker posted on Aug. 22.
She said that she has rather found comfort in the nurturing side of God, which “is not in a hurry. It is not uncomfortable with grief. It also lets you fling every curse word toward the heavens because Jesus has a high tolerance for the F word.”
On Monday, Hatmaker revealed that she and her husband are divorcing and asked for privacy as she and her children take some time away.
“Our loss is not for public devouring,” she stated. “We are real people managing this in our real life in real time, and we are doing the absolute best we know how to do.”
As previously reported, on the June 26 episode of Hatmaker’s “For the Love” podcast, she presented her daughter Sydney, a college student at the University of Texas at Austin, who spoke of coming out as lesbian and how she wrestled with whether or not homosexuality was sinful.
Hatmaker, becoming tearful during the broadcast, told her daughter that it is one of her “greatest regrets and sorrows” that she did not affirm homosexuality sooner.
“When I think of you struggling through that by yourself, I could just sob,” she said, remarking again later, “I am so sorry and I am so sad. If I could go back, I would change it. I would shake myself to life before you were even born; shake some sense into me.”
“[W]e are so proud of who you are. I would not change one molecule of you, not one. I’m so glad you’re gay,” Hatmaker said. “I’m so proud that you are free. I love that that this is how you are made. I’m thrilled about your future. I’ve already told you the kind the wife I need you to marry and I hope you follow my rules.”
Hatmaker is known for books such as “For the Love: Fighting for Grace in a World of Impossible Standards”, “Fierce, Free and Full of Fire: The Guide to Being Glorious You”, “Of Mess and Moxie: Wrangling Delight Out of This Wild and Glorious Life”, “Interrupted: When Jesus Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity” and “Spin Cycle: Devotions to Lighten Your Mother Load”.
She and her husband, Brandon, founded Austin New Church in Texas, where she remains on the board. The couple has five children: three biological and two adopted. They had their own home renovation show, “My Big Family Renovation”, on HGTV in 2014-2015.
Become a Christian News Network Supporter...
Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed. May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!
