5 Prayers for our Schools

August 5, 2013January 23, 20148 Comments

It was one of those statements in a sermon that sticks with you forever.

About nine years ago, one of our pastors said, “If when you pray for me all you ask is, ‘God, please bless my pastor,’ then don’t worry about praying for me.”

Not pray for him? Who, after all, would reject a blessing prayer?

But really, he didn’t mean to reject prayers, just to emphasize the importance of specific prayers for others.

It’s true for husbands, for children, for pastors and other ministry leaders, and for our schools. If my idea of praying for them is, “God please bless these people today,” then I’m really not requesting much, not petitioning God much on their behalf.

I want to be specific, be particular, praying in faith that God knows best, but laying my requests all out there before His throne. Not just a “pray-and-run” kind of petition, shooting out a list of people or places to bless in one minute and then rushing on with my day.

I want to get knee-deep involved in intercession like the Levites who prayed for the refugees returning home to Israel to rebuild the Jerusalem walls in the book of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 9).

How to pray then? What to ask God for? You might have ideas, too, but here’s a prayer tool to get us started as we begin this school year:

5 Prayers for our Schools

Mondays: Safety and presence of God: God, we pray for Your presence in our schools, public, private and home-school settings. We ask for peace to reign in the hallways, the classrooms, and playgrounds. Please protect our children and school staff and prevent evil from infiltrating the school grounds.

Tuesday: School administrators and office staff: Lord, we thank You for the administrators and office staff who keep our schools running smoothly and who are responsible for making decisions both about our children’s education and their safety. We ask that You give them strength and wisdom and help them establish a positive learning environment. Help them balance the pressures of standardized testing with the goal of encouraging a love of learning. We pray that they can foster an atmosphere of creativity, passion, and joy among all the educational staff.

Wednesday: Teachers and assistants: Lord, we pray for the teachers and assistants who are putting long hours in during the early days in the school year. There is so much to get set up, students to assess, routines to establish. Please give them the energy they need and strength for each new day. Help them to know You are with them. Give them wisdom as they get to know each student—reveal strengths and needs, highlight situations that need intervention, show teachers where students deserve encouragement and praise!

Thursday: School nurses and counselors: Lord, we ask that you bless the school nurses as they run their clinics and the counselors working with our kids. Our nurses not only manage the intricate schedule of medications for our students, but they are also a source of compassion and love every day. Our counselors need to rightly discern students who need help and intervention and fight against bullying and other problems in our schools. Give them wisdom, gentleness, and compassion. Fill them up daily with Your love as they pour so much of themselves out for others.

Friday: Staff (Cafeteria, janitorial, bus drivers and more): God, there are so many men and women who work in our schools, providing food, transportation and more for our kids. They are often the ones responsible for keeping our schools healthy and our children safe. Please give them joy in their work, bless their hands as they serve each day. Help them know how much we appreciate their efforts on behalf of our kids.

How do you pray for our schools and their staff?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Grace, Book Review

August 3, 2013August 3, 2013Leave a comment

Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine
by Max Lucado

Each of our testimonies is unique and our God-story always carries that personal touch. We all can share with others the story of what God did for ME. But at the core, no matter what God has done, no matter where He found you or where He’s taken you, your story is about grace. It’s true for all of us.

All of our stories at their bottom line are about grace. None of us, after all, deserve one half-second’s notice from a God so holy, and yet He humbled Himself for us, came here for us, died for us. It is surely “much more than we deserve.”

Maybe because this grace is so universal, we often overlook it, forget it, stop being thankful for it, recognize it in name but not in deep-down life-changing everyday reality. We slip into self-condemnation and falter into works-based faith, propelling ourselves into performance and busyness and standards we can’t ever meet.

So, an inspirational book on grace may be a healthy reminder for all of us, and Max Lucado’s book on Grace is pure “Max.” He’s an artist with words, painting inspirational chapters, each one a quick and simple read that stirs the soul. It’s not a theological treatise. It doesn’t really claim to be. It’s more like sitting at the feet of a storyteller while he embellishes on a single theme.

The study guide that accompanies the book serves as a tool for individuals who want to dig deeper or for group study. While the book itself mostly revolves around stories (Biblical and otherwise), the study guide walks through Scripture.

