Heather Holleman's Blog, page 85

The Joy of Reasonable Goals

My dreaded season of grading has begun. It’s the least favorite part of my job, but in order to offer students timely and relevant feedback, I offer grades with commentary soon after an assignment’s due date.

This means I’m nearly always grading something.

So today, I set reasonable goals. I might say, “OK, let’s grade three portfolios in the next hour.” Of course, I might grade five or six or even ten. But I love setting reasonable and attainable goals. It feels good to achieve them. When I do, I’m motivated for the next hour of grading where I might challenge myself more.

But I start small with reasonable goals. One needs the joy of accomplishment. For you? Is it cleaning just one space? Answering a few emails? Writing one paragraph? Make it reasonable. You’ll do it. Then, the joy comes.

Making it Easier

My husband recently weeded around all the raspberry canes and then tied up the long stalks so I could better pick all the raspberries. Before this, the massive tangle of raspberries made it difficult; I practically crawled into a thicket to gather raspberries and endured pokes and scapes along the way. Weeds suffocated my legs.

But now, I just pluck and pluck and pluck all the beautiful fruit. No weeds. No tangled up canes or branches on the ground.

As I filled my big bowl with berries, I thought about the life of teaching, speaking, and writing. You want to make things easy for people to grasp. You want to make the fruit of God’s word easy to understand when you present it. You want to streamline a message, remove any unnecessary information, and do what you can to put the knowledge in reach. You want to think about barriers to entry. What’s holding people back from entering in and enjoying a lesson, message, or chapter?

Before my husband repaired my raspberry patch, I didn’t even want to harvest. It felt overwhelming and exhausting to even approach the task. Now, I’m eager to do it. It’s a fast and manageable process–all due to the presentation of the garden.

Put things in reach. Streamline. Make a way for simplicity, organization, and efficiency in teaching, speaking, and writing.

“You Need to Meet Me”

At a recent speaking event for my Seated, Surrendered, and Sent retreat, a woman approached me and said, “You need to meet me.”

“I do?” I said. “Why?” Other women around me parted to make space for this person.

Was she famous? Was she in publishing? Was she a publicist or journalist? Was she going to invite me to some big speaking event? Who is this woman with this audacity? 

Her eyes sparkled. Then I looked again at her face. She seemed to be missing an eye and had a patch covering part of her face. She stood in a t-shirt and jeans. She was jolly and full of this joyous energy. But still, I couldn’t believe her bold statement. Never in my life has someone approached me with such confidence matched with a strange humility. Something otherworldly was happening.

“Why do I need to meet you?” I asked again and chuckled. Meanwhile, two other women nodded their head.

You do need to meet her. 

She spoke carefully: “Well, the power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in me. I’m filled with the righteousness of Christ, and He’s flowing through me. You need to meet me because it will bless you.” She laughed and let that one eye sparkle. For a minute, I wondered if she was an angel. “I mean think about it. It’s true.”

Think about it. It’s true.

I looked at her as she stood there. She didn’t need to impress anyone. She’s never had an insecure moment. She enters a room with the confidence that her presence brings Jesus into a space.

So you need to meet her. Because she’s got Jesus for you.

Don’t Unravel

Sometimes I find that when a person experiences a hardship or bad news, his or her theology begins to unravel.

Suddenly, God feels against them instead of for them (Romans 8:31). They begin to bargain with God or try to do better somehow to earn His favor, rather than living under the reality of Christ’s applied righteousness to us (Romans 3). Finally, they live in condemnation rather than the truth that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

Don’t unravel. Stay put in God’s hands. Put the whole tangled mess of you right in His care. He is making things right. You are, like Hannah Whitall Smith says, “under the ruling power of His goodness.”

 

“I See You”

Today my friend reminded me to encourage my husband and children by telling them what I see. I love the idea of texting or verbally telling people in my life what I see them doing that I want to congratulate, compliment, and honor. So many times we get stuck in attitudes of criticism, disappointment, advice-giving, or attempts to improve other people. Instead, we can affirm them.

I see how you handled that . . . 

I see you and all the ways you served . . . 

I see how you gave your best there . . . 

I see how you made a great choice. . . 

I see how you were kind then. . . 

I see how you were the mature one. . . 

I see how you offered help there. . . 

I see how you were gentle and patient there. . . 

I see how you helped. . . 

I see how you were loving. . . 

If you haven’t told your spouse or children what you see today, try to tell them three things you see about them.

And then do it again tomorrow.

Saving Energy

During this season of my life, I’m learning to save energy. I remember my friend April’s life-changing advice to “live at 60%” personal energy capacity each day so you have reserves for unexpected conversations, chores, or events.

We were walking our kids to school nearly a decade ago, and I marveled at April’s amazing capacity. She was a wife, mom, professor, researcher, and church and community volunteer. She also dealt with numerous health issues including chronic fatigue. How do you do it?

Live at 60%, she says.

When I asked her how she “lives at 60%,” she said she wakes up every day and considers how much energy she feels like she has for the day. “Then I do less. I need to preserve and store up energy for unexpected things. This way, I don’t yell at my kids because I’m tired or go ballistic over some kind of disappointment. I have energy to spare. And I don’t live a life I have to constantly recover from.”

Live at 60%. Do less.

As I navigate my new associate teaching professor role, I think carefully about what I need energy for each day. Then I ask what I can say no to or cut out that might drain me. It’s why I uprooted the garden. It’s why I meal plan and even lay out my outfits the night before. It’s why I can’t pack the day with meetings.

I’m living at 60% in case you need me later. I don’t want to live a life I have to constantly recover from.

Writing about Evangelism for The Gospel Coalition

Today, I’m featured on The Gospel Coalition for an article on evangelism from Ashley and my book Sent: Living a Life that Invites Others to Jesus. You can enjoy the article here:

What I Had Wrong About Evangelism

A Placeholder for Writing

As you know, I write a little something every day. I’ve been doing this for over a decade. Sometimes, I write insightful things that feel meaningful and well-crafted. Other times, I write just to do it, to fill the designated space. I highly recommend this. Get in the habit of writing. Make daily space for it. Fill the space. It doesn’t have to be much. Aim for maybe 200-500 words a day. Write by hand. Type on a computer. Just write.

Growing in Prayer

This year, I’ve grown most in the area of prayer. I’m desperate!

In prayer, I tell God everything; I leave my problems in His hands. My problems become His problems, and I know the moment I ask for help, divine aid has already been applied. In prayer, I place other people in God’s hands as well. In prayer, I ask for wisdom, and I know it’s coming (James 1:5).

But prayer isn’t just asking. It’s communing. It’s listening. It’s aligning ourselves to what the Holy Spirit is doing (Romans 8:26).

Prayer is also a way to enjoy God and make our soul “happy in the Lord.” Consider the words of a great man of prayer, George Mueller:

The point is this: I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished. For I might seek to set the truth before the unconverted, I might seek to benefit believers, I might seek to relieve the distressed, I might in other ways seek to behave myself as it becomes a child of God in this world; and yet, not being happy in the Lord, and not being nourished and strengthened in my inner man day by day, all this might not be attended to in a right spirit.

I love thinking of prayer as my “first great and primary business.” I also love the following words on prayer that excite and motivate me in my own conversations with God. I think of prayer as:

A real transaction with God: “True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise nor a vocal performance. It is far deeper than that – it is spiritual transaction with the Creator of Heaven and Earth.” – Charles Spurgeon

A rare delight: “Prayer should not be regarded as a duty which must be performed, but rather as a privilege to be enjoyed, a rare delight that is always revealing some new beauty.” – E.M. Bounds

A pathway to rest: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls’.” (Jeremiah 6:16)

A connection to promised Listener: “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us” (1 John 5:14).

A connection to extraordinary generosity: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:7-11)

A conversation with One who reveals mysteries: “Daniel answered the king and said, ‘No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. . . ‘.” (Daniel 2:27-28)

A way the Father is glorified in the Son: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:12-14).

A request of a God who does more than we ask: “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. . .”  (Ephesians 3:20).

When we pray, God hears. He is already answering.

Overturning

Today I overturned the vegetable garden. I pulled up the weeds, overgrown tomato plants, and dying squash vines. I left a few tomato plants and my basil, but mostly, I completed a final harvest and put the garden to sleep.

I love overturning the old, dried soil to stir up the black, rich earth. I love the look of a bare garden because I know what’s coming: a colder season, a time to replenish, and eventually, another spring.

But the whole process feels violent and unsettling. Covered in vines and branches, I attacked the stems, stalks, and roots. I carried wheelbarrow loads away. I tilled up the soil with sharp instruments. I yanked bean plants and chives and even old sunflowers.

If felt like the kind of work God sometimes does in the soul to make way for a new season. I forget that His pruning sometimes involves an overhaul and an overturning. Something’s been yanked away or chopped down. I see it as necessary and beautiful, no matter how difficult the work of it.