(in)courage Archives - Holley Gerth

Permission to Be an Imperfect Human

I licked the peanut butter frosting around the entire rim of a cookie sandwich. I did this in the car, shamelessly, at a stoplight on my way home from a prayer meeting. Because I am human. And this is the sort of thing humans, even when they know better, sometimes do.

I am not advocating this behavior. Someone once told me if you can’t be an example then be a warning. So consider yourself warned. I will say I felt provoked and prodded toward that cookie sandwich with a red-hot stick. But who am I kidding? It was my foot on the gas and my voice in the drive-through saying, “You’re all out of cupcakes? Well, I’ll just take a cookie sandwich with peanut butter frosting, thanks.”

All of this came after an epic day. I showed up at an event this morning where I thought I was simply going to be participating. “Come and pray,” they said. “Casual,” they promised. “No big deal,” they demurred.

But when I walked through the door I heard instead, “Oh, there’s our guest author!” I stared, wide-eyed, and thought about backing away slowly, slowly. Then this, “You’ve been told you’re facilitating this, right?” I pinched my arm to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. I thought I might faint. I wondered if someone else might be standing behind me, someone more responsible and spiritual and loud who would love to be the on-the-spot-MC for a gathering of strangers. One of the coordinators, noting my discomfort, offered, “I could lead if you want me to.”

I wish I could say I picked the brave way, that I chose to be bold and pulled my shoulders back as I quoted, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” But instead I shoved that outline into her hands like it was a hot potato and said, “Have at it.” She looked startled and I realized then it was not a real offer. It was a polite offer.

Now there were two wide-eyed women standing there with a crowd building around us. She looked at me. I looked at her. Who would back down first? The official leader, a very nice man, must have sensed the fear and hormones drifting through the air. He took the paper and said, “Okay, I’ll do it.” At this point I could have gathered my wits and guts and stepped up to the plate. Instead I just said, at the exact same time as the scared silly woman next to me, “Great!”

In spite of me it turned out to be a really beautiful time. One woman attending talked to God in this intimate, gorgeous way that made me want to start all over in prayer kindergarten and learn everything again. She cried tears in front of us, who didn’t know her at all, and I thought about the woman who broke the alabaster jar on the feet of Jesus. She broke herself right there, without shame or hesitation, and I could sense the delight of God in her doing so. By the time we ended I felt breathless and blessed. And I remembered this lesson: I am human and God is God and both of these things are good.

Join me at (in)courage today for the rest of the story…

Your Generation is Needed Here

by Holley

I’m attending a tea party in the Fellowship Hall of a small town church about an hour from my home. This is where my parents had their wedding reception, where my grandparents had their fiftieth anniversary party, where my great-grandparents held hands in the pews.

Today the tables are covered in white linen and each place setting includes a vintage china cup, the kind that tempts you to stick your pinky out when you drink from it. The hostesses of this gathering are the lovely members of my Grandma’s Sunday School class, most of whom are now in their eighties.

There is one guest who is a distinct exception to this age range. My granddaughter, Ellie, is here with her Mama and I. She’s wearing a pink bow and charming everyone. At some point I realize five generations of my family are represented. This is beautiful to me.

“For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.” (Psalm 100:5, CSB)

A couple weeks later I find myself in a room full of diverse ages again. My friend Jennifer Watson, a local pastor’s wife, youth director and soon-to-be-author has organized an event. She’s seen how we can tend to silo ourselves according to age and she’s calling for an end to it, for a coming together across seasons and decades.

The women who are gathered are not family in the physical sense (but then neither is mine—our daughter became ours when she was twenty-one) but we are connected by a different kind of blood. We are sisters and daughters and mamas in Jesus.

Jennifer starts with a word to the senior sisters among us. “We need you,” she says, “You still have so much to offer. It’s never too late for God to use you.” I echo that wholeheartedly—please know we long for your presence and hard-won wisdom. It’s so much harder to walk well without someone going before us.

