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.

We are Staycation Failures

July 21, 2014July 15, 2014Leave a comment

A few years ago, my husband and I realized we had to take a few days off of work. Both of us. At the same time.

This probably doesn’t sound exciting, but to us this was revolutionary.

We didn’t go away. We didn’t take vacations. We didn’t take time off other than for dental appointments or to have a baby.

But since a vacation away wasn’t in the budget, we decided to try the wonderful trend of stay-cationing.

We know plenty of friends who staycation successfully. They have a fabulous time visiting all the places within an hour of home that no one local ever takes the time to visit.

We, however, had a whopping failure of a week. By Friday, we had both ended up working. We had answered the phone and ended up in ministry meetings. We still went to all the normal activities at church and in the community. We did all the normal chores with all the normal responsibilities and hadn’t even slept in because we had young kids and they don’t know how to do that.

We need to get away, really away. We need to retreat, to shake off the daily and reconnect with each other and with beauty and rest and with the eternal.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest.”

It’s all of the daily life choices and battles that chip away at our faith. We’re distracted. We’re annoyed. We’re confused. We’re tired.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Over time, I feel it, the weariness, the burdens. They accumulate over days and months.

Daily quiet times help. I temporarily rest at His feet and toss the bundles I’m carrying to the side. But, I leap up from the table after time in the Word and it’s back to phone calls and emails, carpooling, activities, planning and laundry.

And the thing about daily life is that it is . . . daily.

Shocking revelation, I know. But it’s not just the motion that tires me over time; it’s the perpetual motion.

It’s rising every morning to empty the dishwasher and reload it . . . . again.
Making beds, packing lunches, toasting bread and pouring milk . . . again.
Tossing clothes into the washer and grabbing towels out of the dryer . . . again.
Cleaning dried-on toothpaste off the bathroom walls . . . again.

Eventually I need more than a temporary refresher. I need to retreat from it all to re-establish rest. In Mark 6:31, it says,

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

This month, I’m pursuing the presence of God by learning to Retreat and Refresh, and it’s then I re-align my focus.

The thing about being bogged down in the daily is that our definition of crisis begins to distort.

In the past few months, I’ve lain awake for hours in the middle of the night over minor worries that have turned into a crisis of anxiety.

Patsy Clairmont wrote, “At times, trusting God in the minutiae of life is as difficult as trusting him for a walking-on-water miracle.”

I’m tossing and turning at night because I’ve gripped my hand around each of these issues so tight God can’t pry my fingers off with a crowbar. My knuckles are white.

So I am removing myself from this close-up perspective of my life where the tiniest anomaly blips onto my radar as if it’s the end of the world. I’m putting aside the to-do list that runs my life like a drill sergeant. For this week, I’ll stop staring at my life and lift my head up instead to see Jesus.

In Psalm 3, David wrote, “But you, O Lord, are a shield for me; My glory and the one who lifts up my head.”

Instead of going through life shoulders hunched, head down, eyes staring at circumstances, I’m asking that God lift up my head so I can see His face, see His eyes of love and grace, see the reminder in the palm of His hands that He’s going to do everything imaginable and more to take care of me.

In that same Psalm, David also wrote: “Salvation belongs to the Lord” (verse 8). This “salvation” means “deliverance from the immediate pressure” he was feeling.

One of the meanings of this Hebrew word for salvation is “room to breathe.”

Sometimes the daily grind is suffocating and busyness knocks the wind out of me. I need deliverance from the immediate pressures that monopolize my attention and salvation from the stresses that take my breath away.

I’m leaving so I can find room to breathe.

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 ‘Retreat and Refresh?

Announcing a Winner and Redefining Gentleness

July 18, 2014Leave a comment

Last week, I announced that I’d be giving away a copy of Mary Ann Froehlich’s book, Courageous Gentleness, and today I’m announcing the winner! I used a random number generator to chose the winner from the comments you shared and the winner is: Lisa Preuett. Congratulations! I’ll get the book on out to you!

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

“Mom, why do turtles have shells?”

My youngest daughter draped herself across the sofa, seemingly inert and bored, but truly thinking about the great mysteries of the world.

“The shell keeps their soft body safe and protected.”

“Oh. Okay, mom.”

So far, so good. Her questions simple, her mind and heart trusting and easily satisfied by easy answers.

My middle daughter was never so quick to accept and move on. A conversation with her could go something like this:

“Mom, why do turtles have shells?”
“To protect their soft bodies from harm.”
“Why are they in danger and need protection?”
“Other animals might try to catch and eat them, or they might be stepped on or run over…“
“Why do some animals like to eat turtles?
“Some animals are herbivores and eat only plants and some are carnivores and eat meat. Turtles are meat.”
“Why do animals eat other animals?”
“Because after the fall in the garden of Eden….”

Falling back on theology or “because God said so” became my frequent defensive position.

This curiosity about the world, I love. This exploring and questioning and wondering “what if” and “how come”–while it occasionally makes me explode and bluster out “because God made it that way” or “because I said”– ultimately I appreciate.

Ultimately I understand.

I’m a questioner, too. I want to know “why” and “how come” and “what about” and “why not?” I want to pester God with question after question like a three-year-old first discovering the world around her.

More than that, more than asking God true and honest questions, I nag and whine and push and nudge.

Oh, and it’s even more than that. I’ve been Jacob up all night wrestling the angel of the Lord. I’ve locked my grip with God’s and fought hard for what I thought constituted a blessing, for a victory, for triumph over circumstances and over the Enemy who’s been battering at the walls of my life.

Yes, I’ve pummeled the chest of Christ with my fists, fighting and demanding, manipulating even, making promises, issuing threats, and crying for mercy, help, deliverance—for rescue.

I’m being honest with Him, I tell myself, and honesty is something God treasures in us. He never asks us to fake it or play happy-faced Christian when life is a mess and this mask we wear becomes increasingly ill-fitting.

God desires truth. Job, Habakkuk, David, Asaph, Elijah, Jonah, Mary and Martha laid their complaints before God, plead their case, and He listened and answered with awe-inspiring mercy.

He didn’t strike them down with lightning. He let them empty out hearts filled with fear, hurt and anger and then He answered, not always in the way they expected or wanted, but still He met them in the place of pain and questioning and carried them on out.

Now, though, I’ve been studying the fruit of the Spirit and found I didn’t really get it before.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23, NIV).

Gentleness is on that list. All those years of sermons and Sunday school lessons and I thought this meant “being nice, not hurting others with our words, kindness and tact.”

The Message translation however, describes gentleness as: “not needing to force our way in life.”

Is this Gentleness?

In Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit, Beth Moore defines the root word here “praotes” as “the complete surrender to God’s will and way in your life. The term basically means to stop fighting God” (p. 178).

Gentleness is submission to God, His will and His way, His plan and His timing and all He has determined for us.

It means dropping to our knees and pouring out the honest struggles of our heart, but deciding at last, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

It’s singing with true conviction, “Have Thine own way, Lord,” and “I surrender all.”

No more fighting God.

How then can I still be honest with Him? How can a prize-fighter like me lower the hands and open the fists, cease fighting and nagging and choose instead to trust?

There is my answer in the verse itself, “but the fruit of the Spirit is…” not the fruit of my own discipline or maturity, strength or ability.

This is what the Spirit at work and alive within me does—the impossible, the new, the Christ-like—As I yield and grow in the Spirit, so slowly I trust more, believe more, fall in love with Jesus more and understand how much He loves me more.

And I stop fighting Him.

I drop the knee, I bow the head, I cry the tear, I confess the pain, I trust my God and the Spirit works out Gentleness in me.

How to Take a Spiritual Retreat When You Can’t Get Away

July 16, 2014July 16, 20145 Comments

I’ve always needed to retreat spiritually, to run away for an afternoon or spend a weekend away in quiet.

I’m an introvert and a workaholic. I’ll fill up every available space in my day with to-do list items and then crash from the emotional overload from the noise.

I must get away in order to be healthy: spiritually, emotionally, physically. My sanity and spiritual well-being pretty much depend on my escaping periodically to drink deep of quiet and solitude.

That was true before I had kids.

Now I have four little people who don’t fully understand the sacredness of “Mommy Time Out” at the kitchen table with my tea and my Bible.

When I sit down, alarms go off all over my house that only children can hear. It’s a secret alert system that lets them know, “Mom is about to sit down. Quick, find something to ask her for!!”

Just when I need to retreat the most in life is when it’s hardest to get away.

My husband sweetly holds down the fort so I can go for a walk. But I sneak in the door sheepishly and guiltily after an hour because he has paced the house with the fussy baby and played referee in a sibling squabble. After just one hour without mom, my house has turned into a wrestling arena.

When I was in college, I read a book that still sits dog-eared, highlighted, underlined, and Post-it note-covered on my shelf called Quiet Places: A Woman’s Guide to Personal Retreat by Jane Rubeitta.

