Heather Holleman's Blog, page 226

Two Reasons God Brought You Here

I can think of no more powerful inspiration for having an eternal perspective during personal difficulty than Paul’s statement in Philippians 1:12-14. He writes this from a Roman prison:

Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. Because of my chains, most of the brothers in the Lord have been encouraged to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly. 

Paul’s twofold perspective about suffering and difficulty shows us this: he focuses on others around him who need to know Jesus, and he knows his response to suffering might strengthen the faith of others. Paul is actually thinking about the guards and others who will know about Jesus because of where he is and what’s happening to him.

He’s in prison, and he’s thinking about advancing the gospel from that very place.

From that very place! 

When we find ourselves in a painful or discouraging place, we look around. Did God bring us here because someone here needs to know Him? Did God bring us here because our response to this suffering will greatly encourage the faith of others?

Can you imagine seeing every situation we’re in as holding these eternally significant purposes? Wherever I go, I think of who needs Jesus and how my attitude and behavior encourages others.

When It’s Hot But Also October

For after school snack, it’s pumpkin milkshakes made from pumpkin ice cream. I’ll sprinkle a little pumpkin spice on top the whipped cream.

It’s been such a warm October in Pennsylvania, and I’ve worn more flip flops and t-shirts than anything else. And today, with the rain and general mugginess, both in weather and in heart due to Wednesday’s homework and activities, everyone awaits an icy milkshake, flavored nevertheless with the season’s best.

 

 

Three Little Writing Tips for Completing a Book

I love helping writers envision new projects and, most importantly, complete them. Here are 3 little tips.

Create the skeleton of your manuscript with all the chapter headings. Keep this document always open on your computer. When you have an idea, find a quote you want to use, or imagine a piece of dialogue, insert the writing into that chapter that you can organize later in the process. As you gather ideas, you don’t have to go in any order; just fill up your document with seeds of possible paragraphs. Even if you have an idea while you’re folding laundry or washing dishes, run to the computer and get the thought down.
Set a deadline and then determine how many words you need to write per day in order to complete your manuscript. You can use various apps or websites like WordKeeperAlpha (my favorite!) to help you with your daily goals.
Make every day a writing day because you’ve decided that you are a writer. In his advice to a young writer, the poet Rainer Maria Rilke advises this: “Ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple ‘I must’, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

The Opposite of Dread

As I continue to study dread and the biblical solution to such a paralyzing and thwarting emotion, I ask my youngest daughter what she believes is the opposite of dread.

“It’s peace,” she says. But then she revises that statement because we don’t think it’s altogether accurate. If dread involves assuming the worst and anticipating terrible things, then the opposite of dread is about believing good things for your day. “It’s hoping for the best,” she reasons. It’s choosing to believe wonderful things will happen today.

It’s living in the expectation of God’s goodness, provision, and surprise gifts and blessings. In this way, we stay fascinated by God as always loving and bountifully blessing.

It’s living in the reality of Psalm 31:19: “How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you bestow in the sight of all, on those who take refuge in you.”

 

Tipped with Autumn

Each new morning, I’ll note the  colors. A painter dipping his brush into fall colors—gold, burgundy, burnt oranges— Autumn happily descends upon the valley.

From a Single Seed

Overwhelmed with Dread When There Was Nothing to Dread (Psalm 53:5)

For the last few weeks, I find myself overcome with irrational dread. 

It made no sense; I couldn’t understand it, articulate it to myself, or explain it to others. I tried. I tried to tell people about upcoming events and the dread, but I could never justify it. I wasn’t nervous, unhappy, scared of something, or particularly worried about any concrete things. No. It was just irrational dread, what the Bible even calls a spirit of dread or fear (2 Timothy 1:7). And it was the kind of dread that anticipates some kind of disaster.

