What Super-Hearing looks like when you are a parent….

June 13, 2014June 13, 2014Leave a comment

My husband has super hearing. He can detect the slow-but-steady drip of a faucet across the house.

I also have super hearing. I can hear a baby cry in the middle of the night from the other side of our tiny home despite being in a deep sleep myself and without the use of a baby monitor.

Someone hand us our capes because we have earned them.

They promise in parenting books that you’ll know your baby’s cry from those of all the other infants wailing in the church nursery.

Not only that, your hearing will be so fine-tuned to your baby, you’ll know the difference between a hungry cry, a frustrated cry, a hurt cry, and “I’m crying for no other reason on earth than that I would like my mommy to hold me right now while standing up and rocking back and forth and maybe even a lullaby would be nice!!!!”

I read that for the first time about 10 years ago when I was pregnant with my first child and preparing to be the Best Mom Ever and thought, “What mysterious magic is this?”

I’m a concrete person. Abstract assurances that I’ll figure this whole super-mom-hearing-thing out flustered me. What if I didn’t know the difference between her cries? Couldn’t they help a new mom out with a CD recording of audio samples?

Track 1: Hurt baby.
Track 2: Hurt baby variation 1: Gas
Track 3: Hurt baby variation 2: Teething
Track 4: Tired baby.
Track 5: Hungry baby.
Track 6: Frustrated baby.
Track 7: Needs a diaper change baby.
Track 8: Nothing is wrong, but baby just needs to cry right now and nothing you are going to do is going to help her stop crying. Welcome to parenting.

So I’m reading this promise today:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15 ESV)

and this:

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6 ESV).

And I realize anew the joy of this: God knows our cry.

Not like us, though, taking our time figuring it all out. Trying it out, getting it wrong, starting again, making progress. Slowly we learn to recognize His voice from the noisy mess of the crowd and the world and the flesh and the Enemy.

But He knows. He opens those arms of adoption wide and He says, “You can call to me and I’ll hear you. I know Your voice. You don’t need to call me Master….you can cry out, ‘Abba! Father!”

The neglected, the abused, the abandoned, the orphaned may scream for attention and clamor for rescue and notice from earthly fathers who aren’t there or who fail.

Yet, we’ve been given this special gift, the privilege to cry as beloved children of a perfectly loving Father.

How often do we fail to call to Him, though?

We cry out in self-pity. We cry in anger. We cry in accusation perhaps or worry or doubt.

I do this sometimes. I find myself all knee-deep in the mess and want to whine, complain, argue, rant, or plead.

And all I really need to do is hand that trouble right over to Him. “Abba! Father!” It’s the cry that He hears. It’s the cry He knows. It’s the cry that stirs His heart to compassion and receives His undivided attention.

This is our faith-cry, knowing we need help, knowing He’ll help us.

It’s not worry or fretting, anxiety or terror. It’s trusting that when we bring Him our need, He brings us His presence.

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.

How to Clean the Bathroom the Day After Mother’s Day (With Joy)

May 14, 2014Leave a comment

For Mother’s Day last year, they formed a parade in my honor.

I heard the commotion outside the bathroom door as I finished brushing my teeth.

At the sound of the whispering and shuffling, I opened the door to find three daughters and one husband singing, “Happy Mother’s Day to you…” their own take on the familiar birthday tune.

My youngest waved two hand-made flags, my oldest led the singing with her present in hand, my middle girl smiled in her Groucho Marx funny glasses. They had assigned my husband a triangle and given him handwritten sheet music so he knew when to play his notes.

Happy Mother’s Day to you. (tap, tap)

Happy Mother’s Day, dear Mommy. (tap, tap)

Happy Mother’s Day to you. (tap, tap, tap)

They labored with love and presented handmade gifts, so thoughtful and sweet, and they were so proud of their offerings. More than just handwritten notes, they had created dot-to-dot puzzles and coloring sheets for me with hidden messages.

All day my daughters fussed at me for pouring the cereal, clearing the table, or buckling my youngest girl’s seatbelt.

You shouldn’t have to do anything today, Mom. That’s what my middle girl assured me.

Mother’s Day, all that recognition and thanks, all those assurances that the daily grind that has ground you right down is noticed and worth it and they appreciate it after all and maybe all those times you felt invisible someone actually saw you, that’s such a beautiful gift to a woman. It fills her soul right up so that she’s able to pour out more.

