Giving Many Thanks, Giving Much Praise

March 22, 2014March 22, 20144 Comments

A little over a week ago, this unexpected envelope arrived in the mailbox.

I had this moment of confusion. Did I order something I’d forgotten about?

I had a moment of Christmas morning excitement, wondering: What’s in the package?

Inside, was indeed a gift.

A copy of my own book dropped into my hands with a letter from my publisher.

My own book? Why?

Then I read those words and gave praise…..Three months after that initial publication, they had done a second printing.

God sure can surprise you with joy on the most average of average days when you’re just going about the day-to-day routine and then suddenly grace arrives in your mailbox!

So, many thanks to you, my friends, for reading, for buying the book, for the positive reviews on Amazon.com, for spreading the word, for sharing the book with others and studying it in Sunday School classes and small groups at your church. You bless me so.

And all praise, honor, and glory to God, who is surely able to do more than all we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Thanks so much to the Women’s Bible Cafe, who chose Ask Me Anything, Lord as the March nonfiction book of the month for their WBC Book Club! If you are on Facebook, you can join me for a fun author’s chat on Friday, March 28th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern DST (8 p.m Central, 6 p.m. Pacific). You just need to like their page on Facebook and log in on that day and time to participate! I hope you’ll join in. I would be so blessed to chat with you!

Many thanks also to Reedswood Christian Church in Gloucester, Virginia, for inviting me to speak at their women’s tea on Saturday, May 3rd at noon. Please keep me in your prayers as I share! I’ll have books on hand that day to sign and sell.

As always, thank you, dear friends, for your encouragement. Thank you for your prayers.

All glory to Him!
~heather~

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.

I Probably Have a Monkey in My Purse, Too

January 27, 2014Leave a comment

About two years ago, I had to whisk my youngest daughter to the emergency room at 10:00 at night because she gashed her head climbing IN to her crib on her own (long story). So, I performed the super-human feat of entertaining her for three hours in the waiting room with the items in my purse while the triage team pretended we weren’t there.

After frantically rummaging in the mom-bag that night, I discovered:

Two miniature My Little Ponies and a pony-sized hair brush.
A green crayon (miraculously not broken!) and some used envelopes for her to color on.
Two children’s books I was supposed to return to the public library and forgot about.

I had no smart phone, no Kindle, iPad, LeapPad or other source of electronic babysitting.

Three hours of entertaining a child with a still-bleeding head wound depended on me NOT cleaning out my purse.

I knew there was an excuse for that!

So, when one of you recommended Jessie Clemence’s book, There’s a Green Plastic Monkey in My Purse, for my summer reading list, I thought —Yes!!!! I probably have a green plastic monkey in my purse, too!! We could be best friends.

Then I found out that it really is a small world after all because Jessie’s publisher is the same as my publisher and, not only that, but she rocked my world by reading my own little book.

And then she asked to interview me for her blog and I felt like I’d hit the super big-time because I was actually talking to a published author. Sadly, it was over e-mail, so I couldn’t ask her for an autograph. But, then, she lives where the snow drifts are currently piled up several feet, so chatting via e-mail definitely seemed like the best option.

I hope you’ll hop on over to her site today and find out all the things you wanted to know about me, but didn’t ever think to ask. And check out Jessie’s very funny, encouraging and insightful blog while you’re there!

You can click here to check out her post: Let’s Chat With Heather C. King!

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.

Ask Me More…Where were you?

December 11, 2013January 23, 20144 Comments

She said her dad didn’t love anybody.

Not her mom. Not the kids. Nobody.

That’s what the girl told my daughter. And that’s what my daughter told me.

My daughter struggles to understand this invasion of innocence.

We adults slowly learn to cope with the ugly truth about how sin distorts, taints, and breaks. How this world is hard sometimes, hurtful and messy.

