How peeling potatoes makes me feel like a domestic diva

October 29, 2014October 29, 20142 Comments

When precise circumstances align just right, I feel like a domestic diva.

The windows are open.

The house smells like it’s filled with flowers or pies—-maybe it’s because I baked; maybe it’s artificially provided by a candle or scented wax in my burner—it doesn’t matter, as long as the house doesn’t smell like diapers and the litter box.

The children are not fighting.

The washing machine and dryer are humming away.

Bread is in the bread machine.

Soup is in the Crock Pot.

I am peeling potatoes.

It’s the peeling potatoes part that really counts. That’s what makes ordinary household chores feel less like mundane drudgery and more like prize-worthy expertise. Like the angels are singing and the children should be rising up and calling you blessed and your husband sings your praises.

I’m telling you…..peeling potatoes can do that for me.

Which is funny, because they’re just ordinary potatoes and I’m just an ordinary gal and I’ve sure nicked myself enough times with the potato peeler.

The truth is there are plenty of days, when I feel less than capable, less than expert, less than extraordinary.

I collapse next to my husband in the evening after four little ones finally fall asleep and survey the mess left behind by the tornado of activity. I confess what’s on my heart—-“I hope you don’t think I just do nothing all day.”

He calms me down. After all, I don’t really need to say it to him. I’m really saying it to me.

Because it’s me wondering, “What exactly did I do all day?”

Photo by just2shutter; 123rf.com

I have a one-year-old:

Enough said?

Maybe I don’t always feel accomplished, but for some mysterious reason, peeling potatoes makes me find value in the most mundane act. I feel this wind of inspiration and encouragement. It’s like breath for my very suffocated soul.

What I really feel in that moment is that God finds value in me. He finds joy in the home I’m making for my family. He showers me with favor. He teaches me to sing praise over the ordinary.

In his book, Sacred Marriage, Gary Thomas tells me that Brother Lawrence “felt equally close to God peeling potatoes in the kitchen as kneeling at the altar in prayer…”

Maybe that’s because potato peeling became the sacrifice on his altar.

Maybe it’s because he prayed while he peeled.

Maybe I can do both.

I remember one of the Scriptures I’ve been clinging to all year:

“Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually” (1 Chronicles 16:11 ESV)

And I read in Romans:

Clothe yourselves with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 13:14 NLT).

Put on the presence of Christ with each new day. Rise in the morning, take a shower, put on jeans and a t-shirt and put on the presence of Christ at the same time.

So, I’m trying my best to invite Christ’s presence into my routine and the ordinary of my every day. Invite Him in as I cook dinner. Invite Him in as I throw open windows and light the candle. Invite Him in as I get dressed in the morning.

Because His presence is constant. He’s always there. It’s my awareness of His presence that varies from day to day.

Just like I always have the same amount of domestic capabilities, but somehow peeling potatoes makes me feel particularly accomplished. Nothing changes except my perspective.

As I finish up this month of Finding the Sacred in the Ordinary, I’m choosing prayer prompts to help me connect with God throughout the day.

These aren’t hour-long prayer sessions spent on my knees. These are whispered prayers I share with God while I go about my day.

Like:

“Give me wisdom for this day” before I get out of bed.

“Clothe me with Your presence today” as I get dressed.

“Show me how to love my family best” as I pack lunches.

“Thank You for Your provision” as I fold clothes.

“Feed me with Your Word” as I cook dinner.

“Forgive me of my sins” as I wash those dishes clean.

“Thank you for your many good gifts to me.” And when can I pray this? Well, anytime perhaps, but maybe especially when I peel potatoes.

What prompts you to pray throughout the day?

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Find the Sacred in the Ordinary’?

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 book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

7 Ways to have a quiet time when you don’t have quiet or time

October 27, 2014July 12, 20174 Comments

“You dropped your head.”

That’s what he tells me as we leave church. He points to a spot on the floor with this twinkle in his eye, just waiting for me to fall for the joke he’s played on me many times before.

He gets us all the time. “Your shoe is untied,” when you’re wearing ballet flats without laces. “You dropped your head” and people look to see if their head actually is rolling around on the floor, abandoned.

But I don’t even move my eyes. I just lean right over to him, pat him on the arm, and say, “You know what, I probably did. I probably did drop my head.”

