Tag: Busyness

How Was Your Day?

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For those reading Lisa Harper’s book, Stumbling Into Grace, along with my small group, today’s devotional will match up with her tenth chapter, “Busyness Isn’t a Spiritual Gift.”

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“How was your day?”

My husband asks me that every evening as we chat on the phone while he commutes home from work.

It used to be easier to answer.  How was my day?  Well, it seemed mostly dependent on work.  What jobs I did that day, what doctors had I transcribed for, how difficult the task was, how productive I had managed to be, and how well I had juggled working from home with being a mom.

But now it’s more difficult to respond.  Do I share my excitement over the homemade bread recipe I discovered or the smell of the from-scratch spaghetti sauce bubbling away in the crock-pot?  Does vacuuming count as an accomplishment?  What about how much I saved at the grocery store with my coupons or how many socks I matched and folded?

And beyond that, relationally how was my day?  How many squabbles did I break up between my daughters?  How many lessons did I teach, conversations did I have, kisses did I bestow, Barbies did I undress and dress?

And beyond even that, without any way to measure my productivity at all, could my day still be a success?  How do you value listening on the phone to a hurting friend or spending  extra time at my kitchen table digging into God’s Word?

There’s a simple slide into a works-based life where measurable productivity is all that matters.  Where our success and value becomes dependent on the items crossed off our to-do list.

It’s the pitfall for working moms, the trap for single women in the workforce, and the snare of stay-at-home moms whose identity becomes tangled up with their children and the cleanliness of their home.

We all fall in the pit some time.

In her book, Stumbling Into Grace, Lisa Harper reminds us that God “cares far more about the posture of our hearts than our productivity.  Even “good” things can become the enemy of God’s best for us” (p. 114).

That doesn’t mean busyness is sin.  If you have a job, or a ministry, or a husband, or kids—any of those or all of the above—chances are you’re busy.  Chances are you get tired sometimes.

We have a way of judging that in the church.  “If you’re tired, it means you aren’t doing what God called you to do.”  “If you’re worn out, it’s because you’re not relying enough on God’s joy.”  “If you just lead the simple life, you’d be fine.”

Jesus didn’t throw those judgmental millstones around the neck of the disciples.  He commissioned them for activity, sending them out for weeks of uncomfortable, on-foot missionary traveling to towns where they weren’t always well-received (Luke 9).

Were they busy?  Yes, absolutely.  Every day they moved to another place to tell others about Jesus, sleeping in who knows what conditions and eating anything they were offered.

Were they doing God’s will?  Surely they were.  Jesus had sent them out with specific instructions about what to take with them and what to do on their journey.

Were they traveling alone?  No!  They went out in pairs so that they had the support and encouragement of a Christ-following companion.

They did everything right, and yet they were tired.  When they returned home from their journey, “Jesus took them away, off by themselves, near the town called Bethsaida” (Luke 9:10, MSG).

He knew they needed time away.  Alone time with Jesus.  That’s what we need to refresh our busy souls also.

But first we also ask ourselves—are we doing God’s will?  Here we pause.

The Lord promised, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), but if we just keep throwing on the same burdensome loads, we’ll never feel truly rested.  That’s the weighed-down fatigue we choose when we do and do and do rather than obeying Him when He tells us to act and obeying when He asks us to rest.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

An active Christian worker too often lives to be seen by others, while it is the innermost, personal area that reveals the power of a person’s life.

We must get rid of the plague of the spirit of this religious age in which we live.  In our Lord’s life there was none of the pressure and the rushing of tremendous activity that we regard so highly today, and a disciple is to be like His Master.  The central point of the kingdom of Jesus Christ is a personal relationship with Him, not public usefulness to others

The bottom line question for us remains, “Are we doing God’s will?” God alone can determine the value of our day, the need for productivity at times versus the requirement of rest in other seasons.

If He has told you to rest, are you resting?  If He has asked you to work, are you working?  Are you serving in the ministries to which you are called and caring for your family in the way He has instructed?

Others might glance at your calendar and think, “She’s too busy” or “She’s such a slacker.”  The only One who really knows, though, is the One who commissions us and then offers us the rest we need exactly when we need it.

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 © 2011 Heather King

Pray For Us, Part II

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“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective”
James 5:16

You can read Pray for Us, Part I here.

