A family motto for summer

June 18, 2014June 25, 20141 Comment

My daughter asks, “Why is it so much easier to get along with friends than with sisters some times?”

Four days into summer vacation and she’s already pleading for more time with friends and less time with siblings.

But here’s the truth I tell her….time with others destroys masks, facades, and fake perfection. It has a way of dragging all of those sins and faults, all of that selfishness and the bad attitudes from where they stay safely hidden during play dates and public outings.

Anyone can behave for a few hours on a play date.

That’s what I tell her.

Then I remind myself: Any mom can respond sweetly to her child who is having a meltdown in the Wal-Mart aisle five minutes into your shopping trip when there are people around who might overhear you.

And those TV moms—sure, any of us could be super creative, fun, and even-tempered enough to fill 40 minutes of film footage once a week.

God isn’t satisfied with superficial sweetness, though. He wants genuine transformation. He wants the world to look deep and long at us and see the reflection of Christ, not some plastic Jesus or some temporary super-Christian persona.

It’s part of His design with family and others to wield us as tools, chipping away at one another, breaking off the pieces that simply need to go, and masterfully forming us little by little into tried-and-true, walking and talking, in-season and out-of-season examples of Christ in the world.

Proverbs tells us:

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17).

So He places us in families and in community with one another.

And then He gives us summer seasons…when we’re up close and personal and with each other all day instead of scattering away to schools, activities, and our own busy lives.

It’s so much time so close together that causes the explosions….when she won’t share the game, and she says something unkind, and she makes annoying noises, and her piano playing is too loud, and she’s hungry and impatient, and she wants to go to the library when she wants to stay home in her pajamas all day…when all this “self” collides with the “self” in everyone else, that’s when He reminds us of grace.

Maybe that’s the lesson in summer, after all.

Grace to rest.

Grace to stop the frantic running from school pick-ups to evening activities, tossing back granola bars to your kids from the front of the mini-van while you rush to ballet where you yank hair back into buns and push in bobby pins before class begins.

Grace to linger over the cup of tea in the morning instead of putting on the drill sergeant hat and barking out commands to children to get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair, find shoes, pack lunches and then kiss them on the cheek and send them out the door just in time to rush onto the school bus.

Grace to skip the chores and pack the car for the beach.

Grace even that I need to extend to myself—to not adhere completely to the writing schedule, to post late to the blog or even miss a day—because we’re out enjoying the summer and I’m taking this time I’ve been given with my kids for these few short weeks and I don’t want to miss it. ephesians4-32 photo by Jaroon Ittiwannapong

And grace for each other.

This is the mom speech I make for my daughter after a sibling melt-down.

In this family, we give grace because we need grace. When someone makes a mistake, we don’t mock, or point fingers, or jump up eagerly to show off how they were wrong.

After all, we need grace. We receive grace, so we show grace to others. It becomes my call, my standard, my motto for this summer with my kids:

We need grace.

We receive grace.

We show grace.

Paul wrote this:

And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ (Ephesians 4:32 HCSB).

And that’s how we breathe in and breathe out when daily annoyances and mistakes, sins, and forgetfulness, bad days, troubles, and trials threaten to consume us.That’s what we do when others step on our toes and bruise our feelings. We forgive because we’ve been forgiven.

This summer, we lean back full into this grace and rest. Choosing not to be stressed over the schedule, but to relax in relationship. Choosing to forgive the hurts and cease the fault-finding as Christ uses this season together to transform us.

That’s the grace that is summer.

Originally posted June 12, 2013

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 ‘Invest in Friendship’?

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.

Black Tea Strong and Sweet with a Drop of Milk

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014Leave a comment

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 15:15

She always asks me if I’d like a cup of tea.

From visit to visit she remembers I like black tea, not those fruity teas or herbal teas. She places the sugar beside my cup and says, “You like it strong and sweet, right?” Then she sets the milk down on the table because she knows I pour in a little milk and not cream.

Her house is a home. It’s clean but not perfect with all the signs of family and love and growing. Magnets of the kids’ artwork dot the refrigerator door. I see toys and school papers and the book she set aside so she could sit with me.

I marvel at her because this gift she has, this hospitality, this welcoming friends into her home and making them feel cozy and relaxed, this is a gift I don’t have.

I always thought hospitality meant fancy party planning and expensive china. It meant having a house straight out of a decorating magazine and the whipping up of gourmet dishes with names I can’t pronounce.

And here I am this simple girl.

Hospitality seemed so complicated. So stressful.

But my friend shows me this, it’s really pouring a cup of tea and welcoming someone in.