Some days, you know?

Some days maybe you feel like you’ve been running around without any command center on top of your shoulders to help you hold it all together.

You feel a little famished, starving for time in the Word.

You feel a little parched, desperate for the Living Water of His presence.

You feel maybe like you really are missing that head of yours.

One missed quiet time turns into a week and then a month and more if we’re not careful. Sometimes we think if we can’t pray for a solid hour on our knees in a prayer closet, or if we can’t finish a whole Beth Moore lesson in one uninterrupted sitting, or we miss a day or two in our devotional or our Bible reading plan, then maybe we just need to wait until we can get it perfect.

If you can’t do it right, why do it at all?

Why? Because we’ll drop our heads, that’s why. We have to be women of the Word and women of prayer even if it means we need to adapt and adjust for the busiest seasons of life.

Maybe it means we just hold on for dear life to the hem of Jesus’ robe until life finally brings us to a place where we can sit uninterrupted at His feet again.

Sometimes faith has to be on-the-go…..and the good news is that God’s presence can invade the minivan.

Here are 7 ways to have a quiet time when you don’t have quiet or time:

1. Make a Bible To-Go Bag: Keep a bag in your car with anything you might need for an impromptu quiet time while you wait in the minivan to pick up your kids: a devotional you only use for those times, paper, pens, and an extra Bible or maybe just a Bible app on your smartphone.

2. Find Great Bible Apps: Load your phone with apps that will let you read the Bible, listen to the audio Bible, tune into podcasts, read devotionals, memorize Scripture, and keep a prayer log. I’ve listed my favorites below. Here are some of my favorites:

Bible (by LifeChurch.tv)
BibleGateway
BibleMinded
PrayerNotes
Scripture Typer

3. Use Prayer Prompts: Pray while cooking dinner, doing dishes, folding laundry, driving home from work. Pick specific places or activities that will remind you to pray every time you do them.

4. Break it up: I don’t have time to read a devotional, read the Bible, do a Bible study, write in my journal and pray all at once. I need to do these things all day long, a little here, a little there, grabbing time when I can. Try breaking up your quiet time into 10-minute activities you can spread throughout your day.

5. Do it with your kids: If your kids have memory verses for their church activities, memorize the verses with them. Read the book of Matthew together and choose a devotional to read as a family.

6. Exercise your faith: People often jog to their favorite work-out music or hop on the exercise bike and watch TV. Try replacing that with God-time. If you’re on the exercise bike, you can read your Bible or devotionals or listen to podcasts of sermons. If you’re walking or jogging, you can be listening to worship music, sermon podcasts, an audio Bible, or just praying.

7. Study online: I help to lead online Bible studies at The Womens Bible Cafe. I love that I can spend one hour in accountability, fellowship and encouragement and I can do it while my baby is napping in the next room. You can also check out online studies with Proverbs31 Ministries and Love God Greatly.

Most importantly, give yourself grace: If you expect the perfect quiet time to happen, then you’ll likely give up completely and never take time for God. And you’ll probably drop your head. Take every opportunity to spend time with Jesus even if it’s short, messy, interrupted, and on-the-go. If you fall behind, don’t get overwhelmed. Just start fresh where you are supposed to be and keep going. And when the day is done, rest well and start fresh with new mercies for a new day.

How do you make time for God when you don’t have quiet or time?

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Find the Sacred in the Ordinary’?

Morning Prayers to Whisper in Between the Snooze Button (AKA Kids)

October 17, 2014January 9, 20163 Comments

I do not understand the snooze button on an alarm clock. I never have.

To me, sleep only works when you’re actually sleeping.

The first beep of an alarm wakes me up. From that moment on, my mind is racing on into the day. I’m not sleeping; I’m thinking.

Worse yet, I’m thinking without actually doing anything about the million-and-one things I’m thinking about, which is a pretty stressful way to start the day: feeling like I’m already behind.

Snooze buttons only work for people who can fall asleep in two seconds and don’t mind sleeping in batches of 5 minutes at a time.

Since that isn’t me, it’s just a way for me to procrastinate my way into the morning and procrastination super-stresses me out.

But moms don’t get to dictate their sleep habits, sleep cycle, sleep hours, sleep anything. We’re just thankful for whatever sleep we get.

I’ve only needed an actual alarm clock a handful of times since I gave birth to my oldest child nearly 10 years ago. I have a new alarm clock called “Kids.”

Unfortunately, this new wake-up system has come fully equipped with nothing less than a human snooze button.

Baby wakes up.

Mom soothes baby and climbs back into bed.

Early bird child runs through the house to mom’s bed just minutes later to announce she’s awake, then returns to announce she is hungry, then returns to announce she cannot find the clothes she wants.

Mom looks at the clock and realizes no one else in the whole house is awake and yet this one tiny person is relentless in her pursuit of the day.

Mom tries so hard to go back to sleep but is quickly awakened by the older daughter’s alarm clock with its shrill, rhythmic beeping that does….not…..stop……for…….five…..whole ……minutes…… because the daughter who is actually in the actual room with the actual alarm clock is sleeping right through the noise.

This is the human snooze button system that started my day.

I’ve heard so many women say that all we need to do to bring God into the middle of our day is to start with prayer, right from the beginning. Before you get out of bed, just lie there for a minutes longer and pray for God’s hand to be on the day and for Him to help them be the best mom and wife that she can be and could He direct her steps and … and.. and….

Awesome.

But my life is louder than that. Crazier than that. Messier than that.

And yet, I still need His presence. Maybe because of all the noise and rush, I need His presence even more desperately than someone who can lie in the quiet and calm of a morning and spend a few extra minutes in uninterrupted prayer.

I sure need Jesus to be right here in the middle of my mess.

My days tend to take turns for the unexpected. The long, extended quiet time that I’ve been planning for three days hasn’t happened yet, because the phone rang, and I got a message, and the baby was teething, and…and…and….

But I read what a missionary wrote in his journal long ago:

“Poor and weak though we are, our abode is a very Bethel to our souls, and God we feel and know is here” (Richard Williams).

Bethel. That means “House of God.”

It’s the place where God’s presence dwells. That’s where Jacob saw the vision of the stairway connecting heaven and earth and the angels ascending and descending.

I’m reminded, then, that God’s presence right here in the middle of my life makes any situation, any morning, any messy day, any short quiet time in the parked minivan while waiting for my daughters outside of school… a Bethel for my soul.

Because God is here.

I’m still fighting for that extended quiet time. I know it will happen.

But even on days it doesn’t, I’m learning this month to “Do Messy Faith….” to pursue His presence on-the-go instead of waiting until all the circumstances are perfect to meet with Him. Because if I wait for perfect, then it won’t happen.

So I don’t have an hour to spend in quiet with the Bible. I have the Bible on my phone and my Kindle.

So I don’t have the luxury of a quiet morning wake-up. I have a human snooze alarm and I can whisper those prayers in between morning visits from my children.

Dear God, thank You for this day.

Dear God, guide me today.

Dear God, Your will be done, not mine.

Dear God, Please use me today.

Dear God, Please help me. I can’t do it alone.

My voice You shall hear in the morning, O Lord;
In the morning I will direct it to You,
And I will look up.
Psalm 5:3 NKJV

What prayers do you whisper as you start your day?

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Find the Sacred in the Ordinary’?

I Know a Good Question When I See One

October 15, 2014October 27, 20143 Comments

At the pumpkin patch, they handed us a paper with clues and a purple crayon for the scavenger hunt.

Follow the clues to places all over the farm and collect the letters. Unscramble the letters at the end and find the answer to this question:

What’s the name of the largest pumpkin we grow here on the farm?

Collecting the letters is the easy part. It’s the putting them back together in a way that makes sense that’s hard.

My husband finds the word “giant” in this mesh of letters. That sounds promising, but we’re still missing two words.

I ask the older man in overalls the question, like I’m just abnormally interested in the breeds of pumpkin.

So, you have lots of different kinds of pumpkins on this farm. What’s the biggest kind you grow?

He smiles and leans down from the tractor: “Oh yeah, lots of kinds. The big giant ones are in the barn.”

I surmise that this is the most information I’ll get out of him.

I move along.

My kids line their pumpkins up on the table so we can pay for them while I ask the lady in the apron about pumpkin varieties, all casual like it’s just a question that has popped into my head for no apparent reason.

Finally I just tell on myself. Here’s the deal. We’re trying to figure out this scavenger hunt word scramble and how in the world are we supposed to know the names of the seeds you use when you plant pumpkins? So can you help a girl out?

She laughs and says, “Whoa, that’s a hard clue. How are you supposed to know that?” Even she has to go and find someone else who knows the answer.

Dill’s Atlantic Giant

Gold stars to my husband for figuring out the “Giant” part.

He says I cheated and we could have figured that out.

There’s no way. Even the nice people at the farm assure me no one would know the answer unless you actually knew about pumpkin breeds—which I do not.

No way could I leave that pumpkin patch with a question hanging over my head like that, though. Cheating or not, I needed the answer, the solid truth to put that question right to rest.

Unanswered questions sit heavy on my soul.

I’d be Nicodemus slipping out into the night to find Jesus and pester him with questions because I just want to understand and make sense of it all. Born again? How does that work? Parables, stories, and metaphors are all fine and good, but, Jesus, I want to know. Can you lay it out all clear and step by step for a muddled, mixed-up girl like me?

I’m a Question-Girl who knows a good question when I see one.

So, I read it in Scripture, how the Israelites whined and complained their way through the wilderness outside of Egypt. They glorified the past. They questioned God.

In Exodus 17:17 it says,

Moses named the place Massah (which means “test”) and Meribah (which means “arguing”) because the people of Israel argued with Moses and tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord here with us or not?”

Dr. Tony Evans says:

“It’s easy for us to judge the Israelites as we read their accusatory question against God. But I imagine we’ve all asked that question at some point, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?” (The Power of God’s Names)

Is that what it all came down to with them? All of the complaining was really the perpetual search for an answer to the question that was rocking their souls: Are you here with us, God? Have you abandoned us? Are we on our own?

We know the theological, good-Christian answer.

But sometimes I still feel like a lost little girl on a big wide farm with a crayon in one hand and a paper with a mixed-up message on it.

Is the Lord among us or not?

And that’s when we cling on tight to the promise that He is Immanuel, God With Us. It’s the only name that fits in the blanks and that uses all the letters. The only name that can heal the cracks in my shaking foundation and soothe the ache of my wandering soul.

Life in the wilderness for Israel was messy and hard.

Life for us sure is messy and hard sometimes, too.

During my year-long pursuit of the presence of Christ, this month I’ll be ‘Doing Messy Faith.’

Quiet times aren’t always pristine. Prayer doesn’t follow a formula. Life is noisy, busy, rushed…messy indeed.

But God is With Us right there in the middle of it. Life won’t be perfect, but I don’t have to have all the answers to draw near in His presence.

Will you join me this month?

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Do Messy Faith’?

What if God is in this place?

October 9, 2013January 23, 20143 Comments

What if God is in this place?

It may not always seem likely. Not when you’re elbow-deep in soapy dish water, or pulling out the third wipe from the tub while doing diaper duty.

Not perhaps while cradling a tiny babe at 2:00 in the morning so he can eat or zooming from school to ballet while quizzing children on homework questions at the same time.

And not when passing back sandwiches to little people in the car as you spend a night away from home moving from activity to activity.

Yet, this is the place I inhabit, the Mom World. It’s the life where my schedule is dictated by the schedules of other, tinier, needier people.

There was a time….there will be a time….when I can linger over tea, a Bible, a prayer journal.

For now, though, I’m scribbling Scriptures onto index cards and reading devotionals in a parked car while waiting in a line to pick up my kids here, there, and everywhere.

God has to be mobile for me. He has to be everywhere I go. He can’t be confined to one hour, one specific holy place, one quiet spiritual atmosphere.

No, He has to be God amidst the loud, the stressful, the busy, the on-the-go, the tired.

We talk about the discipline of a quiet time, the need to establish a routine and stick with it no matter what. Schedule your time with God….that’s the advice we give.

For most people, there’s wisdom there. Make a date with God. Write it down on the calendar. Protect the time. Do the habit until it becomes a habit. Persevere until it becomes second-nature.

Sometimes, though, in some special seasons and particular times, this advice leaves us defeated. My schedule is different each day of the week. A newborn baby can cry and change my plans in one unexpected instant.

If I’m inflexible, too rigid, only ‘doing devotions,’ only meeting with God in this one place at this one time, I will miss Him.