This month, I’m learning to Retreat and Refresh in order to pursue the presence of God, so I’ve pulled my worn copy of her book down off its treasured place on my bookshelf and am reading it through slow again. songofsolomon2, photo from PicJumbo.com

But this time I’m reading her book as a mom with 4 kids, not a single college girl who could “retreat” simply by trekking from the campus parking lot to my first class of the day.

How exactly do you take a retreat when you can barely slip away for 60 minutes after dinner?

Let’s be honest. There’s no easy answer here. I’m not going to pretend and push a heavy burden of “you must get away even when it’s hard” down on your shoulders.

Some of you are single moms or homeschooling moms and I feel so whiny complaining about how hard it is for me when I think of what it costs you to retreat for a few short minutes.

Yet, time away with God is what we crave, what our souls need so that we don’t suffocate and die from spiritual dehydration.

The truth is some of these ideas will work for you and some won’t. Some you can fit in when school is in session if you don’t home-school. Some of them require effort and help from a spouse or a friend.

Here are some ways to take a spiritual retreat without breaking the bank or staying away overnight:

Spend some time in your garden.
Take a walk alone.
Exercise without watching TV.
Take an afternoon field trip: Visit the library, a museum, botanical garden, the beach, or a bookstore for an afternoon, but go by yourself. Sit and read. Walk a little. Journal some, read some, rest a lot.
Slow down with some fast food: Meet up with God for a date, just the two of you. Treat yourself to an ice cream sundae or a cup of coffee. Sit in the corner booth by yourself with your Bible. The only words you say to another human that day might be, “I’ll have one scoop of chocolate, please.”
Take a bubble bath—just be sure to lock the bathroom door so little ones can’t continue to pester you long after they are supposed to be in bed
Early morning cuppa: I’m not one to wake early before my kids. I’m a young mom and sometimes snagging a few more minutes of sleep in the morning is the most spiritual, holy thing I can do. But every so often, an early rise for a quiet time on your back deck before the little ones emerge from their beds is worth it.
Mommy time out: When you simply cannot get away, a Mommy Time Out is worth a try. Set the timer in the kitchen and announce that mommy is unavailable for 15 minutes unless there’s an emergency. This takes training! Everything seems like an emergency to a four-year-old. Keep on trying, redirecting and training until your children understand the sacredness of the Mommy Time Out and then treat them to a game of Candy Land or a special snack when they’ve given you the time you need.

How do you “retreat and refresh?” Do you have any ideas for how to take a spiritual retreat without going away overnight?

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 ‘Retreat and Refresh?

Would you like some pizza with that doctrine?

July 14, 2014July 14, 2014Leave a comment

She’s a four-year-old chowing down on pizza and breadsticks and prodding us with deep theological questions in between bites.

Where does God live? She drops it casually into family chatter just like “What are we doing tomorrow?” or “Can I have some more lemonade, please?”

Then she returns to the task at hand: Munch, munch, munch.

I nudge my husband’s elbow. Pass. Your turn.

So, he walks her through theology and doctrine right there as she slurps through her straw. God is omnipresent, everywhere and always there.

I mean what country does He live in? Munch, munch, munch.

He doesn’t live in a country, but there is one special place where he is present and that is Heaven.

And His angels?

Yes, and the angels.

I think He has 61 angels.

He has lots of angels. Lots and lots.

Like 61?

Well…..

But she’s distracted now and that moment when you feel like your child’s faith is that moldable clay in your parental hands has passed. She heard it—God is everywhere. He is always with you.

Christian parenting 101 pop quiz over.

She may think He has only 61 angels, but one lesson at a time.

I’ve been spending all year pursuing God’s presence right here in this minivan life, so her question lingers, bouncing around in my head and heart.

Where does God live?

Right here. Always with me. Here in this place and that. Here in the stress and the rush. Here in the quiet corner I’ve sneaked into to hide away from the noise.

I can nod my head right along with the lesson I know so well, and yet still I choose to pursue more.

It might even seem like a fruitless endeavor. Why pursue God’s presence when His presence is here, always here? He will never leave you nor forsake you. He will not abandon you.

I know how it goes.

I’ve felt the difference, though, between knowing God is with you while you fill that dishwasher up with bowls from breakfast and when you’re passing back the snacks in the minivan while zipping from school to ballet class and then to church.

And that moment when you don’t want to move because God’s presence is so heavy in this place, you feel the Holy Spirit’s fingers leaving deep impressions on your spirit, and you simply not walk away from this very second the same as you were just the second before.

Israel saw the difference. God was with them as they pounded out those bricks in Egypt. Four-hundred years of slavery and He never abandoned them. He was there all the time.

Yet, they headed out of that bondage and into the desert, stopping at that holy mountain where God’s presence came down in power.

On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

God came down to that mountain.

And Moses went up.

Chris Tiegreen says it this way:

This is a graphic picture of the distinction between God’s general Presence and His manifest Presence…..there are times when He is more present, when He manifests Himself uniquely, when He becomes more obvious that nature’s designs or a whispering voice. Sometimes God shows up.

All this month, I’m pursuing God’s presence by Retreating and Refreshing. Because sometimes we have to escape the everyday rhythms of life in order to breathe in and out the presence of God.

After all, Moses had to go up on that mountain.

I need to go, as well.

So, we pray:

God, come down to us, we pray. Bring the full weight of Your glory here so we can see you.

And then sometimes we need to shake off the daily grind, walk away from the ordinary, and go up on that mountain ourselves.

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 ‘Retreat and Refresh?

15 Bible Verses about Courage

July 11, 20146 Comments

Deuteronomy 31:6 NIV
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Joshua 1:9 NIV
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
1 Chronicles 28:20 NIV
David also said to Solomon his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.
2 Chronicles 32:7 NASB
“Be strong and courageous, do not fear or be dismayed because of the king of Assyria nor because of all the horde that is with him; for the one with us is greater than the one with him.
Psalm 16:8 NASB
I have set the Lord continually before me;
Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
Psalm 27:1 NIV
The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalm 27:14 NASB
Wait for the Lord;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the Lord.
Psalm 31:24 NASB
Be strong and let your heart take courage,
All you who hope in the Lord.
Psalm 56:3-4 NIV
When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise—
in God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?
Isaiah 41:10 NIV
So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:13 NIV For I am the Lord your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you.
1 Corinthians 16:13 NIV
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.
2 Timothy 1:7 NIV
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
Hebrews 13:5-6 NIV
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”
⁶So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid
What can mere mortals do to me?”
1 Peter 3:13-14
Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.”

Chatting about Gentleness and a Book Giveaway!!

July 9, 2014July 9, 20148 Comments

Thank goodness for my Kindle because my book shelves are sagging in the middle despite me repeatedly cleaning out the books I can ‘do without’ and still survive.

I’m a bookworm from way back, so it’s perfect that one of the ‘perks’ of being a writer is getting to read and review books from other authors.

When I saw the title of Mary Ann Froehlich’s new book, Courageous Gentleness, I knew I wanted to read it, review it, and give a copy away to someone else. You can read my book review here.

I’ve felt my own spiritual toes stepped on before when reading this verse, “Let your gentleness be evident to all” (Philippians 4:5). Because we too often treat gentleness like a personality trait. You have it, or you don’t, either way is fine.

But it says it right there—our gentleness should be visible to everyone around us. It’s Christ in us, the Holy Spirit doing the work of producing spiritual fruit.

So, today, I have a little extra treat for you. Mary Ann was kind enough to let me ask her some questions and share her answers with you!

And wait, there’s more!

Just for being such a wonderful bunch of blog readers, today at the end of my interview with Mary Ann, I’ll give away a copy of her book. Stay tuned to find out how to qualify for this special offer…

Okay, my friends, over to Mary Ann:

What’s your favorite holiday and why?

I love Thanksgiving because all my adult children come home for this celebration and it kicks off the holiday season.

You are a musician, so I’m wondering if you could pick one instrument to learn that you’ve never learned to play, what would it be?

I enjoy listening to cello music so that is the instrument I would pick.

Lots of times when we think of ‘gentleness,’ we think of ‘weak,’ ‘wimpy,’ ‘a doormat,’ or a ‘pushover.’ How is the biblical definition of gentleness different from that?

The biblical definition is quite the opposite. Gentleness embodies restrained strength. Unleashing harsh words or actions is weakness and evidences a lack of self-control. Our best example of restrained strength is Christ’s response to attackers during the days leading to his death.

You have a successful career as a music teacher and you talk in your book a lot about practice. What are your best tips on how to practice anything from a musical instrument to a spiritual trait like gentleness?

My best tip for practicing is to isolate the most difficult sections of a piece you are learning. Practice those first and multiple times until you are comfortable. Then you can play the piece from the beginning and avoid struggling through the tough sections. This same approach works for any skill we are learning that requires practice, which includes biblical behaviors such as gentleness and other fruit of the spirit. We will benefit if we first focus on improving the areas we struggle with most in life instead of avoiding them.

You share in your book about Christianity having an “image problem” in the United States and you ask the question, “Are Christians Known for Being Gentle?” What do you think the answer to that question is ? How can we change that?

In my personal experience (and the research backs it up), Christians are not known for being gentle. The world knows Christians more for what they stand against instead of who they are for. As a body, we have an angry, intolerant reputation. What saddens me more is when Christians tell me that their fellow Christians do not treat them with gentleness. Through the years, I have had several friends who needed to remove themselves from the church when they were going through a tough season of life (a divorce, child on drugs, teen pregnancy, etc.). The church should be our safest place when we are in pain but too often fellow believers rub salt in our wounds.

What’s your encouragement for someone who says, “I’m just not a gentle person. I’m outspoken. That’s just who I am.”

I would say that the fruit of the spirit is not a personality trait. Every believer is called to mirror Christ. Practicing those biblical behaviors is hard work for all of us.

Thanks so much to Mary Ann Froehlich for sharing with us!

I’ll be giving away a copy of her book Courageous Gentleness using a random number generator. All you need to do to enter is comment on this post (not on Facebook, here on the blog please) with the answer to this question:

Do you think Christians are known for being gentle? If not, what can we do about our ‘image problem?’

I’ll close the giveaway on Thursday, July 17th at 11:59 p.m. and announce the winner in the blog for Friday, July 18th.

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)

Declaration of Dependence

July 4, 2014July 4, 20141 Comment

I picked my older girls up from the weekend camp and breathed a mom sigh of relief at the sight of them.

They survived without me.

They had on slightly crazy outfits despite my careful planning as we packed their bags days before. “Mom, I ran out of shorts and play-clothes,” they tell me.

Their cheeks were a little red from too little sunscreen, but not truly burnt. (Hadn’t I fretted all weekend about sunscreen application?)

They tried Mountain Dew for the first time.

I opened up those suitcases at home and shook my head at the wet swimsuit and towel folded in there with the rest of their clothes.

But, really, all things considered it’d been two-and-a-half days without mom and they had made a million little decisions and done just fine.

Sometimes you gotta let them grow up. Maybe it’s harder for us moms than it is for them.

I hear it all the time.

“I can do it myself, Mom.”

Little bursts of independence from these ‘babes’ and that includes the nine-month-old, who wants to feed himself and make his very own decisions about where to go, when to go, and what to put in his mouth.

This is my job as a mom, to love them into independence, teach them how to do and what to do on their own.

But that’s not God’s desire for me as my Father, not His parental mission or responsibility. He’s doing the opposite, wooing my independent heart into trust and showing me the lesson of the vine:

Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:4-5 NIV).

This abiding life, the never separating from God, never stepping out on my own and depending on my own strengths or abilities sounds so simple.

It’s not.

It takes effort to remain in Him.

Dependence after all can feel so uncomfortable, so helpless, so out of control, so uncertain.

But Jesus didn’t say, “Apart from me you can do small things, but not the big stuff.” Nor did He say, “Apart from me you can be okay, but with me you can be extraordinary.”

He said that without Him, we can’t do a thing. Anything. Not the big stuff. Not the small things.

In the same way, Lisa Harper says, “We can become more dependent on God by trusting Him with the full weight of our lives” (Stumbling Into Grace 165).

When I consider the “full weight” of my life, I realize just how often I stroll along carrying most things on my own. It’s only the big cumbersome packages of circumstances that I hand over to God.

Sometimes we have no choice but dependence. We’ve exhausted ourselves in independent efforts and faced the fullness of our weakness.

Most of us have been there. The stress of overwhelming circumstances breaks us down and we know that what we face is simply too much, too impossible and too weighty to handle on our own. We’d be crushed.

So, we turn to God. That’s all that’s left to do. As Paul said, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). We declare dependence, we trust in His strength alone to help us through, and for a short season we have no choice but to rest in Him.

Yet, we have a way of confining God’s direction to “important” life matters. When it comes to where to live, our job, our relationships, our marriages, our health, and other huge life decisions, we pray frantically for God’s will and for direction and wisdom.

But when it’s a matter of those everyday life details like our schedule, our eating and spending habits, our conversations, and our tasks at work or home, we tend to think we can handle that “all by myself.”

Apart from Him, all by myself, I make things more difficult, I make a big mess, I miss out on blessing, I reject obedience, and I can do nothing.

This is the lesson of dependence, the learning to listen, learning to respond to that gentle nudging of the Spirit all day, every day.

This is the Spirit-led life: Yielding, loosening the grip, and giving over control.

It Would Be Easier if We Didn’t Have to Love Our Enemy

July 2, 2014July 1, 2014Leave a comment

My daughter was about 3-1/2 years old when she made this enemy.

After a week of summer dance camp, she declared that she absolutely did not want to take ballet in the fall.

Did she enjoy dance?

Yes.

Did she have fun at the camp?

Absolutely.

Did she want to try the dance classes?

No.

End of story. No explanation. I plied her with Mom-questions. She stuck to her decision without explanation.

In October, we sat together on one of the benches in the dance studio waiting room watching the tiny dancers file out after class. We picked up my oldest daughter and headed out the door. 1corinthians13, photo by Cora Miller

That’s when my girl said it: “I didn’t see Madelyn in the class.”

Madelyn? Who are you talking about?

Then she exploded with the report that Madelyn always wanted to sit on the triangle at dance camp even when other kids wanted to sit on the triangle and she wouldn’t let anyone else sit there no matter what.

She sucked in one big breath, harumphed, and tossed her arms criss-cross around her chest while stomping her feet for effect..

Well, babe, Madelyn was in dance camp, but she isn’t in the regular dance class.

“Oh.” Long pause while 3-1/2 year old process new information.

“Well, I want to take ballet then.”

All this time, territorial conflict with another preschool child had dominated her life choices.

Territorialism, jealousy, just plain old being annoyed with another person….it doesn’t get much easier handling all that mess as a grown-up.

We’ve all been there, forced into relationships with folks that drive us insane maybe with their negativity or pettiness or meanness, maybe insecurity, pride, constant bragging, insistence on arguing with everything you say, trying to compete with everything you do.

But I tell my girls this:

You don’t have to be best friends with mean kids, but you have to be kind and loving to everyone.

1 John 4:20 says it this way:

“If anyone says, ‘I love God’ yet hates his brother, is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom He has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

I quote it at my kids, but taking it to heart? Practicing what I preach? That’s a little harder.

Sometimes I want to edit the command, soften it a little, make it fit a little more comfortably instead of stepping on my toes.

Maybe: “For anyone who does not love his brother….when his brother is a pretty nice person….cannot love God, but when his brother is annoying, a jerk, mean, or immature, then it’s fine not to love that guy.”

Of course, that’s not Jesus.

God is love, and Jesus showed that best by loving the unlovely, by loving the enemy.

So, I could pit myself against the ‘unlovable’ or I could choose Jesus and the discipline of kindness and sacrificial love.

It starts with prayer, but the temptation is there, too, to pray that God change them when what I need to pray is that God shows me His love for them.

Because maybe, just maybe, the person who needs changing is me.

Paul wrote this to the Thessalonian church:

constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father (1 Thessalonians 1:3 NASB).

Love itself is part of the labor.

As Beth Moore says,

Sometimes loving comes easy. Other times it nearly kills us (Children of the Day).

This is at work and it’s at church. It’s with the annoying mom in the PTA and the gal who drives us crazy on the sidelines at soccer.

It’s in our own homes, too.

Sometimes love is hard. It’s labor and toil and discipline to believe the best, to serve and feel like you’ve given all and then given some more. It’s looking past imperfections and choosing to focus on the good and lovely and of good report (Philippians 4:8).

Love means choosing to give grace and forgive. It means not keeping score and a list of wrongs.

Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

I think of a favorite promise:

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns (Philippians 1:6 NLT).

God’s not finished with me yet and He won’t give up on me. I cling to that.

Yet, here’s the challenge, too: He hasn’t finished with others either. He hasn’t given up on them.

So, maybe I need to give them the space and the grace to let God continue that work because, after all, He’s given that space and grace to me.

In June, I took time for friendship and learned that God uses others to bring me into His presence, sometimes in unexpected ways and sometimes through unexpected people.

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

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Category: Thoughts from my Quiet Time

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

We are Staycation Failures

Announcing a Winner and Redefining Gentleness

How to Take a Spiritual Retreat When You Can’t Get Away

Would you like some pizza with that doctrine?

15 Bible Verses about Courage

Chatting about Gentleness and a Book Giveaway!!

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

Declaration of Dependence

It Would Be Easier if We Didn’t Have to Love Our Enemy

Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

My devotional for today:

My devotional for today:

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Love

….is

….patient (1 Corinthians 13).

My devotional for today: