Dear Catherine: Why You’ll Get a Stethoscope for your Fifth Birthday

July 23, 2014July 23, 20146 Comments

Dear Catherine,

You’ve been asking me for months for a stethoscope for your birthday. A REAL one. One that allows you to hear your actual heart beating actual beats.

I’m not surprised. You’ve been telling me for two years that you want to be a nurse or a doctor when you grow up.

I know how these things work. Kids might spin through a dozen potential occupations by the time they enter college and then change their major five times as an undergraduate and still go on to graduate school uncertain about their future.

But this is your constant so far. And I see it in you, that remarkable blend of gentle compassion and courage that you’d need to care for others.

So, I bought you that stethoscope and I made sure it was pink, your favorite color.

It’s because I’ll probably call you “Baby Girl” even when you get married and when you cradle your own newborns and even when you watch your children get married and then gaze on your grandchildren.

You will always be “Baby Girl” to this momma of three stair-step daughters.

Yet, here you are five years old. Somehow you’ve grown in a flash and now you’re headed off to kindergarten. You’re always pushing and pushing to grow taller, to learn more, to be bigger, to get older. As distant as it seems now, that future isn’t so far off and, oh, “Baby Girl,” I want to help you become all that God intends for you to be.

Maybe, just maybe, you’ll need that stethoscope.

In a month-and-a-half, I’ll no longer be the one person you spend most of your time with. You’ll be sitting in classrooms, learning from teachers, making friends and standing your ground when kids are mean.

I’ll miss you so.

But you are ready.

You picked out your outer space backpack covered in sparkly stars. You’ve toted that new backpack and the matching lunchbox all around town ever since we bought it.

You’ve cheerfully done what you call “my homework” every day this summer, running through a series of activities you picked out yourself to practice math and reading and then playing a tune on the piano.

You’ve read me those books aloud and we’ve cheered you right on as you learn new words.

More than that, you’ve bounced into offices and classrooms with confidence and excitement. You’re not afraid of school buses, classrooms, or hallways, not the cafeteria or making new friends.

That’s the courage and the bravery in you.

Others may first see your gentleness and sweet spirit. You’re a bucket of joy, just spilling out enthusiasm all over the place. You’re quick to clap your hands and explode into a crazy story about something that made you laugh. You’ll jump and dance and your eyes grow five times their normal size when you’re excited and you wave your hands wildly when you talk to us at the dinner table.

But oh, girl, you’re a powerhouse of strength and resolve, standing up for what is right against kids who are far older and bigger than you and who try to manipulate you or even say they hate you. It’s already begun and you’re already standing ground. Catherineballet

We gave you the name Catherine, a woman of strength and authority. You are that.

Yet, your name means “Pure.” You keep asking me what that means exactly. Pure. That’s hard to define for a five-year-old girl.

I tell you how it’s loving what God loves and hating what God hates. It’s being passionate for what’s right and good and true. It’s running far away from sin and when you do mess up, it’s running right back to Jesus with a heart of true repentance because you want so much to please Him.

You are that, too. Your name is a perfect fit.

You are always thinking about God and you are quick to pray. You have compassion for the hurting and you are a gentle and thoughtful friend. You are fun and you are funny. You are strong and gentle at the same time.

For your fifth birthday, Baby Girl, I pray this for you:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8 NIV).

Love,
~mom~

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.

5 Things This Introvert is Teaching My Extroverted Daughter (and 5 things maybe she’s teaching me)

July 7, 20144 Comments

My daughter is an extrovert-to-the-power-of-1o. At 18 months old, I realized she could not have a day at home and be happy.

Could. Not.

If I did not put that child in the car seat and drive her somewhere every single day she would end up a screaming mess of frustrated babyhood and I would have a mom meltdown.

Now, I’m pretty sure she goes through withdrawals the first week of summer vacation because she must see friends every day and if she’s not seeing them in person, could she please call one of them on the phone?

I, on the other hand, like home-time, family-time, quiet-time, me-time, creative-time, thinking-time, and I hate the telephone. I pretty much disintegrate emotionally if I’m out of my house too long more than two days in a row.

But God made me her mom, so we’re in this together and maybe we’re both better because of it.

5 things This Introvert is Teaching My Extroverted Daughter:

1. Be comfortable with who you are when no one is around: If you’re uncomfortable with yourself when you’re on your own and it’s quiet, then something’s wrong. You need to know who you are and like who you are even in the silence.

2. Family comes first: Sure, it’s exciting to go to your friend’s house, swim in their pool, tag along when they go to day trips and play with their toys and eat their food. But family always comes first. It’s too easy to be nicer to those outside your home than it is to be kind to those you live with every single day all up close and personal. Don’t take family for granted and don’t treat them worse than you treat your friends or even strangers.

3. Sometimes it’s better to think about what you’re going to say before you say it: Pause. Think. Then Speak.

4. Quiet is not the enemy and boredom is just fuel for creativity: If you’ve squeezed out all opportunities for quiet, rest, and unscheduled time, then you’ve squeezed out time with God and time for God to speak to you.

