Heather Holleman's Blog, page 29

You Aren’t Supposed to Be Everything

I looked up at the flight announcement to see that my 9:40 PM flight back home was now departing at 8:00 AM the next day. My travel fears had come upon me! Rather than responding with maturity, decisiveness, and gratitude—completely assured of God’s care for me—I sat in the airport and cried. Then I cried because I was crying. I started to condemn myself: Why aren’t I better at this? Why can’t I be the mature kind of person who rolls with the punches? I don’t even know what to do next. Do I sleep here? Do I find a hotel? Do I get an uber? I, once again, have no clean clothes.

As it turned out, I stood next to a familiar face. When I’m flying home to our small airport, I often see people I know who are also returning to Penn State. This time, a kind woman approached me who knew me from a long time ago when she came to my home to buy some signed books. She was a dear friend of my friend, but I didn’t know her well at all. I maybe had one conversation with her in my whole life.

But this woman? This mid-60 year old woman? She was fierce, decisive, and joyful. She basically said, “You’re coming with me.” Within a few minutes, she had comforted everyone around us, assuring us of a flight crew in the morning, and guided me through the airport once she arranged a ride and lodging for us for the night. I followed her like a desperate little duckling. A sad little crying duckling.

Apparently, she’s taken care of weary travelers many times before. With her obvious gift of leadership, she’s taken complete strangers under her wing. She’s shared hotel rooms, paying for everything for people falling apart over canceled flights. She’s rented vans and driven groups of strangers all the way home when another flight had been canceled. Leadership. Kindness. Positivity. Decisiveness.

As I flew home this morning, marveling over the way she confidently woke up a young man who had slept on the floor of the terminal to make sure he wouldn’t miss our boarding call, I thought about everything I was not. I thought about how she was the one gathering all the information. She was the one making decisions and leading everyone. Then it occurred to me: I remembered the passage in 1 Corinthians 12 about the body of Christ. Paul writes this:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ.  For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.  If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

My friend was the head; I was the feet (or something like this). I was the weaker, unpresentable member. She was the leader; I was the follower. And all was arranged “just as [God] wanted” this to be. I learned that I’m not supposed to be everything. I can let the body of Christ be the body of Christ. I forgave myself for crying in the airport and stopped punishing myself for not being the woman I imagined I could be. Instead, I said, “I’m not that person, and that’s OK.” And when it comes to trials of all kinds, I’m learning to look around me. We’re never alone when it comes to the body of Christ. You’ll find everything you need, and we’ll all end up home safely together.

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Continuing the Theme of Difficulty

What difficult thing came to mind when you read yesterday’s post? What if we broke up our life into categories and thought about doing something challenging or uncomfortable in order to grow?

For my writing life, I thought of attempting a screenplay. For my physical life, weight lifting. For my social life, gathering more friends from different backgrounds, abilities, and viewpoints. What else? Maybe I could teach expand my teaching somehow. I could attempt a seemingly impossible house project. I’m still thinking about being drawn to difficulty.

It’s satisfying and maturing to grow through difficulty and not shrink back from it.

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Because It’s Difficult

Last night I asked my friend why he decided to embark on a certain complicated project. He replied, “Because it’s difficult.” We talked about why he’s drawn so much to difficulty. He embraces difficulty. He craves it. The more difficult, the more exciting.

“Aren’t you drawn to difficulty?” he asked.

I thought about this for a while. I do like challenges. I do like completing hard tasks. But what if I lived more like my friend who seeks out difficult tasks and enjoys them? Mostly, I look for the easy path. Maybe tomorrow I could wake up and think, “What would be the most difficult thing I could accomplish today?”

That would change my life.

I remembered President John F. Kennedy’s famous address at Rice University on September 12, 1962. In that speech, you’ll find these lines about the space effort:

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? 

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too. . .

Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked. 

-John F. Kennedy

Let’s choose to do things which organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.

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When You Start Thanking God

When I train my mind in gratitude, it does help. It primes me for hopeful thoughts, even when so much seems to go wrong in the world. Today, I began to record what I loved.

