Tag: being a mom

What I’m Pondering

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Maybe it begins in the hospital, that first moment you see this little life and she blinks her eyes in your direction because she’s heard your voice, un-muffled for the first time by the sound of your heart beat and the shushing of your womb.

Maybe, if we’re being truthful, it begins before that.  We moms analyze morning sickness, aerobic kicking routines versus squirmy tummy rolls, a baby sucking his thumb on the ultrasound or another one turning somersaults and having to be chased around by the technician to keep him on the screen.

We think about our children, consider their character, who God has made them and how He has gifted them.

We think about what they like to eat and why, whether they keep to the schedule willingly or fight it all the way.  We consider whether they are spontaneous, creative, artistic, apassionatemomnalytical, strong-willed, stubborn, articulate, shy, introverted or extroverted.

And then we ponder what to do about it.

Like how I still remember the first time my middle girl handed me a fistful of air and asked me to eat the “sandwich” she had made for me when her older sister had never yet cooked up a pretend meal for me to taste.

Or how I watched as one of my daughters played with her toys by lining them all up in one straight line, categorizing the farm animals into groups.  And my second daughter played with the same toys by creating elaborate story lines and interactions like, “Hi, what is your name?  I’m here to see the farm!”

And how two of my daughters can play for hours on their own without any need for outside conversation or stimulation and my oldest daughter can’t survive 15 minutes without someone to do things with her.

I ponder all this because God has given me these gifts, these children, and being a mom means engaging in the discipline of pondering, taking the time to listen without speaking, watch without intervening, evaluate, assess, and yes, even marvel.

Sometimes we miss it.  We’re busy; they’re busy.  They struggle and we don’t realize it.  They needed us and we failed to see.  They hurt and we were distracted.

But our desire, our goal as moms, is to mother like Mary, who

“was treasuring up all these things in her heart and meditating on them” (Luke 2:9 HCSB).

We do this because want to get this right.  We want to parent these blessings with wisdom, making the right choices for their benefit and for their future.  God teaches us who they are only when we take time to pay attention.

In her book, The Passionate Mom, Susan Merrill writes that a mom must

ponder everything she learns about her child so she can truly know her child.

This in turn becomes a spiritual discipline all its own, because pondering is the call of every mom.

More than this, it’s the call of every Christ-follower.

None of us can randomly and haphazardly scramble through this life maze and find wisdom without hunting for it or choose to turn here and there correctly without actively pursuing direction.

The Psalmist challenged us:

Let the one who is wise heed these things
and ponder the loving deeds of the Lord (Psalm 107:43 NIV).

Wisdom comes from heeding…from pondering.

And what do we meditate on?  What do we watch so carefully and take our time to consider, churning it over in our mind, thinking of the implications and action steps?

We ponder the “loving deeds of the Lord.”

Not just skip right over them in haste and busyness.  Not shout back a hurried “thanks, God” as we tumble on our way headfirst into another crisis.

No, here we pause and take the time to see and to say, “Look how God showed His love for me…what does this mean for me now and tomorrow and every day to come?”

Solomon assured us that attaining wisdom is an active pursuit:

Tune your ears to wisdom and concentrate on understanding.  Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding.  Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures (Prov. 2:2-4)

Tune in.

Concentrate.

Cry out for it.

Ask for it.

Search and seek like it’s the greatest treasure and you the Indiana Jones in this adventure.

Knowing our children doesn’t happen accidentally.  We don’t become the expert on our baby instantly at birth or know all we need to know to parent them into adulthood before the nurse rolls us out of the hospital in the wheelchair.

We learn through pondering.

And this God of ours…who He is and how He works, what He desires and plans for us…we can’t fathom without the wisdom that comes through pondering His loving deeds and pursuing wisdom actively, passionately, constantly, and even patiently.

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.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Fourteen Things I Love About You….

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It started on February 1st at dinner.

We sat in our usual places with our usual place setting, but beside each plate was a construction paper heart.

Just a simple thing.  After all, I’m no Martha Stewart of crafts.  In fact, for weeks I had hunted for pre-cut paper hearts—to eliminate all use of scissors on my part, but when that failed I just piled up all the pink, red, and white construction paper we had and started making hearts myself.valentine

I kind of succeeded.

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….023

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.

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.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

I’m Building an Ark Here

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They say, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

This morning, I think: “The ark wasn’t built in a day either.”

