(in)courage Archives - Holley Gerth

The Holiday Season is Stressful: Here’s How You Can Get Some Peace

Last year around Christmas, Mark and I braved a local shopping area for some gifts on our list. We braced ourselves for crowds and lines, loud songs playing over store speakers, irritable drivers fighting to get the last parking spot. When we walked through our door an hour later I took a deep breath and thought, “Peace at last.”

In our culture we tend to think of peace as the absence of what troubles us. The blaring music gets turned off. The crowd thins out. The pace of our life slows down. But when Mark and I went to church that night our wise pastor, Mark Schatzman, talked about what God really means when He says He will give us peace.

The biblical word for peace is Shalom and while it’s difficult to translate into our language it essentially means wholeness and well-being. Theologian Tim Keller says, “Shalom experienced is multidimensional, complete well-being—physical, psychological, social, and spiritual; it flows from all of one’s relationships being put right—with God, within oneself, and with others.”

What strikes me most when I read this is how often I settle for less than Shalom. I’m content with a shallow, surface-level peace. If I’m gut-honest, I even feel a bit nervous about the idea of Shalom. I’m a woman who knows how to work hard and fight harder. I’m used to my faith feeling like a battleground. If life is calm and things are good I start wondering what will go wrong.

I tend to focus on the part of the gospel that is the cross. Yet sometimes in doing so I forget that part of the purpose of the cross is to bring us Shalom. “The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Is. 53:5 NIV). The story of Scripture starts with Adam and Eve in a Garden, a place of complete peace. It ends in heaven, also a place of well-being and wholeness. It seems God is intent on seeing His people thrive, whatever it takes.

This doesn’t mean we’ll experience Shalom fully in this world. We are fallen, broken people on a fallen, broken earth. But there’s something comforting in knowing that God is always working to bring us toward Shalom. “Great is the Lord, who delights in blessing his servant with peace!” (Psalm 35:27) We will go through hardship and suffering in this life. But peace is the place God has for us to dwell.

If we’re in a season where life is happy then I think that means we embrace it without fear or apology. We receive the gifts God is bestowing on us. We celebrate and savor every moment. We let the joy we feel now be a small preview of what we’ll one day experience forever.

If we’re in a season where life is hard then I think that means we let Shalom be our hope. As Mark Schatzman said, “God makes peace out of our pieces.” No matter how broken we feel now we can trust one day we’ll be whole and that all will be well.

Yes, I thought for so long that peace was the absence of something. I know now it’s the presence of Someone. A God who loves us. A God who is for us. A God who is making all things new, including me and you.

God, You don’t just give us peace; You are our peace. Thank You that what You offer is so much deeper and greater than we often know. We ask that You will give us Shalom so that no matter what our circumstances might be we can know that all will be well and we will be whole. Amen.

—–

For more encouragement, join me for a FREE Online Bible Study! It kicks off in January 2020. Learn more and sign up here!

Let’s Fight for One Another, Not with Each Other

by Holley

Loving other people can feel like stepping across a field of land mines sometimes. Perhaps this is truest of all online. Politics. Social issues. The latest offense at school or work or the fast-food drive-through. It’s all there. Angry words, sharp-pointed opinions, the shrapnel of bitterness and envy. Why do we do this to each other?

I’ve come to believe this: we are most angry when we are most afraid. It’s the old flight-or-fight response built into our bodies from the beginning. Some of us flee, but others of us pick up our guns and load them with words. We think we are saving ourselves, maybe even saving the world, but we are destroyers in disguise.

I recently talked about this with two friends and fellow writers. During our conversation, this verse came to mind:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:18–19

We, as humans, tend to think if we can have things our way, then the world will be better. So we fight our fear aggressively and forcefully. We post and shout. We raise our fists and our voices.

But what if instead of spewing those angry words and that tirade online, we simply go to the person who is standing in our kitchen today and say, “I love you and I am for you”? Or we reach out to someone who is different from us? Because we also fear what we don’t understand. And if we’re spending all our time saying, “Here’s my opinion,” then we’re not listening, not understanding. Fear wins.

One of my friends asked, “What would it be like if we made a commitment to fight for each other instead of with each other?” It’s a question worth considering if we want to defeat fear. Because if we live with swords drawn in defense, then we are always on guard, looking for the next fight, seeing threatening shadows in every corner.

We have a Protector. He is good. He is wise. He is kind. And here’s what we need to know: God hasn’t asked us to be right all the time. He has called us to love. This is the harder, braver choice. Because it requires opening our hearts instead of our mouths. It’s about seeing each other not as threats but as people made in the image of God. It means we lay down our weapons and go, with arms wide open, down a path that could very well lead to a cross.

At first we might be scared. This is not the easy option, after all. But it is the fiercehearted one. And it’s the only way back to grace and peace, mercy and hope, humility and kindness.

I still believe this: love is stronger than fear.

God, You are the maker of all human beings, those we care for most and the ones who will always be a mystery to us. Give us eyes to see others as You do, a heart that has compassion like Yours, and the strength to keep on loving. Amen.

This post is the Day Twelve devotion from Strong, Brave, Loved: Empowering Reminders of Who You Really Are. My new devotional released earlier this month, and I’d love for you to join me as we walk through it each day — together. Information on the Online Bible Study is available here, and I hope you’ll sign up!

Today’s episode of More than Small Talk is one you’ll definitely want to listen to before the holidays. Listen to Episode 46: Finding Sacred Rest here.

I Love People Who Laugh So Hard They Snort

by Holley 5 Comments

Hello, Friend! I hope your week is going well! I’m writing from my favorite coffee shop and there’s an empty seat across from me. Wish you were here! For now here’s some encouragement for you…

Listen: Want to know one of my most awkward moments? Yep, I’m spilling it. (Episode 9, More than Small Talk podcast)
Watch: If your heart needs hope today. (Facebook video)
Read: Help when you feel pressure to do, be or have more. ((in)courage post)

Take One Minute to Remember… Your awkwardness is endearing.

I’m falling in love with the awkward. It’s where we find out which one of our friends laughs so hard she snorts. It’s where the mascara runs right down our faces, and we discover how lovely the ugly cry can be. It’s where we remember we are not God — and that is a very good thing. It’s where we learn to believe we’re loved for who we are and not who we sometimes wish we could be.

The people who impress me most these days are not the ones on stages or those with the most likes on their social media pages. I’m impressed with the folks who show up in the everyday and say, “Here I am. There you are. Let’s figure out how to love each other, even when it’s awkward.” I love the people who say the wrong thing sometimes and fidget when they’re nervous and trip over the welcome mat. Those are my people, my kind. Yours too?

Showing up as you are, refusing to hide or hold back, is a brave, beautiful, world-changing, endearing thing.

XOXO
Holley

10 Second Step: Pause and pray, “God, help me remember that I don’t have to be perfect to be loved today. Give me the courage to show up as I am and give others permission to do the same. Amen.”

—–

Can we be inbox friends?

I’d love to continue to connect with you! My goal is to help you embrace who you are and become all you’re created to be, one short and sweet email at a time. Join over 33,465 readers who have decided to be regularly inspired and encouraged!

Let’s Welcome the New Year with Hope (Here’s Why We Can)

by Holley Leave a Comment

The airport is crowded this morning. As I wait for my flight I watch the parade of people. Disgruntled teenagers with caps pulled down over their eyes trailing behind determined parents. Bright-eyed couples holding hands with the honeymoon sun still on their faces. A group of grey-headed ladies in pink matching t-shirts laughing and exchanging stories while they sip coffee. I wonder about all of them. Where have they come from? Where are they going?