She never makes me feel like an interruption in her day and she sits there and lets time pass without stress or bother and just chats in this easy way she has of talking open and honest.

It’s refreshing like cool water on a parched soul.

All this month, I’m pursuing the presence of Christ by investing in friendship because when I’m learning from His people, I’m learning from Him.

My friend reminds me that Abraham didn’t scramble to shove dirty dishes into the oven, toss the laundry pile into the backroom and stash papers into the closet when God showed up unexpectedly with two friends.

He didn’t shoo them away with a list of why he’s too busy that day to chat, but maybe they could schedule a lunch date next week….

He didn’t flick off the lights, close the curtains and duck in a corner, pretending he wasn’t home in hopes they’d back on out of the driveway and leave him be.

No, when Abraham saw the three visitors trudging up the distant path, he “hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground” (Genesis 18:2).

Then, he immediately (and without complaint) abandoned his plans for the day and made their comfort his sole focus.

He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant” (Genesis 18:3-5).

He showed hospitality to God.

Abraham begged the Lord to “not pass your servant by” and God didn’t. He rested in that place. Rather than delivering a divine message and being on His merry way, He sat in the cool shade of the tree, eating and chatting with Abraham.

God and Abraham “hung out.” john15-15

And when the visit was over, the Lord, having been shown hospitality, shared with Abraham the plan for Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction. This was not the purpose of the visit, but it was a divine revelation borne out of intimate fellowship.

While we have the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives continually, still there are moments when He shows up in clear and powerful ways in the middle of our busyness.

He appears at the tent of our heart. He inquires if we’re home, if we’re willing to spend time with Him.

Do we tell Him to come back tomorrow because we’ve already fulfilled our quiet time quota for the day? Or do we usher Him into the center of our hearts and show Him hospitality?

Chris Tiegreen wrote:

When He comes to you in the heat of the day, do you bow before Him, offer Him the refreshment of your hospitality, and give of your possessions? Do you aim to serve? Then don’t be surprised if God lingers. Don’t be surprised if He communicates with you as with a privileged friend.”

And this is my heart, that God linger here and “not pass your servant by.”

So we make Him welcome. We invite Him in. We rest in His presence and rejoice in this miracle of friendship with Him.

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 ‘Invest in Friendship’?

My daughter ran away

June 4, 2014June 4, 20142 Comments

My daughter has run away.

I’m striding through the halls at church looking for a four-and-a-half-year-old blond-haired girl.

Have you seen her?

The church service began without any other ruckus than this tiny tot announcing she had to go to the bathroom. So her older sister walked her down the hall and back, but when they swung the sanctuary door open, the little one got bopped on the head.

Yup, she’s my daughter.

She didn’t stop the service with a burst of tears, a wail or a scream (thankfully). But she turned right around and fled.

Now I have about 5 minutes to find this child, calm her down and carry her back into the sanctuary before I need to start playing the piano.

And I can’t find her.

I’m yelling out her name, opening up doors and scanning rooms for any sign of her, checking bathroom stalls, flicking lights on and off in the different classes.

Our church seems incredibly large and complicated right now, like I’m running through a corn maze of possibilities and hitting nothing but dead-ends.

It’s not nearly as scary as the times (many times) that my middle daughter has slipped away in a store or crowd or amusement park or zoo….That girl has a way of disappearing that will make this momma’s heart sink right down into my stomach.

But I know my four-year-old is here in the church. Somewhere.

After a couple of crazed minutes, I finally discover her hiding away, huddled up, knees to her chest under a desk in the choir room crying silently so no one would hear her and find her.

I snuggle her up and make it back to the sanctuary with minutes to spare.

And I’m thankful. I watched her run away so I knew to go searching for her.

Had she slipped away without me seeing, how long would she have stayed tucked away and crying under that desk before someone would have sent out a search party?

I read this passage in Ezekiel and I think of my runaway daughter and for the first time this mysterious prophet begins to make sense to me.

He says:

Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the temple and stopped above the cherubim (Ezekiel 10:18 NIV).

Maybe we think God’s patience is limitless. But here it is, the very moment when He finally declared that Israel’s unrepentant adultery with any god she happened to meet had gone on long enough.

So, God left the sanctuary.

He lifted His glory right up out of the temple where He’d taken up residence generations before.

He loved them so and longed to be with them, right there in the middle of His people, a constant presence in their very midst. That was His desire, the desire of a groom to be with His bride.

But finally He left.

Ezekiel saw it happen. The glory lifted right up out of the temple and kept on moving:

The glory of the Lord went up from within the city and stopped above the mountain east of it(Ezekiel 11:23).