Parades, though, all have endings. A final float, the Santa sleigh or the police escort brings up the rear and everyone packs up their lawn chairs and bags of candy and treks back to their cars.

And we wake up the day after Mother’s Day and love without the flags and songs.

The phone is ringing, the laundry spinning, the dishwasher humming, and I’m running through the to-do list today.

But it’s when I scrubbed the toilet, of all things, that I remembered as I grumbled a little with that silent whine that no one else knows about except God.

How it must sadden Him so, how disappointed He must be by my heart’s ugly attitude as I serve, as I wash feet without joy and give without cheerfulness of heart.

There I scrub, bleach poured out and I’m working fast just to get it all done, when I remember—yesterday, they made a parade for me.

These gifts of God, my family so precious, those I watched last night after they were in deep sleep, breathing slow, hair tangled all over pillows, fleece blankets wrapped tight like cocoons around them. I remember that I had prayed such deep thanks for these blessings.

And I felt so overwhelmed by that grace we can’t ever understand, how God trusted me with these children and the love of this husband. This is the great privilege and highest honor.

Serving with joy, that’s my heart bent deep in gratitude to God.

It all feels easier for a while because I remember. The laundry and the toilets and scrubbing the toothpaste off that sink: this isn’t mundane and annoying. It’s the blessing and the gift.

But the challenge is here: How to remember the parade a week from now, a month, this time next year? It’s always in those moments after the high of a mountaintop that we can crash right down the hardest because we have the farthest to fall.

Like Elijah, sitting on that mountain all alone after defeating 450 prophets of Baal in a spiritual showdown with supernatural fire. It was after the victory that he ran away in fear. After all that boldness, there was terror and loneliness and suicidal despair.

How could he forget, I wonder?

Maybe he hadn’t learned to live without the parade.

Sometimes God speaks in the whirlwind, the earthquake and the fire. Sometimes it’s grand and showy.

But not always.

Oh no, sometimes it’s that “still small voice” and this we forget in the days long after the Mother’s Day parade when we’ve started to feel a little overlooked and invisible again. We forget how to see God in the quiet and the everyday.

Zechariah 4:10 asks: “Who dares despise the day of small things?”

The small things, the quiet ways, the stillness, the everyday, the service without parades, the scrubbing down bathrooms without whining….that’s where we can find beauty, where we hear God, where our worship brings Him joy.

Originally posted May 13, 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’?

14 Days of Prayer for Your Marriage with 1 Corinthians 13 (plus a Free Printable!)

May 2, 2014May 1, 20149 Comments

When I was a girl earning my badges in the kids’ program in my home church, I had to memorize the whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 in the King James Version.

It’s stuck. I can still rattle off bunches of it.

But I hope it really stuck…you know? Not the rote memorization, but the revelation of what love is. God loves us this way. And He says even if we’re performing the most outrageous acts of self-sacrifice and service and we’re not doing it out of love, then it’s just meaningless drivel.

So, I’m praying for the next two weeks through this “Love Chapter” for my marriage because I want it to be meaning-full and I want it to reflect God’s love to the world around us. Perhaps you will be praying for your own marriage, too?

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Cor. 13:4-8 NIV).

Day One, Love is Patient:

Lord, today let us respond with patience and show each other grace. We know that no one changes over night and none of us is perfect. We make mistakes. We forget, we grow careless, and we become distracted by life and stress. Please let us be patient with each other, with our marriage, with our circumstances, just as you are so patient with us. Help us not to push, nudge, or give up on each other, but instead may we give each other room and grace to grow more like You.

Day Two, Love is Kind:

God, it’s too easy to forget the simple beauty of kindness. We can neglect courtesy and consideration. Help us to be thoughtful and kind to one another, showing each other respect and attention in our words and deeds. Stir our hearts to remember the small things like holding doors, making phone calls, performing acts of service, putting the other’s needs above our own. As it says in Ephesians 4:32, may we “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave You.”

Day Three, Love Does Not Envy:

Lord, As it says in The Message, “Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.” Let this be true of us. Help us appreciate the gift you’ve given us in this marriage and in each other and cultivate contentment and gratitude in our hearts. We don’t need to compare our spouse or our marriage to anyone else’s. Instead, thank You for the marriage You’ve given us. Please remind us throughout the day of all the reasons we fell in love in the first place.

Day Four, It does not Boast, it is not Proud:

Jesus, at that Last Supper with Your disciples, You bent so low and You poured that water over their grimy feet. You, Our Savior, came “not to be served, but to serve” (Matthew 20:28). May we never be too proud to serve one another in the humblest of ways. We might think, “That’s his responsibility; that’s her job.” In our selfishness, we might feel like we’ve given so much already and how could we give any more? But we bend low today. We lay down our rights and our pride and choose to serve our spouse just as You served us.

Day Five, It does not dishonor others:

God, may we show each other honor in all we do and say. Guard our mouths. May our words be used to encourage, praise, and build one another up, not tear each other down, find fault, or trample all over each other’s feelings. When we’re with others, don’t let us fall into those traps of complaining about marriage or our spouses, but instead let the way we talk about one another help others to know the beauty of marriage the way You designed it.

Day Six, It is Not Self-Seeking:

Father, we live in a “me first” world. We’re told to “look out for number one” and to take care of ourselves above all. But that is not Your way. Jesus “made himself nothing” and humbled himself, choosing “even death on a cross” for us—for me (Philippians 2:6-8). Today, let us choose Your way over the world’s way: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” (Philippians 2:3-4).

Day Seven, It is Not Easily Angered:

God, forgive me for the times I’ve reacted in anger instead of responding with grace. And so often, too often really, we can make the smallest issues into the biggest deals. Help me not to be easily angered. Today, may we overlook petty offenses and minor bothers. Redirect our vision to focus on what is good rather than what we think is wrong. Remind us of what is important and learn to let the inessentials pass by unnoticed.

Day Eight, It Keeps No Record of Wrongs:

Lord, if You kept a record of all my sins, I couldn’t stand up under the weight of them all. I’d be buried in accusations and proof of my failures. But You show grace. May we likewise extend grace to each other, as it says in 1 Peter: “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love coves a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8). If we excel at anything in this marriage, may it be at forgiveness. When Satan tries to drag all that trash up from the past, we ask that You help us choose forgiveness instead, choose to let it go, choose to move toward one another instead of apart, choose to rebuild trust, choose moving on.

Day Nine, Love Does Not Delight In Evil, but Rejoices With the Truth:

God, help us rejoice with our spouse when they rejoice and mourn when they mourn. Let us be a place of refuge and safety for them when they share their struggles, fears, emotions, hopes and dreams. Help us to “have each other’s back” all the time and to be such a team that we delight and take pleasure in what is good and true and battle together against what is evil and wrong.

Day Ten, Love Bears All Things (ESV, NKJV):

Lord, we are so thankful that when there are burdens to bear, You’ve called us to bear them together. As it says in Your Word, “Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 NLT). May we bear all things together. May we carry each other to the cross and help each other each day. If one of us is weak, may the other be strong in You.

Day Eleven, Always trusts:

God, build trust in our marriage. Create that environment of honesty and truth. But more than that, may we always trust You to care for us and to guide us. We know that start to finish, this marriage, our lives, our family is in Your hands. We know You are trustworthy, so faithful and full of merciful, loyal love for us. We pray that our home and our marriage reflect that to those around us.

Day Twelve, Always hopes:

Lord, we don’t want to ever lose hope. We know that You have a plan and a future for us as individuals and as a couple, and we thank You for that. Thank You that You never give up on us and we pray that we never give up on each other. Each morning, let us wake with hope for a new day, for fresh starts, and for the work that You want to do in us.

Day Thirteen, Always Perseveres

God, remind us during the hard days, when we’re hurt or angry, tired, frustrated, or broken, that You are with us. Help us to persevere through every season of difficulty. Draw us together during those times instead of letting circumstances drive us apart. Where there is distance, bring intimacy. Where there is bitterness, bring reconciliation. Where there is coldness, bring passion. Where there is pain, bring healing.

Day Fourteen, Love Never Fails

Father, Your love for us doesn’t fail. You just never give up on us. Thank You for that unfathomable and astonishing love when we are so unworthy. We pray that our marriage will grow ever more beautiful each day, not fading, not failing. In every single season, we pray that You will help our relationship thrive. Teach us how to avoid the pitfalls in communication, in intimacy, in finances, in conflict, in friendship, in parenting and in every way so that we will always be putting on love, which binds every other virtue together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:14).

