My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
John 15:12(NIV)
Imagine receiving
encouragement from someone you’ve never met. Imagine being lifted up and out of
your greatest trials by someone so deeply faithful, so relentlessly sunny, that
you cannot stay down. Imagine someone teaching you, biblically, that worry and
fear can be replaced with hope and faith. Imagine someone who is not only a
cheerleader, but a profoundly anointed praying daughter of the Most High King
who brings smiles that resonate from every page along with solid, practical
Godly guidance to get you through what
you’re going through. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I’d tell you it was
crazy if I hadn’t lived through it and hadn’t come to know and love Holley
deeply (and no, we’ve still never met, but we plan to, and soon).
My friend Holley
has written a new book, “You’re Going to be Okay: Encouraging Truth Your Heart
Needs to Hear, Especially on the Hard Days” launching today. Somehow, a person I’d
imagine would be least likely to connect with me does, and speaks directly to
my heart and hurts in a way that never feels false or disingenuous.
Sister to sister, this girl CAN preach,
and does.
We chatted
recently, and I confessed that in the early offing, I didn't get her AT ALL. She
is southern, soft-spoken and lovely, where I am East coast fast and
furious...but God. For every hesitation I had in reading her words and getting
to know her, God wouldn’t let me give up, and He wouldn’t let me shut down. I
stayed in there, because I really needed the encouragement she was pouring over
me because at the time, all my days seemed hard. By God’s Grace and because of
my brokenness, I came to know that her as one of the wisest, most fierce Grace
warriors God ever fashioned. Don’t let the smooth taste fool you, as they say…only
a warrior writes like this... "Don’t ever let anyone tell you that
kindness and gentleness and acceptance are anything less than scandalously
brave. And world-changing."
Here me when I tell you, heart to heart,
Holley is, quietly, one of the best Divine gifts ever.
So, when she
tells you that You’re Going to
Be Okay, she knows whereof she speaks, and I do too as her words touched my
shattered heart and helped heal my broken spirit. I want that for you. I want
you to meet Holley and experience the healing in her words because if you don’t
have someone cheering for you when you are too weary and fragile to even lift
your own head, she’s your girl. She is my holy soldier. She is my virtual
coffee buddy, but God-willing not virtual for long because there are some
prayers and praises I need to share with her in person. I thank God for her
heart and her words; they are too good not to share.
and go buy the book!