It’s no wonder: I think we live more and more in dread because of actual disasters happening around us, and it cultivates the propensity to dread all day long. But dreading doesn’t help anyone, solve any problems, or move us forward. It’s an emotion that freezes you in place and truncates all your fruitfulness and movement outward. It closes you in. It stops you.

I’m driving around, battling this dread, and I remember the phenomenon in Psalm 53:3 of those who lived “overwhelmed with dread where there was nothing to dread.” I remembered the command about not living in dread (Isaiah 8:13); in fact, God Himself is the only One we can fear or dread (Isaiah 8:14). I prayed fervently with my husband that God would remove the spirit of dread and replace it with the power, love, and sound mind solution of 2 Timothy 1:7.

I’m not particularly prone to think about demonic enemy attack, but I know it’s real, powerful, and works to thwart, paralyze, and confuse. I knew some kind of spiritual dread operated because I wanted to quit, shut down, and hide. I wanted to run away from my own life. And it made no sense at all. 

I’m so thankful I sat with the Lord, prayed with Ashley, and thought about what scripture teaches about dread. Now I know what it feels like, what it does in my heart, and how to stand firm against it.

There was nothing to dread.

An Apparently Memorable Classroom Moment

I’m in an airport in Charlotte, NC, and a man approaches me.

“You’re Dr. Holleman. I had you for English class like 8 years ago. When I was a freshman! Do you remember me?”

“My goodness! Tell me your name again,” I say, scanning through a thousand student names in my brain. He looks so mature, so professional–nothing like the ball-capped, hoodie wearing eighteen year old of nearly a decade ago. But I know him. I know him. 

He reintroduces himself and tells me that he’s a lawyer now, on his way to a wedding with all his friends. I congratulate him on all his success in life after Penn State.

He looks at me and says this: “You know, I remember that day you read every students’ best sentence aloud to the whole class. I loved that day when you did that.”

I went back to the beginning in my memory, back when I struggled over lesson plans and ways to motivate those Penn State freshmen, back when I wondered how to help anyone write better anyway, back before my list of vivid verbs and refined techniques. I remember wanting to encourage those freshmen, really encourage them and celebrate their writing in some public way.

So I did. I took the best sentence of each essay, and I just read each one out loud, pausing to note the excellence of a well-chosen word or a particularly wise use of punctuation. Students beamed, simultaneously proud and embarrassed.

That was it. I moved on into my day, into a teaching life that would span years and years. My hair would start turning grey and my pen and paper lessons would turn into PowerPoints.

“I need to do that again!” I laugh.

And I do. I make a PowerPoint this afternoon of the best sentences in every Signature Story. We will celebrate publicly. We will cheer as we give courage, hope, and confidence to writers lacking it. Like most moments in teaching, this one may or may not stick or make any difference.

But maybe it will.

 

What Remains

I consider how lush the vine was, how vibrant, how boisterous with shouting yellow blossoms and leaves the size of heads. I consider how it overtook the yard, dominating and persistent, growing faster than we could manage.

And then, I note the shriveling away of all that display. I note what remains, firm and bright and enduring.

In a pumpkin patch, everything falls away eventually but the pumpkins themselves. They prove the health of the vine. I consider evaluating the fruit of any endeavor. No matter how glamorous, large, or expansive work becomes, what matters is lasting fruit. 

In All Our Thoughts

I read Psalm 10 and wonder what it means to make more room for God in all my thoughts. The psalmist writes, “In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.” Other translations indicate the main thought of the wicked person is simply, “There is no God.”

As someone always thinking, always analyzing, and always wondering about everything (I’m a walking existential crisis), I consider again what it means to make room for God in every thought and to proclaim in every situation that God is here. There is a God! He is here! 

As I teach on worship and experiencing God in every moment, I ask people to note God’s power, provision, providence, and perspective in the regular activities of their day. It’s a way to put our hope in Him “all day long” (Psalm 25:5).

In all our thoughts, opinions, and words that we sling about today, I think about making more and more room for God and less and less space for my own flawed reasoning.