Heather Holleman's Blog, page 216

Branches Hold

I sometimes hold leaves and flowers, newborn things, and marvelous creations, fully grown. I’m strong enough for others to build nested dreams upon my frame. I support a universe; I shade everyone near me.

I lose all foliage, and then I sometimes carry only frozen drops of paralysis and blocked flow. I sometimes weep water coming down from above or ooze the sap of wounds. But this way, so much shines through every empty cut or stripped down limb. The sun turns me golden.

And sometimes, when the conditions form perfectly, I carry the snow like frosting. I make a winter palace. I’m a marvel.

Going Beyond the Request

I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5 where I vaguely remember how, if someone wants a tunic from you, you give him your cloak as well, or how, if someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. It’s a teaching on doing even more than what’s expected or demanded.

I think about that expression “go the extra mile” in a new way. What would it meant to not only fulfill someone’s request (or demand) but to also do even more? How can I practically “go the extra mile” in how I treat both friends and strangers?

In a very practical and immediate example, my phone rings and a woman asks me to make a large salad or several batches of cookies for a women’s ministry event. She needs food, and gathering volunteers seems to overwhelm her. Suddenly I say something out of character for me so surely led by God:  “What if I brought both for you–the salad and the cookies?”

It was a simple moment of responding to a request with even more. And now I find myself waiting for the next request so I can do even more. 

Days In / Days Out

Yesterday, I spent the entire day moving from meeting to meeting, class to class, event to event. When I returned to fall in bed late in the night, I realized how hard it is to live a life like this. Even though everyone felt cared for with a dinner made in advance and everything in order in the home, I felt so out of sorts. My Big Day Out reminded me that it’s time for a Big Day In. 

I listened to my heart. I found myself lingering so long to talk to my daughters in their beds that night and wanting to drive them to school instead of the bus. I found myself so excited–overly excited!–to vacuum and dust the living room and light a fresh candle in preparation for our time as a family tonight. I couldn’t wait to have a Big Day In to work from home, wash and fold all the the laundry, prepare dinner, and think of a fun snack for after school.

When I think of the rhythms of my life, I remember to balance going out with coming back in, back to family, to meals around the table, and the quiet order of silence away from the hustle and bustle.

 

The God Who Sees You

In Genesis 16, we find a woman running away. She’s a mistreated slave, scared, and most likely in despair. The angel of the Lord finds her and asks this:“Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” As the Lord interacts with her, we read this in verse 13: “She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.'” 

You are the God who sees me. 

I think about Hagar in strange settings where I don’t feel seen. At this one doctor’s office in town, you stand apart from the check-in counters by this wall where they obviously cannot see if someone stands in line. I felt so frustrated for days about this set-up. How can they see me? Do they know I’m here? Why am I standing here alone and ignored? Can anybody see me?

Then my daughter pointed to the ceiling where titled mirrors showed each attendant exactly who stood in line, where, and for how long. They see you. You are never not seen. 

The same thing happened again as I arrived early to the English Department to work in my office. I approach the deep, dark, lonely hallway. I’m nervous because I see no light switches anywhere. I’m alone and have no idea what to do while walking toward my hallway. And then, when I’m still at least 10 yards away, the lights all click on in anticipation of my arrival. Motion sensors! Hallelujah!

The tilted mirrors. The motion sensors. Hagar. God always sees me. He’s always here. I am never not seen by Him. In Psalm 33:15, I remember that God formed us and “considers everything [we] do.” And like motion sensors that know I’m coming and have been there ahead of me all along, I think about Deuteronomy 31:8 “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

He sees. He is already where you are going.

When You’ve Changed

I love teaching the single-event memoir to students because they learn how to look at times in their lives when they changed. Great stories show transformation. Something happens to you, and it impacts you in such a way that it becomes a powerful story to tell. The reader experiences that transformation along with you, and perhaps they change a little themselves.

Someone has to change. And normally, change happens because the character conquers an opposing force. The opposing force represents anything that destabilizes identity, both in a negative sense and also a beautifully positive one. Students write about encounters with overwhelming beauty as often as overwhelming hardship.