What must that have felt like? A heart-stopping void? A knot in their stomach, like the breath had been strangled right out of them?

God’s presence was there.

Then it wasn’t.

Surely they screamed out in desperation, begging for His return. Surely they slammed down to their knees in repentance.

Surely they searched for Him like I’d searched for my daughter–relentless, determined, focused.

Please, please, don’t leave us, Lord! We are nothing without You. We are desperate for You.

Someone should have noticed. Someone should have cried out.

I flip the pages of Ezekiel forward and back searching for that horrible moment when they realized God had removed His glory. I can’t find it. I read a little slower now. Surely I just missed it.

But it’s not there.

It’s not there because they didn’t even seem to pay Him any mind. Those priests, those people, they just kept right on going about their business like nothing had happened at all.

It’s like Samson after Delilah’s final bit of trickery when he snapped out of a deep sleep and didn’t realize she’d given him a buzz cut.

But he did not know that the Lord had left him (Judges 16:20 NIV).

How could he not know?

I want to know.

Lord, don’t let me go anywhere without You, not one step out of Your presence, not one move away from Your side.
May I be sensitive to Your glory and may I run hard back to You if there’s distance between us.
“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love”—that’s me sometimes.
But draw me back, Lord.
“Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11 NIV).
~Amen~

I Bring Mess; He Brings Beauty

May 30, 20142 Comments

“But you remain the same, and your years will never end” (Psalm 102:27).

“Mom, I know how to spell the word ‘kissing.’” Photo by Viktor Hanacek

That’s what my daughter told me when she was in first grade.

I wonder how to answer. Marvel over her accomplishment? Ask to see her spelling list?

Finally, I decide to stick with Classic Mom: “Wow, that’s a pretty big word. Spell it for me.”

Immediately, my first grader breaks out into the full-voiced sing-songy chant:

“K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.”

Some things never change.

The same chants, the same games, the same tears, the same laughs, the same hand-claps and rhymes and teasing from generation right on to the next.

Some things never seem to change with me either.

The truth is I need a Savior. I can make 50 resolutions a day not to lose my temper with my kids, but the moment my poky child pits herself against this super-speed mom, I fail.

In my own, the holding it together and the being perfect don’t happen. I find myself sitting in the pupil’s chair again, learning the same lesson from God that He taught me last year, and the year before that, and year after year after perpetual year.

In lessons of patience, grace, love and flexibility, I learn so slow.

But there’s something else that never changes.

God.

He’s immutable, unchanging, “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), who doesn’t alter “like shifting shadows” (James 1:17)

In all of my wayward sameness, I choose to go back to the beginning.

That same God, who stared at the dark shapeless mess and saw the potential beauty of the created earth sees beauty in me, as well. He sees it in you.

No one but God could have seen the potential in that pre-Creation space. Genesis 1:2 tells us, “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

Formless, empty and dark.

And God said, “Let there be light.”

Our God can make glorious possibilities out of nothingness, painting the sky onto a blank canvas.

He is original and uniquely imaginative, designing solutions that our finite minds could never have achieved. That means when I am hopeless with no possibility of salvation, I know my God can create a solution that is beyond my comprehension.

And I know He can bring order to the most disordered and messy aspects of my life just as He shaped the earth out of what was “formless and void.”

So when it comes to the things that just don’t seem to change in me, it’s best for me to “let go, and let God.” I struggle and strive to do the work of self-improvement, only to fail at the first sign of stress.

But when I call on the name of Jesus and bring the messy disorder of it all to Him, He sifts through the mud and mire and brings forth treasure.

It takes honesty, though, the heart-felt, soul-bearing truth when we finally just say, “God, this is a mess. I can’t do it. I’ve tried. I’m a failure at this. I’ve done it again. I’ve fallen into the pit.”

When we finally stop pretending to be perfect, then and only then, can Jesus get busy creating, forming, cleaning, and ordering the mess we’ve brought to His feet.

Lisa Harper wrote,

Our Redeemer will carefully help us sort the treasures from the trash. If we’ll just be honest about the emotional boxes we’ve squirreled away, Jesus will take charge of the cleaning process (Stumbling Into Grace).

Our honesty allows God to do the dirty work of changing us. So, even when it’s painful, and even when it’s slow, and even when it’s hard, we know that we really aren’t staying the same. The lessons may be the same-old, same-old, and yet our never-changing, immutable God teaches us a bit more and goes a little bit deeper.

We’re growing. Sometimes in shoots and spurts. Sometimes in painful inches.

Sometimes we can’t see the change at all, but our roots far below the surface are digging deeper down, planting us firm into the soil so that God can do the visible work later without toppling us right on over.

We’re changing. But, praise God, He’s not. He’s what really never changes. With all His patience, and all His grace, with the love that manages to see beauty in our mess, He’s the Ever-Faithful Creator and we His beloved creation.

What messes do you need to hand over to our Creator God today?

Originally posted 11/4/2011

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

The sky is falling (or is that the cheesecake?)

May 28, 20142 Comments

The last time I made cheesecake, it fell on my daughter’s head.

True story.

We loaded up that brand new, never-before-used springform pan with cream cheese and sugar and eggs and all the yummy, gooey goodness of cheesecake batter.

I lifted up the hefty weight of this New York-style cheesecake and just as I made the move over her head and towards the kitchen, the bottom of the pan just collapsed and out ran the cheesecake all into her hair and down onto her forehead and back and hands.

Even after an emergency bath, she smelled delicious.

Their grandparents arrived for a visit and handed the girls hard hats to wear while baking, just in case mom decided to make cheesecake again.

So, I’m browsing through recipes for summer picnics and I see this cheesecake covered with cherries and consider the possibilities.

But I also consider my daughter’s reaction.

Cheesecake? I hate cheesecake. It’ll fall on my head.

As if every time I bake, she’s in the line of fire. Or that every cheesecake ends in a messy implosion and a dessert shampoo.

She is, in effect, terrified of cheesecake. Or, to be more precise, afraid of being present while I’m baking cheesecake.

All this month, I’m pursuing the presence of Christ by enjoying the Creativity of our Creator God, and in between pictures of desserts and ingredient lists and recipe instructions, I’m thinking of what to do when the sky falls, the world caves in, or when the cheesecake unexpectedly slams down on your head.

Truly I have these terrors of my own, restless anxiety and sleep-stealing fears that leave me pacing before God’s throne long into the night.

Like Change: The way it shifts my life and maybe I’m tossed a little off-balance, all that routine and familiarity disturbed by the unexpected and unknown.

What is it about that unplanned phone call, the shifting of an expectation, the closing of a door, the altering of a plan? It knocks me right off of my two solidly planted feet and I’m grabbing a hard hat for fear of the sky (or a cheesecake) falling onto my hapless self.

But change is one thing that’s constant in this life.

Here’s what’s also constant: God’s presence. His help. His perfect plan. His love.

The Psalmist said:

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
(Psalm 46:1-2 ESV).

Because, after all, God didn’t just create this world and then let it go. It’s still all in His hands.

So, I’m doing all this fighting, all this power-praying asking God to please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top, do not let things change….

But maybe I’m praying against the work He wants to do for me, and maybe even the work He wants to do in me.

Like those Jewish captives who had been carried off to Babylon and lived there under Nebuchadnezzar’s reign and then Beltashazzar’s.

Maybe they always longed for home and Jerusalem, but they lived day in and day out in a Babylonian city and under Babylonian laws.

Slowly that foreign city became home.

Then came those Medes and Persians… conquering the empire with a regime change, shaking up every ‘constant’ the people had in that day-in-and-day-out life.

What if Daniel had fought against it? What if those righteous captives had asked God to please just keep things the same? What if they set up prayer vigils pleading with God to keep that conquering nation at bay? What if they had clung to the known and rejected the unknown?

Even if they were captives, after all, at least they knew what this captivity was like.

But they would have missed out on the blessing God planned for them.

And so might I.

Long before He ever allowed Jerusalem’s walls to fall, long before Israel’s captivity began, God ordained the time it would end and that King Cyrus of the Medes and Persians would be the one to send His people back home.

He promised change and the change was for their benefit.

He promises this for me, too:

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18 NIV).

All these changes around me are so that He can do a changing work in me and transform me to be more like Jesus.

So, what do I want, after all?

Maybe I’ll need to wear a hard hat, and yet I’ll choose His presence, wherever that takes me.

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

When you can’t keep up with it all…maybe you’re not supposed to

May 23, 20142 Comments

My older girls picked up their knitting needles this week.

They have big plans of what they can make with one ball of yarn and two thick needles: Hats with pom poms to match stripey scarves for every family member and friend.

For now, I tell them: Keep it simple. Practice the steps, row after row. No need for fancy patterns or agendas. Just stitch after stitch until they are even and right.

We’ve corrected our fair share of lost stitches, tangled yarn and strangely elaborate knots. Mostly, though, we’re fighting against extra.