Part II: We Need to Pray for Others

We need to have praying friends, but we also need to be a praying friend.  Be honest, now—how often have you said, “I’ll pray for you,” to someone and meant it with all your heart, only to forget all about it until you see them again?  For years, that was me.  I’d offer to pray for surgeries and doctor’s appointments, marriages and infertility, job interviews and ministry events.  I’d promise it and then I’d forget it.

We need, though, not just to say we’re going to pray, but to truly bow down at the throne of God and lift up our friends, family, and church members, interceding on their behalf.  There are times indeed when we will be the paralyzed one carried to Jesus by our praying friends and lowered through the roof to His feet.  Yet, there are also moments when we need to be the kind of friend who carries others to Jesus, despite the obstacles and despite the weight of the burden (Mark 2:1-5).

Oswald Chambers wrote: “Your part in intercessory prayer is not to agonize over how to intercede, but to use everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence to bring them before His throne and to allow the Spirit in you the opportunity to intercede for them.  In this way, God is going to touch the whole world with His saints.”

Have you seen what Oswald Chambers describes in action?  In this world of technology and social networking, I see people around the world committing to pray for a child with cancer, whom they have never met.  These are mobile, global, continual prayer vigils offered up on behalf of another.  It is God’s way indeed of “touching the whole world with His saints.”

And we are all invited to be a part of that.  God does not appoint one person in a group to pray for everyone else or call one person to intercessory prayer and give everyone else a “Get Out of Prayer” card.  He invites all of us to His throne room on behalf of the people we meet in “everyday circumstances and people God puts around you by His providence.”  Perhaps God sent you through that particular line at the grocery store so you could meet and pray for your cashier.  Maybe the hairdresser who checks your name off the list and calls you back to the shampoo bowl was God-appointed so that you could pray for her.  That interruption in your day that sent you to the store unexpectedly may have been so that you could meet up with a friend from small group, whom you had forgotten to pray for.

So then, how do you combat forgetfulness and busyness and self-centeredness and make praying for others a consistent reality rather than a broken promise?  These are some changes I’ve made over the years so that when I say, “I’ll pray for you,” I truly do.

  •  Mark it on your calendar: Mingled among doctor’s appointments, ballet lessons, and cookouts, prayer requests dot my calendar.  Surgery dates, job interviews, baby due dates, and court appearances are marked on the squares so that I will remember to pray on the very days necessary.
  • Pray right away: If someone calls me with a prayer request, I may very well pray right there on the phone.  If not, I pray as soon as I  hang up.  I may be cutting onions, stirring pasta, washing dishes or folding clothes while I’m doing it, but I’m praying while it is fresh on my heart and mind.  If I receive an email with a prayer request, I pray over it as I read and as soon as I’m finished.  Maybe I’ll write it down in my prayer journal so that I continue to pray over days, weeks or months, but I know that the moment I’ve received a request, I’ve already covered it in prayer.
  • Pray as you read Scripture: I’m forever copying into my journal powerful Scriptures that speak life to me, but I also have Scriptures on those journal pages for others.  As I read, I ask God to reveal Scriptures that I can pray for those on my prayer list and He does.  Right there in that moment, Bible in my hand, I pray for the person who has popped into my mind in association with that verse. ” God, place a new song in her heart” (Psalm 40).  “God, fill her with the knowledge of Your will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (Colossians 1:9).  Every time I open my Bible, I begin a conversation with God that often includes requests for others.
  • Stop, Drop and Pray: We’ve all had those moments when we’re running through our day and a friend appears in our thoughts for a moment.  “I need to call her,” we might think.  Or, “I need to remember to pray for her later.”  I’ve slowly learned to immediately obey the prompting of the Holy Spirit and pray right then and there, regardless of convenience.  I don’t need to wait until my quiet time to lift up a friend to God.  I stop where I am, drop what I’m doing even if only for a few seconds, and pray—-before I forget and before urgent things distract me.
  • Post It:  I’ve tried keeping a notebook of prayer requests before and it hasn’t worked for me.  What I have done, though, is find ways to post the prayer requests so I see them all day and pray for them often.  I have a prayer list for my kids on my refrigerator door.  For years, I toted around a handwritten list of the prayers from Power of a Praying Wife in my car to pray as I traveled (the list has long since disintegrated from wear and being spilled on).   On my desk, I posted index cards, one for Bible Study, one for my family, one for community friends, etc.  I wrote out vague but meaningful prayer prompts so that every time I glanced up while working, I saw a name and prayer request to take before God.

