Dreaming in Color

I slept after a difficult day, stress gathered around my aching shoulders like a cloak. And when I dreamed it was like a movie of my life.

I remembered the way my childhood church smelled–like old hymnals, potlucks, and happy people.

I visited the locker room of my junior high (not so terrifying now) and laughed with my friends on the team.

I found myself on a crisp morning in the house where I lived during college. I heard the wood floor creak and my roommates welcoming me. 

I walked the streets of my neighborhood where I live now with my husband and petted a friendly dog who stopped by. 

More scenes played as I wandered back to the places where love has found me. They all dwell within me somewhere. 

Still asleep, I began to worry about the future. I wanted to know (as perhaps we all do) what would happen and how my life would go. 

Then a voice in my dream said, "There will be bad and good, Holley, there will be bad and good." 

A noise startled me awake and I opened my eyes with this phrase on my lips, "I want to find the good."

That's all that's certain in our future, I suppose. We will have both delightful and difficult days. Our lives are brilliance and beauty juxtaposed upon the background of darker moments.

It's our choice what to see, what to focus on, what to record for the movie in our minds.

Come what may, I'm pointing my camera in the direction of joy.

Life poured out...all sweet and summery

Update: Thanks to all of you who entered the giveaway! I loved reading your comments. The random number generator picked Nancy's comment--she wrote about how she loves to pick up sea shells in the summer. If you still want the pitcher, you can find it on DaySpring.com. It's 15% off right now and the rest of the Life Collection is on sale too. And I'm giving you my friends and family code for another 20% off everything you choose. Just enter holley20 when you check out. Have fun!

What is it about summer that makes life feel more present, vibrant, closer than the rest of the year? Yes, it's hot–blazing hot–but somehow even that heat is a reminder that winter has been banished and all is new again.

My thoughts are feeling lazy today and my words seem to be napping in the sun so I'm turning my pages over to you for a bit.

I'd love for you to share one thing you enjoy about summer by leaving a comment. And if you do so before midnight on Thursday, you'll be entered to win this pitcher from the Life collection by DaySpring. It's one of my absolute favorite things ever.

You can make lemonade in it, showcase fresh flowers, or just let it sit there and look pretty. It also has John 10:10 ("I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full") around the middle.

Let the celebration of summer begin...

 

(Subscribers, remember to come to the site to leave a comment here instead of replying to the e-mail. And check back here on Friday to see who won–I'll be updating this post.)

All that glitters...

Fireworks light up the night behind the trees in my yard. I look at their brightness, almost blinded, and feel again that thrill of something big and beautiful.

As the last embers fall, I spot another light–this one small, blinking, barely visible in the afterglow. It is a firefly (and you know how I love them from this post).

I always wonder what my little flying friends think of this holiday. I imagine a firefly going about its business, feeling happy and content with its tiny light, thinking how nice it is to add a bit of loveliness to the world on summer evenings.

Then, suddenly, an explosion of light appears above. Stunned, the firefly can't believe her eyes at first. She has never seen anything like it. As she watches, wave after wave appears.

Then a new feeling, a new thought, "My light is not so bright after all. How can I be more like those?"

Perhaps she reads a book, goes to a conference, joins Twitter. Gone are the days of quiet contentment in the leaves of the trees. She's networking, socializing, building a platform so one day her light can be that bright.

But she forgets, this little firefly, that hers is a different sort of light. It comes from within. Its beauty is not found in displaying but in being. It stays with her, grows with her, and long after this holiday has come and gone, it will remain.

She cannot sustain this brightness she longs to possess. Every firework burns out eventually. Her light comes as she can handle it...a little bit at a time. You see, the light of a firework is made for a moment. The light of a firefly is made for a lifetime.

After many weary days and much striving, she realizes this and she is happy again. She might still read books, go to conferences, and stay on Twitter but it feels different now that her heart has come home.

And in the glow of the fireworks the following year, she blinks, content, and it no longer matters if anyone notices.

As she does, The One Who Loves Her watches...and His smile is brighter than the glittering lights above the trees.

A New Prayer for America

July 4th is here again and I wonder how do I pray for America?

The news drifts in from the living room telling of war, politics, strategies and tragedies. In between stories I hear words tossed around like "liberal" and "conservative" or "left" and "right."

This phrase drifts into my heart, Bring us back to the middle, Lord.

And I realize I'm not thinking of politics or policies. No, instead I mean the middle of God's love, the center of His will, the hollow of His hand.

For there the answer lies, really.

As a counseling intern, friend, human, I have sat with the people I stereotype. And whenever I get past my own silly ideas I always find someone who is more like me than not.

But somehow we get tangled up in who's who and what's what until we forget that we're all just in need of a Savior. We label, compartmentalize, and separate. Pushing away from those unlike us, we find ourselves at one end of the spectrum or the other.

Because it's easier to hold a sign than embrace a sinner. It's more convenient to hide behind a pulpit (and we all have one) than to offer real grace to a person. It's simpler to talk about what's wrong and right than to admit that we are all messy, mixed up and in this together.

So this 4th of July I'm asking God to bring us back to the middle–to the place where our hearts connect, our hands touch, our lives intertwine despite our differences.

I hesitate for a moment, understanding this is not an easy place to be. We're far more likely to be misunderstood, hurt, and uncomfortable here.

But then I picture Him stretched out, arms open, a wooden beam reaching from left to right. And I realize where this center place is–at the base of the other beam–the one stretching from heaven to earth.

The foot of the cross is the middle.

Lord, may we be one nation under God...

 

Sometimes Joy Tastes Like Summer

Drifting through a recent day, unhurried, I take time with my parents visiting from the city. We spend the morning at a local orchard, picking peaches and blackberries. Joy seems like bursting-ripe fruit, ours for the taking...so we do, again and again.

(if you can't see the photos click here)

 

 

 

 

Home again, we peel, chop, make cobbler. Then we eat of life until we've had our fill. Finished, we rest and think of how days like these come once in awhile, in just the right season...and that makes them all the sweeter.

 

The Path of Friendship

 

We met in the middle of a hot July. Both in our early twenties, married a day apart, same flippy blonde hair, and beginning our jobs at DaySpring.

I remember taking a walk in the park a little bit later. It seemed that early awkwardness of building a relationship was never there for us. We just started talking and haven't stopped since.

I also remember the moment, briefly after, when she said something and I thought, "We're friends."

We shared our hearts over coffee, almost fell on the floor laughing as we sang old Amy Grant songs, played cards with our husbands until late, late at night.

For so long, our lives were so very similar. Our paths, parallel, seemed destined to keep us in the same place always.

God had His plans. I struggled with infertility. She had two kids. My career ramped up. She felt the beautiful calling to stay at home. We both wondered, silently and out loud to each other, about the changes in the roads of our lives.

Today is her 32nd birthday. This morning we had an early breakfast and talked on the shaded patio of a local cafe. Her little boy giggled while her sweet girl slept.

We shared about what was going on in our hearts, what our families did to celebrate birthdays when we were kids, and what the future might hold.

I looked at my lovely friend--full of light and life, so kind, talented, good and true. And I felt so glad just to be there.

When I hugged her good-bye in the parking lot, I cried. Those tears surprised me because they don't come often. And as I got back in my car I considered them. 

I realized they were tears of gratitude. Because almost ten years later our paths may have gone in different directions yet we will always find our way back to the place where our hearts intersect.

And this, for me, is the meaning of friendship.

Happy Birthday, sweet Heather. It's your day and yet I feel as if I'm the one who has been given a beautiful gift.

Welcoming a New Week

Swirling around me are sounds of a new week beginning. I hear the whoosh-whoosh of the dishwasher, the tumble-tumble of the dryer. Outside twilight descends and closes out the weekend like curtains on a stage.

Already I feel the rush, don't you? My heart beats faster, my mind races, my hands move from one task to the next. This is to be a day of rest and yet by the end of it I'm usually pushing the pedal to the floor and zipping into another week.

I look out my window and see my trees are also getting ready. One has a calendar, another a Blackberry, a third is already checking e-mail.

"No, no," you say, "such foolishness!" And of course it is, because trees don't plan their days. They don't stress out about meetings. They don't worry over their limbs.

And, I'll let you in on a secret, they grow anyway.

That is what I fear, I think--that if I stop all this madness, this rushing, that I will become small and stale. I will stay the same forever.

But this is not true, the trees know. For growth comes from roots and not leaves. It comes from being grounded firmly in the soil of God's love and then clinging to Him, drawing from Him, dwelling in Him each day.

So I pause, whisper a prayer, and begin anew. Surprised, I find that when I empty my heart of all I carry I'm free to lift my arms toward heaven.

We stand there for a moment, the trees and I, hands raised in welcome and feeling as if this week we might just touch the sky. 