I think it as my baby girl (too big to be called “baby,” she tells me) bursts into my room far too early to announce, “Mom, it’s morning time!” And I’m tired.

The ark, remember the ark.

I’m pouring cereal and reviewing ancient China with a girl who is taking her big test today.  I pulled my other girl’s hair back into a ponytail, but it was the wrong kind.  She wanted it differently.  Using her hands, she tries to explain it to me and I’m slow, so I lean down trying to understand and experiment with the brush until I get it just right.

That ark takes time to build.

They’ve dressed and stepped into shoes.  I’ve reminded and reminded them, brush your teeth, grab your back pack, zip your coat.  Hurry!  It’s time!  We huddle at the bus stop with our backs to the February wind and I snuggle close to block them from the strength of the blasts.  Then I whisper a prayer for their day, for their tests and their friends and their obedience and their learning and how proud I am of all their hard work.

Just building an ark here.  Just taking the time.

Because sometimes you wake up tired.  Sometimes you’d rather pull those covers right on up to block out the sun and the cold and sleep away some of the day and lounge away the other half in pajamas and slippers.

Sometimes you just need the reminder that what you are doing has significance and value.  Sometimes you need to know….This Matters.

Even if today isn’t the day you pound the final peg into the ark and the animals step on two-by-two and the rain falls…

Even if you don’t see the final results or immediate success, know that every peg you place and every board you lay has purpose.

It takes about nine months for God to intricately fashion a human life in a womb.
It takes 365 days for the earth to circle that sun, spinning around in its orbit.
It even takes 8 minutes from the sun to stretch its light down to our planet.
And it took decades for Noah to build that ark.

Progress happens over time, seconds and minutes and day after another day of don'tgiveupperseverance, dedication and refusing to give up.

How often Noah must have woken up to a new morning and wanted to stop.

Surely there were days it felt impossible to construct a massive floating vessel without power tools and contractors.
Surely the ridicule from the masses and those he considered his closest friends—yes even from his family—must have wearied his soul.
Surely there were moments he just needed God to reassure him that he wasn’t crazy, that he heard correctly, that what he was doing was necessary.

Some days it must have seemed so hard.  Some days maybe he wanted to give up.

Yet, had he given up one decade….one year…one month…one week….one day too soon, had he abandoned the project and left the ark unfinished, it wouldn’t have saved anyone.  God couldn’t use an unfinished ship to rescue, save, and redeem.

God saved him…and us…because “Noah did everything just as God commanded him” (Genesis 5:22).

Just one simple verse; it makes it sound so easy.

But I know the truth.  I know every time I sit down and open the Scriptures up on my kitchen table on days when I’m tired and the interruptions just keep coming, that I can’t give this up.  Even if the inspiration doesn’t come, even if God seems silent or my soul unstirred, still I build this ark.

When the chores seem endless…when you’re deep-soul tired…when you can’t seem to find your joy and don’t know where you lost it…when no one says, “thank you” or appears to notice your serving them…when others ridicule your efforts and tell you it doesn’t matter…when you’re teaching but they don’t seem to understand….when you’re pouring everything you have into this but you don’t see results….when you give with passion and what you receive back is criticism….

You get up in the morning and you lay one more peg and one more board into the ark that God told you to build.  You do everything just as God commanded you, not because it’s easy or fun or seems so rewarding in the moment.

We do it because we’re building into eternity:

“Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all”
(2 Corinthians 4:16-17).

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.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Weekend Walk, 01/19/2013: A Prayer for Children

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Sure, sometimes I get frustrated by towels heaped on the floor and shoes strewn across the kitchen and living room.  I sigh over coats stripped off and dropped on the linoleum.  I whine over piles of paper and toys dragged from one room to another and then abandoned.  I make speeches about obedience, right away, the first time I say it.

But there are days when your mom heart is shocked into tears and all the petty annoyances fade and the selfish bits of your heart are tamed back into unselfishness.

It’s when you hear of a school shooting and so many little ones dead.  It’s waking up on a normal, totally average morning and slowly going about your normal, totally average routine, and then reading the news: three young children—babies really—and their grandmother dying in a house fire just 5 minutes from my home.

Suddenly average doesn’t seem so average anymore.  Every moment seems specially blessed.

I was thinking and praying all week about the verse to share this morning.  In my scripture memory project through Beth Moore’s SSMT, I needed to choose verse #2 of my 24 verses for the year.

I read through all of the beautiful verses other women had chosen.  I went through my prayer journal for the week and thought first this one and then that one.

And I prayed.  Of course, I prayed.

But when it came down to what was on my heart and mind, the verse that Beth Moore herself chose reflected what I was praying.  How could I not?  So soon after national tragedy and so soon after a tragedy in my very own community, my heart is heavy for my children.

We aren’t promised their safety or their salvation or their health.  Yet, we are given this 002great joy, this weighty responsibility, this amazing calling to love them, train them, guide them, and more than all that, to pray for them.

Parents of adult children can pray this, too.  Grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, spiritual mentors, teachers and counselors can all lift up the little ones in our sphere of influence and in our hearts with this prayer of blessing:

All your children shall be taught by the Lord,
    and great shall be the peace of your children.
Isaiah 54:13 ESV

Yes, teach these children Your own wisdom and the joy of Your presence, Lord.  Help them to know You personally and be real, present and active in their lives.  In the very moments of their need, reveal Yourself to them and be their ever-present help in times of trouble.  Bring peace into their lives, into their hearts and minds, into their relationships.  We place them in Your hands and trust them to Your care.  Please help us to know when to speak and when to listen, what to say and how to love.  We are imperfect and weak; forgive us when we mess all this up, give us grace for a new day, and guide our steps, actions and words.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Feeling Unloved

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She was sobbing next to me and finally put all those unmanageable, messy feelings into four words.

“I feel so unloved.”

One fight with her sisters, one afternoon of correction and quiet discipline….and this totally loved daughter of mine told me she didn’t feel loved at all.

She sat with her tissue, snuggled against my side, my one arm hugging her shoulder, my other arm smoothing her wild hair that had been mussed by all the emotion.

But she felt unloved.

I had packed her lunch for the day, putting in her favorite snack and slipping a tiny paper with a joke on it into her bag of pretzels so she would smile and laugh and think of me.

She was wearing the outfit I had bought her and a ribbon in her hair that I (yes, the mom recovering from an allergy to crafts) had made for her with my own two clumsy hands.

Her favorite dinner was simmering on the stove.

Before bed the night before we had studied her Bible verses for the week and read together from books I ordered used online because they were out-of-print.  But they were her favorite, so I had happily spent an afternoon performing Google searches to find them.

I had combed out her long blond hair after her bath and sprayed it down to ease out the tangles and reminded her to brush her teeth.

And I had told her I loved her often, hugged her and kissed the top of her head throughout the day, then tucked her into bed under the blanket I had made for her myself.

But still she felt unloved.

I just finished reading an article about prison ministries and how many of the inmates come from homes where no one bothered to make sure they weren’t starving or had warm clothes to wear in the winter or a place to sleep.

No one really cared about them at all, but my daughter didn’t know the horrors of need and desperation.

So I told my crying girl how loved she is and how even when her emotions push their faulty lies into her heart and mind, she can shut them down with truth.

Doesn’t my Mom care for me?  Doesn’t she tell me she loves me?  Doesn’t she take care of my needs and even those extra things that I want?

We’re just as forgetful as my daughter is at times, feeling unloved because of a circumstance, a correction, a trial or sadness.  And we sit among our piles of blessings, of salvation and daily grace, and think, “God, don’t You love me?”

We meditate on the lies and feed them with our feelings, just like the Israelites did in the Old Testament.

Psalm 106 follows their long journey through forgetfulness and betrayal…

…they gave no thought to your miracles;
they did not remember your many kindnesses (verse 7).

But they soon forgot what he had done
and did not wait for his plan to unfold (verse 13).

They forgot the God who saved them,
who had done great things in Egypt,
miracles in the land of Ham
and awesome deeds by the Red Sea (verse 21-22).

They didn’t just forget minor provisions of lunch box meals and some new outfits for school.

They forgot miraculous deliverance out of slavery in Egypt, the parting of an entire body of water so they could cross on dry land, daily provision of manna from heaven and the protection from war-loving enemies on every side.

But always God was faithful:

Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
to make his mighty power known…

Yet he took note of their distress
when he heard their cry;
 for their sake he remembered his covenant
and out of his great love he relented (Psalm 106:8, 4-45).

They forgot.  He remembered.

“Yet, He….” it says in each verse. In my NKJV Bible, it says, “Nevertheless…”

That’s what God is...never at any moment less than good and powerful, mighty and merciful to us.  He is never less than His character or His faithfulness to His promises.

Even when our feelings tell us otherwise.

Even when we’ve believed the lies.

Beth Moore writes, “To live some semblance of victory, I’ve had to learn to be intentional and determined about where I would “set” my mind.  We can’t just depend on a good mood to get us through” (Esther).

That’s what I quietly tell my girl–how she’s always loved, even when she doesn’t feel like it, and how to conquer the lies by remembering the truth.

And that’s what I remind myself on the bad days and in the hard times, when I’m annoyed, frustrated, tired, or overwhelmed…that God loves me and cares for me.  Even when I mess up, never-the-less He is faithful.

That’s the truth.

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.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

 

Thanksgiving Devotions: Secret Messages, Whispered Thanks

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I wanted to write.
She wanted to paint together.
I sat down to answer emails.
She wanted to do puzzles together.
I vacuumed and washed and folded.
She dragged the Play-Doh bucket from the playroom so we could make pizza Play-Doh…together.

Writing projects, church projects, house projects, studying, filling out forms, answering emails, drafting letters, returning phone calls…I had my agenda.

And she had hers, as she handed me a game she couldn’t play on her own and asked for help.  Maybe we could do it together?

Somehow I managed to perform periodic cleaning sweeps through the house in between requests for “together” this or that.  We ate lunch at the school with her older sisters together (of course) and took a trip to the library after school with everyone.

Bedtime arrived and I kissed them all sweetly and patted their heads, read the book(s), prayed the prayer and tucked them into beds.  Then I flopped down into the chair, glad that somehow the house had ended the day clean-ish so I could work on other projects now in my “free time.”

One brief moment of peace passed before I heard the sounds of fighting, ending in screams and tears.

Following that, the post-fight therapy with daughters began, about whether they are loved as much as their sisters, and how come she gets away with this and didn’t I hear the mean things she said?1corinthians1-4

That’s when my tears began.  Because even the time that’s supposed to be free really isn’t when you’re a mom.  Sometimes the whole idea of achieving balance seems like dreaming the impossible dream.  When you’re truly responsible for other people, little people whom you love completely and utterly, you’ll be emptied out over and over again.  Where’s the balance in that?

The truth is life isn’t about balance at all.  It’s about putting people first.

I can’t say that I’m ending this day feeling very accomplished or on top of things, but then usually the most important things in life can’t be crossed off a to-do list.

Yet, as we sat there having lunch at the school, my three-year-old climbed up in my lap and curled up tight.  Her breathing slowed and drew in deeper and deeper until her head flopped forward into the crook of my arm.

I scooped her up, carried her to the car and then into the house after the drive.  If it’s possible for a tiny girl to coo, she did when I settled onto the sofa with her in my arms.

Then I whispered into her ear what I’ve said to my children hundreds of times since their birth: “I love you and I’m so thankful to God that He let me be Your mom.  You are God’s great gift to me.”

Sometimes I’m telling that to wiggly daughters who have zoomed by me in their dash from the kitchen to the bedroom.  I’ve reached out my hand, pulled them close and told them the secret message again and again.

Other times, I’m whispering it to sobbing girls, upset, angry, hurt or feeling unloved.

“I’m thankful to God for you.”

We all have people who need to hear those words from us: Teachers, friends, moms, sisters, dads, children, mentors, caregivers, coworkers, husbands….

Paul teaches us this in his letters to the churches.  He writes with encouragement and challenges, correction, doctrine, and personal testimony, but also with thanks for the very people reading these words.

To the Corinthians he wrote: “I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus” (1 Corinthians 1:4).

To the church at Thessalonica, he said: “We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess 1:2-3).

So often, we skim through the beginning and end of Paul’s letters, rushing through the personal notes so we can dig into meaty questions of doctrine and theology.

But people mattered to Paul. That’s clear when you actually read his thoughtful recounting of the service, ministry, teaching, faithfulness, and generosity of individual people and the church as a whole.

Even when he was tired out from ministry and abandoning his own plans or agenda in order to jot off a letter to a beloved church in need, Paul always took the time to say, “I thank God for you.”

During this week of Thanksgiving, don’t just post a Facebook status thanking God for your husband and kids.  Don’t be satisfied with saying just one word of gratitude before you pass the turkey and mashed potatoes.

Tell others how thankful you are for them here and now.  That’s more important than anything else on your agenda for the day.

Who needs to hear you say, “I’m thankful for you” today?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Praying for them and praying with them

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My girl clambered into the minivan after school, heavy backpack on her shoulders, heavy thoughts in her heart.

She waited for my daily question, “How was your day?”

And then she spilled the news about “this boy in my class.”

“This boy” was loud and disruptive and didn’t follow the rules.  He cost them rewards in art class and never obeyed the teacher.  He did inappropriate things and wouldn’t stay in line.

She finished her story, pronounced a loud “harumph” and slammed her arms criss-cross around her chest to demonstrate her anger.

So many of our conversations take place this way, me angling the rear-view mirror to see faces, shouting back Mom-ly words of wisdom from the driver’s seat.  “You know what we need to do,” I hollered to the back seat.  “We need to pray for him and for your teacher.”

I expected her to shrug off my advice as impractical and unhelpful, no immediate solution and no personal satisfaction guaranteed.

But she didn’t.  I watched as a look of epiphany brightened her eyes and she lifted her face so her eyes met mine in the mirror.  She nodded in wholehearted agreement.

Later, snuggled together on our overstuffed blue couch, I prayed for “this boy” and for their teacher and when I was through, this child of mine–who finds kisses too embarrassing and 1timothy2declines to even hug much of the time–tossed her arms around me freely and tightly.

We parents, grandparents, teachers and leaders show our children how to pray over time, beginning with bowed heads over scraped needs and boo-boos on fingers.  We seek forgiveness for wrongs and take difficult situations to God.  And then we begin to pray for others, their hearts turning outward in ministry and compassion (and maybe sometimes frustration).

But it all begins with us, modeling the habit and discipline of “take it to the Lord in prayer.”  It’s bringing Jesus right there into the center of our everyday.

As Paul wrote, “The first thing I want you to do is pray.  Pray every way you know how for everyone you know” (1 Timothy 2:1 MSG).

The first thing we do is drop to our knees, not after consultations, Google-searches, strategies, all-night worrying sessions, and Facebook posts.  Pray first.

Perhaps God had been preparing me for that moment in the car because I’d been on my knees consistently for weeks over my girl.

Please God show me how to be the Mom she needs me to be, how to encourage her, love her, shepherd her heart, discipline her, and protect her.

I hadn’t just prayed, of course.  I’d tried the usual sources, asking for advice. Looking up some behavior issues on reliable Christian family resources.  Scrolling through resources from online sites, hoping to find that perfect book that would explain it all to me and box up my child into an understandable psychological package.

Nothing seemed quite right for my girl.  No formula or strategy was “it.”

What else to do BUT pray?  What else was truly needed but prayer?

Maybe God draws us to pray for our kids so that they’ll see us and learn how to bring His presence into the midst of all situations.  They’ll see our faith practiced in the everyday situations and learn to talk about life and God—-not life or God and never the twain shall meet.

Yes, this is more than Sunday morning belief or pew-sitting faith.  This is down and dirty life with God at our side, available to help us in every situation, to give us wisdom, strengthen our hearts, teach us to obey and discipline our desires.

We pray for children because we love them, still believing that God loves them so much more than we do.  We know them, but He knows them more.  He formed their hearts and personalities, gave them those gifts and talents that amaze us.  He knows the plans He’s laid out for them and how to guide them along “paths of righteousness for His name’s sake” (Psalm 23).

And we also pray for them so that they learn to pray.  So that when they encounter “this boy,” they know they can carry his case to God.  And when their friend is hurt by teasing, they’ll give a hug, say a kind word, and petition God on her behalf.  When they don’t know what to do, they whisper to God a request for help and follow His lead.

Letting our children see us on our knees and hear our prayers for them teaches them how to pray—pray first, pray about everything, pray every way they can, pray for every one they meet.

You can read other devotionals on this topic here:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Martyr Mom Returns the T-Shirt

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Sighing.  I find myself doing it often.  It’s because I’m not a huge fan of interruptions and it’s because I’m selfish and neither of those issues mesh well with life as a work-at-home mom of three young daughters.

So, I sigh.  “Mom, can you?”  Big, shoulder-heaving sigh.  “Mom, I need help . .. ” Deeply dramatic sigh.  “Mom, I’m thirsty.  I’m hungry.  I’m tired.  Can I cuddle?  Can we play Candy Land?”   More sighing.

In her book, Be the Mom: Overcome Attitude Traps and Enjoy Your Kids, Tracey Lanter Ester calls this the “Martyr Mom.”

Do they sell t-shirts for that?

In all fairness to me, there’s something particularly frustrating about apparently hidden “Mom Alarms” on all the seats in the house.  The moment I begin to ease down into the sofa or a chair, a child (or two or three) yells out “Mom!!” somewhere in the house.

Treating service like martyrdom, though, reduces ministry to a burden instead of an honor and a privilege.

There’s neediness around us. Moms respond to cries and sniffles and grandmas to hands lifted up for a hug.  Perhaps at work you’re taking lunch breaks with the girl in the next cubicle over who shuffled in this morning with eyes reddened from tears.  There’s the cashier at the grocery store who needs you to hang up the cell phone and pause for a smile and the friend who needs you to take time for a phone call and a lunch date.

We’re foot washers.  That’s what God called us to be.  He asked us to bend down low, stooping down out of our own agendas of personal satisfaction and busyness, to touch the messiness of those around us with love and humility.

All without complaining or tossing out loud sighs of fatigue and annoyance.

Jesus, after all, did this for us.  He chose sacrifice for us, without complaint, without sighs of frustration and without dramatizing the heavy load of the burden.

The night Jesus was betrayed, He “crossed the Kidron valley” along the way to the garden where He loved to pray (John 18:1).

Beth Moore notes this valley was “a deep ravine which had been a large cemetery since before 1500 BC.  The Kidron Valley was infamous for being the center of death and the grave” (Moore, Living Beyond Yourself).

Oh how often he must have walked steadily through the graves, the literal valley of the shadow of death, in order to reach the familiar garden.

It wasn’t a one-time journey.  Judas the betrayer knew where to find Jesus that night because he “knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples” (John 18:2).

Christ chose to pray in the familiar place, knowing Judas, an insider, would find him easily.

Then the soldiers arrived along with “some officials from the chief priests and the Pharisees.  They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons” (John 18:3).  Judas brought along a “detachment” of soldiers—a full 600 men—not just a few random Roman guards to protect him from the angry disciples.

 For a moment, it sounds like the sacrifice was forced.  Like Jesus’ death was imposed on him, the victory of Satan over a helpless man—of 600 soldiers over one unarmed Jewish leader.

And yet, Jesus, “knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, ‘Who is it you want?’  ‘Jesus of Nazareth,’ they replied.  ‘I AM he,’ Jesus said . . . When Jesus said, ‘I AM he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground” (John 18:4-5).

Six-hundred armed soldiers fell to the ground simultaneously at the name of Jesus.
Beth Moore notes: “In the King James Version, the word he in verses 5 and 8 appears in italics, which means the word is not in the original text but is added for our understanding” (Living Beyond Yourself).

“Whom do you seek?”

“Jesus.”

“I AM.”

Jesus wasn’t carried off to trial, torture and crucifixion, helplessly caught up in the triumph of Satan and death and the grave.

He chose to go with 600 soldiers who couldn’t even stand on their feet at the sound of HIS HOLY NAME.

Paul tells us that Jesus “gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:14 NIV).

He says it again: Jesus “gave himself for our sins” (Galatians 1:4) and then later exhorted the church to “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2 NIV).

Jesus gave himself up for us.  He chose sacrifice for us.

And Paul asks us to “walk in the way of love,” this very same sacrificial, non-complaining, freely given love, without sighs, but with joy in the worship of service.

Who has Christ asked you to serve today?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

“Terrific, Terrific, Terrific” and Why The Goose Repeats Herself

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But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James 1:22

My daughter’s teacher just finished reading Charlotte’s Web to her first grade class and my girl came home with one important question about the book.

“Mom,” she said as she climbed in my lap, “there’s something I just don’t understand about it.”

I prepared to offer deep words of wisdom to whatever philosophical question she posed.  Why did the spider have to die? What made Charlotte and Wilbur such good friends?  Why was Wilbur worth saving?  Why did only some of Charlotte’s babies stay in the barn after they hatched?

Why aren’t we vegetarians?

Instead, she asked, “Why does the goose talk that way?”

Hmmm.  Surely, the mama goose in Charlotte’s Web does have a particular speech pattern.  She never says anything once.  When the animals are debating hotly over what new word Charlotte the spider needs to spin into her web in order to save Wilbur the pig’s life, the goose suggests, “terrific, terrific, terrific.”

Because one “terrific” is never enough.

And how should an ordinary barn spider spell such a large vocabulary word?

According to the goose, it’s, “T double-E double-R double-R double-I double-F double-I double C, C, C!” (E.B.White, Charlotte’s Web).

At first, when my daughter asked me to explain why someone would talk so funny, I mumbled something about how people talk in different ways and everyone is unique, something that sounded intellectual enough to impress her and qualify me for “Wise Mom of the Year.”

Later that night, though, I listened to the way I talked to my kids and had a life-changing epiphany.

The goose always repeated everything she said because . . . she was a mom.  Perhaps she had been repeating herself to her goslings so long, she began to talk that way perpetually.

Yes, I myself find that I don’t ever get to say anything once.  Usually it takes three times before my children even realize I’m talking.  So, typically my announcements sound something like this:

Time to brush your teeth.
Okay, it’s really time to brush your teeth!!!!!
TIME TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH!!!!!!!!!!

By the time I’ve tripled my statement, my middle girl finally looks up from the couch and wonders why I’m in her face with my voice raised (usually holding her chin so she’s forced to make eye contact with me).

It’s not that I’m prone to yell or enjoy being loud or even generally live with the volume turned up.

It’s that unless I’m loud, she’s not listening.

By the time I’ve reached my third repeat, my middle daughter always looks surprised and excuses her lack of obedience by saying, “Oh, I didn’t hear you.”

To which I explain that my voice trumps all other voices and all other noise.  The moment she hears my voice making any sound at all, she needs to focus on what I’m saying, which requires her to stop looking at the TV, cease listening to her music, put down the book, and pause for a moment while playing with her toys.

This has all made me wonder whether God ever has to combat my own inattentiveness with repetitive messages and some volume-raising.

Is that what He’s doing when I hear the same lesson from every radio preacher, sermon, Sunday School lesson, Bible Study chapter, and devotional reading?  Is that what He’s doing when He escalates His discipline in my life, all because I’ve tuned out initial warnings and overlooked His initially gentle correction?

Does this happen because we’re not listening?  And if it does, then the challenge to us is to focus on His voice immediately, turning away from all other sources of noise, every life distraction, every demand of busyness, and responding with Samuel’s, ” Speak, Lord, for your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:9).

Ultimately, though, this isn’t just about our ears sensing the ripples of God’s voice or even our mind evaluating the sound waves and forming the complex audio signals into words.

It’s not enough to hear.  It’s not so much whether or not my daughter hears me the first time I declare that teeth brushing should commence. The issue is whether or not she bounces up from the couch, walks to the bathroom, squeezes the toothpaste onto the toothbrush and actually brushes her teeth the moment she hears my command.

This is what matters to God, as well.  This is why when God gave His people the commandments, He said, “Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them“ (Deut. 6:3, ESV).

Even more significant is the fact that the Hebrew word most often translated as “obey” in Scripture is “shema,” or “hear”  (Walking in the Dust of Rabbi Jesus by Lois Tverberg, p. 29).

Since “hear” and “obey” are generally the same word in Hebrew, Tverberg says “to hear is to do, to be obedient” (p.29)  God expected them to be the one and the same action—we hear/we obey.  It’s as simple as that.

So, when Jesus sounded a little like the Charlotte’s Web goose whenever He made one of His favorite announcements: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” what He really was saying was:

“If you hear what I’m saying, then obey it, do it, live it, put it into practice”
(Matthew 11:15, Luke 8:8, Matt. 13:43, Mark 4:9, Luke 14:35).

I once heard a college friend  pray, “Please teach me gently, Lord.  Don’t bruise me.”  Oh, how I have prayed this same prayer!!!  None of us seek out God’s discipline or firm hand of correction or even the raising of His voice when we decline to listen.

Yet, if we desire God’s gentleness, His loving guidance, His soft hand resting on our shoulder, then we must live a responsive life.

Our spirits discerning.  Our hearts receptive.  Our lives obedient.  This is how we respond to God, moving gently and without resistance to His instruction just as a blade of grass shifting with the wind.  God speaks.  We listen.  We obey.   As simple as that.

You can read other devotionals on this topic here:

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

What if I Mess this Up?

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“Lead me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are the God of my salvation;
    for you I wait all the day long” (Psalm 25:5).

Years ago, a mom-friend of mine sat on the big blue couch in my living room and confessed, “I feel like all I do all day is tell my kids what to do and how to do it. I’m constantly in teaching and correction mode.”

I nodded my head knowingly and sympathetically and absolutely had no idea what she was talking about.  At the time, I had a baby less than a year old.  Our conversations usually went like this, “Momma loves you.  You’re so sweet.  Where’s your nose?  Oh, you’re so smart.”

And then she’d respond with, “Mama” or something else equally superior and I’d just know we had connected and that she was a genius bound for great things.

But now I’m older and my kids are older.  One day at dinner I remembered the words of that mom and realized that she could be describing my life.

Wash your hands before you eat.  Use soap!  Sit like a lady.  Talk like a lady.  Eat like a lady.  Chew with your mouth closed.  Use a napkin.  Don’t spill your milk.  Clean up the milk you spilled.  Clear your place when you’re done eating.

Brush your teeth.  Up and down.  Front to back.  Don’t forget your tongue.  Brush every single tooth.  Don’t leave globs of toothpaste in the sink, on the wall, or on the floor.  Hang up wet towels; towels can’t dry all crumbled together and thrown on the counter.

Don’t hit your sister.  Don’t yell at your sister.  Don’t manipulate your sister.  Don’t push your sister. Don’t boss your sister.  Don’t roll your eyes at your sister.  Don’t tattle on your sister.

Do your homework . . . neatly.  Take pride in your work.  Practice the piano.  Study your memory verses.  Put your shoes away—shoes and socks do not live in the middle of the kitchen floor.  A place for everything and everything in its place.

At times it feels like we’re prepping kids for the standardized tests of life and that means covering table manners, relationship skills, character issues, faith lessons, and more.

This isn’t just about the Mom-life.  Teachers, church leaders, aunts, grandmas, big sisters, small group leaders and more all have speeches we’ve mastered and a curriculum to cover.

But what if we miss something?  What if there’s a question we don’t know how to answer?  What if we get it wrong and miss out on cultivating one of their gifts or fail to correct a character weakness?

What about the fact that I can look at my daughters and marvel at how God has made them and yet be scared out of my mind when I think of the herculean responsibility of molding their character?

This week, I was praying for the summer plans for my daughters, for their next school year and the teachers they will have, for how to connect with them and how to be the mom God wants me to be in their lives.

Then I read the account of Samson’s birth in Judges 13.

In true Biblical fashion, Manoah and his wife hadn’t been able to have kids.  And, just as you might expect, an angel of the Lord appeared to Manoah’s wife and told her she would have a son and he would be set apart for God from the very beginning as a Nazirite—no alcohol, no cutting his hair, nothing unclean.  From before conception, God had a plan for Samson: “He shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines” (Judges 13:5).

What an honor for Manoah and his wife to parent this future leader of their nation!

And what a huge responsibility!  It must have been overwhelming as parents to wonder if they could mess this up.  What if they parented poorly?  What if they failed?  Could their mistakes prevent God’s plans?

So, Manoah “prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born’” (Judges 13:8 ESV).

The truth is that God has given all of us ministry and responsibility and it’s all too much for us.  In our own strength and ability, we’re absolutely not enough to parent our kids, teach our students, run that ministry, serve the needy, organize that relief effort, instruct that class, write that devotional, lead that worship, speak to that hurting friend.

We’re just not enough for any of this.

Manoah, however, set an example for us by asking God for help.  He turned to God, His Master, and asked, “teach me how to do this!”

And God did.

We serve that same Master, our Lord, our Adonai.  When He assigns a task, when He places these children in our lives, when He puts it on our heart to start that ministry . . . He doesn’t just dump it on us and run.

As our Master, He commissions us, directing us where to serve, assigning us ministry, determining our life-effort.

As our Master, He trains us, guides us and instructs us.  He gives us the tools we need, equipping us for the job He’s assigned.

When it all seems too much for us and we feel overwhelmed by the task, we can pray with honesty:  “God, I’m clueless.  I don’t know where to begin.  I don’t know how to get it all done.  I don’t know where to go or how to make this happen.  Please teach me.”

And He will.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King