Just Keep Walking

I have been struggling for years.  I never could quite put my finger on it...but the struggle was real. There has always been an emptiness in me that I couldn't quite understand.  A huge gaping hole in my soul.  I tried to fill it for years with a great number of things.  I tried to fill it with alcohol, I tried to fill it with relationships, I tried to fill it with food, I tried to fill it with work, I tried to fill it with friendships, I even tried to fill it with Jesus.  I find myself at 41 years old, still dealing with this huge gaping hole in my soul.  

I have only begun to find the ability to put words to it in the last two months.  I just always felt it there.  Not quite knowing why it hurt so bad or why the ache of it wouldn't go away.  The huge gaping hole in my heart is where God's love for me belongs.  I've just never felt it.  I want to believe that He loves me.  I know what all of the scripture says about His great love for me.  I love Him with all of me.  Oh how I love Him.  My heart's desire is to share His love with the world...but I also want to feel it right here in my heart.  

I laid in bed one night a few weeks ago.  I cried out to God and asked Him to show me how to find His love for me.  I asked Him to lead me to the right friend, or the right podcast, or the right scripture, or the right song, or the right anything...that would help me feel His love. 

The next morning, I was listening to a weekly devotional from Bianca Olthoff and she was talking about Joshua and the battle of Jericho.  She was talking about how the attack plan for this battle wasn't armory, wasn't more men, wasn't an attack at all...it was simply to walk around the walls.  In that moment, I felt like the Lord said to me, "Holly, you can't attack this the way that you've attacked other things in your life.  There is nothing you can do. You simply have to walk and trust me."  It was that simple, and that incredibly difficult.   A few weeks later, I was on a 7 1/2 mile hike through the wilderness, listening to worship music, praising His name and that's when it occurred to me that He is also meant that I was supposed to walk....like physically...like get off my butt and walk. Spend some time in the quiet with Him.  That simple, and that incredibly difficult.

Tonight, I was thinking about how I've always had to work hard for what I wanted.  God said to me, "Not this time.  There is no work necessary on your part.  I give my love freely to you, you just have to let it in.  You just have to be willing to let down that massive wall that you put between Me and that heart of yours.  Walk...and the wall will fall.  Just stay the course."

I am believing that today friends.  I am believing that if I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, that huge gaping hole will be filled by His incredible love for me.  The love that I've read so much about.  The love that I can so easily explain to others.  The love that I so desperately need to feel. 

I am also believing that I am not the only God loving person who feels this way.  God has asked me to let down the mask, and to be transparent as I walk this out.  Obedience above all else.  If there is even a part of you that struggles with feeling His love, will you walk this out with me?  

We Can't See It Because It Isn't Us

My grandma passed away recently.  As I was making the 1200 mile drive to her house, I had a mix of emotions.  I knew that Grandma was ready to go and while I was happy that Grandma was no longer suffering, I was dreading the task ahead of me.  I knew that I was about to walk into the middle of some high drama.  To say that my mom and her brother have never gotten along would be an understatement.

You see, there's always been this thing in our family between the boys and the girls.  My grandma clearly thought that boys were superior to girls.  It was very obvious to me as a child and it became more obvious to me the older I became.  My grandma treated my uncle like he had hung the moon. She treated my Mom like she had the plague.  My uncle's son was treated better than my Mom's sons...just because he was the male child of the male child.  Now...my uncle and my cousin will swear to you that they were never treated any differently.

As I was travelling across the miles, I kept wondering how my uncle and cousin could be so blind to what was happening.  I was wondering how they could go through life and pretend like the female members of the family weren't treated like "less than" for our entire lives.  Did my cousin not see the times that he got to go out in my grandpa's fishing boat all alone while I was up in the house being taught how to "walk like a girl"?  Did they not see that the girls were always told to clean the house and do the dishes while the boys were outside playing with their "toys"?  Did they not understand that when my grandpa died, they got trucks, tractors, tools, and guns and my mom got her dad's driver's license?  I was pondering all of those things when it finally occurred to me why they didn't understand.  They could never see it,  because it wasn't happening to them.  The girls were the ones feeling the pain.  The girls were the ones feeling slighted.  The girls were the ones who felt like things were unfair.  The girls were the ones who had to stop talking when the boys walked into the room with something to say.

When I finally got to my grandma's house, I tried to have a discussion with my cousin to help him see that maybe his perspective on things was a little off.  That maybe my mom wasn't being greedy...she was just demanding for things to be fair.  Try as I might, I couldn't convince him....and I realized that I never would.  The injustice wasn't happening to him.

I remember standing on the front porch of the house that my grandpa built, thinking about this new realization.  I thought growing up that the boys were just jerks, but I realized that they had simply lived life through a different filter.  Let me be clear, I think my uncle is just a jerk but I think my cousin just never understood the favor that he was receiving.

So anyway, I was standing there thinking about the boys seeing life through their filter and as clear as day, God showed me that this is also what is happening with white privilege in our country.  We see people who don't share our skin color shouting from the rooftops that they want to be treated fairly but try as they might, they can't convince us...because the type of injustice that they are suffering isn't happening to us.

Since then, I've had the same realization about all of the injustice that is happening in the world. When we see injustice, we need to stop wearing our privileged filter and start seeing things as they truly are for the people who are suffering the injustice.  How would I feel if I got pulled over simply because I had blue eyes?  How would I feel if I didn't have clean drinking water simply because of the country I was born in?  How would I feel if I knew a cop was more likely to pull the trigger because I had blonde hair?

Just because a particular injustice isn't happening to you, doesn't mean it isn't happening.

When Our Dark Times are only a Dark Room

I was reflecting yesterday over some notes in my journal.  When I am reading a good non-fiction or listening to a great sermon, I am learning to keep my journal nearby.  That way, when a concept hits me that I had never considered before, I can write it down and think it over later.

While Robert Morris was talking about how the breaking of the bread turns not enough into more than enough, he also mentioned that some times our dark times are only a dark room.  When a photographer is developing film the old fashioned way (not the Walgreen's photo way),  he doesn't stand in a well lit room full of sunshine and light.  He goes into a dark room.  If the person developing the film isn't completely in the dark, the film gets a little foggy.  In order for the image to be burned in just right, the film has to remain in the dark.  Robert Morris went on to say that sometimes God has to take us to the dark room in order for HIS image to be burned into us just right.

When I heard this, I thought back to the seasons of darkness in my life.  I think about how almost every time I come out of one of those seasons, I can more clearly see God's will for me.  Sometimes those dark seasons come when God has asked me to do really hard things like forgive my Dad.  The emotions of it all became too much, but while I was in the darkness, God was burning in His image of Father in my heart.  Sometimes those dark seasons come when God needs to teach me something.  He knows me, He knows that I draw nearer to Him in the darkness.  He knows that I will scream in the darkness, "LORD, SHOW ME WHAT I SHOULD BE LEARNING HERE BECAUSE I CAN'T DO IT ANYMORE."  I come out on the other side of the darkness with a much clearer picture of who God wants me to be.  I've found that often I have had to enter a season of darkness before I could clearly see any glimpse of the purpose behind God asking me to do a hard thing. Look back on the times you've felt like you were in the dark.  Did you come out with a clearer image?

If you are walking through darkness at the moment, let me encourage you.  A photo has no worth if it stays in the dark forever.  There will come a day when the developer pulls you out of the darkness and shows the world the beautiful image that was created in the process.

Breaking Bread

While I was back home in Kansas City, I had the opportunity to attend several weeks of bible study at my old church.  If you live in KC and are free on Thursday mornings, you should really get yourself to this bible study.  Shoot me a message if you need more details :)

The last week I was there, we were talking about the period of time right after Jesus' resurrection when the two disciples were walking along the road to Emmaus.  Jesus was walking with them but they were blinded and couldn't see that it was Jesus.  The disciples urged this "stranger" to stay with them for the evening.  While Jesus was at the table with them, he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  As soon as the bread was broken, their eyes were opened and they recognized that it was Jesus who had been walking with them all along.  My friend Debi pointed out that we are much the same way.  When the "breaking" happens, we tend to see Jesus a little more clearly.  Perhaps we seek Him out more in the hard times.  We want to draw near to Him because we know Jesus is our only hope.  You know...only she said it much better than that :).

This concept of breaking bread reminded me of a sermon I had heard from Robert Morris.  He was talking about the famous story of the five loaves and the two fishes.  He pointed out that when Jesus was handed those five loaves, He gave thanks and broke the loaves.  It was in the breaking that not enough became more than enough.  When I first heard this sermon, I was just getting ready for my spine surgery.  I had been notified that I wouldn't have a job when I returned from surgery.  We had recently made the decision to put our dog to sleep.  I wrote in my journal, "What in the world is our mighty God going to do with all of the breaking that is happening in my life?  Just like the little boy who gave up his lunch, I want to willingly offer the little I have so that God can break it and multiply it for the good of His people."

In John 6:12, Jesus said,  "...Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted."  That has been my focus.  God will not allow one thing that I have gone through to be wasted.  He will use every ounce of it, as long as I surrender it to Him.  I can't hold on to the broken pieces and refuse to give them back.  I can't hold on to that little piece of bitterness, or those many crumbs of anger that I felt during the breaking.  I can't hold on to the big chunks of would've, could've, should've beens.  I have to hand every single bit of it back to the one who allowed the breaking.  If I don't give it back to Him, it was wasted.

I know quite a few people in my life who are experiencing some "breaking" in their lives.  Allow that breaking to open your eyes to the fact that Jesus has been walking beside you all along..and He still is..and He always will.  Allow God to use the breaking to turn not enough, into more than enough. Surrender the broken pieces.  Let nothing that you are going through be wasted.

And since I'm me, and ya'll know how I am, a song keeps coming to mind.  "Nothing is Wasted" by Jason Gray.  You can listen to it here.  While I'm at it, he has a new Album that just came out called "Where The Light Gets In".  There are no words for how much I love this album including the title track, "The Wound Is Where the Light Gets In".  Good Good stuff!!

Let's Make Him Relevant

When I was a hot broken mess trying to survive life on this earth, a lot of well meaning Christians tried to share the gospel with me.  The one common thread among all that approached me was this question, "Don't you want to live forever?"  They would go on to tell me about how Jesus is the answer to eternal life.  As I mentioned in a previous post, they would tell me that if I walked away from my sinful life, I would have everlasting life.  I think that is a lovely thought.  I think that it might even work to draw some people to Jesus.  In the corporate world, or really all of my worlds, I have heard the phrase, "know your audience."  The same can be said for how we share the hope of Jesus.

The message of eternal life may only be relevant to those who are afraid of dying.  We need to make Jesus more relevant than just eternal life.  Jesus is relevant today.  The relationship that He wants to have with us TODAY is relevant.  He is relevant in ALL things.  We need to make sure that we aren't just making Him relevant in death.

People who are hurting or broken need to understand that Jesus loves them. Right Now!  Today!  They need to know that He is the healer.  He wants nothing more than to fill up the hole that is in their life.  They one they have been trying to fill up with everything but Jesus and can't figure out why it isn't working.  When I was the one hurting and broken, trying everything but Jesus, the thought of eternal life made me want to cry.  I barely had the will to get through next day.  The last thing I wanted to think about was having to deal with my life FOREVER.  I didn't understand that the forever life they were talking about was one full of love, hope, faith, and a Father who loved me unconditionally.    

Let us make sure that we are sharing how Jesus is working in our lives today.  Let's make Him relevant.