I'm not Holly

Being a little sister, I have always fought to stay out of someone’s shadow. I don’t want to be seen as anyone’s secondhand anything. 
Over the last few months, I have found myself saying a phrase over and over in a few different situations, “I’m not Holly.” Holly is one of our ROC teammates who has a PhD in chemistry, certainly not someone I would put myself in the same category with. I was able to graduate high school with the minimal science and math classes and without any chemistry classes. (The teachers probably had something to do with that for fear I might try to blow something up?!).

Anyway, so back to Holly. I was going through my sent email box of thousands of old emails and stumbled on a newsletter from Bryan (Holly’s husband), written by Holly just before I was about to visit Rwanda in 2009. She was describing some of the things she was working on and shared, “Some days are very difficult, so it feels good to share when really good days happen. This was a good day.”

With the exception to a few details, I am working on some projects that have some similarities and felt that with a few tweeks, I could copy that newsletter and send it out today, right now. So I giggle to myself, even though “I’m not Holly” and never will be Holly. I am following in her footsteps, but in my own shoes.

I have learned much from Holly. I have learned how to pray the Scriptures back to God, honoring Him with His own words. I have learned grace, much grace. I have learned how to listen and watch for God and praise Him in the good times and the bad, because He is the same in both.

Holly is away from our team and her husband and 2 girls right now, sitting with her mom in a hospital in the states who just had surgery on her brain. I can’t imagine what she is going through, because in fact, “I’m not Holly.” But I hope that you will join me and say a prayer for her and her family right now.

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