In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Will you join me in praying for your marriage for 14 days? If you would like a printout of these prayers to place in Your Bible or journal or maybe on your fridge or bathroom mirror, you can click here for the free printable!

If you’d like to see the 12 Verses I pray for my husband, you can click here!

Dear Lauren…On Your Birthday

April 21, 2014Leave a comment

Dear Lauren,

You have been growing.

I didn’t need you to step up into the measuring booth at Busch Gardens to tell me that. No need for a doctor’s statistics, a growth chart, or a scale to verify what I’ve known all year.

I’ve seen it.

This one day we celebrate another year of you, but I’ve seen God-at-work not just one magic day, but day-by-day, tiny changes, tiny steps, signs of the Holy Spirit at work.

And I’ve been celebrating all along because oh, how I have prayed for you. I have sunk right down onto my Mom-knees and prayed for you. In that minivan in those rare moments when I am all alone, I’m praying for you. And when I push that stroller down the Main Street of our town, I’m praying then, too.

Praying that God digs the roots of faith deep in your heart and mind.
Praying that He helps you make wise decisions and that you choose good friends.
Praying that you use all those many gifts for His glory and that with discipline and self-control you excel like I know you can.
Praying that you overcome paralyzing fear and the emotions that overwhelm.
Praying that you willingly choose Him and His Word over every worldly distraction.

This spiritual journey, this maturing and growing up, it’s full of stepping forward and then stepping right back at times, full of a million right choices and then those times when we get it wrong.

But we’re growing all the while. Mistakes can often be better teachers than successes.

So, we rejoice because we see how you’ve chosen excellence, responsibility, discipline, and giving it your best in school.

We celebrate how you’ve gotten up early all year long to get ready for school on time without those morning breakdowns.

We marvel at how you sang those solos and stood on the stage and didn’t give in to fear or stage fright or excuses, but you did what we knew all along you could do.

And even on the days when maybe you don’t get it all perfect and right, remember this:

We love you.

You bristle at words like, “I love you” and don’t often let me just hug on you like this momma longs to do.

But in the million tiny ways I try to say it, I hope your heart knows the truth. Picking out those perfect gifts, slipping jokes into your lunch box, sitting across the school lunch table with you while you munch on carrot sticks, taping balloons and streamers and wrapping paper to your door the night before your birthday—-that’s “I love you” without the words because sometimes words fall short anyway.

We love who you are—that way you have of telling jokes, making those funny faces, sending your baby brother into hysterical fits of infant giggles.

We love your quick mind and the way you respond to praise, like the spring flowers reaching to the sun and blooming with all their might. Your teacher this year tells you all the time, “Great day today, Lauren. I’m proud of you, Lauren” and you just open up in her class. She has helped you shine.

The way he gives you these perfect teachers, it reminds me over and over that you are in His hands.

You’ve always been in His hands.

Way back when you were just this tiny squirming baby inside me and those doctors told me you were too small, you were high risk, maybe you weren’t growing as you should, even then God gave me one promise to hold on to: He’s got the Whole World in His hands.

And baby girl, that means Your World is in His hands. Even then when I couldn’t see your face save for a blurry image on an ultrasound screen, I knew His hands were big enough to hold you.

Now you’ve grown so much, but His hands are still just the right size to pick you up, to protect you, to guide you, to rescue you, to lift you high.

On your eighth birthday, I pray this for you:

My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-19 MSG).

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Dear Daughter, Remember that Nightmare About Divorce?

March 7, 20142 Comments

Dear daughter,

Remember that morning when I found you slipping quietly out of the bathroom into a corner of the house all alone?

I stopped that mad rush of cereal pouring, hair brushing, and shoe finding to smooth down your wild morning hair and ask if you were okay.

Those tears, the loud kind that burst uncontrollably out of your soul, they shook your whole body and I couldn’t understand what you were saying because those words stuck right in your throat.

A nightmare.

I rocked you just as if you were still my baby girl (even if your head touches my shoulders now).

What was it about?

I expect monsters, fire, death or even a bad grade on a test.

But you tell me one….slow….word….at a time: I dreamed you…..and……dad……got……divorced.

You stun me. We hadn’t fought. There was no tension in the home. No need to fear.

Hadn’t you watched us hug and kiss goodbye every morning? Hadn’t you seen me stop cooking that dinner and setting that table every evening to hug your dad and welcome him home for the night?

Why are you afraid?

