Heather Holleman's Blog, page 47

Small Living

Two different people talk to me about Wendell Berry this weekend. I find myself in a long conversation about committing oneself fully to the land around you, to the small space in which God has placed you, to the local community right there. I think about my home in central Pennsylvania and my love of the oak trees, the forest behind my house, the mushrooms after the rain, and the rabbits. I think about the Pennsylvania landscape, the people, their histories, their spiritual lives. Here I am.

Wendell Berry helps me understand a rich theology of place. Another friend sends me a Berry quote that says, “No matter how much one may love the world as a whole, one can live fully in it only by living responsibly in some small part of it.”

This sabbath day, I thank the Lord for the small part.

 

The Pennsylvania Landscape

Under Construction for a Few Days

I’m updating my website with the genius help of Moody Publishers. If you don’t receive a blog post for the next few days, it’s because of this process. Sometime next week, the new site will be up and running, and you’ll receive daily blog posts as usual. I’m excited to show you the new look of the site!

Meanwhile (if we miss each other for a few days), here’s what I’m doing to live with flair: collecting acorns, lighting my new nutmeg spice soy candle, praying more, and eating more apples. I’m also savoring some afternoon peach tea with honey, enjoying a new cozy autumn sweater, and taking a few more bubble baths on these increasingly cold nights. I’m practicing gratitude and activities that deliberately slow the pace of life down (things like petting a cat).

I’m also looking for ways to randomly bless others and be helpful to them (even complete strangers). Yesterday, I saw a group of friends struggling to fit everyone in a selfie, so I offered to help these strangers and take as many photos as they wanted. It could have turned into a whole photo shoot based on their excitement to have a photographer taking a picture of their group. They passed their phones to me, and I snapped away. Now, they’ll always have that joyful picture of all of them together in the frame. A small thing, but full of joy,

Every Once in a While

It’s usually a bad thing to focus on sales, on awards, or on bestseller lists. I love how Moody Publishers always tells me to “focus on impact, not sales.” But every once in a while, I’ll get news of something fun, and last night, it was this! #1 on Amazon in my category! Even before the release date! This did make me excited and gave me something to celebrate. I know it doesn’t mean that much in the grand scheme of things, but at least last night, some people were buying the book. Thank you!

Not My Own

God continues to teach me about consecrating my life and living in complete surrender. This, of course, began years ago and culminated in a question I asked in Seated with Christ: Will I live the life God asks me to? 

But lately, the question arrives to my mind every new morning. Does this day belong to me or God? Might He direct my time, resources, and attention? Might He have permission to send me where He wishes, to serve how He asks? What’s holding me back from entire consecration?

I often read these words from EM Bounds on consecration:

Full consecration is the highest type of a Christian life. It is the one divine standard of experience, of living and of service. It is the one thing at which the believer should aim. Nothing short of entire consecration must satisfy him. Never is he to be contented till he is fully, entirely the Lord’s by his own consent. Consecration is the voluntary set dedication of one’s self to God, an offering definitely made, and made without any reservation whatever. It is the setting apart of all we are, all we have, and all we expect to have or be, to God first of all. It involves our whole being, all we have and all that we are. Everything is definitely and voluntarily placed in God’s hands for his supreme use.

Let’s consecrate our lives.

The Six Conversations Comes Out October 4th!!!

I’m so excited about The Six Conversations! I think you’ll love this book. It helps us all connect in loving ways through better conversations. You can order today through Moody Publishers or Amazon (or wherever books are sold). I can’t wait for you to read it! 

What He Asks of You, He Provides

This morning, I hear Tara-Leigh Cobble mention something in her reflection on the sacrifices to the Lord in the book of Numbers. It’s simple. She says, “He provides all that He requires of us.” How wonderful! There’s nothing God will ask from us that He doesn’t also give us the grace, power, or provision to accomplish.

I’ve heard statements like this before. When I was a Young Life leader in college, I heard a talk where someone said, “God doesn’t call the equipped; He equips those He calls.” I loved that!

When Cobble states how God provides whatever He requires of us, I found myself experiencing peace and hope. I remembered 2 Corinthians 9:8 where Paul writes this:

And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

God will give us what we need for the work He asks of us.

Already Painted

It’s that time of year when I collect all the beautiful acorns to either paint or display just as they are. This time, I notice how nature already painted these for me. So many shade of browns and greens. I love all the shades and sizes I find. I admire their little hats, too.

Who I Was; What Jesus Did and Does; Who I Am; What I’m Doing

I often return to Ephesians 2:1-10 and sit with it a while. It’s such a great passage to memorize and dwell on during the day. It tells me who I was, what God did for me and continues to do, who I am now, and what I’m doing. Consider it afresh here:

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Evert time I read it, I see something important for the day. Today, I love thinking about how everything is “not [my] own doing.” Everything is God working in me as a gift of grace through faith. I also notice that God continues to prepare good works for us to do. If we’re still here, God invites us to the tasks He has prepared. Today, I simply ask what God’s plans for me are today. I ask God about the people I can bless, the ways I can serve, the manner in which I’m to intercede for others, and the work He has for me. I remember hearing the words of an older woman who said, “If God hasn’t taken me to heaven yet, it’s because He still has something for me to do here.”

That I Must Do

I love reading about Balaam and Balak in Numbers 22-24. It’s the story of a king who wants to call a curse down upon the people of Israel through a man who hears from God (Balaam). But Balaam–who promises to speak the words He learns from the Lord–cannot pronounce a curse if God does not say to. Balaam must do only what God says. No amount of money or prizes can tempt Balaam to speak curses over Israel. So Balaam blesses. He cannot curse God’s people.

As Balak becomes increasingly frustrated and wants Balaam to neither curse nor bless Israel, Balaam simply responds, “All that the Lord says, that I must do.” 

As the story becomes more and more ridiculous in Balak’s attempts to gain the blessing of God for his people and not the Israelites, Balak wants to persuade Balaam one more time with the promise of honor if he will just curse the people of Israel. I love Balaam’s response: “If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I would not be able to go beyond the word of the Lord. . . ” 

I suppose I love the picture of obedience here and how prestige, riches, or some kind of other prize couldn’t persuade Balaam to do or say what God had not said. I want to be the kind of person who doesn’t falter in my own obedience. I want to say, “All that the Lord says, that I must do.”