God's Heart for You Archives

You Have Not Been Forgotten

Patience requires giving up control, it means surrendering our perceived power. This is hard and scary for me. Yet, deep down, patience is also what our weary souls long for, what they are really hoping will be the outcome of all our efforts.

Patience isn’t just about time, it’s also about trust. It’s about saying, “I don’t have to be in control. I don’t have to hold the power because I know the One who does. And He is for me. He is always working on my behalf. And this means I don’t have to strive or reach for control.”

This is the true work of patience—not only to help us wait but to help us worship. To empty our hands and bend our knees and bow our heads. This is a wild, heart-freeing thing. Because what we want even more than to be in control is to be cared for by Someone who truly loves us.

And we are. We always have been. We forever will be.

Our God is good, and He loves us. Even when we can’t see His hands, even when we don’t understand His plans, we can still trust His heart.

Pray with me:

God, You have not forgotten us. You have not overlooked our requests. You haven’t left us behind. Please give us the patience we need to wait for Your timing, the faith we need to believe when we don’t yet see, and the trust we need to keep our hope burning strong. Your intentions for us are good, and Your timing is best. We surrender to Your will, not our own. Amen.

The words above are from Promises from God for Life’s Hard Moments. On today’s More than Small Talk podcast episode, we’re answering this question: What’s a time when you wanted to move forward but God said “not right now”? Click here to listen in!

You Don’t Have to Be “Enough”

by Holley

“Lord,” I asked, “why do women feel as if they’re not enough?” It seemed I heard a whisper in response: “Because they’re not.” For a moment I thought I had some holy static happening.

“Excuse me, God, it sounded like You said we’re not enough. Could You repeat that, pretty please?”

Again, gently and firmly, “They are not enough.”

By then I started thinking perhaps my heart had dialed the wrong number and the devil was on the line. But in that pause it seemed God finished the sentence: “They are not enough . . . in Me they are so much more.”

As women, we’re much more than pretty . . . we are wonderfully made.

We’re much more than likeable . . . we are deeply loved.

We’re much more than okay . . . we are daughters of the King.

I think the enemy tricks us into believing we are not enough because he knows if we discover the truth, we’ll be unstoppable.

We’re chosen, cherished, created women who have all we need to fulfill God’s plans for our lives, and He has made us just as He wants us to be.

The words above are from You’re Already Amazing: Embracing Who You Are, Becoming All God Created You to Be. The title of today’s More than Small Talk podcast episode is When Your “But” Gets In The Way. Click here to listen in!

If You’re Wondering Where God Is…

by Holley 3 Comments

When something difficult happens, it’s easy to wonder, “Where are You, God?” And His answer is always the same: “I’m with you.” Sometimes He makes His presence known through the hands and feet of people in our lives. Sometimes He quietly whispers to our hearts. Sometimes He works through circumstances to let us know we’re not alone.

Why does God do this? The answer in Psalm 18:19 seems downright scandalous. David says, “He rescued me because he delighted in me.” Yet when bad things happen in our lives, one of the first assumptions we often make is that God must be really upset with us.

The enemy would love to persuade you that God is against you. He would love for you to become convinced that you don’t have God’s support. He would love to make you believe that you’ve fallen beyond God’s ability to hold you up.

Will you pause for a moment and reject those lies? We live in a fallen, broken world, and we all face difficulties. That doesn’t mean we’re being punished. Jesus lived an absolutely perfect life, and yet He was still “a man of suffering and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:3). None of us gets to go through life without hard times. That doesn’t say anything about you except this: you’re human.

God knows that as humans we’re weak and frail. He knows we need help. He wants to offer that to us. Yet it’s up to us to receive it. And if we think He’s mad at us, then that’s a lot harder to do.

Perhaps it’s time to shift your perspective to align with what’s really true.

God isn’t disappointed in you.

He wants to delight in you.

And He will give you the support you need.

XOXO
Holley Gerth

This post is an excerpt from my devotional, What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days: 52 Encouraging Truths to Hold On To. Each of the 52 devotions based on the Psalms will help weary women remember that God is faithful, we’re all in this together and there’s a good plan for our lives.

For more encouragement, listen to Episode 37 of More Than Small Talk: Longing to Belong. Today with our guest Kristen Strong, we talk about what true belonging means and where we can find it. If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t belong, this episode is for you.

Prodigal Sons, Big Brothers and Beloved Daughters

by Holley 22 Comments

{my graphics are free goodies for you}

I’ve read the story of the prodigal son. Most of us have. We know the plot well. The son rebels. The father waits. The son comes home. The father runs to him. But what I have never really noticed, what my anxious, try-hard heart missed in this story is the father pursued the older son too.

The older son is busy working hard in the fields when his little brother shows up. It seems big brother is likely the striver and performer, the perfectionist of the family. He has done his part. He has sacrificed. He has held it all together. This might be why he can’t make himself go inside the party celebrating the return of the prodigal. Because this is not the way he believes life works. In his world, you hustle for your worth. You trade effort for affection. You earn everything that’s given to you.

So the older brother stands outside, alone.

I have been there. I have lived this story.

That’s why what comes next is so beautiful to me. “His father came out and entreated him” (Luke 15:28). The word entreated means to ask someone earnestly. The father wants his son to come into the house, the place of belonging, into a space of grace.

The father has entreated me too…

“Holley, will you believe that I truly love you?”

“Will you trust that your worth rests not on what you do but what I’ve done for you?”

“Will you stop performing and rest in My grace?”

Then the father calls the older brother “Dear Son” (Luke 15:31). It is a reminder of his true identity. When we are hustling and working hard we can so easily forget who we are and how much we’re loved.

The father also says, “You have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours” (Luke 15:31). In other words, “Remember our relationship. Remember you have no reason to strive, nothing to prove.”

As I write this I’m almost undone by the tenderness of the father.

The story ends and we don’t know if the older son ever chooses to go in. But I know this: today I’m stepping back into the house. Today I’m choosing to belong. Today I’m going to believe what the Father says to and about me.

Sometimes people ask, “Are you the prodigal or the older brother in this story?” I always have trouble answering because I think we are all both sons—we have wandering hearts and work-for-my-worth hands. We are rebels and perfectionists. And, thankfully, we all have a Father who comes for us, who never stops loving us, who knows us even better than we know ourselves.

We are the prodigal son and the older brother, yet we don’t have to live as either. We can choose to live as someone else entirely different today, the role our Father wants most for you, me and all our sisters: Being the beloved daughter.

XOXO
Holley Gerth

P.S. If you’re looking for a creative Mother’s Day gift, here’s an idea for you: Sponsor a little girl through Compassion International in honor of a Mama in your life. One of the best way to say “thanks” is to pay it forward, right? And when you do so through this link, you’ll get a gift too–a free copy of Fiercehearted! Changed life, Mother’s Day gift, a little something for you. That’s some fabulous multitasking right there.

P.P.S. If you know a high school or college student who is graduating this May, a woman with a God-sized dream who longs to bring glory to God as she lives with passion and purpose in the middle of all the crazy, this book might be the perfect gift!

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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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I Want to Be This Kind of Woman

by Holley 15 Comments

We are women and this is a powerful thing. It is an echo of God’s heart and a display of His glory. He speaks this world into being—let there be light—but when He makes woman, it’s intimate and personal.

Imagine the scene. Adam drifting off to sleep in the sunlight, the whisper of God’s footsteps on the grass, the bend of His knees as He reaches down. He touches Adam’s side, the place closest to his heart, and takes hold of a rib. Perhaps the animals gather to watch. A porcupine with sharp quills who’s trying not to be socially awkward sits next to a chubby panda having another afternoon snack, while a squirrel deliriously runs circles around them all.

Then a hush comes as the Artist begins to work. He stretches the rib out long and adds curves and flesh and eyelashes. Yes, a freckle just above her lip, a wrinkle on her elbow, a softness in the palms of her hands, and a strength between her shoulder blades.

I think God smiles.

Soon all that beauty will be marred with sin like spitballs on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He will curse her. He will not give up on her. And later a Messiah will set her free. But even after that the woman circles the borders of Eden, never completely reclaiming the truth. She forgets her story. The people around her tell her different versions. The world is a web of lies and she is the butterfly with paper wings struggling in the corner.

She doesn’t see she is lovely. She becomes untethered from the fierceness inside her. She tries on shoes like Cinderella in yoga pants and eats leftover cookies alone in the middle of the night and sees the plastic surgeon for one more touch-up, the knife splitting her skin’s surface like the hurt splits her soul. Or she hides and tries very hard to be very good. She joins every committee and says yes to bathing one hundred poodles for charity and grows dim in the flicker of the television light.

And all the while, the One who made her is calling her back, still walking in the garden of her heart in the cool of the day and saying, “I am with you.” He offers what she longs for most—for Him to tell her who she really is, to whisper in her ear that He has made her funny and wise and strong and brave. That she is tender and resilient and complex and wonder-filled. She is mystery and unveiling. She is salty tears and the sweat at the finish line and the lioness in the corner office and lullabies in the night. She is not an afterthought; she has been an essential part of the plan all along.

Somewhere a snake hisses and a Savior on a cross declares, “It is finished.” The curtain splits and the curse breaks and the promise of Eden comes back to us. All the sisters and the daughters and the mamas say, “Amen.” Redemption joyfully roars back, “You are a woman.” It echoes through the ages.

When I listen closely, I can hear it still.

XOXO,

Holley

P.S. This post is an excerpt from my new book Fiercehearted: Live Fully, Love Bravely and is also up at (in)courage today. If you preorder a copy, please be sure to submit your receipt to receive several free gifts! I’d also love to invite you to join me for the free Fiercehearted Fall Study! The online study will kick off on October 3rd, launch day. There will be exclusive videos, discussions about the book, giveaways, and more. Nearly 2,000 women participated in the last study {and books sold out from several retailers}. Preorder Fiercehearted now to be sure you have your copy in time—plus you’ll get the free gifts!

P.P.S. If you’re in Northwest Arkansas or close by {OK, MO, KS, TX–I’m talking to you!} I’d love to see you at the Fiercehearted Launch Party on October 3rd! {A special segment of the Launch Party will be shared via live video in the Fiercehearted Fall Study.}

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From August 16th through October we’re doing a special link-up series to celebrate Fiercehearted: Live Fully, Love Bravely {launching October 3rd!} 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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You Have Not Been Forgotten

Pray with me:

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You Don’t Have to Be “Enough”

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If You’re Wondering Where God Is…

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Prodigal Sons, Big Brothers and Beloved Daughters

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

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

I Want to Be This Kind of Woman

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

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