Heather Holleman's Blog, page 56

A Perfect Summer Salad for a Party

If you need a fantastic summer salad, remember this orzo salad as a way to use your garden basil and tomato. The secret is to use the best olive oil you can find! Here’s the recipe: https://www.inspiredtaste.net/36893/orzo-pasta-recipe/

The Recreating Forces

This morning I read in Oswald Chambers a fantastic quote to remember always. He writes, “The moment you are willing for God to change your nature, His recreating forces will begin to work.” Whatever you are experiencing now, consider it part of the “recreating forces” to make you into the person God intends. I like seeing the world in this way because it gives a fresh perspective on difficult things. These are “recreating forces” that teach us how to live new, Spirit-filled, supernatural lives.

Too Soon for Fruitfulness

I learned another important lesson from my garden about what happens when someone bears fruit too soon. I planted my pumpkin seeds way too early. I’m learning the heat of early and mid-summer makes the pumpkins shrivel on the vine. I do have other pumpkin seeds I planted much later (for a fall harvest), so I’m tending to these plants now. These will thrive in late summer and in the cool of early autumn.

Seeing the shriveled pumpkins reminds me why we often do not bear fruit in the season we want in our lives. God knows we cannot handle it. The timing matters. Our character or very lives might shrivel under the weight of our good works. We might not be able to avoid the temptation of wealth, fame, or anything that comes with the fruit we might bear. We might not really have the time, either. We might need to wait a long time, for a more favorable season of life, to see how God has set us apart for certain good works.

I look at my shriveled yellow pumpkins that fall off the vine and remember the danger of not waiting on God’s perfect timing.

The Neighbor Who

I just received a message from my neighbor who asked if I would like to stop by to taste her homemade blueberry cheesecake ice cream. She prepared four little cups with spoons for my family to enjoy her ice cream later. She uses fresh blueberries and the most delicious crumbles of crust to make it seem like you’re eating the most amazing treat! It is so good.

This is the neighbor who makes homemade ice cream for people every summer. 

As I left her house, practically galloping home with joy, ice creams in hand, I thought of how much I love having a neighborhood with neighbors who serve and love one another. There’s the neighbor who makes Polish Cabbage Rolls for us, the neighbor with the smoker out back to smoke meats and fish for our block party and who always seems to have firecrackers on hand for the kids, the neighbor who makes mulled cider for New Years Eve, and the neighbor who, without fail, drops off treats on my doorstep just because she feels like baking.

I love thinking of each house and saying, “That’s the neighbor who. . .” Every neighbor plays a special role.

It’s a challenging sentence to complete if you wonder what people might say of our home, of your home. Are you the one bringing meals, offering a helping hand, or organizing an event? Are you the neighbor who gathers? What would we want others to say of us?

I want to be the neighbor who listens and encourages and stands ready to bring food for hurting families. As I grow older and and my children leave, I could be the neighbor bringing treats to the younger children. Who knows? I think of the uniqueness of us all and all the ways we might bless those around us.

 

He sees and He knows.

I’m reading the Bible in the English Standard Version after nearly three decades of using the New International Version. I recommend reading the Bible in a different translation at some point in your life. You’ll read the same stories with fresh eyes. You’ll find new insights because of a change in wording, even if the Greek or Hebrew word is the same. For example, in my reading of Exodus this morning, I loved the simplicity of Exodus 2:25. The people are crying out to God because of their slavery and oppression and Egypt. And we read this:

God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

That’s it. That is all. God saw and God knew. I just love that. I love that we can trust that God sees and God knows everything concerning us. Other translations say that God saw and was concerned, that God saw and took notice, or that God acknowledged the Israelites. All of these ideas come through for me in the simplicity of “and God knew.”

Wisdom in the End

Every year, I reread the book of Job, especially the parts where Job and God speak. I love Job because of the reality of suffering. Good people suffer, and we don’t always know why. I underlined this passage in Job 42 and sent it to my family. These words contain more wisdom that we can imagine:

Then Job replied to the Lord, “I know that you can do all things, and that no plan of yours can be thwarted.”

This moment in Job marks a moment of forthcoming repentance. We do not know how to make sense of our lives when difficult things happen, but we know two things for sure: 1. God can do anything. 2. Nothing can stop His plan. 

This verse comforts me when I cannot make sense of difficult things. You might have come to the same wisdom: God is all powerful and He is allowing this hard thing as part of a good plan I cannot yet understand. Job himself cries out: “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” and he repents in dust and ashes.

We submit ourselves to a sovereign, all-powerful, loving God. 

 

Your Life as a Hymn and a Gift

This morning before church, I started the book You Are Not Your Own by Alan Noble. I loved the dedication to a man described like this: “a man who lived his life imperfectly but earnestly–not as his own, but as a gift to his family and friends.” I love thinking of our lives as a gift to others. We can live not for ourselves, but for others. It changes the focus of our heart. Then, I read at church the idea of being a “living hymn” in reference to the way Brother Lawrence lived in his book The Practice of the Presence of God. I considered how a life could exist as a song of praise to God. No matter what’s happening, we think of our lives as a hymn of worship. How beautiful! We life today as a hymn and as a gift to others.

Pumpkin and Watermelon Patch Update

The Basics

Sometimes people ask me for help in their spiritual lives. They want wisdom for how to build their adult lives and what kind of practices they should adopt to help them stay strong in their faith. I tell them it’s not anything complicated or terribly insightful. Read the Bible. Pray. Memorize scripture so you can apply it to your life. Confess sin. Practice surrender. Do things that require faith. Talk about Jesus to other people. 

But today I remembered something that helped someone in a fresh way. I asked this person something a mentor had once asked me: When you think about your future, what will the temptation be for you? What will trap you? Get ahead of this. Start thinking of how to avoid the temptations that will surely come your way. 

I like thinking of how to strengthen myself against future temptation, in whatever form it could take.

Devotions for Children

Years ago (back in 2012!), I wrote a few devotions for campers and counselors at Camp Greystone. One of my devotions is featured today on how God see our tears. My teen daughter (even though she’s not a camper) signed up to receive the Greystone devotions each day because she loves reading them! I highly recommend them. I read them every day. Sign up here: https://devotions.campgreystone.com/blog/2022/6/tears

I also collected my devotions for children in a little book called 30 Things You Need to Know that same year. I compiled these for my daughters to read through when they were in elementary school. We read them together every morning in the summer. You may have these as a free gift to read with your children, too. You can find them on my Gifts for You page: http://heatherholleman.com/gift-for-you/. Enjoy!