These tiny changes, none of them life-altering or difficult, have allowed me to follow through on my promises to pray for those I meet.  Now, if I say, “I’ll pray for you,” I don’t just mean it with all my heart, I actually pray it with all my heart.  Prayer is powerful and praying for another is one of the greatest ways we can love them and bless them, even if they never even know how much time we’ve spent before God on their behalf.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

He Rested

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“And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done”
(Genesis 2:3 ,NIV).

For months, one week in April glared off my calendar menacingly.  My husband and I focused all of our attention and energy on getting to that week and getting through that week—appointments, birthday parties, wedding, special church services, meetings, and holiday activities piled on top of our normal schedule.  I had the individual events in my calendar circled in different colors multiple times so that I wouldn’t overlook any one of them.   When people asked us about May, our eyes glazed over uncomprehendingly.  May?  What’s May?  As far as we were concerned, finishing April was the goal.

I’m sure you have weeks on your calendar that look like that, too, an overload of busyness, and you hold your breath in anticipation of it, stress when you think about it, and dream about making it through.

But then our week was done.  The last event finished.  We survived.  We drove home.  We rested.

It sounds so easy, really, to say “rest,” and yet for me rest takes great effort.

I’m physically incapable of napping.  Instead of sleeping, I lie awake thinking about all the things I should be doing instead of sleeping.  By the time I finally give up and throw back the covers in defeat, I’m frantic about the wasted time and move faster through my to-do list to make up for it.

I feel guilty for leisure, embarrassed by free time, and apologetic for fun.

Accepting help or taking a break feels like failure and an admission of weakness.

There’s something else at work here beyond just an addiction to adrenaline.  Oh, how I hate for it to be true, and yet digging down deeply enough reveals its ugly presence—-pride.  Truly, it feels good to be needed.  It feels important to be so busy.

When I run around in a breathless pace, doing, doing, doing all the time, I act as if the world depends on me to function, as if me sitting down for 15 minutes would create cosmic meltdown.

And that’s why God, from the very first week of creation, instituted a Sabbath rest.  It wasn’t for His benefit, as if the Almighty God who created a sun, moon, and planet with the power of His words grew weary and needed to sleep.  No, the Sabbath was not for God.  Instead, Jesus “said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27).

He created a day of rest for you and me.  It’s a reminder that the universe can exist without our involvement and labor.  It’s a re-ordering of our perspective, so that we remember it is God who is essential and not us.  So often, we forget that our jobs, our families, our ministries, our relationships, our everything depend not on our ability, but on God’s power.  We stress about meetings because we think everything relies on how well we present ourselves.  We plot out conversations because we think the outcome depends on the words we choose.  We think.  We plan.  We do.  We fix.  We busy ourselves.  We worry.  We analyze.  We lose sleep.

God knows the pride that burrows itself into our hearts; the tentacles it wraps around us as we seek fulfillment in accomplishments, in tasks completed, in people depending on us.  I’ve written it before and yet need the reminder of my own words:

I’ve seen many women engage in Busyness Battles with each other.   We ask each other what seems like such a simple question, such as “What have you been up to lately?” or “Have you been busy?”  Then, like a Wild West shootout, we breathlessly list our every activity in an effort to “out-busy” the other woman.  The prize?  The personal pride that we are more stressed than the woman we are talking to.  Don’t be embarrassed to concede defeat and say, “Well, I’ve been focusing on de-stressing. On Sunday, I watched a movie with my family and then read some of my book.” You may have lost the shoot-out, but who wants the title of “Most Stressed Woman” anyway?

I read this week that Craig Groeschel, in his book Weird, recommends a to-don’t list.  It’s a tool for those like me who find inactivity takes effort, to help me choose sitting on the deck while my daughters color with sidewalk chalk over doing laundry or choose pushing my baby girl in her swing and listening to her giggles turn to belly laughs over planning church programs.   This isn’t about rules, regulations and law.  It isn’t about Pharisaical hypocrisy and legalism.  It’s about rest and rest is about a humble stepping aside and the placing and continual re-placing of God in control of our lives.

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Now it’s your turn:

Lysa TerKeurst asked this in her blog last week.  I’d love to hear your answers:  What would you put on a to-don’t list?

For further thoughts, check out:

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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 © 2011 Heather King

I Want to See

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“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

I grew up with a brother who had an eagle eye.  On car trips, he always spotted the deer far off in the fields that lined the road or saw the eagle soaring overhead.  He’d tell us all, “Look over there!  Do you see it? ” and I’d crane my neck and twist my body, quickly searching to catch a glimpse.