To those of us in the middle I’d say, “Let’s not miss the divine hidden among the mundane and ordinary. We can touch a life whether we’re holding a microphone or warming up mac-and-cheese in the microwave. Let’s show up where we are, as we are, steadily and faithfully. What’s visible isn’t more valuable.”

To those younger I’d declare, “It’s never too early for God to use you either. Don’t wait to feel ready. We need your optimism and energy, your fresh perspective and your daring. If you received something yesterday—even five minutes ago—then you have something to give to someone else.”

I’m falling in love in a new way with the idea of generations–with the beauty and strength we have when we link arms and stand side-by-side like a glorious timeline of God’s love. Together we can look back with gratefulness for what God has done and look forward with anticipation for what He has yet to do. And we can each choose to make a difference where we are now, in the season we’re living today, in the kitchen or the boardroom, at Tribal Night or a tea party.

This is what my heart understands better each year, what I want to pass on, what I believe: We all have something to offer. We all have something to receive. We are better together.

Today, I’m over at (in)courage. If you’d like to leave a comment on this post, I invite you to click on this link to join me there.

Hope When We’re Living a Hard Story

by Holley

I’ll celebrate my daughter’s birthday tomorrow. This might seem like a fairly ordinary occurrence. But it’s not to me. Because this is the girl God gave us after almost a decade of infertility. You can read our story here, but the short version is we met when Lovelle was twenty, she became ours at twenty-one and tomorrow she will blow out twenty-five candles on her cake.

Because God is extravagant in His goodness, I’m not only a Mama now but also a Nana. Lovelle and her husband welcomed baby Eula Ellen (nicknamed “Ellie”) into their lives last August. God is in the details because August 28th is the day Lovelle officially took our last name. We call it “Gerth Day” and treat it like a holiday in our family. Ellie came on Gerth Day.

A few months after Ellie arrived, Lovelle and I were standing in the kitchen at my house. She asked, tentatively, “Does being around Ellie make you wish you had a baby of your own?”

I didn’t hesitate with my answer, “If God told me I could go back in time and choose to have a baby of my own or have grown-up you again, I’d pick you in a second. I wouldn’t even have to think about it.” This is the gut-honest truth. This is redemption. This is God doing heart-healing in ways I never knew were possible until I lived it.

I share this because you may be coming up on a milestone too. Only you may not be on the other side of the answered prayers yet. You may still be in the ugly-cry-in-the-bathroom, stare-at-the-negative-pregnancy-test part of the journey. Or you could be experiencing another kind of barrenness in your life—a door to a job that just won’t open, a relationship that seems to have no life left in it, a dream that seems to be slipping away forever.

If so I want to whisper, so gently, don’t give up yet. I will never, ever tell you not to cry or rant or hide under the covers when you need to. Feel all the feelings. Say all the things. Just know that underneath all of that there can still be hope. God isn’t finished with your story yet.

It turns out Lovelle is a writer and speaker too. She said this in a blog post: “As I find myself looking back on my past and all the things that have happened to me, I can’t help but wonder why things had to go the way they did…. Are you frustrated with the way your life is looking right now? Are you losing your grasp on contentment? Are you trying to read too much into how God is working in your life? I want you to know that God doesn’t waste anything. Even if you are doing something you feel is useless, God has a plan and it will come to pass. That’s the promise I am believing today and my prayer is that you do the same.”

Yes, tomorrow I will celebrate my daughter’s birthday. I will celebrate the beautiful, kind, strong young woman I waited on for so many years. I will celebrate the family God has given us. I will celebrate the God who knows the desires of our hearts even better than we do, who is still writing all our stories in wild and mysterious ways today.

Happy Birthday, Lovelle. You will always be one of the best gifts God has ever given me.

XOXO,
Holley

P.S. Would you like to celebrate Lovelle’s birthday with our family? One way you can do so is by joining us in partnering with Compassion International to empower little girls in poverty to grow up to be fiercehearted women.