But she’s not accustomed to the pain yet or desensitized to the sadness, so her heart aches for her friend and she struggles with questions and brings them to me:

What does that mean? How come her family isn’t together any more? Why does that happen to families? Where will she stay? Will she still see her dad?

Pain often provokes our questions, too.

There’s something about tragedy that stirs up doubt and wondering. We want to wrestle with the beasts of injustice and sorrow, trying to make sense of it all with logic and defeat them with some philosophical musings.

But we just don’t know.

We can’t always see why this happened or how it will all work out or what good could come of any of it or what God is doing in the midst of the rubble.

In Scripture, it’s Job that engages in this fight.

We gloss over his pain so quickly as Christians: Job was a good guy who had bad things happen to him. Lots of bad things. Blah blah blah, yeah yeah yeah.

“Bad things” hardly.

His property destroyed, his servants killed, his own body festering with sores, his wife grown bitter, his friends on platforms of self-righteousness……maybe those are “bad things.”

Yet, every single one of his children was killed at once in a freak accident.

If you’ve cradled your own baby in your arms, stroking his cheek with your finger, cooing baby talk, tickling her baby belly, rocking and swaying and humming sweetly, then consider Job’s loss.

Seven sons, three daughters—-dead like a snapping of the fingers.

How could he ever breathe again? No wonder he just wanted to die himself.

So, he ponders and postulates and asks God to explain Himself. He longs to put God on trial and pose the questions with God on the witness stand.

“Where were you?” Maybe that’s what Job longed to ask God and have answered.

Yet, God never answers all of Job’s questions, not in this life anyway.

Instead, God lets Job pour out all of that bitterness and hurt, knowing perhaps that what we need most in sorrow is the opportunity to be sorrowful.

Then, God responds, not with answers, but with questions.

Lots of lots of questions. Chapters and chapters of questions. Pages and pages of questions. Just about 60 in all.

But here’s the bottom line:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding… (Job 38:4 NASB)

Was Job there when God parted the seas from the land or set the birds in the sky or there as He makes the sun to rise and set every single day as faithfully as our faithful God?

Does Job even know how God makes it rain, or feeds the lions, or transforms water into ice?

The questions bring Job to this place where he looks in a mirror and sees his own limitations.

I don’t know.

What else could he say?

What else to answer but this:

“Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
“Once I have spoken, and I will not answer;
Even twice, and I will add nothing more” (Job 40:3-5 NASB)

So, I confess this to my daughter, “I don’t know, baby girl.”

Sometimes there’s not much else to say.

Yet, there were two things that Job did know:

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Job 19:25 NASB

and this:

“I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
Job 42:2 NASB

Maybe we don’t always know the answer to “why” or “what now” or “how could this be…”

Still we know this:

Our God lives and will return one day in victory to redeem us and to redeem this broken world.

and

God can do anything There’s nothing too insignificant to escape His notice and nothing too difficult for Him to handle.

When God asks us questions, we might not always know the answers, but we know He does. That’s the simplicity and the challenge of faith.

Free Scripture Verse Cards for Ask Me Anything, Lord

December 5, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

Today, I’m sending out a special welcome and thanks to the ladies at the First Christian Church in Valparaiso, Indiana who will be meeting tomorrow (Friday, December 6th) to begin their study of Ask Me Anything, Lord. I think you ladies are the very first to use the book for a group study! How exciting!!

I pray that God will use His questions in Scripture to draw you closer to Him, encourage you in ministry and in your faith, and help you overcome any lingering fears, insecurities, doubts and feelings of insufficiency as you follow Him.

Would those of you who aren’t members of this study group pray for them as they begin this journey? How beautiful are the prayers of God’s people for one another, as sweet incense wafting up before His throne.

And, to say thanks to this group of ladies, I’ve created these free Scripture verse cards to accompany the study!. Because, after all, God’s Word forms the solid foundation for our feet even when the earth trembles around us.