5. It’s okay to say “no”: You don’t have to answer the phone every time it rings. You don’t have to do everything you’re asked to do or go everywhere you’re asked to go. Sometimes saying “no” is the healthiest and wisest thing you can say.

5 Things My Extroverted Daughter is Teaching Me:

1. People matter more than to-do lists and tasks. It’s okay to leave the to-do list tomorrow and spend time watching a movie or sitting with someone, playing a game, or just talking.

2. Ministry always means loving people. It’s not possible to be a vessel fit for God’s service if I fail to love people. Being an introvert is not an excuse for being self-focused or for acting like the world is all about ‘me’. Ministry requires compassion, unselfishness, kindness, generosity with time and resources, and absolutely requires loving others—whether you’re an introvert or not.

3. Most things really are better with a friend. Sharing experiences with others opens you up to new perspectives and ideas.

4. If you’re always worried about what people think, you miss out on a lot of fun. Sometimes you just have to risk it and put yourself out there, even when it’s uncomfortable or unexpected or unknown. Be silly. Have fun. Do something new even if you won’t be great at it. Learn to laugh at yourself.

5. A room full of new people is just a room full of potential new friends. So don’t be afraid; just enjoy the adventure!

Children are a gift from the Lord;
they are a reward from him (Psalm 127:3 NLT)

Keep Praying, Keep Hoping, Keep Looking

June 20, 2014June 25, 20142 Comments

Lunches packed for the last time. Desks cleared, backpacks cleaned out and stowed away. Field day over. Class parties celebrated. Awards ceremony concluded and certificates photographed. End-of-the-year pictures taken of each daughter and compared to the photos from the first day of the school year.

And now we collapse. We did it. Somehow it feels like a joint accomplishment, not just theirs. Sure, my kids worked hard. So did I. And somehow, by God’s grace, we made it here to summer vacation.

It’s only taken 15 months of prayer. I started praying for this school year last March, praying for this teacher, this classroom, these friends, this school, these character issues, and these lessons.

And here as the school year ends, I give thanks:

Thank You, Lord, for answering my pleas for my children. Thank You for helping them learn, being with them in all of the struggles that have sent this loving (and worried) mama to her knees. Thank You for helping them with difficult concepts and friendship drama, bullies and mistakes on tests, report cards and forgetfulness. Thank You for these teachers You chose specially for my kids.

And I began again, just that quickly, one sentence to another, thank God for this year and then praying for next year: for classroom placements and teacher assignments, for the responsibilities of a new grade and for the friendships they’d make.

So it continues.

“Pray without ceasing….” that’s what Paul wrote (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

He meant that living prayer, that breathing in and breathing out of living life alongside God, taking in crises and handing them right on over to the Lord, receiving blessing and offering up spontaneous praise.

It means no more arbitrary separations between the sacred and the secular, between the holy parts of my life where God is welcome and invited and the dusty living rooms of our hearts where we try to hide away the clutter in corners.

Having kids, though, reminds me of this, too:

Prayer is perpetual; it’s insistent and consistent.

And sometimes I’m not. I’m driven to the throne by need and I’m pouring out pleas of desperation until the need eases a bit. Or perhaps I just grow weary or fall back into the coziness of complacency and apathy.

I’m not praying so fervently any more. It’s more like unemotional have-to prayers, perhaps performed out of duty, perhaps totally forgotten and not prayed at all.

We pray for that intervention, that salvation, that redemption, that rescue…for us or for another….and then slowly we cease the praying. We need the reminder to keep on keeping on, to not give up asking God for that healing and to refuse to stop praying for a loved one’s salvation.

With kids, you can’t really forget, not for long. Time just pushes you right through from prayer need to prayer need. I’m not even done praying over one school year before I’m on my knees for the next.

I read the Psalms and here is the reminder anew:

“But I keep praying to you, Lord, hoping this time you will show me favor. In your unfailing love, O God, answer my prayer with your sure salvation” (Psalm 69:13 NLT).

“But I will keep on hoping for your help; I will praise you more and more” (Psalm 71:14 NLT).

“We keep looking to the Lord our God for his mercy, just as servants keep their eyes on their master, as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal” (Psalm 123:2 NLT).

Keep praying….keep hoping….keep looking.

Keep at it and when He answers, press on in more prayer.

With this fresh resolve, I flip through the pages of the neglected prayer journal. What did I pray then….and what do I still need to pray now?

What have you neglected in prayer? What have you given up on and long since stopped asking God for? Who used to be on your prayer list but somehow slipped off?

It’s discipline to begin again. And when we cease praying, which feels like the inevitable failing of us forgetful ones, we return again and resolve again to be insistent and consistent in seeking God and hoping in His deliverance.

What have you stopped praying about that you need to pray for again? What prayers are you already praying for your children’s next school year?

Originally posted June 7, 2013

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.

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’?

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

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

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Category: Parenting

Dear Catherine: Why You’ll Get a Stethoscope for your Fifth Birthday

5 Things This Introvert is Teaching My Extroverted Daughter (and 5 things maybe she’s teaching me)

Keep Praying, Keep Hoping, Keep Looking

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

Dear Lauren…On Your Birthday

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

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:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today: