Fiercehearted Archives - Holley Gerth

Your Story Isn’t Over Yet

Maybe real courage is simply bearing witness to the wild and mysterious story God has always been writing. Perhaps true success is finally believing our actual, everyday part in his story is good . . . and good enough. — Fiercehearted

We started our twenty-one days together talking about stories, about a friend of mine who shared hers on a black stool that swivels. And we are coming full circle because we, fiercehearted women, are all living a story today. A story crafted and told by the Author of heaven. The star-scatterer. The mountain-mover. The water-walker. It is a story of being brave and strong and true. A story of, most of all, love.

In the day-to-day, it doesn’t feel like a story. It feels like dishes in the sink. Reports on the desk. Another mile behind the steering wheel of the car. But this doesn’t change what’s real. Beneath the surface of all that ordinary still lurks the glory.

Sometimes the plot is confusing. Or strange. Or sad. Sometimes we want to cut a chapter out with sharp scissors. Sometimes we want to be the editors with the red ink. Sometimes we want to skip right to the end just to make sure it says, “And they lived happily ever after.”

But this is not our role. It is not for us to say, “This is what happens next” or “I’m changing the ending.” Instead, we are to trust, to wait, to be in the middle of the mystery. There is so much we do not know, that we will not know, but we can be certain of this: the Author is good and we are loved.

Yes, even when the unexpected sentence comes. When we face that dark-as-night period. When the syllables jumble together and we scratch our heads. Even in those places, between those lines, there is a God at work who has always been speaking, always been creating beauty out of the broken. “Jesus also did many other things. If they were all written down, I suppose the whole world could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25, NLT).

Jesus is still doing many other things. He is not done with history. He is not finished with the part of it that is our story either. Whatever scene we find ourselves in today, it is not the final page. Hold on, there is a turning coming. There is more than this, more than here and now. We have not yet seen the there and then.

We are overcomers. We are warriors. We are a force to be reckoned with in this world. And whatever the future brings, our God is still holding the pen. He is the only one who gets to write “The End.”

XOXO,
Holley

P.S. This post is an excerpt from my new ebook: Strong, Brave, Loved. We’re wrapping up the 21 Day Strong, Brave, Loved Challenge — but it’s not too late for you to join! If you missed it, just visit this post to learn more and then head to my Facebook or Instagram pages for each day’s challenge and encouragement. You can easily start at the beginning – Day One – because the Challenge will stay up on both Facebook and Instagram! If you’ve completed the Challenge and would like more encouragement, Fiercehearted would be a great next step for you!

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Right now, we’re doing a special link-up series to celebrate Fiercehearted: Live Fully, Love Bravely. You’re a fiercehearted woman so I’m asking you to pour out a little love and courage with your words every Wednesday {the link-up goes live at 5:30am CST}. Simply write an encouraging blog post, especially if it’s about living fully and loving bravely, and then share it here. Don’t have a blog? You can still write an encouraging comment. If you’re reading this by email, go to holleygerth.com to see all the fun and join in too.

When you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth!

{click to tweet that you’re joining me here today}

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You’re Doing Better than You Know

by Holley 28 Comments

I am an awkward runner—not gracefully athletic but more like an enthusiastic, uncoordinated giraffe. I have learned to accept this. I run anyway.

I feel the pavement beneath my feet with every step. The hill taunts me and tries to steal my breath. But what really makes me want to quit are the accusations inside: “You’re going so slow. You’re not doing a good job. This must be your worst run ever.”

I used to listen to that voice. Until I discovered something: every time I heard it, I ended up with a time that was my personal best.

Because the reality is, in the moments when we want to give up, when we feel weak and exhausted, when we think we can’t do it . . . we’re actually getting stronger.

We’re not tired because we’re failing; we’re tired because we’re fighting.

We’re not weary because we’re weak; we’re weary because we’re winning the battle to go to the next level in our lives.

This is the scandalous secret: when we want to quit, it really means we’re making progress.

So I’m learning to hear that voice in a different way. When those accusations come (which they still do), I think, I must be running harder and faster than ever before—it just doesn’t feel like it. It’s often the same in the rest of our lives too.

Never give anyone or anything the power to shame you. You’re braver than you feel, stronger than you know, and loved more than you’ve yet to see. — Fiercehearted

Let’s not allow the enemy of our hearts to convince us to stop because we think we’re not doing well enough. Instead, let’s recognize the effort and the pain for what they are—signs of growth.

Yes, sometimes the hurt means we are injured and need to rest. But often it simply means we are breaking through what has held us back and pushing with all our might toward what God has for us.

In the place between what is comfortable and what seems like it will surely kill us is often where we become all we’re created to be.

I finish my run and, sure enough, I’ve dropped almost a minute from my time. It seems small, but to me it’s huge. I’m not taking that victory lightly. I’ve earned every teeth-gritting second of it. I didn’t quit. And I didn’t die. In this world, that’s the best and bravest we can do some days.

The voices inside are finally silent and so it’s my turn to speak. I say to all the lies that chased me and nipped at my heels, “I’m stronger than you think.”

Even if I don’t always feel it, I’m learning to believe it.

XOXO,
Holley Gerth

P.S. This post is an excerpt from my brand new ebook: Strong, Brave, Loved. Would you join us for the 21 Day Strong, Brave, Loved Challenge? We’re two weeks in, but you can join any time. Visit this post to learn more and then head to my Facebook or Instagram pages for each day’s challenge and encouragement. You can easily start at the beginning – Day One – because the Challenge will stay up on both Facebook and Instagram!

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When you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth!

{click to tweet that you’re joining me here today}

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Where Our Worth Really Comes From

by Holley 23 Comments

{my graphics are free goodies for you}

The sky is light blue like a debutante’s dress and the waves are rows of lace, spreading out in circles that drag across the sand. The ocean looks especially benevolent this morning with sea gulls circling like suitors. My friend and I join her crowd of admirers as we walk along a stretch of beach still damp from the last high tide. “So lovely,” I say.

We begin to talk of life and hearts and who we’re becoming. Two years of sunsets and phases of the moon and things washed ashore have passed since we’ve gotten to be together face-to-face. Last time I saw her I was in the middle of going-doing-trying-striving.

In only a few months I would find all those irons in the fire led to nowhere but burn out. My singed soul would retreat and my heart would think about hanging a “closed” sign on the door. In that place Jesus would find me and rescue me and I would unexpectedly write a book about living fully and loving bravely.

I’m still practicing the new truths I’ve learned. Sometimes I’m unsure and unsteady like the little girl we pass who’s trying out her cruiser bike for the first time, tires awkwardly tattooing the sand. And perhaps the truth that’s hardest of all is this one: I don’t have to hustle for my worth.

Being on this beautiful beach is bringing this to mind today. Because while I am on the beach I am not so many other places—on a stage, in a meeting, in front of a computer, nodding my head as I listen to someone in need. Here I am stripped, like a self-conscious woman slipping out of her swimsuit cover-up, barren of all my “goodness.”

Here I am simply Holley. Beloved daughter of the Maker of the Stars and the Tamer of the Waves. Cherished by the One who sees the dolphins playing tag in the deep and the sideways scuttle of the crab. Called by the God who understands the silence of the tight-lipped oysters and hears the squawk of the big-bellied pelican.

I say to my friend what keeps running through my mind, “What’s visible isn’t more valuable. People are more important than platform. Our worth doesn’t come from our works.”

I have to tell myself this every day because I forget. This morning the sea is my reminder because when I look at her I know all this again: I am infinitely small. I am infinitely known. I am thought of by the God who thought of all this—the water and the wind and the sand pipers.

And, most of all, our worth is not something we have to create. It comes always and only from the One who created us.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
– Psalm 139:14-18

XOXO

Holley Gerth

P.S. My 40th birthday is coming November 14th {woo-hoo!} and the gift I want most is for 40 little girls in poverty to grow up to be fiercehearted women. In other words, to know their worth and become all God created them to be. You can be part of this gift by sponsoring through Compassion International. {If you sponsor through this link, you’ll get a FREE copy of Fiercehearted! So fun!}

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When you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth!

{click to tweet that you’re joining me here today}

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You Are Beloved and Chosen

by Holley 29 Comments

{my graphics are free goodies for you}

I step into a Junior High lunch room that smells like old fries and sticky plastic trays. I scan the scene—the popular kids at one table, bookworms at another, the theater crowd and the athletes and the rebels. Who will look up and invite me over?

Tell me who I am.

My friends and I have crushes and dates and boyfriends. We fix our hair a hundred different ways. Crowd into dressing rooms to try a thousand different outfits. Loop silver and gold through our ears. The doorbell rings and he is holding roses.

Tell me who I am.

I am typing into a small screen and pressing “publish.” Sending my heart in black and white into the internet. There will be comments and likes, criticisms and compliments. I watch the cursor blink.

Tell me who I am.

Isn’t this the whisper of our hearts as women? The friends, the men, the crowd. They will tell us if we are okay. If we are worthy. If we are enough. Isn’t that their job?

But then I bump into this verse, “But Jesus would not entrust Himself to them, for He knew all people” (John 2:24). All people. The popular kids and the bookworms, the theater crowd and the athletes and the rebels. This verse has been there all along and it’s been a head-scratcher for me. He didn’t entrust Himself to them?

Then suddenly it occurs to me this might the answer: Jesus is the only human to walk this spinning planet and not say Tell me who I am. He didn’t look to others to definite His identity, to determine His worth. “Instead He entrusted himself to Him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). “Judge” has a reputation of being a harsh word but I don’t think that’s the meaning here. I think it’s saying that God alone knows the truest-truth and that’s why His opinion is the only one that really matters.

Of course we are going to care what others think. We’re going to desire acceptance and want to fit in. This is the way we’re created to connect. The only folks who don’t are sociopaths. So no guilt about this, no shame or hardening our hearts. Instead we can simply say, “But God gets the final word.”

Tell me who I am.

And God says we are beloved and chosen, cherished and gifted, wanted and a divinely-shaped wonder.

When someone says, “You’ll never amount to anything,” He says, “You can do all things because I strengthen you” (Php. 4:13).

When someone tells us, “You don’t look the right way,” He whispers, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14).

When someone implies, “You aren’t wanted,” He declares, “I have called you by name, you are mine” (Is. 43:1).

O, God, You are the One who gives us our identity. You are the One who sets us free from condemnation and comparison, hustling to be liked and trying to be perfect. You are the One right there with us every time we feel tempted to listen to the lies. May Your love always be louder than any other voice.

Tell us who we are.

XOXO
Holley Gerth

P.S. Today, I have an invitation for you! Will you join me in empowering girls in poverty so that they can grow up to be fiercehearted women? My 40th birthday is November 14th… and the gift I want most is for our community here to sponsor 40 girls through Compassion International, reminding each one that they are beloved and chosen, cherished and gifted.

I’ve traveled with Compassion and whole-heartedly believe in the good work they’re doing. Would you consider sponsoring a girl through Compassion? If you sponsor through this link, Compassion will send you a copy of my new book, Fiercehearted, as a thank-you.

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When you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth!

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On Scandalous Grace

by Holley 26 Comments

{my graphics are free goodies for you}

In my younger years, I stared at the names of authors in the aisles of bookstores, heard the words of speakers I respected, and listened to musicians belting out praise songs complete with electric keyboards and thought all these people must be perfect.

I didn’t know—I really didn’t—that someone could be used by God, especially in a very public way, and still be fighting battles every day. I feared human imperfections were actually divine disqualifications, and I was living on borrowed time when it came to God’s willingness to work through me.

I didn’t realize the authors I idolized on the shelves of my grandparents’ bookstore could have put a well-placed comma on the page and then, in a moment of weakness, snapped at their kids for interrupting them. Or the performer might have wrapped up their show and then had too many beers alone in a hotel room, an unfortunate self-prescription to dull the anxiety and exhaustion. The artist who created the beautiful piece about forgiveness perhaps did so only a few minutes after getting rid of the pornography.

I suppose I should have suspected this because of what I read in Scripture. After all, the man after God’s own heart opened the door to adultery and murder. The wild-faith ark builder got drunk. The boldest disciple lied and denied in the most crucial moment.

Instead, it took a very long time for me to understand we are all broken. No level of spirituality or ministry exists where we are suddenly exempt from being human. I grieve for my own heart because of this. And for the thousands of other silent pew sitters and hopers throughout history who have thought the same. Who have nearly drowned in their shame. Who have told themselves, “I’m sure I’m the only one.” And all the while Jesus has been waiting, hand extended, simply saying, “This is why I came.”

As I’ve talked about before, I’m still learning grace is not just for getting us into heaven—it is for getting us through this life. It is for the first sin and the millionth. It is for all we hide in the dark. It is for the broken places that are like scabs knocked off over and over. It is for the thing we think excludes us.

I wish there had been less telling and more showing way back then when I first started looking for grace. I would have liked to see the scars from skirmishes fought with bare, tender hands. I would have liked to touch skinned knees from the falls. I would have liked to walk beside folks when they were still limping. I hope that is how I’m living, how I’m writing—Jesus, may it be so for all of us.

XOXO

Holley Gerth

P.S. This post is an excerpt from my new book Fiercehearted: Live Fully, Love Bravely. As you might guess from this excerpt, I share some confessions and struggles in the book I never have before. I’ll continue to do so in the Fiercehearted Fall Study. I’d love for you to join us!

P.P.S. I’m so excited that DaySpring is hosting a Fiercehearted giveaway! From now through 10/16, you can click here to enter the generous giveaway that includes the ‘Courage Is’ necklace, You’re Loved mini-tablet pouch, and ‘Put On Love’ trinket dish.

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From August 16th through October we’re doing a special link-up series to celebrate Fiercehearted: Live Fully, Love Bravely. You’re a fiercehearted woman so I’m asking you to pour out a little love and courage with your words every Wednesday {the link-up goes live at 5:30am CST}. Simply write an encouraging blog post, especially if it’s about living fully and loving bravely, and then share it here. Don’t have a blog? You can still write an encouraging comment. If you’re reading this by email, go to holleygerth.com to see all the fun and join in too.

Pretty please use this button in your blog post so others can easily join in with us {the html code is in the right sidebar of my main blog page}. And when you link up your post, take a moment to leave an encouraging comment on the one that’s linked up just before yours. Thanks, friends!

I’m having Coffee For Your Heart with my friend Holley Gerth!

{click to tweet that you’re joining me here today}

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