But something changes them. You read a before-and-after account. We learn how experts in story tell us that the brain is hard-wired for transformation. We love it. We look for it. We expect it.

So I invite students to think about transformative moments. They write them down. They realize they have wisdom to share. I cannot wait to read them. I will change as well.

 

An Original

Today my daughter tells me how much she enjoys this one person at school because this person is “original.”

Originality! I haven’t heard that compliment in a long time, and I remember again how much I treasure originality in people who let their unique personalities truly shine. The more you you are, the better.

As I was thinking about this, I laughed about how much I love this original, unique daughter I have right here–the one who takes her cat on walks on a bright red leash and who grows avocado plants from a seed.

Fighting Despair, Pride, Dread, and Confusion

As I look back on the last few years of ministry, I take note of the predictable forms of spiritual warfare most noted in scripture. More than anything else, I battled these: despair (Isaiah 63:1), pride (1 Peter 5:5), dread (Psalm 53:5), and confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33)

Even on this very day, I pray that God would strengthen me against despair, pride, dread, and confusion and replace those prisons with hope, humility, faith, and clarity.

It’s no surprise when these harassing experiences come, but you’ll find you become wiser and better at recognizing and standing against what comes against you as you move into new places of ministry. You’ll daily put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6), acknowledge that you live a crucified life (Galatians 2:20), belonging completely to Jesus, and move on into your day.

Living with flair means living in victory. It means living with wisdom to interpret what’s happening to you. It means appropriating the full privileges of being a child of God.

Your “Cave Ministry”

I picture David there in the cold, dark cave. I picture him there, afraid and yet so authentically desperate for God that people came to him to perhaps listen in on his words to God.

We’re told in 1 Samuel 22:1-3 that, while in this cave to flee from Saul, “all those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their commander.” I think they might have come to learn how a hurting person relates to God.

From this place, David wrote Psalm 142. I wonder if he read it aloud. I wonder if he cried when he read it.

He writes, “When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way” (Psalm 142:3). I love how David asks God to “set [him] free from [his] prison” so he can praise God. Then he writes this beautiful idea into words: “Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me” (7).”

I remember meeting a young couple who endured much suffering and loss in their lives. They told me that God had placed them in a dark cave of misery, but from there, a ministry came about. God brought the distressed and despairing to them, and they cared for those people. I wondered about their lives, and the story of David and his “cave ministry” for years.

I reasoned that if God brings me to a dark, scary place in my life, He is there. He knows my way. And I’m there because He is bringing people to me, right there in that cave of sadness, to lead and care for. They will listen to how I talk to God from that place. David wrote from that cave, and I thought that I might write from dark places as well.

Sometimes, we minister from bright, clear places of joy. Other times, we minister in a cave where all we have is a cry from our heart for God to set us free.

 

Keep Moving Forward with Senses Alert to Beauty

Today I stood outside by the Weeping Cherry tree to detach what seemed like one hundred little snowflakes and icicles we attached with wire hooks. We placed a spotlight on the tree at night to illuminate a sparkling wonderland of snowflakes as part of our Christmas decorations.

It’s always easier to decorate than to un-decorate.

It feels like an impossible and tedious task as I uncurl tiny wires on tiny snowflakes. It’s going to take forever. It’s going to bore me to tears. I’m mostly becoming stuck in a tangle of branches, and I don’t want to be doing this.

But then I remember to notice the beautiful winter branches, the dark soil beneath me, and the smell of winter all around me. I see the sky above and feel the suddenly unusually warm wind at my fingertips. I listen to the neighbors walking their dogs. One by one, I take down the snowflakes and icicles. One by one, one by one. It’s peaceful and ordinary and just what I’m doing now, right now. Nothing else matters but this one wire on this one snowflake.

I want to stay right here.

I finish the task and feel like I’ve tucked Christmas away, finally, and turn the page into a new season of a new year.

Writing with a Cat on Your Lap

You write no matter what. No matter where. You write even with a cat on your lap who swats at your fingers as you move them, like your writing life is his personal little game.