Things I Loved About Today

I drank a delicious green smoothie (spinach, kale, oatmeal, pineapple, banana, raspberries, protein powder). When you start strong, the day feels better.  I wrote with a favorite pen in my journal as the sun rose.I drove my daughter to school and listened to Frank Sinatra and Dominos. We sang.I played the same songs as my students arrived to class. We sang.I introduced the power of using analogies with a great courtroom scene with a famous analogy.My students created analogies and even chiasmus for their scholarly definition papers. I felt like a good teacher.A student shared her new favorite poem with me. I love when students share what they love with me.Back in my office, I had a quinoa bowl for lunch with roasted sweet potatoes, veggies, and a cilantro dressing my daughter made.I snacked on crackers and mandarin oranges while creating fresh slides on how to write effective and meaningful academic conclusions.I joined in on a Zoom training on designing syllabi and classrooms for neurodivergent students.I discovered how to find more printer paper for my office printer which finally works after 5 years.I will soon meet with my colleagues in our weekly support meeting where we taste and rate fine chocolate and share our burdens.A few student meetings were canceled, so I could check the news, write, and banter with a media studies professor on the Gwyneth Paltrow ski accident trial which we decided to watch live.I had moments to pray for my children, students, and husband as I walked around campus.I returned a library book and realized how much I love university libraries that can find you any book in the whole wide world and deliver it to your mailbox if you want.I ran into fun professors in the hallway, and we talked about our classes.I graded some student grammar quizzes on using strong verbs that continue to challenge even the best writers.I responded to emails from readers which brightened my day.I thought about what my husband might make for dinner and secretly hoped we would order pizza or Chinese food.I thought about taking a bubble bath and recounting all the ways this day delighted me.

Too often, after I pray about everything going wrong and all the evil around, I forget gratitude. Try to list out twenty things that made life feel good (even if it feels badly sometimes).

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All the Ways to Gather

I love looking back over all the various ways Ashley and I have gathered people together as one of the core values of our life in marriage and ministry. And as I continue to fight the loneliness epidemic in whatever ways I can, I want to think of more and more ways to gather to let people form warm and loving connections.

Some gatherings were small (like our Monday Professor Prayer Night of just 4 of us–ongoing now), and some gatherings were large (like Neighborhood Fitness Nights or the Grad Student Study Break). I look back on it all from the past 20 years: The Encouragement Group; Saturday Morning Pancakes; Writing Workshops; Walk-to-School Campaign; Soup and Stories; Sunday Night Prayer; Life Groups; Donuts in the Driveway; Block Parties; Bible Studies; Cooking Club; Morning Walking. I always like to name the thing if you haven’t noticed! Gathering might mean just 2 of you, or it might mean 200. Whatever it is, it’s good. We are built for community and togetherness.

My favorite new way to gather is so simple but so astonishingly beautiful: a support group. Gather around someone in your life who needs support in some way. Then, meet for dinner a few times a month or even for tea every week. Gather to talk and offer supportive comments. Let people share their lives. Eat chocolate if you must (I must). Talk about God. Talk about your aging bodies, your children, or your work. Meet for an hour; meet for 3 hours (like we did last night). Unburden your life as you let others unburden theirs. A support group.

As March comes to a close, what if on Monday morning, you invited a few people to gather in whatever way, for whatever reason, would most delight you (or them)? Someone needs to start the text, make the phone call, or knock on the door. Let it be you.

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If It’s Only More Weakness

In Abiding in Christ, Andrew Murray states something I’ve been thinking about for the past few years. Curiously, when I pray for God to strengthen me, He puts me in a position of more weakness. Sometimes, it’s putting me in the hospital; sometimes it’s a delayed or canceled flight; sometimes it’s a disappointment, a sudden change of plans, or a hard situation. Murray writes that we’ve been thinking about God’s strength all wrong. He writes, “When [God strengthens], it is not by taking away the sense of weakness, and giving in its place the feeling of strength. Not at all. Rather, in a very wonderful way he leaves and even increases the sense of utter impotence; along with it He gives them the consciousness of strength in Him. . . ”

This comforts me because it’s a fresh way of looking at discouraging events. Has God increased our weakness so we can know His strength alone? Murray quotes 2 Corinthians 12:9-10: “When I am weak, then am I strong; I boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest on me.” I’m no longer surprised by weakness. It’s the pathway to strength in Christ.

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The Kingdom Already

I read Colossians 1:13 where Paul writes, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son.” I notice the past tense verbs that remind me so much of how Ephesians 2:6 astonishes me that we are already “seated” with Jesus in the heavenly realms right now. We are, right now, in the kingdom.

My friend who prays so powerfully recently told me that her prayer is for God’s kingdom to come down here in State College more and more. That we would see it, feel it, know it, experience this through Christians all around us. The kingdom, as Jesus exclaims, is already, in part, here (Luke 17:21). What a mystery, like being seated, that the kingdom of God is already in our midst. I find Pipher’s writing on the kingdom so inspiring in how he answers the question, “Is the Kingdom Present or Future?” He writes this:

And finally the encouragement: the kingdom really has arrived. Unprecedented fulfillments of God’s purposes are in the offing. The King has come. The King has dealt with sin once for all in the sacrifice of himself. The King sits at the Father’s right hand and reigns now until all his enemies are under his feet. The King’s righteousness is now already ours by faith. The King’s Spirit is now already dwelling in us. The King’s holiness is now already being produced in us. The King’s joy and peace have now already been given to us. The King’s victory over Satan is now already ours as we use the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. The King’s power to witness is now already available to us. And the King’s gifts—the gifts of his Spirit—are now already available for ministry.

John Piper, “Is the Kingdom Present or Future?”

I want us to live in light of the Kingdom and know our position and power. I want us to enter rooms and bring the power, values, and beauty of the Kingdom with us. I want our homes and neighborhoods and workplaces to taste and feel the Kingdom through us. The Kingdom has arrived.

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Step Aside

In church this morning, I notice the repetition of a key idea: step aside.

Step aside so God can work.

Step aside so God can do what only He can do.

Step aside because you aren’t going to figure this out.

Step aside, be still, and wait for God to act.

Step aside.

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A Delicious Cup of Tea

It’s a rainy, chilly day here in Pennsylvania—a perfect afternoon for a cup of tea. I recently discovered a new favorite tea flavor that tastes just like a warm dessert. It’s the Celestial Seasonings Vermont Maple Ginger. It smells delicious, too. So cozy up. Sip some afternoon tea. Grab a cookie. Sink into a great book. Pull up the warm blanket, and let the cat curl up in your lap. Enjoy! I love this tea so much that I’ve had it every night for the past week. It’s a great ritual to let the day wind down. I’m off to put on the kettle!

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When You Keep Hearing About “Pre-Decisions”

I recently heard two different people talking about “pre-deciding.” I’m hearing sermons, reading research, and listening to general conversation about the power of pre-decision on self-regulation and achieving goals.

I love learning about things like this, so of course, I start reading the social science published on pre-deciding. I learn today about how pre-decisions (simply deciding in advance what you will do in a certain situation) reduces the need to rely on willpower when achieving goals. For example, if someone wants to overcome procrastination or overeating, the research shows that pre-deciding the time you will work or what you will eat before temptation hits will help you self-regulate.

One research article I read says it like this: “[People] can reduce willpower by spreading out the decision making. Implementation intentions is a psychological strategy employing pre-decisions to reduce spikes in cognitive load. In the case of procrastination, the procrastinator would make the decision of when and what work to do beforehand. When the time comes to act, the pre-made decision requires less cognition.”

You might have heard the term decision fatigue instead of “cognitive load.” In each case, it’s too hard for the brain to keep weighing options of what to do, especially if your emotions work against you. So if you pre-decide things, you help yourself achieve your goals and “self-regulate.”

I love it. Highly self-regulated people, like elite athletes, do this well. They work out even if they don’t want to because it’s pre-decided. People who achieve their weight-loss goals often do so because of a series of pre-decisions. They meal-plan, pack a lunch for work, and stock their fridge with pre-decided healthy snacks.

I love the idea of running most of the day in a pre-decided way when it comes to behaviors you want to improve. Pre-decide when to write your novel, when to exercise, when to tidy the kitchen. Pre-decide what you’ll eat, what you’ll buy, or whatever it is that relates to some kind of goal. Apparently, pre-decision works.

I tried this last night when out with friends at a dinner spot with loads of options. I decided beforehand on the perfect salad that would help me feel good and get my veggies in, but when I arrived, others were debating about pizza or sub sandwiches. I called out and laughed, “I pre-decided! There’s no going back! The decision has been made!” We all laughed about my current obsession with pre-deciding, but in that moment, it worked.

It was a great salad!

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