I started my oldest girl out with 15 little loops and within 3 rows, she’d nearly doubled the length of her project. I counted them out—27 stitches now. We counted out 5 stitches for my next daughter and she immediately increased that to 10.

It’s not purposeful, of course. Just an inadvertent grabbing of yarn in the wrong place, slipping on two loops where there should be only one, until finally their project has doubled in size. And if I let them continue unhindered, it’d triple and more.

So I pull out the row and start them again.

This is how you grab just one loop at a time. This is how you count your stitches after each row.

But it’s just so easy with momentary distractions and the way we pick up speed to do this, too.

This month, I’m learning to create in order to draw near to the presence of our Creator God. As I pull out these knots of string, I think how God is at work in me.

He starts me out with 15 simple loops of yarn. He establishes the rhythm and the pattern, and He measures out the resources so I’ll have enough for all I need.

I focus at first and watch each stitch carefully.

Then I begin to rush and think about other things. People ask me questions. I look away instead of on my project.

Somehow I’ve slipped on extra stitches. God asked me to do 15. Just 15. So simple. He gave me enough.

But now I have 30 and I’m frantically working, trying to keep up with it all. I’m running out of resources and fretting over how I’ll ever be sufficient for all this need.

When I finally hand over the tangled mess to this patient and gracious God, He takes me back, eliminates the excess and starts me over again. Just 15 stitches, Heather. I only asked You to do these. No more. Nothing extra. And I’ve given You all You need, more than enough, for this alone.

It’s busyness, of course, that rushes us into grabbing more. We say “Yes” when He wants us to say “No.” We feel pressured into volunteering and there’s the pride that convinces us that we can save the day.

Usually, it’s all good things: Bible studies, meetings, committees, volunteering and relationships. Then we find ourselves doubling up those stitches again, and when we read those words of Jesus, they don’t even make sense. How could He promise us this when we feel so worn?

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30 NKJV)

There’s another way, though, that those stitches sneak right on. It’s not busyness; it’s expectations. We tell ourselves what a Good Mom, a Good Wife, a Godly Woman and a True Friend does.

We’ve condemned ourselves right there, always trying to measure up to some perfect standard, tossing on stitches until we just collapse in failure and then we feel it: I’m a failure and a mess. I can’t keep up with it all, even these 15 stitches. Not like “her,” so perfect and together.

But God didn’t ask us to be perfect. Or to be like “her.”

He doesn’t impose impossible standards or withhold grace.

In the Message, the same verses in Matthew say:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly(Matthew 11:28-30 MSG).

It takes purposeful determination to protect the few stitches God’s entrusted to us, to fall into those unforced rhythms of grace rather than frantic rushing and condemnation. No slipping on extra loops of string, not with busyness and commitments or expectations and burdensome requirements.

Protect what He’s asked You to do and do it well, with all Your heart and mind, knowing that He’s given you all you need for just this much and no more.

Originally published May 31, 2013

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

Oh, the stories I could tell

May 19, 20141 Comment

It takes an entire day for the job, but finally it’s done.

That morning I had dashed out to the garage and opened several huge Rubbermaid bins to find the sealed bags of clothes I needed. Having three girls means we own girls’ clothing in every size for every season and when it’s time to transition from size to size it’s a chore.

Oh my, is it a chore.

I sorted through the dressers and in the closets. I pulled out piece by piece of clothing from the bins and covered my living room and kitchen in piles for this size and that season and this child and that one.

Then I washed all of the “new” clothes, dried them, folded them and hung them on hangers. Photo by: Martin Damen; Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_wolfelarry'>wolfelarry / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Packing away the old size, I dashed out to the garage once more and then returned inside to collapse on the sofa with a cup of tea.

Done!

It isn’t without its share of memories, this sorting through old clothes.

I pulled out the outfits and remembered the preschool programs, the weddings, the birthdays, and the handmade treasures…

It’s like flipping through the pages of a photo album and I find myself telling the stories to my daughters as I fold down the ruffles and lace.

I tell them how I know exactly at what age my oldest daughter decided she had to wear dresses, all dresses, all the time—even nightgowns instead of pajama tops and bottoms.

I know it because in the size 4T bag of clothes I find dress after dress after dress. You’ve never seen so many dresses: Dresses for play and for church and for school and for special occasions and everything in between.

I stretch out on my living room floor and sew a button onto a shirt while my youngest daughter runs her fingers through the buttons in the tin.

And I tell about visiting my great-grandmother’s house when I was a girl and playing with her tins of colorful buttons and stacking her empty spools into towers.

We moms are storytellers so often, the caretakers of the family saga, the ones who remember grandma, great-grandma, and the babies, the births, the marriages, the days both joyful and hard.

So I take time to give my daughters this heirloom: these memories, these stories, these word pictures from the past.

It’s more than just generation-to-generation storytelling, though. I consider this as I sew and tell those stories that Saturday afternoon.

All this month, I am drawing near to the presence of Christ by creating beauty, and this is the truth I find: That God’s creative work in our lives compels us to tell others about Him and what He has done. This is a story we have to tell…

The Psalmists urged us to:

Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! (Psalm 105:2 NIV).

Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does (Psalm 96:3 NLT).

I want my life to be this perpetual testimony of God’s grace and kindness and the giving Him glory.

I want this so that when others talk about me–when they tell the story of my life—they will talk about Him. Let my story be utterly wrapped up in His Story, indistinguishable and inseparable.

Tabitha was a woman who followed Christ in her city of Joppa and “was always doing good and helping the poor.”

When she died, the people called for Peter to come and as he stood there in the room with her body: “All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas (Tabitha) had made while she was still with them” (Acts 9:39).

I stand in front of my own piles of clothes and remember our family stories.

That’s what the widows did. They held up physical reminders of Tabitha’s past, of her kindness and self-sacrifice, of her service, of the way she used her gifts to glorify God and bless others.

So Peter called for Tabitha to come back from the dead and even this became part of her story, her testimony to God.

Amazingly, “she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.” (Acts 9:40-42).

The miracle started with a woman serving others in the simplest of ways.

It continued with the women in her town telling this story to Peter.

And it ended with God’s glory and with many people believing in Him.

We also are storytellers about the heroes of faith from the past and about the God who does wonders.

And we also are forming our own story, serving, loving, giving and trusting that the legacy we leave is one that gives glory to the God who saved us, even if it’s as simple as buttons and sashes and telling the tale to our children.

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

Originally published February 18, 2013

Clean-Up on Aisle 12–Mom-breakdown in progress

May 12, 2014Leave a comment

I had a mom breakdown in the ice cream section of the grocery store.

A few weeks ago, we had been out all day in the sun and warmth and I had one of those moments when you feel like an extra-generous, extra-spontaneous, extra-sweet, just extra good mom.

I’ll treat them to ice cream, I thought.

But I wanted to be economical and efficient. Rather than sit and eat at an ice cream shop or run into the convenience store for individually and outrageously priced frozen goodies, we parked the minivan and headed into the grocery store.

I thought surely we could pick one box of ice cream bars to share.

But one child wanted Popsicles and one wanted Klondike Bars and one wanted Nestle Drumsticks…

No one wanted what anyone else wanted.

I have come to appreciate the power of majority rules, of democracy in action, of voting and sticking with the outcome of the family vote.

And I have also come to appreciate the power of the maternal dictatorship.

Either way, this is how it goes with my brood of three older children (the baby has yet to express an opinion on these matters).

What should we pack for our picnic lunch: hard-boiled eggs or sandwiches?

Egg. Egg. Sandwich.

What should we do to enjoy the day: go to the park or take your bikes out riding?

Bike. Bike. Park.

But what I realize after my mini-breakdown in the grocery store freezer section over our complete inability to ever just make things easy for once by being the same….

….is that easy and the same negates the complex and unique majesty of God’s creativity.

God is limitless in His capacity to design and form individuality.

And, oh how breathtaking the view when we see our kids as wonderfully unique.

This month, I’m drawing near to the presence of Christ and the heart of the Creator by dabbling in creativity myself.

I thought that meant glue sticks and fabric, a sewing machine, or recipes, or scissors and paper. But yesterday I celebrated Mother’s Day with my kids and thought what greater honor than this—God asks us to be part of the creating of life and the molding of character.

I may be a hot glue gun failure and hopelessly inept with all things “arts and crafts,” but God still invites me in as a mom to the creativity of parenting.

I see this quote from Mary Southerland in my Facebook feed the day before Mother’s Day and it rumbles inside my head all Sunday afternoon:

Motherhood requires great sacrifice and limitless energy, but to invest your time and beset efforts into a child, and to watch that child grow and develop is to be part of the creative majesty of life itself.

We moms can chatter away endlessly in checkout lines and in the waiting room at the ballet studio and on the sidelines of that soccer field all with this one conclusion: Each child is so different.

I have four little ones and it’s not just ice cream choice or lunch packing at issue. It takes all my mom-focus and mom-energy to know each of my babies, really know them, know those motivations and fears, those funny bones and those tender hearts, know the likes and dislikes.

And then just as I know them, they change. A new favorite color. An overcoming of a fear. A new worry. Now they need me. Now they don’t.

Every day as a mom is made new.

I must roll up my sleeves and dig my hands deep in the soil of their child-hearts—tending and weeding, pruning and feeding, watering and helping them, not just grow, but thrive and bloom in maturity and fruitfulness.

I must change and adapt. What worked for one child doesn’t work for another. What worked yesterday doesn’t work today.

This is no assembly line art. No paint-by-number or dot-to-dot project.

This requires masterful creativity of the highest form, without instructions or samples and with a million voices shouting at you to “do it this way because it’s the only right way.”

I’m not woman enough for that. I can’t even sew a simple project without ripping out stitches and starting anew. How can God trust me with these children?

But God doesn’t ask us to be perfect moms or perfect women.

Instead, He gives us this grace—the invitation to the creative journey of motherhood and the promise of His presence along the way.

And He gives us this mercy of fresh starts and short memories, of brand new days, of forgiving hugs and lay-it-all-out-there-honesty, of goodnight kisses and tiny hands, of godly examples and those who look back and say, “Way to go, Mom. Don’t give up. You are doing a great job.”

And He promises us the help we need:

The Lord is my strength and my shield;
my heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart leaps for joy,
and with my song I praise him.
Psalm 28:7

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

A Curtain, Alice, Cinderella and God’s Custom Design

May 9, 2014May 9, 2014Leave a comment

She wanted to be Alice, she said.

This year, they celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday by dressing as their favorite literary character at my kids’ school.

We have the world’s largest dress-up collection. This should have been easy.

But we do not own a pre-made costume for Alice during her whimsical Wonderland adventures, which meant we needed to make one.

Creativity, sewing, costuming—not my best things.

But surely, I thought, someone in my town must have once owned a white pinafore-style apron perfect for an Alice costume and large enough to fit a third grade girl.

And surely said person wanted to pass that on to someone else by donating it to a local thrift store or selling it at a consignment shop or yard sale on the very weekend when I needed such an apron.

So, we shopped. Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_wolfelarry'>wolfelarry / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

All afternoon I shopped.

I did not find an apron.

I did, however, find a curtain with white eyelets and ruffles reminiscent of an Alice apron.

Many women could have snipped and sewn that curtain into an apron in about 15 minutes.

I took an hour or more. It was an extended evening project complete with ripping out the seams where I messed up and re-sewing what I got wrong.

But in the end, I held up that custom-made curtain-to-apron (complete with a pocket!!!) and felt real and true pride like I may never have felt before in my life.

I had overcome my allergy to crafts and my sewing machine phobia. I had labored and been found worthy. I had toiled and reveled in my success.

Or something like that. I was super proud.

Last week, my second daughter announced she needed a pauper Cinderella costume for her song in the school talent show and that meant she needed an apron.

But not an Alice apron. A Cinderella apron.

See the difference?

Dear children, have mercy.

So, I adjust the original design and adapt, turning the curtain that had become Alice into Cinderella.

At some point in the 9 years of being a mom to daughters, I have become a seamstress who produces custom designs; not a good one, perhaps, but after all, we all have our limits.

And while I’m still apt to prick my finger with the needle and still have to pull out the instruction manual every time I have to re-thread my sewing machine or my bobbin (wow, I know what a bobbin is!!), still I sew.

Still I stumble along into creativity so that I can draw near in the presence of the Creator.

Because God, He is this expert artist.

I read in Colossians:

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him (Colossians 1:15 ESV)

In He is My All, Debbie Alsdorf writes:

“By Him and for Him. Those few words give new meaning to my life. They are my personal slogan. They explain what I love for and who I live for….those words—by Him and for Him—-simplify my purpose and meaning. They simplify my choices and help me focus on what’s important (He is My All, p. 82).

God teaches me between stitches and threads that He is the Custom Designer.

You and me—Alice, Cinderella—whoever we are, we are by Him and for Him, handmade.

Not just who we are, either, but He weaves in this also: what we’re placed here to do.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

You are made by Him and for His purposes and what you’re doing right here and now, it may not seem life-changing, world-altering, stage-worthy, award-winning, or crowd-gathering, but it is of value to Him.

This home…this husband…these children….this ministry….this friendship….this job….this calling….this waiting….this service….

He has designed You for this…

and this for you.

So, feeling insufficient? Feeling restless? Feeling unworthy? Feeling unnecessary? Feeling uncertain? Feeling overwhelmed?

Remember His custom design and the way He creates perfection, and the way He creates beauty all in His 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 ‘Create Beauty’?

Twist, Wrap, Glue….Trust: Pursuing the Presence of Christ Through Creativity

May 7, 2014May 7, 20142 Comments

I don’t really create so much as I copy and adapt.

Those pictures on Pinterest, the photos in that project book, the links on Facebook, all entice me to pull out the hot glue gun, some fabric or paper scraps and make a huge mess, take up far more time than I expect, and finally gaze with pride on what I created…..I mean copied.

I’ve been wrapping strips of fabric into flowers and covering my hands into a hot mess of “Liquid Stitch” and stabbing my fingers with the needle when I try to sew the button into the center.

I’ve taken someone else’s ideas and made them my own.

I’ve wrapped the fabric too loosely now and my flower unravels. I begin again. Twist, wrap, glue, twist, wrap, glue.

As I try and try (and try) again, I mediate on this:

God started from nothing.

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (Genesis 1:2 NIV).

No McCall’s pattern. No Pinterest. No step-by-step directions on the DIY channel. No classes at Michael’s or demonstrations at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

He takes that void, that nothingness, and He brings the fullness of His plans and design with the power of His Word alone. Then He “saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:25 NIV).

In May, I’m continuing my 12 months of pursuing the presence of Christ by sewing and baking, gardening and gluing. I’m ‘creating’ because this is who God is. This is His nature. His character.

If I want to know the joy of His presence, then I join Him in His activity.

Sally Clarkson writes in The Mission of Motherhood:

Creativity is such an integral part of the image of God within all of us… Whenever we adapt an idea or try a different approach to an issue or give our personal spin to a particular endeavor, we are learning a little more about our God-given nature and the nature of our creative God.

God….He’s Creator. God…He’s creative.

He creates beauty. He brings light into the dark places and hope into the hopeless situations. He brings order into chaos and joy from mourning.

I pause and examine the flower I’ve made with a critic’s eye. It’s not exactly like that Pinterest picture. Nothing I make ever really is.

But the beauty of its originality grows on me. Maybe I like it well enough. It’s perhaps a little unexpected, maybe a little unplanned, but it’s a flower and it’s fabric and in it’s own particular way, it’s created for beauty.

So, why do I insist that this Creator God who is able to do “far more than all I ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3) and can speak a few words out into a formless universe and create a planet of complex life and intricate and breathtaking beauty….

Why do I insist that He do things my way?

I do this. I pray, “God, here’s my need. I’m hopeless here without You. Please reach right here into this pit and save me and here’s how….”

I’ve given Him agendas, to-do lists, blueprints, and step-by-step instructions. I’ve given Him 5-year plans and 10-year plans and custom orders for the needs I face that day.

I cling to my plan and argue like a lawyer in a courtroom before an unyielding judge, and then with just a few simple words He creates and I am stunned into silence and worship.

What God does over and over is create an entirely unexpected solution for the mess I’m in.

Yet, it’s perfect. It’s exquisite.

I think of Mary, loving Jesus as she did, the mother who rocked Him and sang to Him in the night.

She brought to Him a problem in John 2 at the Cana wedding feast. No more wine for the guests, she told Him. The host of the party would be so embarrassed, she told Him.

And that’s where she stopped.

She didn’t tangle Him all up in her expectations, her solutions, her suggestions or demands.

No, she laid that problem right into His hands and trusted Him to care for it in His own way.

She gave Him the opportunity to create.

I look at the stack of fabric flowers I’ve made and they form for me a prayer:

God, help me remember that You are the Masterful Creator and I can trust You. You make all things beautiful in Your time. Whatever need I have or problem I face, I leave in Your hands.

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

Finding Room to Breathe: A 12-month pursuit of the presence of Christ
January: Be Still and Know
February: Pray Simply
March: Unplug
April: Enjoy Beauty
May: Create Beauty

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Category: ‘Presence’

A family motto for summer

We need grace.

We receive grace.

We show grace.

Black Tea Strong and Sweet with a Drop of Milk

My daughter ran away

I Bring Mess; He Brings Beauty

The sky is falling (or is that the cheesecake?)

When you can’t keep up with it all…maybe you’re not supposed to

Oh, the stories I could tell

Clean-Up on Aisle 12–Mom-breakdown in progress

A Curtain, Alice, Cinderella and God’s Custom Design

Twist, Wrap, Glue….Trust: Pursuing the Presence of Christ Through Creativity

We need grace.

We receive grace.

We show grace.

My devotional for today:

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