If you’re a fan of Max Lucado’s style or if you’re in need of some inspiration or if you’ve recognized in your own life the habit of forgetting grace rather than embracing it, this book may be just the refresher your spirit needs.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

5 Prayers Before the School Year Begins

August 2, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

I stood in the line of nervous parents and excited-though-apprehensive elementary school children at Open House last year.

My kids squealed when they saw their friends from last year, waving from our line to others behind us, beside us and in front. After families stepped up to the table to receive their classroom assignment for the year, they walked by us as they headed to the classroom. We asked them, “What teacher did you get?” and then we cheered or compared notes and gave advice.

In between greeting other parents and kids, I prayed.

A lot.

Sometimes I mess up and treat God like little more than a pagan idol–acting as if maybe if I cross my fingers, rub a rabbit’s foot, do a fancy jig and offer to sacrifice something, He’ll answer my prayers just because He sees how desperate I am.

“Oh Jesus, please give me daughter a great teacher this year…..please, please, please, pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaasssssseeeee.”

Yet, while He loves the sincerity and passion I have for praying for my kids, He knows what they need without me trying to manipulate Him into giving me my way.

And while standing in line at Open House isn’t a bad place to pray, it’s not the only time to pray.

After all, when it was our turn, we stepped up to the table and the principal handed us an index card for each daughter with their room number and teacher’s name for the school year. The decision, however, had been made weeks in advance as teachers met to match students with the right classroom, teacher, and classmates.

So, maybe that’s when to start praying?

Or maybe the answer really is that we never stop praying for our kids.

Not ever.

We move from need to need, praying today for today, but also for tomorrow and for five years from now and on into their adult years, their marriages, their careers and ministries.

So, here are five prayers I start praying before the school year begins, long before I step into that line on Open House night and certainly before I kiss my kids on the head, pray for them quickly and watch them step onto the bus on the first day of school.

For the right teacher and classroom: God, you know my children best. Yes, you know them even better than I do. You know exactly what teacher is going to work with their strengths and weaknesses and what teacher will help them reach their potential and be excited about school and learning. Please give the teachers and administrators wisdom as they place our children into classrooms and help my children be matched with the perfect teacher and the classmates who will be good friends rather than bullies, mean girls, or distractions this year. Please bless the teacher’s summer, helping it be restful and fun so he or she can start the school year with enthusiasm, excitement and energy!
For safety: Lord, it’s hard for me to let my children go where I can’t see them or be with them all the time. I want so much to be there to protect them and guide them, intervene for them, and love them through the hard things. But, I know You are with them even when I can’t be. You can care for them better than I can. Please watch over them with Your providential care and protection.
For their choices: Father, my children will be making tons of decisions every day. Please help them to know they can always turn to You for help when they need it and please help them draw on the wisdom from Your Word that we’ve tried to teach them. Let Your Holy Spirit direct their steps and guide their hearts to do what is right. Help my children be a witness for You all day, on the playground, in the lunch room, in the classroom and more.
For us as parents: God, we need just as much help as our kids do for this school year. Help us make wise decisions and know how to mold their character, give advice, when to get involved and when to let our children handle things on their own, and how to train up this child in the way that he or she should go.
For their friendships: Lord, one of the biggest decisions my kids will make this year is about who to befriend. Please give them discernment and wisdom to know how to choose good friends, those who will lead them to you, those who will encourage success and help them do the right thing. When there are children being picked on or ignored, I ask that you will show my child how to give them compassion and to reach out to them in love. Give my children the strength to lead others to You rather than be led by others away from You. Please protect them from bullies, mean girls, and bad influences and help them know how to stand up for what is right when necessary.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Heather King is a busy-but-blessed wife and mom, a Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Setting Curls, Setting Faith: Taking the Faith Dare

July 31, 201315 Comments

My grandmother took me to the beauty shop to have my hair permed for the first time when I was in third grade. I needed a booster seat to sit in the chair.

It’s such a distinctive smell, the scent of perming hair, but they covered over it (or tried to) with coconut-scented solutions and apple-scented conditioners, and this is what brings back the memories.

One whiff of coconut or apple beauty products even now and I’m still thinking of curlers, cotton wraps over the forehead and behind the ears, a plastic bag holding it all in and tied in a knot to the side, and time with my head stuck in a huge bubble of a dryer with the roar of hot air drowning out the gossip from the stylists and their customers.

Every six months to a year through college and even a little into my married life I went back and watched the experts roll my hair into tight curls.