Just click the link to print your own sheet of Scripture verse cards! Ask Me Anything Lord Verse Cards

For my local friends, many thanks to you also for praying for me and for coming to visit me at my book signing last Saturday! I was deeply blessed by your presence and encouragement.

I will have one more local book signing before Christmas, so if you’re still hoping to grab a book, get it signed, or even purchase some as Christmas gifts, here’s your chance! I’ll be at:

The Wild Rabbit Cafe
Main Street in Gloucester, VA
December 14th
2-4 p.m.

I’ll have books available for purchase that day. Plus, I’ll be running a drawing for a tea-and-chocolate gift basket and a Wild Rabbit gift card to two lucky winners. You can enter just by stopping by and chatting with me! (Thank you so much to The Wild Rabbit for providing the gift certificate prize!!)

Out and About: A Radio Interview and Book Signings

November 26, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

It’s been an exciting season here for me with a new baby and a new book! Many thanks to you all for your prayers and encouragement!

Yesterday, I shared a little bit about the book on our local radio station’s morning show! I’m sure I’ll write more about it later, but for now I just wanted to say thanks to the many who were praying for me and sent me messages afterward saying that you were listening in!

For locals, I’ll be signing books at two locations in the next two weeks. Please consider stopping in and seeing me (even if you already purchased a book!).
I’d love to have the company and opportunity to chat or pray with you! If you are interested in buying a book that day, I’ll have them for sale (cash or check only please) and will sign them right there for you!

On Saturday, November 30th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., I’ll be at the Heaven & Earth Christian Bookstore in Hayes, Virginia (in the YRC Shopping Center). I’ll be giving away a tea-and-chocolate gift basket and a $20 gift card to Heaven & Earth to two lucky winners. To enter, you simply need to stop by and put your name and number in that hat! While you’re there, you can get in some Christmas shopping!! They have amazing Christian books, music, gifts, cards, and ornaments! I might be doing some shopping of my own that day.

On Saturday, December 14th from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., I’ll be at The Wild Rabbit Cafe on Main Street in Gloucester, VA. Stop by for some coffee, hot chocolate or tea and visit with me!! I’ll have a tea-and-chocolate gift basket and a gift card to The Wild Rabbit to give away to two lucky winners!

Ask Me Anything: Giveaway Winner and “You want me to do what?”

November 1, 2013January 23, 2014Leave a comment

It’s time to announce the Giveaway Winners!

Thanks to all those who participated. I absolutely loved hearing the book titles you’d choose to tell your own story and am reminded of how much we can learn from one another.

I used a random number generator to select the comment number of the winners and they are: Mary Reese and Betsy Marmon!

Congratulations! I’ll contact you privately about getting these signed copies of Ask Me Anything, Lord to you.

If you didn’t win, you can still get a copy of the book here:

Visit me at Discovery House Publishers to read a sample chapter and order online!

Follow these links to find the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

Or click here to order an autographed copy via PayPal.

The book will also be available on e-readers (like nook and Kindle) and in some local Christian book stores in November 2013.

And now, for the final excerpt from Ask Me Anything, Lord. Enjoy!

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You want me to do what, God?

You want me to parent these children? You want me to stay in this marriage? You want me to lead this ministry? You want me to start this program?

When God calls us, it isn’t about us at all; it’s all about Him. We’re the ones looking at our qualifications and feeling mismatched for the job He’s assigning us, whatever that calling looks like in your life.

Moses reacted that way at the burning bush all because he focused on himself. He asked God:

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’” (Exodus 3:11 NIV).

It was his way of saying he wasn’t qualified for that. “It’s all about me and ME isn’t good enough.”

God, on the other hand, focused not on Moses, but on Himself. He said:

“I will be with you . . . I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ . . . ” (Exodus 3:12-15 NIV).

There are moments and days when I fell like Moses, when I begin to wonder how I could possibly minister to others when I’m working so hard at basics like keeping calm with misbehaving children and not stressing about my calendar.

When I feel so empty, how can I pour out to others?

It’s one thing to serve and encourage when we’re overflowing; God’s goodness just sploshes over the tops of our lives and refreshes all who cross our paths. But, what about when our cup seems dry? What happens when a thirsty neighbor lifts up needy hands in our direction and we ladle out empty air?

In some ways, that’s where Moses was. He felt enthusiastic to the point of foolishness about leading the Israelites decades before when he was still in Egypt. Unfortunately, he was oozing confidence and overflowing with a vision of leading a slave revolt that depended on his own strength. He believed then that if it all depended on him, well then he was enough.

Then he murdered an Egyptian in his enthusiasm. His own people rejected him. Pharaoh sought to punish him. That’s what happened when he served in his own strength.

At the burning bush, however, Moses clearly recognized that if this deliverance thing depended on him, well then he simply didn’t cut it.

And that’s what we say sometimes when we tell God that we can’t possibly do what He wants us to do.

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Jesus was saying, ‘Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me.’ In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow ‘the rivers of living water’” (John 7:38 NIV).

Similarly, the Psalmist wrote, “Then those who sing as well as those who play the flutes shall say, ‘All my springs of joy are in You‘” (Psalm 87:7, NASB).

God is the Source, the Spring from which comes all our joy.

He’s not an immovable Fountain either, located at only one place or accessible at only certain times of the day. He is our Portion and Provision every moment of every day.

When we find ourselves carrying our cups back to Him like Oliver Twist in the orphanage, asking shamefacedly, “Please, Sir, can I have some more?” we’re forgetting that we serve a generous God, who longs to pour out His grace on us. He isn’t stingy and doesn’t want us thirsty or starving.

The more times a day we lift our cups to Him, the more times He will fill them. If that means we’re having a quiet time every five minutes all day long, then that’s what it takes that day to fill up at the Fountain of God.

I know that when I’m running back to the well every few minutes, it’s because I’m a needy and leaky person, with holes punched all in my heart from stress and busyness.

Yet, it’s also because I’m pouring out to others and God is willing, even joyful, to replace what I’ve spilled over into the cups of my husband, my children, my friends, my Bible Study girls, my church members, the Wal-Mart cashier and the girl who cuts my hair.

The frequency of our visits to the Well doesn’t reveal our weakness or failure. It reveals our dependency on Him and how much we pour out to others.

So when we peer into an empty cup and think we’re too dry to walk this Christian life, too empty to share with another, then we’re forgetting that It’s All About Him.

That’s the mistake Moses made. He assumed the ministry depended on himself. Truthfully, though, none of the ministry we perform in our homes or outside of them is contingent on our ability, brains, beauty, education, character or godliness (thank goodness!).

It’s really all about Him, and He promises: “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” (Isaiah 41:13 NIV).

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 now available! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Ask Me Anything: A Giveaway, Book Orders and a Lesson on Feeling Insignificant

October 25, 2013January 23, 201425 Comments

I was cradling my newborn son when my husband brought the package in from the porch and opened it next to me.

Inside was my early author’s copy of my book: Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions. It was the first time I held it in my hands, the first time I’d seen the actual book with my own eyes instead of just a picture file sent to me by the publisher.

There I sat holding two physical reminders of God’s blessing and grace in my hands: a precious baby boy and a brand new book.

So, today I’m celebrating with a giveaway!!! Because joy like that you just can’t keep all to yourself!

I’ll be giving away two autographed copies of the book to two different winners.

Here’s how to enter:

You earn one entry into the giveaway for each of these things, but in order for your entry to count, you need to comment to THIS POST letting me know how you entered.

Entry Opportunity #1: Leave me a reply to this question at the bottom of today’s post: (Yes, it needs to be here and not on Facebook please!)

If you wrote a book about your life or what God has been teaching you, what would it’s title be?

Entry Opportunity #2: Share this post on Facebook and leave a comment below saying, “I shared on Facebook.”

Entry Opportunity #3: Share this post on Twitter and leave a comment below saying, “I tweeted this post.”

Each entry needs to be a separate comment please! The individual comments are your separate entries.

I can’t wait to hear from you!

Entries can be posted any time between now and midnight on October 31st. I’ll announce the winners using a random number generator on next Friday’s post (11/1). I can only ship within the United States, so please keep that in mind when entering.

Have you already ordered your copy of the book? That’s okay! Maybe you could win a copy to share with a friend, a women’s ministry leader, a family member or to give as a Christmas gift!

If you don’t win the giveaway or one copy just isn’t enough, here’s what you need to know:

Visit me at Discovery House Publishers to read a sample chapter and order online!

Follow these links to find the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

You can click here to visit my Amazon Author Page.

Or click here to order an autographed copy via PayPal.

The book will also be available on e-readers (like nook and Kindle) and in some local Christian book stores in November 2013.

And now, on to the promised weekly excerpt from my book. I hope you enjoy!!!

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Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord all night and when the first signs of day started breaking through the darkness, “the man asked him, ‘What is your name?’” (Genesis 32:27-28, NIV).

It’s such a deceptively simple question. We know our names. It’s one of the first words we learn to respond to, one of the first words we learn to write with our tiny hands gripped around a pencil and guided by our moms and dads.

Our name.

Who we are wrapped up in a few letters and typed up on our birth certificate and Social Security card.

Sometimes, though, it’s not so easy to remember what our name is.

A few weeks ago, I was sound asleep and slowly awakened into consciousness by a sound traveling across the house, into my room, and all the way into my two ears so comfortably laid on my pillow: “Mama, mama, MA-ma, ma-MA, mama, mama, mama . . .”

From the time I put feet to floor and walked the tiny space between my room and my baby’s room, I had heard “mama” 62 times. It was never an upset cry or a yell, just a determined and incessant calling out for me. And in those few moments between my bed and her crib, I longingly recalled the days when my name used to be Heather.

Is that what my name had been? Most days it really isn’t anymore. Perhaps you find yourself in this position, too—so defined by roles, that your true identity is shrouded in mystery and long since lost. Are there days when you feel like your deep-down soul is buried under mounds of roles and expectations? You aren’t you anymore—you’re “Mom,” “Wife,” “Daughter,” “Employee.”

It’s as if we no longer wear nametags at events; we just post job descriptions to our shirts and that’s how people come to know us. We meet, we shake hands. They say, “So, _______, what do you do?” We answer and suddenly that’s how they know us, not by who we are, but by what we do.

Nicole Johnson wrote and performed a skit about a woman who uses a label maker to define and categorize everyone around her, even to the point of hurtfulness when she labels her young daughter “fat.” Do you ever feel like your face is obscured by neon-colored labels printed out and stuck all over you by the people you meet every day?

These labels oversimplify who we really are, transforming us from a dynamic person with unique feelings and thoughts into “working mom” or “stay-at-home mom,” “church-goer,” “liberal,” “conservative.” People often think they know us by the box they have placed us in. Sometimes we even forget that we aren’t defined by labels and roles and categories and boxes. Then we wake up one morning and feel like somewhere along the way, we’ve just gotten lost.

God doesn’t lose sight of us, though.

Even when we forget our name and the essence of ourselves, He remains intimately aware of us, His creation. Part of God’s unfathomably deep love for us is that He never overlooks our complexities. Isaiah tells us:

“God says, ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine. . . Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, And I have loved you;’” (Isaiah 43:1, 4 NKJV).

Later, Isaiah writes:

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:14-16, NIV).

God knew Jacob’s name. He didn’t need to ask. It’s the same with us. He knows exactly who we are and what has brought us to this place.

Yet, He draws us into closer intimacy with Him by asking the question, “What is your name?” He wants to remind us that individuals matter to Him. He isn’t just a Savior who died for all humanity; He died for you and me and every other person uniquely and specifically.

