I am so grateful to host our first guest for the Open Hearts series. Most Tuesdays, from now through August, we will invite a special guest to open up her heart to us and help us live with hearts that are open as well. Holley Gerth is our guest today and has graciously granted me permission to re-post these heartfelt reflections that were originally published on her blog. Her book You’re Made for a God-sized Dream, her uplifting blog posts, and her support have been such a blessing as I step out further into these writing waters. Holley hosts a weekly link-up, Coffee for Your Heart, on Wednesdays, that offers fresh doses of encouragement for tired hearts.

Holley Gerth is a best-selling writer, licensed counselor, certified life coach and speaker. She is cofounder of (in)courage, an online destination for women, which received more than one million page views in its first six months. She also reaches out to readers through her popular blog at www.holleygerth.com and a partnership with DaySpring. Holley lives in the South with her husband, Mark.

Here’s a confession: I ain’t great at receiving. No, ma’am. This southern girl knows how to nod her head, keep her needs hidden, and just carry on with what has to be done.

Maybe you can relate?

I’m learning to open my hands and heart more as the years go by so God and others can pour into my life. But it’s still a lesson God has to bring me back to again and again. It’s simply hard for me to believe that it’s okay to receive.

Yet a story from Scripture recently changed my perspective. Peter and John are going to the temple. Along the way they pass a beggar. The man wants money but what he really needs is healing. Peter says these words to him: “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you” {Acts 3:6}. Then in the name of Jesus Peter lifts this man to his feet to begin a new life full of all he has never known before–running, skipping, jumping, dangling his toes into water on a hot summer day.

The words that grip me in this story come from Peter: “What I have I give you.”

It’s simple, friends, we can’t give what we don’t have.

Yet at one point, Peter resisted receiving too. At the last supper when Jesus tried to wash his feet, Peter protested.

Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

John 13:6-8

Peter relents even if he doesn’t yet understand. I wonder if perhaps that day as he looked at the crippled feet of a beggar the scene from the Last Supper flashed through his mind again. I wonder if he finally connected the dots–that receiving from Jesus is what gives us the power to give to others.

When we’re weary, we often think what we need to do is just try harder. But maybe the opposite is true. Maybe what we need most is to sit down and let Jesus wash our feet. That feels uncomfortable. Like Peter, we squirm in false humility and declare that this isn’t the way things are supposed to be. But Jesus still gently insists. Because he knows that it’s not really about us–it’s about the greater work of his Kingdom. He’s showing us how to love by loving us.

What do you need to receive from Jesus today?

Let him wash your feet, your wounds, the weariness from your heart.

I’ll keep learning to do the same right along with you.

Let’s believe.

Let’s receive.

Let’s give our Savior the joy of loving on us.

And then pass it on.

XOXO

Holley Gerth