Love changed what I wanted from my life.
How can you love your neighbor - your mother, your child, your spouse, the person standing beside you - if you have never learned to receive love yourself?
For me, that question eventually led back to God.
1 John 4:7 says that love comes from God. 1 Corinthians 13 describes what that love looks like: patient, kind, not boastful, not self-seeking, not keeping a record of wrongs.
That is not sentimental love.
That is love with substance.
I Was Consuming Everything Except Love
There was a time when, by many worldly measurements, I was successful.
As an attorney and lobbyist, I knew money, status, expensive things and achievement. I also knew what it was like to consume too much of things that did not make my life better.
Eventually I burned out. Then I became very sick.
At one of the lowest points of my life, much of what I had used to measure success suddenly looked very small.
I did not need more status.
I did not need more stuff.
I needed something real.
God Met Me There
I reached for God.
I cannot package what happened next into a formula, and I would never suggest that faith replaces medical care. My illness required medical treatment, time and recovery.
But spiritually, something changed in me.
I felt held.
I began asking God for forgiveness. I began the much harder work of forgiving people I blamed for my pain - and forgiving myself.
Ephesians 4:32 tells us to be kind and compassionate, forgiving one another as God forgave us in Christ.
Forgiveness did not rewrite what happened.
It changed what I wanted to carry forward.
Good In. Good Out.
That season became part of the idea I now call Consuming Goodness.
I had spent years consuming more.
More achievement. More money. More possessions. More noise.
And then I started asking a different question: What if I consumed more of what was actually good?
Scripture. Peace. Gratitude. Better relationships. Useful work. Time with people I love. Things made with intention instead of things purchased simply because I could.
Good in. Good out.
Love Became Part of the Brand
Heidi Callender® brands grew out of that changing life.
Silver Serum was already in my hands - a formulation my mom Holly (pictured) and I developed together that would ultimately become patented*.
What began as a skin-care product became part of something larger.
I wanted fewer products that could do more. I wanted luxury without pointless excess. I wanted the things I made to fit the life I was learning to value.
Today, the Heidi Skin by Heidi Callender® and Heidi Hair by Heidi Callender® product lines are expressions of that idea.
But products were never supposed to be the whole story.
The Best Thing We Have to Offer Is Free
I can sell you a beautiful bottle.
I cannot sell you love.
And I think that distinction matters.
The most important message behind Heidi Callender® costs nothing: You are worth loving.
Not after you lose ten pounds. Not after your skin looks different. Not when you finally become successful enough, young enough, polished enough or impressive enough.
Now.
Love Yourself, As Yourself
Galatians 5:14 says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
That became the heart of our trademark phrase: Love yourself, as yourself. Gal. 5:14®
For me, loving myself did not mean making myself the center of everything.
It meant learning to see myself as someone God loves - and then trying to extend that love outward.
Toward my family.
Toward my community.
Toward strangers.
Toward people who are difficult to love.
And, yes, toward myself.
Consuming LOVE
Love will not make every circumstance easy.
Faith does not guarantee money, youth, health or a trouble-free life.
But love can change what you value.
It changed what I valued.
I once thought luxury meant having more.
Now I think some of the greatest luxuries are being deeply loved, having peace in your home, doing work that means something, forgiving what you no longer want to carry, and knowing when you already have enough.
That is the kind of richness I want.
That is Consuming Goodness.
That is LOVE.
Consuming Goodness. Good in. Good out.
Love yourself, as yourself. Gal. 5:14®
*U.S. Patent No. 12,194,120