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 now available! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Ask Me Anything: Seeing The Impossible

October 18, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people”
Ephesians 1:18, NIV

When Hagar ran off into the wilderness with her son for the second time in Genesis 21, she ended up wandering in the Desert of Beersheba. She was a homeless single mother, without friends, caring for her boy in unfamiliar desert territory and running out of supplies.

Her circumstances were desperate.

Placing Ishmael under a bush, she walked away so she wouldn’t have to watch him die. “And as she sat there, she began to sob” (Genesis 21:16 NIV).

It’s in the impossible situations where God is often most visible.

So it was with Hagar. God visited with her once again and asked:

“What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink” (Genesis 21:17-19 NIV).

Just like His question, “Where have you come from and where are you going,” this new question, “What’s the matter, Hagar?” shows that He was concerned about her. He knew where she was and what her circumstances were. Not only that, but He opened her eyes to see the deliverance He had prepared for her.

Nothing about Hagar’s circumstances changed. She was still a homeless single mother, short on provisions and without friends or direction.

It’s possible that God miraculously placed a new well nearby where she sat. Scripture simply says “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”

It could also be, though, that the only thing that changed was Hagar’s vision. Blinded by impossibilities and overwhelmed with despair, Hagar had given up when a well was so close. God revealed to her grace and provision that she simply hadn’t seen before.

In the same way, God miraculously gave supernatural sight to Elisha’s servant in 2 Kings 6:15-17. Surrounded by an impossibly large enemy army with horses and chariots, the servant cried out in despair, “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” Clearly, they were doomed to defeat. Yet, Elisha assured his anxious friend:

“‘Don’t be afraid . . . those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15-17 NIV).

Suddenly their odds of winning didn’t seem so impossible anymore, yet their reality was unchanged. Those heavenly defenders had been there all along; the servant simply hadn’t seen them.

Pray that God will open your eyes to His provision and plan for you.

Sometimes we feel that our circumstances are too impossible even for God. We forget that He is the God of creation, who spoke the sun and moon and all of the earth’s creatures into existence out of nothing.

God hasn’t stopped being a creator God. He can create something out of nothing. He can place wells where there has been no water. He can create a heavenly army to deliver you when you are defenseless.

Remember that, “With man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27 NIV). You can trust that the God Who Sees you will know what you need exactly when you need it.

To pre-order a copy of this book, click here.

For more information about the book release, you can click here.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Packing, PreOrdering and Preparing for Book and Baby

September 13, 2013January 23, 20148 Comments

People keep asking me if I’m ready for my son to be born.

I think of the mostly empty duffel bag sitting on my bedroom floor and realize perhaps I need to take this countdown to my due date more seriously.

With my first baby, of course, I had a typed up birth plan and a printed list of important phone numbers weeks in advance. We had faithfully attended childbirth classes and I packed my hospital bag neatly (with a checklist) at 36 weeks. I created a ‘baby playlist’ and burned CD’s with relaxing music to help me in the delivery room.

The crib was up, car seat installed, dresser stocked, and diapers ready long before she was due to arrive.

And of course, she was a week late.

I’m just about two-and-a-half weeks away now from holding my baby boy, my fourth baby, and so far I’ve packed some socks, an electric teapot, a mug and some teabags. Oh, and some slippers.

A girl has priorities.

The truth is that from that first positive pregnancy test and the week you sit all nervous on a doctor’s examination table waiting to see your baby pose for pictures for the first time, all fuzzy in black and white, wiggling limb buds with a heart beating so hard and so fast… you are in preparation.

You are waiting.

The life grows and sometimes it all rushes by so quickly. Other times (like in those early days of nausea, morning sickness, and awkward weight gain where you don’t look pregnant, but you do look bigger) time creeps on and you feel like this….surely…..will….last……forever.