I realize all over again in that moment God knows the answers. He sees every detail of our lives. He’s been with us in every step we’ve ever taken. And as we welcome a new year this reassures me. Because none of us knows what’s ahead. There are certain to be blessings and moments of happiness. There will also be hard days and tears shed. Some parts of our lives will stay much the same and others, like it or not, will inevitably change.

A blond little girl in pigtails walks by with a stuffed brown bear in her arms. Seeing her reminds me of the first time I flew by myself. I was only five years old when I marched up to the ticket counter with a little red suitcase in hand to tell the amused airline employee the plane needed to come so I could go see my Grandma. My parents observed from close by and made sure every bit of the trip was in order. These days I carry a leopard print laptop bag and I’ve flown away from my comfort zone many times. But on the inside that younger self and I still have much in common. We want to know we’re safe. We’re loved.

We’re going to be okay. That’s what gives us the courage to pick up our bag and go.

Psalm 121:8 says, “The Lord will protect your coming and going both now and forever.” This is mysterious to me because difficult things happen, people get sick, and life doesn’t always work out the way I planned. But even if I don’t understand them fully these words offer hope because it means whatever may transpire God is still taking caring of me.

Today I’m sharing at (in)courage. Click here to continue reading the post…

And if you’d like more encouragement for the new year, you’ll find it in Hope Your Heart Needs: 52 Encouraging Reminders of How God Cares for You. Order your copy before midnight on December 31st, fill out this form, and you’ll also receive Hope for the Holidays, an exclusive, limited-time only ebook — for free!

What You Just Can’t Do on Social Media

by Holley

I stood in a park on a fall day, leaves a kaleidoscope of colors around me. I held a bouquet of burgundy flowers in front of my simple black dress, a gold ribbon wrapped around my waist. In front of me two of my dearest friends sniffled, trying to hold back a river of emotion, clutching the tissues they’d secretly wrapped around the stems of the flowers they also held. A third dear friend with hair the color of flame wore a white dress and said “I do” to a man who had won her heart.

Afterwards there was music and dancing, the forest floor a stage, the sky a ceiling. We ate cookies instead of cake—chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal and toffee. I snapped a picture of the bride with her head thrown back, laughing as the groom twirled her around during their first dance. It’s the closest I’ve come to witnessing a fairy tale.

Those moments don’t come often in life, the ones full of holy magic and wild wonder, the sort that make you want to ease time down to a trickle and let it run over your hands, your heart slowly, slowly. As I breathed in the scent of campfires and sugar my mind drifted back to another moment, years ago, that felt entirely different.

It happened during a year when I’d gotten on a plane twenty times, when peanuts and pretzels in little packages felt like a solid meal. It came during a season where I cried in hotel bathrooms and stared at the ceiling at midnight. It snuck up on me when, if I wasn’t traveling, I spent most of my time looking into a computer screen. The world felt flat and pixelated, the desire to prove myself in some mysterious way a constant drumbeat in my weary bones.

One day I went to coffee with the bride—although it would be years before she took on that role. Months had somehow slipped by without a meaningful conversation between us. I’d been distracted and exhausted, distant and a bit depressed. She sat across from me and pulled a letter from her purse. It said many kind and beautiful things. But they all came down to this: She loved me and she missed me.

I felt like the Apostle Paul with the scales falling off my eyes. I could suddenly see what all my hustling had done to the people closest to me. Later in the car on the drive home I told myself things had to change.

I’d like to say the alterations were easy. But I was hooked on approval like an addict in a dark alley, every round of applause or “like” on social media another hit. I felt the withdrawals of saying “no” to good opportunities, of choosing to be present in my everyday life where I was quite ordinary rather than on a stage where no one could see my flaws. I worried that I wasn’t keeping up or that I was letting everyone down.

Click here to continue reading this post over at (in)courage.

Also, if you’d like more encouragement you’ll find it in my new devotional, Hope Your Heart Needs: 52 Encouraging Reminders of How God Cares for You. Right now you’ll also receive my exclusive, limited-time-only bonus ebook Hope for the Holidays (get all the details here).