P.P.S. These words are from today’s (in)courage blog post. If you’d like to leave a comment for me or Lovelle, please click here and we’ll be sure to read your comments there!

What Our Hearts Need When We Mess Up

by Holley

{my graphics are free goodies for you}

I sit across from a friend who knows me well. We’ve walked together for more than a decade. My eyes are tear-filled as I look at her and say, “I messed up.” I tell her of how I have failed in an area that has been an off-and-on battle in my life for years.

We all have one don’t we? I call it our “Signature Struggle.” It’s the choice or habit or escape we go back to even though we know better. We swear we’ll never do that again—eat the whole pan of brownies or snap at the kids or drain the drink. But then we’re tired or stressed or overwhelmed and, suddenly, we do. No, sister, it isn’t just you. It’s all of us—every wandering, beating heart on this planet.

When I give in to my Signature Struggle the critical voices in my mind are so loud: God will never use you now. You’re a hypocrite. You said you’d never do this again and now here you are. You’re a failure.

On this morning as I sit with my friend I think she should tell me the same. She should rebuke me and give me a Bible study to do immediately. She should issue a public announcement about my behavior so that others will be warned. Instead she comes to sit beside me. She leans in and puts both arms around my shoulders. She says, so gently, “Don’t let the shame win. Don’t give the enemy that victory.”

She knows me well. She understands that I will recover from my misstep. I will get up and try again in the area of my Signature Struggle. I will make progress and move forward. I will learn from this mistake. What she’s most concerned about, what could be like a deadly viper sinking its fangs into my ankles, is letting the shame take hold. She’s seen what happens, how I pull back and hide.

She wisely understands what the enemy is really after is not simply to make us sin—the cross has already taken care of that—it’s to make us abandon our identity. It’s to convince us we cannot be both imperfect and loved at the same time. It’s to tempt us to believe our worst moments define us.

The enemy of our hearts would always rather have us embrace shame and guilt instead of grace. Because grace is what transforms us, what brings us out of hiding, what gives us the courage to keep trying. It is the superpower that defeats our Signature Struggle, that snaps the fangs of the serpent. As I share in You’re Loved No Matter What, “God wants to use the places where you’ve experienced the most shame to bring Him glory.”

Friends, I invite you to click over to (in)courage to continue reading this blog post…

We Don’t Have to Go So Fast

by Holley

“I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” Philippians 3:12-14, NLT

I still have to remind myself over and over of a basic principle when I’m working out: Holley, today you can go farther or you can go faster. But you cannot do both. When you’re running, that’s usually the choice. And in life it is too.

So if we plan to do something not for a while but for as long as we can because we love it, feel called to it, and the touch of heaven is on it, then sprinting is not the solution. Instead, let’s live and work like we’re going the distance.

I share in Fiercehearted that this means intentionally choosing a different pace. It means showing up over and over. It means letting people pass us. It means refusing to give in to the fear that we should always be doing more and instead continuing to faithfully, unglamorously do what matters most.

This makes no sense in our instant world. It’s upside down in the time of social media updates. It seems less sexy and exciting than the fast and the fancy. But it’s reassuring too, isn’t it? To know we don’t have to push so hard. We don’t have to go big or go home. We can just be obedient and leave the results to God.

I hope sometimes we get to go fast. That there are moments with the wind in our hair, the hearts in our chests pumping wildly, and the ground a blur beneath our feet. But I’m asking Jesus even more that we go far. That we make it around all the bends in the road. Watch the leaves turn from green to amber gold. Have like-hearted companions with us. Take the next step, then the next step, all the way.

Let’s keep running our race at our pace. We’re doing better than we know. See you at the finish.

XOXO

Holley Gerth

P.S. Want more encouragement for your journey? Join Holley for the free Fiercehearted Fall Study on Facebook.

P.P.S. This post is also over on (in)courage this week. If you’d like to leave a comment, you can click here to do so.

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