But it won’t, of course.

There’s the season of waiting and preparation.

Surely, it may have felt like one interminable case of waiting, waiting, waiting on God for Sarah. But more than a decade after God’s initial promise to bless Abraham with a son, Sarah labored and delivered and then held her baby, Isaac, and she laughed with joy.

And a young teenage girl named Mary heard the news from angel—she’d bear a son, the Messiah, our Savior. No double lines on a pregnancy test to confirm God’s promises, no appointment at the doctor’s office to test her hormone levels or laying back and waiting for an image on the ultrasound screen.

No, it was the leaping of John the Baptist in his own mother’s womb, the Holy Spirit dancing of an unborn babe, that told Mary life was in her, God’s life, long before her clothes stopped fitting and her hands and feet swelled.

Her waiting didn’t last forever, though. A night in Bethlehem ended the anticipation and the expecting.

Birthing occurs.

All that God has been doing in the hidden places of the womb, the forming in the darkness, the creation we can’t see, pushes right out into the light.

Paul wrote in Galatians that “when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (Galatians 4:4-5 NIV).

The writer of Hebrews tells us: But [that appointed time came] when Christ (the Messiah) appeared as a High Priest of the better things that have come and are to come (Hebrews 9:11 AMP).

God’s appointed time comes.

Until then, we prepare, we trust, we pray, we obey the tiny steps and trust God with the results. We marvel and praise Him for the signs that life is growing and maturing within us and it stirs up that hope, that expectancy that yes, God is at work here.

And while I’m packing that much-neglected hospital bag, I prepare in other ways for another kind of birth….

One I can share with you.

So many have asked, so many of you have faithfully prayed, and here is the first sign that my book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions, will be here soon.

It’s been a summer of editing and proofreading, of working with the publicist, and approving the copy.

Now, the book is available for preorder with a release date in November!

You can follow these links to find the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

You can click here to learn more about the book and what God has already done in the writing and preparing for publication.

You can click here to visit my Amazon Author Page.

An e-book version will be available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the Apple store shortly after publication.

Thank you so much for praying, for encouraging, for blessing me in so many ways. I am so grateful to God for each of you.

~heather~

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released on November 1, 2013! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

A Stranger in a Bookstore

March 4, 2013January 28, 20142 Comments

He had a scraggly brownish gray beard and glasses and wore a faded t-shirt with worn-out jeans.

I was about 17 at the time, and I had stopped into the tiny used book shop not far from my home. It was a regular haunt of mine, this book shop where I’d scan the shelves, moving past best sellers and romance novels and looking for the classic treasures that I loved and could pick up for a dollar or less.

It’s been so long ago now. I can’t remember how the conversation started or even why. Knowing me, I certainly wasn’t the one to initiate a chat with a stranger, especially as a teenage girl with a unknown guy in a store.

But this I remember so clearly.

For some reason, he asked me what I wanted to do.

And I said, “I want to write,” in a whispered confession kind of way, the kind of admission you make in embarrassment because you know what you just said was crazy, impractical and surely impossible.

In fact, I couldn’t believe those were my words. I didn’t know at the time why I said something so foolish and frantically searched for ways to escape the conversation.

After all, I’m a practical person. I may have majored in English in college, but I wasn’t silly enough to think that meant writing. I told people maybe I could edit, or work in publishing, or go to law school, or teach…..all more logical options than dreaming the impossible dream.

But I had said it, “I want to write,” and I didn’t know why or where it had come from or what it really meant, and I didn’t know how to take it back.

This I remember, too. He said, “Well, what you have to do is read the best and just write and write and keep on writing.” Then he handed me a book called Seize the Day, which I took home with me and still have on my bookshelf, and then he walked away.

I get emails now a few times a month from ladies asking me how to get published and could they do what I do, and I give them all the practical information I possibly can. Unfortunately I can’t give them “Ten Steps to Publishing Success” or “The Five Things You Need to Know About Christian Publishing” and I wish I could—really and truly.

After all, I’m just a humble girl still plugging away at writing myself.

All I can say is just obey and trust God and start small. Don’t dream about bestsellers or fame or personal glory or royalty checks.

Ten years after a chance meeting in a book shop, I was a mom with two kids and a job working from home, a job at the church, and ministry responsibilities, and I felt like God was telling me I needed to be writing….in my “free time.”

I started as that tired out mama typing away devotionals and articles in a word processor after my kids went to bed at night. I didn’t think anyone in the world would ever read them. Maybe one day I could print them off my own printer and slip them into a three-ring binder for my daughters to enjoy.

Then someone asked me to edit for an online Christian women’s magazine. And then she allowed me to start writing articles. Then I felt like God wanted me to write devotionals and publish them online, so there was this blog….and then a book idea that took discipline to write in the middle of crazy busy days….then there were some other articles….

I didn’t think this was ever possible and it certainly wasn’t on my own.

But God.

I have to tell you this secret—I cry every time I get the email: “We’d like to publish….” because I just know that it’s God’s grace and I can’t miss it. I didn’t plan for this, didn’t expect it, don’t deserve it…. I’m just amazed by it and so humbled by the reminder of how it’s all about Him. So, I stretch myself out face down on the floor every…. single ……time and cry out thanks to Him for grace like that.

Maybe we all have “but God…” moments. They so rarely start with a grand vision of success in any worldly way. They start with the smallest steps of obedience, humbly just doing the quiet things and being faithful in the here and now, and then one day we look up and wonder how in the world all this happened—-and know it can’t be anything but Him.

That’s the beauty of the “….but God” testimony; He gets the glory.

Like Asaph tells us in the Psalm:

“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever (Psalm 73:26 HCSB)

And it’s the testimony of David, who “stayed in the wilderness strongholds and in the hill country of the Wilderness of Ziph. Saul searched for him every day, but God did not hand David over to him” (1 Samuel 23:14 HCSB).

It’s impossible. We don’t deserve it. It’s hard and we’re weary. Maybe there are enemies; surely there are obstacles.

But God….He is our Strength, our Hope, our Deliverer.

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

May I take the time to humbly share some of these blessings from God with you?
If you’re looking for ways to find some of my writings online or in print, here’s when and where to look….

I’ll have articles in both the May and June issues of P31 Magazine by Proverbs 31 Ministries. This gem of a magazine offers encouragement, Scriptural principles, and practical wisdom for Christian women. What an honor to be a small part of this ministry! Proverbs 31 Ministries is in the middle of moving offices and re-designing the magazine, so they aren’t open for new subscribers at the moment. Hopefully, though, they’ll be open to new subscribes again soon and issues are available for purchase individually online.

My book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening our Lives to God’s Questions will be published by Discovery House Publishers in November 2013!

You can find my articles every month at http://www.myfrienddebbie.com/ and Ruby for Women, two online magazines for Christian women.

I also have the honor of serving as a small group leader for online Bible studies for women at Women’s Bible Cafe (new studies starting in April!!!) and you’ll find me sharing book reviews there, as well.

And of course I’m also on Facebook and you can find me on Twitter (@Heather_C_King) for Scriptures and quotes from Christian authors, and on Pinterest.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in November 2013! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: Ask Me Anything

Giving Many Thanks, Giving Much Praise

I Probably Have a Monkey in My Purse, Too

Ask Me More…Where were you?

Free Scripture Verse Cards for Ask Me Anything, Lord

Out and About: A Radio Interview and Book Signings

Ask Me Anything: Giveaway Winner and “You want me to do what?”

Ask Me Anything: A Giveaway, Book Orders and a Lesson on Feeling Insignificant

Ask Me Anything: Seeing The Impossible

Packing, PreOrdering and Preparing for Book and Baby

A Stranger in a Bookstore

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