Then I stepped into a salon in New Jersey in my 20’s and told them I wanted my hair permed, needed my hair permed in fact because I couldn’t take the boring straightness of my boring hair with its boring style one more minute!

The lady sat me down in the chair, snipped a little with her scissors here and there and staged an intervention, refusing to perm my hair. She said I’d look better if I just learned to blow dry my straight tresses. Then, she pointed to a super model photo on the wall and promised that I could look like her if I could just get over my aversion to blow drying my hair.

I left the shop and cried in my car.

My hair had always been curled; it’s what I knew, how I thought I looked best. I couldn’t handle all that hair without bounce and body, weighing down on my face, getting in my way, and just ending up in a ponytail by noon.

And I ….hate…blow….drying….my…..hair.

I hate everything about it. My hair is porous and retains water like a pregnant woman. It’s long and heavy. It takes what seems like a million years to really dry it.

I could end world hunger and find homes for all the world’s orphans if I had all that time.

Really, I’ve got better things to do than stand there with a noisy machine pointed at my head like a wind simulator.

Beauty takes effort, though. Hours spent in a salon with chemicals and curlers for a perm, an eternity in front of my mirror holding a blow dryer, either way it’s an investment. It’s an effort.

For some, it’s manicures, for others it’s eyebrow waxing or plucking, tanning beds, vitamins, exercise sessions, hair coloring and wrinkle creams.

I’m a simple girl, really. Most of that is far beyond me and most days I’m a rebel and ditch the hair dryer in favor of “the wet look.”

That’s a real style, right?

But all those years of perming my hair taught me this: If external beauty takes the effort, the intentionality, the investment of time and resources, then surely internal beauty should require as much.

And I should be willing to pay a costly price and willingly sacrifice for faith like that, the kind that roots itself deep in my soul and blossoms out so full it pushes out all the ugly, the doubt, the worry, the anxiety, the selfishness, the bad attitudes, and the sin.

Faith–that’s a gift from God. It’s not something we work for or earn.

But I can choose to look to God for faith or reject His gift.

In her book, The Faith Dare: 30 Days to Live Your Life to the Fullest, Debbie Alsdorf talks about establishing the groove of faith spoken of in Psalm 84:

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs…
They go from strength to strength
till each appears before God (vv. 5-7)

These pilgrims set their hearts on a God-destination. They purposed to journey to Him, transforming valleys into springs of refreshing life and fulfillment and joy along the way until they finally appeared before God–strengthened from the traveling, not fatigued and worn frail from the task.

Debbie Alsdorf writes:

I have to set my heart on the pilgrimage, which is an extended journey with a purpose…And I have to set my heart and mind on faith in God for the journey, the life he purposed for me alone (p. 12).

Here we begin, making this decision: No more distractions, turning aside for easier paths, growing disheartened and taking refuge in tents along the road, following short-cuts that lead us astray, pursuing other destinations, and allowing others to talk us out of it.

We set our heart and mind on faith in God and we get going.

**********************************************************************************************************

During the month of August, I’ll be joining with several hundred women in a study of Debbie Alsdorf’s book, The Faith Dare: 30 Days to Live Your Life to the Fullest through the Women’s Bible Cafe. This week, we’re just making introductions and getting started, so there’s still time to grab a book (or download it to your Kindle or nook) and join in!

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Back to School: 5 Ways to Bless a Teacher

July 29, 2013August 31, 20153 Comments

School supplies hit the shelves of our local Wal-Mart en force a few weeks ago and it is taking ALL of my mom self-control not to delve right in and buy every Sharpie marker, Post-It pack, and notebook in every color and pattern.

At least I have a few weeks to work my way through the supply list for my kids’ school because summer doesn’t end until after Labor Day for us. Moms in other parts of the country, however, are on the final countdown to early wake-ups, packed lunches, homework and making it to the bus on time.

So, it’s time to start prepping for back to school season…for all of us really, whether our schools start in August or September…. because it can’t possibly be too early to pray for our kids, their teachers and school staff. To be honest, I’ve been praying about what teacher my kids will have since March.

It’s not just our kids we want to bless as we send them off for a day of learning outside of our homes, though. No matter what kind of school our child attends, there are teachers and leaders who impact their lives. Homeschoolers have Awana, Scouts, and church leaders. Private and public school students have a whole team of educators and administrators who impact their lives, too.