I always saw absolutely . . . nothing.  Ultimately, everyone else in my family would point along with him and shout, “There it is!  I see it!”  Not me.   I saw empty fields and cloud-filled skies.

That’s partly because my vision is so poor, but even with glasses I never could see what any of them saw.   Mostly it’s because I’m unobservant.  I am usually far too focused on whatever I’m thinking about to notice my surroundings.  My husband can shave off a beard he’s had for months and I won’t realize it until he physically moves my hand to his now-smooth face.  I’m the one who asks her friends, “Did you get a haircut?  or Did you get new glasses?”  And they say, “Yeah, about two months ago.”  Oops!  It’s not that I didn’t care, but I just didn’t see.

I’m unobservant sometimes with God, too.  Last week, I was writing about His amazing, abundant grace and I prayed, “Lord, I don’t feel this.  I know about Your grace and I know the verses that tell me about Your grace, but today I just want to feel it and know it personally.  Would you open my eyes and reveal this to me once again?  Help me to be fully aware of Your unfailing love and mercies made new every day.”

From prayer to productivity, off I went about the business and busyness of my day, distracted and hyper-focused on the needs at hand.  Night came.  No grace-revelation.  My feelings didn’t change.  Nothing seemed made new.

Then the phone rang, my mom, her voice serious.  She tells me—just so I know—-that a man often-welcomed in our home when I was growing up had just been arrested for hurting teenage girls.  “Rape of a Minor,” in the cold, official way the courts put it.

And there was grace, overwhelming, astonishing, and unmistakable.

God opened my eyes to see His powerful work in my life, even as a child, preserving me from harm.  He had protected me and I hadn’t even known I had tread on dangerous ground.   Nothing in my circumstances changed that night, but God opened my eyes to see the grace already at work.

In Genesis 21, Hagar ran off into the wilderness with her son for a second time.   During her first misadventure years earlier, she had run away from Sarah, her mistress, because of the abuse and mistreatment borne out of Sarah’s jealousy.  God met Hagar on her way to her native Egypt and sent her back to Abraham and Sarah.

Now, here she was again, this time wandering in the Desert of Beersheba.  She didn’t even attempt to travel to Egypt this time.  With all the years she had spent away from her homeland, it probably didn’t even seem like home anymore.  Sarah had demanded that Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son” (Genesis 21:10, NIV), and so he did.  He arose early the next day, packed Hagar a picnic lunch of “some food and a skin of water,” loaded the supplies onto her shoulders and sent her away with her son, Abraham’s son.

Now, here was Hagar.—-Homeless, single mother, without friends, caring for her boy in unfamiliar desert 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 21:18).

It’s in the impossible situations where God is often most visible. So it was with Hagar.  God visited once again with Hagar 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).

Nothing about Hagar’s circumstances changed.  Still a homeless single mother.  Still without friends or direction.  Although it is possible that God miraculously placed a new well nearby, Scripture says “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.” It seems to me 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).

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.

Last night, I sat next to a woman at dinner and she shared with me her past so drenched in pain, hurt and betrayal, and her life marred by abuse, murder, suicide.  Now, though, God had opened her eyes to His love and healing, drawing her close so He could redeem and restore her.  I cannot say why God preserved me from harm and yet this woman, still so precious to God, had been hurt.  Yet, everyone’s story is a story of grace.  Mine the grace of preservation.   Hers the grace of perseverance.  Our eyes, previously so blind, were now opened to God’s presence and activity.

In Mark 10:51, Jesus asks the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you?” and he answers, “Rabbi, I want to see.”  I echo that.  “Lord, I want to see your grace and your activity in my life.  Show me  your miraculous wells of provision and your plan for me.  Reveal to me your might and your ability to deliver me from the seemingly impossible situations.”  So often we pray for provision, deliverance and healing, but what we are really lacking is vision–the ability to see grace already present in the midst of our circumstances.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

Everyday, Ordinary Life

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“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life–your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life–and place it before God as an offering” (Romans 12:1, MSG).

I love that verse in Romans and I came across it again today in my reading. The thing is, there are so many parts of my “everyday, ordinary life” that don’t seem really offering worthy.  I don’t mean because they are mundane.  I mean because they’re ugly and messy and well, failures really.

Like when your daughter decides to take the ballet shoes that you placed next to the front door, hide them and then forget where they are 5 minutes before you have to leave for ballet class and you lose it.

Maybe that kind of stuff only happens to me, but believe me, my reaction to this “irritation” wasn’t really an offering worthy of God.

To be honest, how I react to the big crises in life is much more holy and Christian.  I lean in to God and I grow in my faith in the process because I have no other choice really.  I know fully well that I’m not able to handle any of the big stuff on my own.

It’s the daily annoyances, interruptions, and irritants that bring out the worst in me, partly because I forget to look to God for any help or input at all.

So, how—-how do I turn my everyday, ordinary life into an acceptable sacrifice and a way to give God glory?

I’m reading this fantastic book by Eugene Peterson called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction and he drew my attention to something I had ignored before in this verse.  Three little words: “God helping you.” In the NIV translation, the verse reads:  “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

With God’s help and in view of God’s mercy, I can make my life–my whole life, not just the “important” parts—an offering to God.

In Romans 9:16, Paul writes, “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.”  I don’t know about you, but I’m so thankful to know that my salvation, my joy, my future don’t depend on anything other than God’s great mercy.

That means when I mess it up and lose it over hidden ballet shoes that actually don’t reappear until 3 days later (hidden behind the chair in my room), I can have a fresh start.  As it says in Lamentations 3:21-24:

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning;  great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.

We fail, but His compassion doesn’t fail.  He gives us new grace every morning.  He is our portion.  He is all we need in every difficult, annoying, frustrating moment of our everyday lives, just like He’s faithfully with us in every crisis.  It is only with His help that my reactions to the daily can be placed before Him as an offering.

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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 © 2011 Heather King

The Reluctant Blogger

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I have been putting this off for such a long time and now that I’m here, blogging away, it is almost as if I have stage fright.  That’s surprising because I’m generally more comfortable talking to a group of people from a stage than I am chatting with someone one-on-one.   I’m envisioning Winnie the Pooh calling out, “Hellllllllo.  Is anybody there?”  And hearing crickets.

But then I realize that whether someone is there or not is irrelevant.  I’m blogging now because I’m being obedient to a burden God placed on my heart, to write and share with others my devotional journey with Him.  My goal here isn’t really to write about me at all–not my daily activities or deepest dreams.  Not my beautiful kids or wonderful husband.  I’m not in the middle of any life adventure that I want to share with the world.

This is essentially about what happens when an insanely busy woman takes the time to meet with God at the kitchen table.

And you know what happens when I sit down with my Bible and my journal and my cup of tea . . .

I breathe.

It used to confuse me on exercise videos when you’re in the middle of your 20 lunges or 15 leglifts and the instructor says, “Don’t forget to breathe.”  I’d think, “Well, yeah.  Of course I’m breathing.”

But, usually when the exercise lady tells me to breathe and I’m resenting her perky condescension, I realize I’m really not breathing in and out.  I’m kind of gasping for air and holding it in.

My daily life isn’t much different.  When I answer the phone, people ask me all the time, “Have you been running or something?  You sound out of breath.”  And I realize, I haven’t been running; I just haven’t been breathing.  The phone usually rings when I’m making dinner and racing around the house cleaning and supervising homework and breaking up fights and sending emails and finishing work.  I’m juggling everything and keeping every ball in the air, but the one thing I’m forgetting to do is to just breathe.

So, most days I’m really too busy to enjoy the luxury of a quiet time.  I’m certainly too busy to put those thoughts together into a blog.  In fact, my lack of time has been one of my biggest excuses for not blogging.

I don’t have the time, but I make the time.  Because without my kitchen table moments with God, I’d die.  I’d slowly suffocate from my lack of breath.

So, in the middle of this “discussion” with God over whether or not I should even write this blog, I went to a women’s conference at a local church and they chose as their theme verse:  “He’s solid rock under my feet,
breathing room for my soul” Psalm 62:1-2 (MSG).

It made me think that maybe it’s not just me who needs the reminder to breathe in and out.   If anyone reads this and realizes you’ve been holding your breath, let me encourage you—“Don’t forget to breathe!”  And, that’s essentially what this blog is about—me taking time to breathe and reminding you to do the same.

This is an excerpt from a poem they tucked into our bag at the conference:

Breathing Out and Breathing In
by: A.B. Simpson

Jesus, breathe Thy spirit in me.
Teach me how to breathe Thee in,
Help me pour into Thy bosom
All my life of self and sin.

I am breathing out my own life
That I may be filled with Thine;
Letting go my strength and weakness,
Breathing in Thy life divine.

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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 © 2011 Heather King