SI(g)NS on the Street Corner

Zipping home from the farmer's market this morning we pause at a stoplight on the corner of a well-known street. It's lined with the typical college town fare--restaurants, a few bars, some clubs. I notice several people with signs strapped to their backs.

Looking closer I realize the signs are telling all of us where we will go for eternity and the sins that will take us there.

Immediately my blood starts boiling. "That is such a cop out!" I yell to my startled husband. Once he recovers, he gives me the grin that says here comes the sermon.

So I rattle on for a few moments about how Jesus would be in the bars not on the street corners, truth travels best on the road of relationships, and what kind of sign I'd like to make for those particular people.

"And," I huff, "They didn't even spell some of their words right." If you offend me as both a Christian and a writer all at once, boy howdy, you better watch out. (Normally I'm not such a stickler but if you're going to threaten me then I think I deserve the courtesy of spell check.)

Finally I say, "What I think it really comes down to is this--sin has always been secondary for God. Yes, He hates it but the reason He does is because it destroys our relationship with Him, each other, and ourselves. So trying to correct sin in a way that doesn't involve any sort of relationship just seems, well, wrong."

There are two kinds of counseling clients I see. The first makes wild and crazy choices that eventually separate them from God and those who love them.

The second never makes any wild and crazy choices. They are terrified of doing so and try so hard to be perfect that eventually the fear separates them from God and those who love them. 

Two different paths but the same end--shame and isolation. (I've gone down both at various times, by the way.)

So by the time I arrive at home, I've decided the sign-bearers must belong to the second group. And that makes me have compassion on them...a little. 

But there's still a part of me that wants to go after those signs with a chainsaw and a big red pen. 

Note to the sign people: Since you've decided to set the world "strait" you might want to take a long, hard look at your words first. And just in case you've been searching for a slogan, here's a new idea for you...We're all just signers saved by grace.

Come and Listen, Sorrow is Singing

Grief Group came again last night. This is the hardest one, the day when they tell their stories. You can see it in their eyes as they walk through the door, how they have been turning their words over and over like rocks, sifting and sorting, trying to find the right ones to tell of love and a lifetime.

How do you do this in a room full of strangers and only a few moments? But they do, brave souls, they do.

In the telling there is pain, yes, but also a striking beauty. Because although they speak of death, they mostly speak of life. They tell stories--funny ones, sweet ones, long ones, short ones--about the brilliant moments shared with the ones they love.

What strikes me about these stories, always, is that they are so very ordinary. They talk of things like fishing, friendship, building a family. Last night several of them said with voices full of emotion, "They taught me so much of what it means to live life."

That sentence swirled around my heart long after I got home. There is such glorious simplicity in it. Because this teaching comes not through grand accomplishments, fame, or fortune. No, the lessons come in quiet moments, the touch of a hand on a shoulder, a long laugh with a child.

Really, learning life comes so much more in being than in doing.

I needed to be reminded that although love is a verb it's not so much about action--at least in the way we tend to think. More often it's about stillness, togetherness, sharing life that seems insignificant but turns out to be the very best of what's left behind when we're gone.

Those stories blended together and sang my heart a song. Some high notes, some low, all having a place and purpose. And if you were listening I think this is the chorus you would hear...

Live well

Die well

Most of all,

Love well

Sweet Freedom

Update: The winner of the Set Free necklace giveaway is Abra! If you still want one for you or someone you love, you can find it here on DaySpring's site. Enter coupon code holley20 for an extra 20% off! 

I am feeling freedom today...do you know that weightlessness I mean? The sort that makes your heart feel as if it can fly. The kind that makes you laugh on the inside and cry on the outside because it's such a sweet relief. I have learned these last few weeks that guilt weighs much but grace is lighter than air.

My lovely friend Heather Steck designed this Set Free necklace for DaySpring about a year ago.

 

It comes with this beautiful card featuring a message I wrote...

I am set free—
Released from the past
and all that held me captive…
welcoming each day
with my wings spread wide…
Soaring into the future
and all God has for me!

I cried to the LORD,
and He answered
by setting me free.
Psalm 118:5 NIV
 

When I put those words on paper I had only begun to understand what freedom meant. I was more like the baby robins hopping about my backyard with fluttering wings. Now I feel I know so much more of what it means to have your spirit soar.

To celebrate my newfound freedom I'm giving away one of these necklaces. Just leave a comment by midnight on Thursday (and if you're a subscriber remember to click here rather than replying to the e-mail).

Sweet Freedom, you were not free at all...Love bought you and will not let you go.