As I drove home from Open House the first year my children attended public school, God cut through my anxiety about teachers, bullies, academics, mean girls, and more to remind me:

This isn’t just for your kids. This is for you, too.

My kids are my mission-field. Their teachers and school staff are part of that ministry. They pour themselves into my children and I want to pour myself out in blessing and encouraging them right back.

Here’s what even crazy busy moms and others can do to bless our teachers and schools.

Pray for them: While we can’t solicit prayer requests or set up prayer groups in the public schools, moms can still get on their knees for students and teachers. You don’t even have to pray alone. For two years, I’ve prayed with a local group of moms through Moms In Prayer International. We met once a week to pray for our own kids and the schools they attend. Each week, we asked God to give wisdom strength, energy, and joy to the teachers, administrators and other school staff. To find a group for your school or to learn how to start one, please visit Moms In Prayer International.

Volunteer: This isn’t just for stay-at-home moms! There’s a great deal of flexibility for school volunteers. You could help with the school newsletter, serve on the PTA, man the prize table at a school carnival, shelve books in the school library, listen to children read, walk kids back and forth to testing or pictures on special schedule days, make copies, and more.
Send Supplies: We all get the lengthy school supply list at the beginning of the year, but keep in mind that supplies need to be replenished over time. Many teachers and teaching assistants buy glue sticks, pencils and other supplies with their own money. Here are some supplies you could send in (depending on grade level):
- Pencils
- Paper
- Notebook reinforcers
- Dry erase markers
- Glue
- Tissues
- Clorox wipes

You can also periodically check with your child’s teacher to see if there’s anything he or she needs.

Show respect: Let’s face it, when we think there’s a problem, we Mama Bears can be pretty tough. Remember that the teacher you are talking to is a person with feelings, too. Be sure to handle concerns appropriately. You’re much more likely to have success that way.
- First of all, don’t believe everything your child says. Give the teacher a chance to tell his or her side of the story, as well.
- Let your child try to handle things on her own if possible.
- Ask questions rather than making assertions and demands. Teachers are professionals who likely have valuable input. Try asking:
  - How can we have more success this year?
  - What do you think we can do differently at home?
  - What can we change in the classroom?
  - What behaviors are you noticing in the classroom that we can address?
  - How can we work together to solve this problem?
- Never show up at the classroom unexpectedly to talk to a teacher and don’t try to hold an impromptu conference on Back to School Night or during Open House. It’s unlikely they’ll be able to give you their full attention or even remember later what you talk about during those busy times. Always ask for a separate conference time—maybe even over the phone—at their convenience to talk about your child.
- Don’t teach your kids to disrespect teachers by criticizing them at home in front of your children.
Be an encouragement: If you need some ideas for teacher gifts, consider handmade presents, snacks, chocolate, gift cards to area restaurants or Starbucks, or lotion. I’ve posted my all time favorites on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/roomtobreathe3/cute-gift-ideas/The best gift, though, is a thoughtful, personal thank you note telling just what you appreciate about them as a teacher. That’s something that fits every budget and that they can cherish forever.Teachers probably hear plenty of times through the year what’s wrong. Let’s be sure we take the time to tell them what’s right and to thank them for it.

It’s more than a little scary to entrust our kids to teachers and school administrators that we don’t really know. That’s such a powerful reason to be in prayer for them and to try to make this relationship a successful one. Ultimately, we can be a blessing to teachers by keeping in mind what Paul said: “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24 NLT).

What are your best tips on how to bless our teachers and schools?

Confessions of a Raging Perfectionist, Book Review

July 27, 2013July 27, 2013Leave a comment

Confessions of a Raging Perfectionist: Learning to Be Free
by Amanda Jenkins

Amanda Jenkins is a list-maker, so she had my attention from page one of this book, Confessions of a Raging Perfectionist: Learning to Be Free. I’ve never really considered myself a perfectionist. I’m more of a pragmatist, more focused on getting things done than doing it perfectly. But I can totally relate to Amanda’s incessant standard-setting for herself, creating unrealistic and impossible expectations and then feeling like a failure when I fall flat on my face trying to attain perfection.

She starts each section being as vulnerable as you can get, sharing whatever listed expectation she made for herself. and how she measures up to her goals. Her weight, her bank account, or how many Diet Cokes she’s had so far today, it’s all fair game in this book. Ultimately, her light-hearted and gut-honest storytelling walk you through authenticity and grace in areas of your life like obedience, vanity, coveting recognition, making plans and then having God change them, and depending on anything other than God to fill us each day.

She’s no perky, pasted-on-smile Christian, there to motivate you without being honest about the down-and-dirty problems in life. She talks about her family’s international adoption and dares to tell the hard things and how God transformed her in the process. She talks about the shocking death of a friend’s young husband and the financial struggles of loved ones and other times that she found God, met with Him and was blessed to see Him even when life got ugly.

Ultimately, the book is about finding grace. It’d be an encouragement and challenge for any woman (whether she thinks she’s a perfectionist or not) and even perhaps teen girls. The appendix includes Bible study notes that could work well for any women’s small group, as well.

To read a sample chapter, you can click here!

For a Q&A with Amanda Jenkins, you can click here!

About the Author . . .

Amanda Jenkins attended Northwestern Bible College and graduated with a degree in biblical studies and communications. She has

worked in sales and marketing for a number of Christian retailers, as well as in visual communications and advertising. For the past 14 years she has taught Bible studies for women of all ages and is passionate about communicating truth in a culturally relevant and humorous way. She lives just outside of Chicago with her husband, Dallas, and their four young children, including their newly adopted son.

Living With the Tension

July 26, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

I sing to my children, “Jesus loves me, this is I know….” and “Jesus loves the little children.”

Jesus is love. That’s the message in the melody.

I sing (more like chant): “God is so big, so strong and so mighty! There’s nothing my God cannot do.”

And there it is, the lesson of God’s greatness, His majesty and power.

I sing again: “God is so good….God is so good….God is so good, He’s so good to me.”

His goodness, His grace, His might, His love. I sing them as lessons, I read them on the pages of Bible storybooks and bedtime devotionals and my kids soak these in, the stepping stones of theology and doctrine.

Somehow kids can take all this in, the vast array of God’s character, the completeness of who He is, and accept it without conflict or contradiction or competition.

But we age so often into adult extremists, wanting to shove God into ill-fitting categories, taking stands along divisive theological battle-lines, innocently enough most of the time. We don’t realize it usually. Generations swing wide from one dangerous cliff to another, rarely achieving the balance, and we swing along with them.

We’re rarely comfortable with the tension implicit in God’s character.

But this is who God is: Perfect, living as the only One who can balance the holy tension between the extremes in this spiritual tug-of-war. Labels don’t fit Him. Our pat explanations don’t always work. Our well-reasoned arguments fall short.

In our churches, we see this. In our Christian books and our favorite pastors, we assume allegiances just like the early church declaring, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos” (1 Corinthians 3:4 NIV), more comfortable following humans than following our enigmatic God.

In the past, we proclaimed the importance of righteousness and living holy lives, digging ourselves into trenches of legalism and creating a Christianity more focused on moral expectations than salvation.

Now, we praise brokenness, moving past the healthiness of confession and vulnerable living, setting ourselves up all comfortable and cozy with sin–because we’re forgiven, after all. And sin is sin and we’re already saved, so why bother reaching for holiness?

We used to drag people to the front of a sanctuary to say the sinner’s prayer and voila, pronounce them saved for all eternity.

But we’ve moved away from “cheap grace” without discipleship or fruit or revolution and now we’re “fruit” judges, examining people’s finances and the size of their homes and the cost of their shoes to determine if they’re radically committed enough to make it into heaven.

We preach messages of encouragement to one another, reminding burnt out, hard-working Christian servants that God loves us for who we are, not what we do. We don’t need to perform for Him, don’t need to DO anything to earn His affection or merit forgiveness.

Then we tell them the church needs workers and salvation displays itself through service and how are you working for the Lord?

We categorize God into Old Testament ogre of divine retribution and New Testament Savior offering grace.

Which is God? What is true?

Does God desire righteousness or brokenness?

Does He save us by grace alone or should our faith work itself out with fear and trembling?

Does God love us regardless of how we perform or does He want us to be working for Him?

Is God holy, just, big, good, and pure? Or is He gracious, forgiving, all-loving, and compassionate?

Yes.

Not either/or, one or the other, this or that.

But yes and amen.

God is perfectly able to inhabit this place of holy tension.

In our faith, we “become like little children” (Matthew 18:3 NIV), simply trusting Him, accepting the truths without turning them into combat zones.

Our God is holy and gracious, just and compassionate, saving us because of His grace and calling us to serve.

We return to Scripture and see that even in the Old Testament, God is characterized by grace. He enacted a long-established plan to save us; it wasn’t an invention of the Gospel writers of the New Testament.

Because of His great love for His people Israel, He disciplined them with captivity. Yes, even in discipline there is love.

Jeremiah the prophet declares:

“It will be a time of trouble for my people Israel. Yet in the end they will be saved!” (Jeremiah 30:7 NLT)

and he reminds them of God’s promise:

“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself” (Jeremiah 31:3).

The prophet spoke of punishment and grace, captivity with the promise of freedom, destruction with the assurance of future restoration and hope.

Because this is who God is, this is His perfection, this His greatness that is beyond our capacity to understand—but that we worship.

Broken for you

July 24, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

I always break the cracker myself.

Always.

I can’t even quite remember when I started. As a kid, I think, maybe even still in elementary school.

The deacons silently handed out the plate of crackers or bread or wafers or whatever they used for communion that day.

No matter how small it already was, when the pastor read the verse, “This is my body, broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me…” I folded that tiny white sliver in half and then slipped it into my mouth with my eyes squeezed tight.

The King James says this, “Broken for you….”

My Bible now reads “Given for you….”

Scripture translation doesn’t impact how personal this is, how personally I should take it sitting there in my comfortably cushioned chair in a carpeted sanctuary.

Because Jesus’ brokenness wasn’t just for someone, for all of us, for mankind, for her, for him, for them, for those in the past…..

It was:

for you.

It was:

for me.

That’s why I smash that wafer into two with my own fingers and cradle the pieces in my own palm before we eat the bread together: because this was Christ’s sacrifice for me and it was because of me, because of my own sin in a world of sinners.

It’s too easy to feel rising self-righteousness, thinking that my redeemed self isn’t so bad, my sin not so ugly, my life not so messy.

And then that creeping lie of merit demolishes the truth of grace. Even when I sing the words, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me,” I’m not meaning it. Not truly. I’m singing about other wretches maybe, but surely not me, surely not my own good-girl self.

Holding two slivers of a broken symbol of Christ’s sacrificial body, though, reminds me that He chose the brokenness.

And why?

Because I was hopelessly broken.

It’s not a romanticized brokenness, this need of mine for a Savior. It’s not that I’m just slightly messy or flaky or flighty, scatter-brained, forgetful, overwhelmed, rushed, busy, or humorously real in a world that tends to pretend perfection.

Sure, we’re all human. We don’t always keep our houses clean. Sometimes we lose our temper with our kids. There are bad days and mistakes.

But I’m not talking the kind of brokenness we laugh about in blog posts, where we confess not so much sin as just life in all its crazy reality.

I’m talking about the kind of brokenness where we drop to our knees in repentance, true repentance, where we face the fact that we’re sinners and that there is ugliness in us.

And we don’t just accept that with apathetic shrugs of our shoulders.

That’s just how I am. That’s how everyone is. That’s what is realistic. That’s how God made me. That’s just how people will have to accept me. Nobody’s perfect.

Sometimes that’s what we say. We commiserate with lost tempers and jealousy in small group conversations and we act as if it doesn’t matter.

But just because that’s normal, doesn’t mean it’s right. Doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to God or holy or pure or righteous.

I never really choose brokenness myself. It’s not something I seek out or glorify or want. Yet, God reveals the broken places not so I can connect with others with a funny story, but so I don’t forget that:

He is perfect; I am not.

He deserves glory; I don’t.

He paid the price for my salvation; I didn’t earn it.

He doesn’t use me because of my skills, abilities, training; He can use me in my weakness so that others see His strength.

The humbling makes us usable, makes us dependent on Him, makes us desire His work in us, the kind that doesn’t leave us broken and sin-invaded forever, but inspires us to intimacy with Him that brings life-revolutionary change.

And while I don’t usually choose this brokenness—more like I run away from it, hide from it, try to escape it and pretend it doesn’t exist–it’s beautiful the way He uses it, beautiful the way it’s transformed in His hands.

Beautiful the way I remember that while I avoid brokenness, Jesus chose it for me.

Here the King James version falls short. Yes, his body was “broken for you”–but not because others were more powerful or Satan overcame Him or He wasn’t able to save Himself. This wasn’t passive.

Instead, I read today in my Bible:

And He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, gave it to them, and said, “This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me (Luke 22:19 HCSB).

Jesus gave His body over to us.

This I remember. This I bow my head and give humble thanks for. This is why I break the bread with my own hands, because He chose the brokenness and He chose it for me.

God and Cupcake Sprinkles

July 22, 2013January 23, 20144 Comments

Today is my “baby” girl’s fourth birthday and we’re off celebrating as a family. Hurray! I’m sharing with you my post from last year’s celebration, a reminder of how God loves us and gives us good gifts.

Originally posted July 23, 2012

I was sorting cupcake sprinkles . . .by hand.

Really.

I removed all of the pinks from the mix and took out some of the oranges and yellows, too. The color combination needed to be mostly blue, white, and green with some hints of yellow and orange.

But you can’t buy a sprinkle mix like that at Wal-Mart, so I bought the colorful star-shaped sprinkles and sorted them by hand.

And I thought, “God loves me enough to do this.”

Let me explain.

My baby girl turned three years old yesterday. For weeks, my older daughters and I had enthusiastically reminded her that her birthday was coming soon.

We pestered her with questions. What do you want for your birthday? How old will you be? What do you want on your birthday cake?

Then she made her declaration. She wanted Octonauts presents and an Octonauts birthday cake.

Now for the uninitiated among you, the people who don’t live and breathe and move children’s television programming: The Octonauts is originally a British children’s show about undersea explorers and the oceanic animals they discover and assist. It’s only recently appeared on American television.

That means that if we lived in the United Kingdom, we’d have no problem popping out to the local party store for supplies. But here in the good old U.S. of A. the store shelves aren’t exactly stocked with Octonauts toys and party favors.

So, I did what any reasonable mom might do. I walked my daughter down the party aisle at Wal-Mart and showed her the many wonderful birthday decorations there were available in America. Mickey Mouse. Princesses. Fairies. Strawberry Shortcake (my favorite).

She settled on Mickey Mouse and we headed home with a relieved Momma in the driver’s seat. Yet, less than a week later, she made another announcement. Mickey Mouse didn’t cut it. She did in fact want Octonauts.

I had tried to convince her to accept less than her heart’s desire.

What’s a mom like me to do: A non-crafty, not particularly creative, cake decorating failure of a mom?

I’ll tell you what.

We took our Play-Doh ocean animal cutters, washed them well, and used them to cut sugar cookies in the shape of lobsters, dolphins and starfish for her friends at church.

We had yellow cake mix already at home, but she asked for chocolate. So, we made chocolate cupcakes.

I printed out pictures of the Octonauts and created our own cupcake toppers

I bought the aforementioned color mix of sprinkles and then pulled out the unwanted ones so the color combination could be perfect

I waited in line at Wal-Mart to have a bag of Octonauts colored balloons blown up (three year old birthdays must involve balloons) only to have the lady at the desk tell me, “We no longer do balloons. There’s a national helium shortage.”

Really? A national helium shortage is going to stop me from giving my girl balloons? Not hardly. I bought the helium balloon kit for $20 so we could inflate them ourselves (with helium to spare for family birthdays for a year or two).

Then we put it all together. A family dinner of the birthday girl’s choice. Singing happy birthday, blowing out the candle, balloons, chocolate cupcakes with Octonauts toppers and sprinkles all to celebrate my baby.

(Although, why she needed chocolate cake when all she did was lick off the icing is beyond me.)

So, why? Perhaps she’ll never remember her third birthday and maybe over time her interest in ocean animals will fade.

But she’ll remember being loved. And I do love her. I’m crazy, head-over-heels, over-the-top, absolutely in love with this sweet gift from God.

Matthew 7:11 tells us:

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

This verse never becomes more real to me than when I’m picking out good gifts for my daughters.

God loves you enough to pick through sprinkles for you and to find a way to defeat a national helium shortage. He’s a God of attentive, detailed affection for each of his beloved children.

We may assume that coincidence, chance, luck, good fortune, Mother Nature, friends and family, a congenial boss or even our own effort and ability are responsible for the blessings and benefits we experience. That’s not true.

All the gifts we receive, tied in bows and placed into our hands with joy, come from a God who is crazy, over-the-top, head-over-heels, absolutely in love with us.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17).

This week, let’s be aware of the many ways God showers us with good gifts, even the smallest reminders of His providential care, and remember to give thanks.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Projected Images and Pretend Lives

July 19, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

The regimental surgeon made us squirm as he held up what could have been medieval torture devices, but were really medical tools used in the Revolutionary War.

A farmer’s wife rolled a slightly wrinkled potato in a barrel of sand, lifted the lid to a jar of pickled eggs, and ran her hand through the dried fruit and beans she had prepared.

The cloth maker laid wool and linen socks out to dry after dipping them in a natural yellow dye of onion skin.

At the encampment, the soldiers drilled us on firing a cannon before shouting out, “make ready” and signaling us all to cover our ears for the blast.

This summer we’ve toured two of the three major historic sites in our area, asked all the usual questions about 17th and 18th century life, and chatted about whether we would want to live before refrigeration, air conditioning, indoor plumbing, voting rights for women, the abolition of slavery, the discovery of antibiotics, and the creation of Wal-Mart and Target.

We think not.

But we happily visit to see how people lived in other times without experiencing extreme levels of discomfort ourselves.

Sure, we might be losing ten pounds a day sweating in the middle of July while listening to the interpreters talk about cooking in clay ovens and fighting the British army. But, we’re wearing short sleeves and shorts and we retreat to air conditioning as soon as the tour ends.

And really, aren’t we always prevented from fully experiencing life as another person? We might glance over someone’s life, making judgments and assumptions from a safe distance, but we’ll never fully know what it feels like to be her.

It’s a lesson I just never seem to learn, one that trips me into pits of envy and then shocks me into disappointment just as quickly over and over again.

These women I’ve thought were perfect, the ones I envied, had the houses, the marriages, the kids, the finances, the vacations, the looks and style I wanted–everything just exactly right.

I made my assumptions based on superficial evidence and my envy grew based on inaccurate and unfair comparisons between what her life appeared to be and what I knew my life was.

Yet, inevitably the façade collapses. The truth is no one’s life is perfect. Too often the closed doors of her pristine home concealed struggles and strife no one expected or knew existed.

If we’re ever to overcome envy, we have to stop being duped by projected images and pretend lives and choose contentment in our own real lives with our real husbands in our real homes with our real kids.

Because the endless comparisons cost us contentment, rob us of peace, and steal joy right out of our hearts.

Kay Warren writes:

Joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right and the determined choice to praise God in all things (Choose Joy)

In a similar way, George Fox wrote this prayer:

Grant us, O Lord, the blessing of those whose minds are stayed on You, so that we may be kept in perfect peace: a peace which cannot be broken. Let not our minds rest upon any creature, but only in the Creator; not upon goods, things, houses, lands, inventions of vanities, or foolish fashions, lest, our peace being broken, we become cross and brittle and given over to envy. From all such, deliver us, O God, and grant us Your peace (Yours is the Day, Lord; Yours is the Night, 42).

We choose peace when we discipline our mind to be content with what God has given us.

More than this. We don’t just accept the gifts God gives; we are grateful for them. We find ways to give thanks even when it’s hard. We redirect our mind whenever we focus on what we don’t have and choose instead to praise God for what He’s done and how He’s blessed us.

Proverbs tells us:

“A tranquil heart is life to the body, but jealousy is rottenness to the bones” (Proverbs 14:30 HCSB).

Envy can eat us up like cancer, destroying us from the inside out. It’s crippling, devastating, and, if left untreated, all-consuming.

But that tranquil heart is a heart at peace, content with God’s gifts, certain that God uniquely designed you for these blessings and this life. Yes, His gifts to us are good.

It’s a heart quietly and purposefully thankful for what is real rather than fooled into wanting imagined perfections, fictional ideals, faulty perceptions, and mistaken judgments. Contentment requires getting real and getting grateful, recognizing that we don’t need perfection in order to have joy; we just need Jesus.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

"He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul" Psalm 62:1-2 (MSG).

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Setting Curls, Setting Faith: Taking the Faith Dare

Back to School: 5 Ways to Bless a Teacher

Confessions of a Raging Perfectionist, Book Review

Living With the Tension

Broken for you

God and Cupcake Sprinkles

Projected Images and Pretend Lives

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