I’ll miss Him completely and utterly. My life would be devoid of heaven and communion with my Savior and I’d be one stressed out Mama ending every day emptier and emptier than the day before.

Yet, there’s Mary in Luke 1, a teenage girl busy with chores, doing common, everyday things on a common, average day. That’s when an angel appeared and announced she’d carry the Messiah.

God was at work. She couldn’t see Him…not when hauling water and baking bread. Still, God was in that place, active in her life, preparing the greatest plan of all plans to display His will and His presence in the world.

And then there’s Jacob, the runaway rogue, the trickster fleeing his home and family because he’d made his brother, Esau, mad enough to kill him.

All Jacob did was fall asleep on a stone pillow and God was there, displaying a stairway up to heaven and bringing blessing and promise for Jacob’s future.

What could Jacob say, but:

“Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28:16 NIV)?

That’s it exactly, what I’m thinking, what I’m praying for and hoping to accomplish even with four young kids and a husband and a ministry and a life…

To be aware.

I don’t want to walk in and out of this life unaware of God in this place—right here, right now, right in the middle of everything I’m doing and everywhere I have to be. I can wait for some future moment when an uninterrupted hour of quiet is an everyday commodity, but how much better to ask God to inhabit this busy, stressful, active, full life, the very life He’s given me?

After all, even when we set apart time and places for holy encounters, we can miss seeing His glory.

Zechariah the priest entered the holy place for a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with God….and yet when the angel appeared to him and announced that he’d be the father of the Messiah’s forerunner, Zechariah “was startled and was gripped with fear” (Luke 1:12 NIV).

What was God doing there in the temple? What was God doing there on this spiritual day?

Zechariah stood in a holy place at a holy time and didn’t expect to see the holy.

But I want to be expectant in the holy places and in the places that seem steeped in the mundane. God, please meet me here in the mini-van, here helping with homework, here making dinner, folding clothes, washing dishes, packing lunches, feeding a newborn.

May I remember that yes, God is in this place.

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.

When Holy is Dishes, Laundry, and Homework

August 7, 2013October 27, 20149 Comments

Five puzzles, six books (or more), one game of Memory, word searches, and some tricycle training . . .

That’s what happens when we lose power or Internet at our house. Life slows down. When a daughter appears with board game in hand and a pleading look on her face, I have no excuse to give, no busyness to distract, nothing to prevent me from sitting . . . and playing . . . and resting with my kids

I complain and whine with the best of them about the loss of conveniences and comfort, and I’d prefer running water with temperature control and the ability to cook meals and refrigerate food any day of the week.

But a day without email and the telephone . . . well, that’s a welcome vacation sometimes.

Christ Himself called His disciples away from the crowds and busyness of their lives to spend time with him alone, like unplugging from ministry life with its hectic pace and demands.

Mark tells us:

“Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’” (Mark 6:31).

In Jesus: The One and Only, Beth Moore notes that:

“the original word for rest in this verse is anapauo. Pauo means “to cease, give rest.” Guess what ana means? “Again!” We don’t need this kind of rest just once. We need it again and again” (p. 116).

And again . . . and again . . . and again.

Sometimes we need to go away–or unplug– to escape all that distracts us here so we can fix our attention on Him there. We anticipate seeing God in the specifically designated portions of our lives we call “Spiritual” and the times we have set aside as “Holy.”

But then the real work begins.

Then we must return to the daily life in all its mundane activity and we must carry into that everyday behavior all that we learned in the holy moments we had set aside.

I’m trying to see Jesus while my hands are elbow-deep in dish water and the laundry piles stack up.

Can mopping the floor be spiritual? Can folding clothes be a God-moment? Can doing dishes be part of my quiet time?

If we deny Him a place in the mundane day-to-day life, confining Him instead to a corner of our hearts designated “God stuff,” then we miss Him and what He’s doing in us and through us.

It’s what the prophet Jeremiah wrote: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13). Not spiritual heart pieces and holy corners, but all that is in our heart searches after God.

In Scripture, Naaman almost missed finding God. He was a big-shot, who commanded the army of the king of Aram, a great man, a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy (2 Kings 5:1).

Hearing about Elisha the prophet, Naaman sought healing from the man of God, but Elisha didn’t even come out of his house to meet with him. Instead, Elisha sent out a messenger with some simple instructions: “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed” (2 Kings 5:10).

This was so . . . .basic.

So unimpressive.

So nonspiritual.

And Naaman was annoyed, angry even.

Naaman wanted a magic show with special effects rather than an order to take seven baths in the Jordan. But, his servants challenged him: “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed!’” (2 Kings 5:13).

A few dips in the Jordan later, Naaman’s leprosy was totally healed. All because he obeyed God in something simple and unimpressive.

If we have our eyes set only on the spectacular, we will miss God’s healing and cleansing work in the mundane and the everyday.

Will I manage to keep this perspective over time? Probably not. I will likely grow weary and burdened with the stresses of daily busyness. I’ll need to retreat again, stepping away from it all to focus solely on God.

But then I’ll come back home where dishes and laundry and homework is what happens here and in that, yes even in that dailyness and routine, I can seek God’s presence, His input, His fellowship.

Finding God While Folding Clothes

June 5, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

I was crying and laughing at the same time.

All these years, I’ve heard about that, how you’re spilling over with overwhelming emotions and your body just doesn’t know what to do. Cry out the tears? Burst out in laughter?

There’s Sarah in the Bible, who waited month after month, year after year, decade after decade for a baby…and then when God said she’d have a son, she laughed. She just couldn’t hold that in, that joy….that disbelief…that incredulity….that moment of shock when your whole life changes in one second and you’re thrown off balance and grabbing onto a furniture or to an outstretched hand to steady yourself.

Me? A son?

Sarah had her moment; I had mine. Lying there on an exam table while an ultrasound tech rolled a wand expertly over my pregnant self. She tells me these are kidneys, this is the stomach, there are the chambers of the heart….My baby looks so beautiful and healthy, and I’m already exhaling that big held in breath and each of my muscles slowly relaxes just hearing the good news.

Then she says the words, “It’s a boy.”

This momma to three daughters laughed through tears. I can’t even remember what I said, but it was something like: No way! I can’t even believe it. Are you sure? Are you sure your sure?

My husband asks me later if I’m disappointed, but it’s not that. I’m excited, yes, just still in a bit of shock.

All these years, I’ve become a girl’s mom. I’ve learned all things girl and prayed over all things girl, read the books and considered the truths about being a mom to girls.

Truth be told, I’m feeling pretty confident most days, not always but often, thinking maybe I’ve gotten the hang of this. Maybe I know what to do.

Bringing up girls is what I do and being a mom to daughters is who I am.

Now I’m reading blog posts and books and listening to podcasts about raising boys. I’ve watched sons with their moms in the store, in the park, at the school. I’ve leaned in close and listened to friends and made mental notes about being a mom to boys.

And I’ve prayed.

Maybe that’s the point.

Nine years ago, pregnant with my very first baby, I thought I’d have all boys and thought I’d be a great boys’ mom. That was when the news of a daughter first shook apart any foolish confidence I had.

How I had prayed then when God gave me this unexpected gift of three daughters, and my Mom-life still holds together simply because of my worn-out knees from constant prayer.

So here I am now, stumbling down onto my knees again and I’m reminded: I am insufficient. I don’t know. I don’t have it all together and I’m not sure how to do this right.

I start by dragging out bag after bag of girls’ clothes from the Rubbermaid containers in the garage and sorting them into piles to give away to friends.

Then I remember how over the years some people mis-heard the news and thought we were having a son when we were having another girl, so they gave me gifts for boys. Then there were those who worried that ultrasound techs got things wrong, so they gave me gifts of yellow, green and white just in case.

I pull out the collection I’ve amassed over 9 years of having babies.

And right there God meets me. Right there as I’m folding these tiny boy’s clothes and watching the pile grow.

I had no idea how long He’d been at work preparing me for a son. I didn’t realize how much abundance He’d provided unexpectedly and beyond all reason. Blue outfits, blue t-shirts, little boy washcloths and towels, hats, blankets, mittens, sleepers, and socks: it all piled up on the back of my sofa as I folded the clothes until the piles were about falling over.

God had been at work all along, making room for grace.

I still feel insufficient. I still feel overwhelmed with all that I don’t know and amazed that He would trust this gift to me when I feel so incapable.

Paul said it, though:

He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. (2 Corinthians 12:9)

This grace of God’s is sufficient.

But we don’t realize it, don’t rely on that, don’t allow Him to be fully sufficient until we realize just how insufficient we are. The more we are driven to our knees by our unworthiness, the more we declare Him worthy of all praise.

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.

Captivated

April 22, 2013January 30, 2014Leave a comment

Sometimes you have to fight for the glory and squint your eyes tight to find the wonder.

Like today.

My daughter woke me up early. She was ready for the day; I wanted to enjoy a little more night, and so the morning began with a headache, fatigue and maybe a not-so-cheerful attitude.

Then, just as I began to settle into the day, I glanced up at the calendar at 7:58 and realized the heating and air conditioning repairman was coming between 8 and 8:30 a.m. Oops, forgot that one.

He came at 8:20 and normally that time for me is for morning tea and long devotions, starting the week with God and then writing.

But how to be inspired and still with God, how to type out these words on the computer when he’s banging parts and dismantling pieces? Then he calls out, “Ma’am?” and I flinch because I know it’s not to tell me good news.

My to-do list was long. The laundry piled high. The sink stacked with morning dishes.

But I’m fighting for this, so I open to the first day of my new Bible Study, Wonderstruck by Margaret Feinberg:

“God desires to captivate us not just with his handiwork but with Himself–displaying facets of His character, igniting us with His fiery love, awakening us to the intensity of His holiness” (11).

Captivate me, Lord. Right here, this tiny person in this moment when all the mundane is pressing heavy on my heart and I’m just about suffocated from the stifling weight of it all.

Feinberg tells me that this is what God desires and I wonder: If I’m not feeling it, is it because I’ve shut Him down and crowded Him out? Is He willing to reignite me and I’m unwilling to notice

I flip through my Bible to Hebrews 12:28-29:

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”

It starts with thanks, gratitude that anything that shakes apart the foundation of my day can’t touch the foundation of His kingdom, my faith, or eternity with Him–Not early mornings, interrupted routines, home repairs, not even the incessant grinding of the daily.

It requires worship grounded in reverence and awe because my God, Savior, Friend, and Lover of my Soul, is a Consuming Fire, and even on days when I’m just seeing the tiniest ember and flicker of that holy flame, He remains the same.

In Scripture, Elisha stood with his prophet-mentor, Elijah, and asked so boldly for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit (2 Kings 2:9). So, when I read Elisha’s story, I expect the miracles all to be earth-shattering, all fire from heaven with awe and wonder.

It was Elijah, after all, who staged the showdown with the prophets of Baal, who predicted a long and devastating drought over the land and then foretold the rain that started as one tiny cloud as big as a man’s fist. He went head-to-toe with Ahab and Jezebel until he was whisked away to heaven in a flaming chariot.

The double-portion of that Spirit must be pretty spectacular.

But when I read Elisha’s story, he made foul water fit to drink. He cursed a group of taunting boys who called him “baldy.” He gave oil to a poor widow, made some poisonous stew safe for consumption. And when an ordinary worker dropped his ax in the lake, Elisha made the ax head float on the water.

It was everyday stuff, most of it. He had a few moments, like raising a boy from the dead. Overall, though, it seems so mundane. So everyday. He helped people eat and drink. Helped them work and not have to trek to Home Depot for some new tools.

And maybe that’s the reminder here. Maybe it takes even more faith to look for the power and spirit of God at work in the smallest of needs and the most everyday of circumstances.

I look out of the window over my kitchen sink while I wash the last cereal bowl and see the plants we bought the day before, still waiting to be planted in the dirt of our garden. We went on a hunt for milkweed to attract monarch butterflies and came home with these two green pots.

They look like the smallest and plainest of dead sticks. My daughter was skeptical. Could this brown spindly stalk grow anything beautiful? Is it even alive?

But today I’ve fought for the wonder and the glory.

Today, I’ve determined to plant and nurture the pitiful, the brown, the spindly, the weak, the seeming lifeless–and wait for God to cultivate and grow the glory and the beauty.

Yes, in my garden. Yes, in my life and heart.

Captivate me.

My Addiction

April 5, 2013January 24, 20142 Comments

Originally posted April 13, 2012

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering” (Romans 12:1, MSG).

I love routine.

I plod around my house each morning with my eyes barely open, doing the same tasks I did the day before. I follow a schedule day by day, week by week.

Each night, I drink a cup of hot tea in one of my favorite mugs before I go to bed. Every night. Summer, winter, makes no difference.

So, a few weeks ago when my whole schedule was off and it was far too late for a reasonable cup of tea before bed, I felt a little shaky and definitely “off.” I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t settle in under the covers and turn out the light without at least a few sips from my teacup.

It’s not that I’m a tea addict.

I’m a routine addict.

Given my love for the routine of daily life, I was not at all surprised when my six-year-old brought me a neon orange paper that read (and I quote):

Lauren:
eat Breckfest
Brush teeth
Go to school
Play Victoria’s games
Play hide and seek
eat lunch
watch TV
take a Nap
eat Dinnr.
Brush teeth
Go to bed

The basic reality of daily life, of routine, and of the mundane is that we all live it in some way or another—me in my adult world, my daughter in her child world.

We commute to work. We go to school. We walk the dog. We make phone calls. We volunteer. We give baths and make dinners. We run errands. We clock in; we clock out.

There’s beauty in the resurrection appearances of Jesus as He invited himself into the daily and mundane routine of the disciples.

Sure He appeared to them in the upper room where they were gathered for worship and prayer. That’s to be expected.

But then He did something unexpected. He showed up on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and watched them wrestle with fishing nets and bring emptiness up from the water.

Yes, Jesus went to their workplace.

Early in the morning, maybe as the first flickers of sunlight skipped over the Galilean waters, Jesus called out to his tired friends. They didn’t recognize his voice; he was just some curious bystander sticking his nose into their own personal business, giving them instructions as if He knew more about fishing than they did—a bunch of expert fisherman.

He told them to “‘Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.’ When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish” (John 21:6).

That’s when they recognized the Lord.

In A Year With Jesus, Eugene Peterson wrote:

“Work that was futile apart from Christ becomes successful in His presence . .. Your resurrection life, Lord Jesus, is like a sunrise in work that has lost meaning and in routines that have become pointless. Whatever my work today, I will do it in the recognition of Your presence and under Your command” (p. 594).

and

“The resurrection transforms Monday work as much as Sunday worship” (p. 596).

Jesus made it clear in those 40 days following His resurrection that He wasn’t just looking to be part of our sacred lives and in the religious moments we schedule on the calendar.

He wanted us to live with a curious mesh and entwining of sacred and secular, where He’s with us during every part of our day.

He sets our routine. He is our routine. He shakes up our routine. He designs our routine. He redesigns our routine.

You’d think we fairly intelligent people could get by on our own living out our daily lives. But, I’ve decided that I can’t and I’m okay with that.

That’s why you’ll find me in the Wal-Mart parking lot once a week with my head bent low in the few minutes before I exit my car. It’s because I’m a mess on my own—making stupid decisions about what to buy and what not to buy, forgetting what I need, falling for advertising gimmicks and sales tricks, traveling back and forth across the whole store because I forgot something on my list, making a list and then leaving it in my car or at home, trying to use outdated coupons and failing to use perfectly good coupons that I spent perfectly good time cutting out.

Why should God care about my budget and my meal plan for the week and for the items on my list and my own personal sanity? Because He loves me, that’s why. Because the grocery store is where I lay out my nets and hope for an abundance of fish.

You have your own Galilean place, where Jesus is trying to invite Himself and where He’s waiting to give you input and advice.

Perhaps it’s the routine that makes you feel so comfortable and that you think you can handle all on your own. Perhaps it’s the place you feel most capable and expert. Maybe it’s a place where you experience failure and emptiness.

You haven’t seen abundance until you’ve felt the blessing of His presence in the midst of your routine. It’s time to invite Him into the boat with you.

You can read more devotionals on this topic here:

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.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Category: Find the Sacred in the Ordinary

How peeling potatoes makes me feel like a domestic diva

7 Ways to have a quiet time when you don’t have quiet or time

Morning Prayers to Whisper in Between the Snooze Button (AKA Kids)

I Know a Good Question When I See One

What if God is in this place?

When Holy is Dishes, Laundry, and Homework

Finding God While Folding Clothes

Captivated

My Addiction

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