But it wasn’t really about us at all. It’s about a scary world where marriages don’t often last and your friends split their time between dad’s house and mom’s house. It’s about a friend telling you, “My dad doesn’t love my mom anymore. He doesn’t love any of us.”

And even the safe place seems like shaky ground.

I tell you the truth.

How we are happily married and being together even now is joy.

I tell you how seriously we take that vow we made when we said, “I will love you forever” and slipped those rings onto our fingers.

Sure, we meant romance love and feeling love, but we also meant committed love, covenant love, I-will-make-our-marriage-a-priority love.

Divorce smashes the lives of good people, Christian people, godly women and honorable men. It’s real and ugly and I don’t want to sugarcoat the danger.

Sometimes even the best wife who has done everything right walks that hard road of aloneness and betrayal.

But I want you to know this, too. There were decisions I made as a teenage girl, as a single young woman, that made this marriage I have beautiful–not perfect perhaps, but lovely—from the start.

I want you to hear this wisdom: sometimes a good marriage starts when you’re 13 and that first boy asks you to the school dance. Remember this:

1. Do what God has called you to do—Don’t worry about boys, love, dating, or marriage. Focus on Jesus. Grow beautiful and strong in Him. Go to the college that’s right for you, not the one a boyfriend attends. Fulfill your calling and your potential. Don’t look for love; let God bring it to you.

2. Wait for God’s best—That first boy who asks you out isn’t necessarily “the one.” You are beautiful, smart, funny, strong, kind….Boys might swarm around you; don’t be swayed. I saved myself body, soul, and mind for the one man who was God’s best for me and your dad is totally worth it.

3. Make sure He’s in love with Jesus—Attending church twice a year, saying you love God but couldn’t be bothered with discipleship or Bible-reading or Christian service? That’s not loving Jesus. That’s calling yourself a Christian without the fruit. If you want to respect your husband as a spiritual leader, he needs to show that leadership before the wedding day.

4. Fall in love with your eyes wide open—You won’t find a perfect man. No person is perfect and no marriage is perfect either. Know what his flaws are in advance and be committed with a plan to love him, not change him.

5. Ask hard questions–Some couples marry without talking about kids, career plans, church, or money. Ask the hard questions before marriage. Don’t just shrug your shoulders and figure love will carry all. Love dies on battlefields like those all the time.

6. Give and Receive Respect–If he annoys you with stupid jokes, doesn’t understand or care about what you have to say, can’t hold a job, loses his temper easily, or embarrasses you in public now, he sure will later. Marry someone it’s easy to respect and be proud of. And, make sure he treats you as the precious gift from God that you are, valuing your opinion, not dominating you or devaluing you. Paul wrote to “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10 ESV). Make that your goal because kindness always matters. It matters when you’re dating, when you’re first married, and when you’ve been married 20 years. Give respect and kindness; expect respect and kindness

7. Build the friendship–That friendship you develop before marriage is what you should cultivate every year after “I do.” So when the kids are grown and gone, the freshness of young love fades, and your body ages and changes, you’ll still be best friends.

Marriage can be beautiful and holy, a sacred place where God transforms us to be more like Christ, where joy grows, selfless and sacrificial love blooms, and you help each other produce fruit as individuals and as one together.

This was my prayer for my own marriage on my wedding day. This is what I pray for you and I’m starting now:

For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be (Romans 5:2 The Living Bible).

Love,
Mom.

Making a Prayer Pail: How to get out of that same-old prayer rut

February 19, 2014January 11, 20163 Comments

My four-year-old always manages to surprise me with her prayers. She keeps them fresh. What rolls off her tongue is what is just rolling out of her heart and mind.

But she’s the exception.

We do this nightly round-robin of prayers as a family. Mostly, my family slips easily into a rut of prayers. I can tell you what one of my daughters will pray almost word-for-word every…single….night.

Not only does she stick to the same verbal prayer routine, she has taken to praying at lightning speed, like she gets extra spiritual bonus points for crossing the finish line of “Amen” in record time.

Prayer should be more than that, right?

This message is for me. I don’t want to trek over those same prayer grooves night after night. I don’t want to pray out of “should” or “must” or spiritual duty, doing little more than checking off that sacred to-do-list.

Prayer should be this great passion.

Too often, we forget this: That we are granted access before the very throne of our Mighty God by the grace of our Savior. Prayer brings us into His presence. It’s beautiful and intimate and it should knock me right off my feet really to realize that a God so great could care about the tiniest needs of my simple soul.

So, how to help us all shake off the routine of prayer? How to remind myself and my kids that we should be praying for our missionaries, our church leaders, our government, our teachers, our friends and family in addition to our own little needs?

I saw this idea shared at The Women’s Bible Cafe and had this moment of, “Oh my goodness, this is the best idea ever.” It’s not something I could just pin on Pinterest and never turn into reality in my own home. This was something that needed to actually happen.

Delfina Salas, the mom who inspired this awesome idea, gave me permission to make my own prayer pail and share the results with you.

She let her kids decorate a tiny bucket and some Popsicle sticks. Then they wrote on each stick a prayer prompt—a missionary name or something like ‘government leaders.’

At dinner, they choose one Popsicle stick and pray for whatever is written on it.

Some of you might use prayer calendars in a similar way to help you remember to pray for a variety of needs.

But me? A mom with four young kids? Popsicle sticks with prayer requests seems like a good fit!

So, here’s our prayer pail….

We included each family member, extended family, soldiers, government leaders, teachers and schools, pastors and church leaders, and three different missionary families we know from our church.

My heart is to make this happen:

The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live (1 Timothy 2:1-3 MSG).

Thank you so much, Delfina, for the suggestion and allowing me to share this idea with others!

Have you found ways to revive your prayer life or help your kids learn how to pray for others?

Our Family Valentine’s Tradition….

February 14, 2014February 14, 20142 Comments

It started on February 1st at dinner.

A construction paper heart sitting next to each plate on the dinner table.

Just a simple thing. After all, I’m no Martha Stewart of crafts, but snipping red, pink and white construction paper into hearts I can do.

Fourteen days of hearts x 4 people = 56 hand-cut paper hearts. Then, project complete, I laid the first heart out on the table and waited.

“What’s this?” my daughters asked and then turning it over they found the note: Fourteen things I love about you…

And there it was, the first of fourteen days’ worth of things I love about my husband and three daughters.

My middle girl figured it out first. “You mean we will get 14 hearts with 14 things you love about us?”

Yes, baby girl. One for each day of February until Valentine’s Day.

Soon, they were trading hearts, swapping them around the table to read what I wrote about others. Sometimes what I said made them giggle:

How you love to laugh and tell jokes….

The way you collect fun and unique objects like your rock collection….

The way you an talk in accents and mimic characters’ voices and make funny voices of your own….

And others made them grin a little sheepishly, a little precious, a little sweet, a little blessed to know someone sees beauty in them.

You are such a good friend, kind and compassionate….

You are so good at teaching others. It is one of the amazing ways God has gifted you….

You are great at encouraging others and telling them that they are doing a great job….

Within a few days, I was swatting hands away from the kitchen counter before dinner. They hovered around the kitchen, not to sneak a bite of food, but to sneak a peak at those love notes.

This joy, this privilege, this responsibility of loving these daughters of mine means I have a job, not to spoil them like unsatisfiable princesses, dooming their marriages by giving them unreasonable expectations of romance and fulfillment from their husbands.

Not that.

But this. Telling them—you’re precious and totally loved. I see Jesus in you and He made you beautiful and valuable.

So, don’t let your head be turned by any scruffy teenage boy who looks in your eyes for more than 2 seconds. You’re not some cheap thrill, there for his amusement and enjoyment, available for use and abuse so he can get what he wants without giving you some basics like respect, compassion, service, self-sacrifice, commitment, honor, and the like.

You don’t need to throw away your own identity and bury your amazing self in order to get the slightest second of attention from some guy who can’t even be bothered to hold the door open for you, or call me “Yes, ma’am,” or listen to what you have to say, or put God first in his life, or make you a priority.

My girls may be so far away from middle school drama and the high school years of emotional pitfalls and relationship crises.

These lessons, though, start here and now. Eight, six, three years old—you are a treasure. Thirteen, eleven, eight—-you are worth God’s very best. Sixteen, fourteen, eleven—-you deserve to be treated like a lady.

This is what you are: “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved” (Colossians 3:12).

This is what we are.

So all that fulfillment we seek in habits and praise from people, from attention and temporary happiness, from worldly success and stuff—just stuff, it’s all nothing more than a pimply faced teenaged boy who doesn’t care about us at all. It’s all just unsatisfying time-wasting and inevitable emotional vomit.

All of it.

But we’ve been given these love-notes from God:

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Zephaniah 3:16

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God…
1 John 3:1

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— Ephesians 2:4-5

Knowing how we are loved, knowing the price He paid and the extent of His sacrifice, reading these love notes and knowing He prizes us and treasures us, surely then we can cease the worrying and striving and searching for fulfillment. Surely we can trust Him.

After all, see how He loves us.

Reflections from a mom who is elbow-deep in glitter

February 12, 2014Leave a comment

I’m not a crafty person. I’m not a craft project blogger or an Etsy addict. Oh, I admire the creativity of others (okay, perhaps ENVY their artsyness), but I’ve accepted my limits and stopped trying to feel comfortable in the aisles of Michael’s and Joann Fabrics.

Yet today I sit at my table with glitter, craft foam, stamps, stencils, markers, colored paper and scissors to complete one item on my day’s to-do list: Make personal Valentine’s for my three girls.

Years ago, a man from our church told me that you can do many great things for daughters, but there are only two necessary things: Let them know they are beautiful and let them know they are loved.

At least for today, this thought has inspired me to turn my limited crafting skill into the most basic of all art projects: a handmade card. It’s not because I think the final outcome will be displayable or frameable. I could buy a better-looking card for a few dollars off the Wal-Mart rack.

It’s because I know that my daughters feel special when I make things for them and I want them to know they are loved.

As I sit making a mess out of glue and paper, I think about a biography I’ve been reading of E.B.White, the American essayist and author of Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web and The Trumpet of the Swan.

In the summer following college, White grabbed a friend and a car and drove completely across the United States—before highways existed to make this kind of national crisscrossing an all-American past-time. They stopped in small towns and performed odd jobs or sold bits of White’s writing to local newspapers so they could buy food and gas. They slept outside or in the car or wherever they could. Arriving on the West Coast, White then hopped on a ship bound for Alaska.

Elbow deep now in glitter, I marvel that a human being would take off across the country without a plan, without connections, without a return date.

We’re so often like that, looking for purpose in life. We want a grand vision, a neon sign. We want impact. We want to know the one reason we exist on this earth.

Yet, as much as we overlook the beauties of the everyday, I wonder if they are truly the key to God’s greatest plan for us.

Instead of always ignoring today for the sake of the grand design of tomorrow, we give God glory in our jobs and our homes and relationships and churches.

We do what He has called us to do here, now, in this moment–no need for a cross-country adventure. We do it faithfully. We work at it with all our heart.

God had a great plan for Joseph’s life, yet it was worked out in days, months and years of serving as a slave in Potiphar’s house and then, as a prisoner himself, overseeing others locked in Egyptian jail cells.

Joseph’s ministry all that time involved washing dishes, working fields, carrying messages, figuring accounts, and managing property. It was his integrity and faithful hard work in the everyday tasks that allowed God to use him more and more.

Genesis 39 says:

“The Lord was with Joseph, and he became a successful man. . . . His master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to succeed in his hands. So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had” (Genesis 39:2-4).

Had Joseph balked at the menial tasks of slavery or begrudgingly gave second-best efforts as he served in Potiphar’s house, he might have remained a slave or a prisoner his entire life.

Egypt may not have survived the famine without Joseph.

Joseph’s father, Jacob, and his ten brothers and their families—the entire nation of Israel—may also have starved as the famine reached their land.

At least two nations depended on Joseph’s daily faithfulness to the tasks at hand.

Paul wrote:

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).

and

^“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God”
(1 Corinthians 10:31)

This is how we bring glory to God. It’s in the making of a Valentine’s card and the packing of a lunch. It’s in the shuffling of the wet laundry from washer to dryer. It’s in the standing at the stove to prepare a meal.

It’s you at your desk. It’s you in the classroom. It’s you teaching Sunday School. It’s you on your knees. This is what brings Him glory.

Originally posted February 13, 2012

Will you join me in prayer this week?

February 10, 201419 Comments

“You know what we need to do, girls? We need to pray.”

I find myself saying that more and more to my kids. I never expected that the problems of a preschooler, a first grader and a second grader would be beyond my ability to fix so much of the time. I never imagined how much of motherhood is spent on your knees.

We’ve prayed for stolen glue sticks, mean girls, renegade classmates who won’t behave in art class, forgotten homework, lost lunch boxes, friends whose parents are divorcing and other friends being teased on the playground.

When you open the floor to prayer requests from kids, they’re willing to be downright honest, maybe even uncomfortably truthful at times.

If their parents fought, they’ll tell you. If their grades are bad, if their teacher is tough, if their friend is sad, if a bully is mean, you’ll hear about it. Children will spill it all out there.

We seem to learn privacy and shame over time, learning to keep things quiet, afraid to ask for prayer for our real problems because others might know the truth: We don’t have it all together. People might judge. The gossip chain will be initiated.

But I’m saying this now to you as you sit here reading this blog, maybe munching away at your lunch or settling down to read your email messages at the end of the day, or grabbing a few minutes in between phone calls or during your toddler’s nap time….

“You know what we need to do? We’ve got to pray.”

Scripture reminds us of the power of praying together.

When Esther prepared to enter King Xerxes’s presence uninvited, placing her life in jeopardy in order to save her people from mass genocide, she didn’t just pray on her own.

She organized a nationwide prayer meeting, instructing all the Jews of Susa to:

“fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same…” (Esther 4:16 NLT).

Jesus didn’t just fall to the ground in the Garden of Gethsemane alone as he waited for his betrayer to arrive with an army of soldiers and an unwelcome kiss. He took along:

“Peter and Zebedee’s two sons, James and John, and he became anguished and distressed. He told them, ‘My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matthew 26:37-38).

Paul, who seemed so confident and capable in ministry and who always seemed content and able to rejoice despite circumstances, wasn’t afraid to ask the church in Ephesus to

“pray for me, too. Ask God to give me the right words so I can boldly explain God’s mysterious plan…” (Ephesians 6:19 NLT).

So rather than bowing my head alone, I’m asking for you to do something totally different with me.

Let’s pray together.

Just leave a comment on the blog or Facebook this week saying, “I’m praying, too” or something simple like that and then spend some time this week in focused prayer for others. It’ll take just a second of time to post that comment so we know you’re praying.

And if you have a prayer request, don’t be afraid or ashamed, please share that with us, too. You can leave a comment here on the blog—even anonymously if you wish—and you can keep it simple, “My marriage. My job. My kids.” We’ll join with you on our knees today and ask God for help.

Or, you can email a prayer request to me here: heatherking@cox.net

We’ve got to pray, friends, and not just individually, but together. Please take just a few minutes and join in our “online prayer meeting” today.

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

Here are some prayer prompts. Please share if you have any other ideas of how we can pray…

For marriages: For faithfulness, love, affection, honor, making marriage a priority, friendship, spiritual unity, and for freedom from abuse.
For depression and spiritual stagnation: For revival and a return of joy, for friendship and God’s Word to come alive for them again. For hope.
For finances: For freedom from debt, steady work and well-rewarded labor. For wisdom and abundant blessing. For those looking for work.
For children: For salvation, for the wayward child, for restoration of broken relationships, for wisdom to make wise choices for our kids, for help guiding them spiritually.
For churches/ministries and pastors/ministry leaders: For God’s vision, for strength, energy, refreshing, wisdom, and clear direction from God—for their families and their finances and health. For God to fill them up as they pour themselves out.
For caregivers: That God would bring peace and freedom from pain to their loved ones, for salvation for those suffering, for strength for each new day for the caregivers themselves.

Originally published November 26, 2012

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Category: Family

What Super-Hearing looks like when you are a parent….

How to Clean the Bathroom the Day After Mother’s Day (With Joy)

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

14 Days of Prayer for Your Marriage with 1 Corinthians 13 (plus a Free Printable!)

Will you join me in praying for your marriage for 14 days? If you would like a printout of these prayers to place in Your Bible or journal or maybe on your fridge or bathroom mirror, you can click here for the free printable!

If you’d like to see the 12 Verses I pray for my husband, you can click here!

Dear Lauren…On Your Birthday

Dear Daughter, Remember that Nightmare About Divorce?

Making a Prayer Pail: How to get out of that same-old prayer rut

Our Family Valentine’s Tradition….

Reflections from a mom who is elbow-deep in glitter

Will you join me in prayer this week?

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

Will you join me in praying for your marriage for 14 days? If you would like a printout of these prayers to place in Your Bible or journal or maybe on your fridge or bathroom mirror, you can click here for the free printable!

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: