VBS for grownups: Even though you’re different

June 24, 2014June 23, 2014Leave a comment

Vacation Bible School. That’s just for kids, right? Silly songs. Silly skits. Silly costumes. Kids stuff. Sure.

But is there any message in Scripture that God delivers just for people 12 and under? We older and ‘wiser’ ones sometimes make faith so complicated when the simple beauty of truth is what we really need.

This week, I’ll be singing songs and doing those silly skits from Group Publishing’s Weird Animals VBS at my own church.

Here on the blog, I’ll be sharing with you those same stories, the same lessons, the same truth, but for grown-ups.

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Many years ago, I sat across from a ministry leader at a McDonald’s, having a deep life conversation while snacking on chicken nuggets. We had met that day because I wanted to talk to him about going deeper in ministry, feeling like I wanted to be ready for whatever God had planned for me to do. I wanted to be useful, effective, a vessel fit for God’s purposes, and I was looking for some guidance.

So, he leaned back for a minute and gave me his words of wisdom as my spiritual adviser.

“Heather, if you ever want to be effective in ministry, you’re going to need to be more like her.”

I sat stunned for a minute and thought about the implications. The girl he named was a perfectly good Christian, but she was my opposite in every way.

Not just some ways, mind you, but pretty much in any way it’s humanly possible to be different from someone else–that’s how different we were.

Extrovert versus introvert. Feeler versus thinker. Spontaneous versus super-organized-planner-with-three-calendars.

So, what exactly did it mean for this man to tell me I had to be like “her” in order to be effective in ministry? Did it mean that God couldn’t use me with the spiritual gifts I had?

Had God made a mistake when designing spiritual gifts, accidentally giving some people gifts like teaching and administration rather than gifting us all with mercy or serving?

Were introverts all God-mishaps who needed just to get it together and become extroverts in order to be used by God?

I wanted so much to be used by God, though, that I decided to become more like “her.”

And I made myself sick with the effort.

That’s what so often happens when we are pushed and yanked and smashed into positions we shouldn’t be in to become people we’re not called to be and forced to do what God didn’t design us or ask us to do. All that effort to be someone else can make us sick and stressed. It steals our ministry joy and stunts our growth and effectiveness.

Forced sameness crushes us and destroys the beauty of God’s design.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).

We are His handiwork, His masterpiece, His poem, and we are designed for His own purpose and plan.

Made just right.

Even when others don’t see that and they try to shove us into uniform boxes of acceptability and usefulness.

Even when we’re embarrassed by the differences and wish we could just fit into the same mold everyone else seems so comfortable in.

Even when we think He can’t possibly use us, because He only uses people like “her.”

Even though you’re different….Jesus loves you.

The Samaritan woman at the well needed this. She needed a Savior who saw beauty in unexpected places.

This Messiah, this Jewish teacher, sitting at the well in the heat of the day shouldn’t have been talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan woman.

More than that, she was a sinful woman who likely drew her water from the well at noon so she could avoid the jeers and stares of the town gossips.

Not only did Jesus break all the societal rules and talk with her, not only did Jesus love her, not only did He extend salvation to her, but He used her to share the Gospel with others.

That’s what she did. She dropped her water jar right there and ran to town saying, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him (John 4:29-30 NIV).

She didn’t just find Jesus herself. She brought others to Him, a crowd of others, all of them needing a Savior.

Surely Jesus knew sitting down by that well that the best person to minister to that Samaritan town wasn’t a Jew, not a Pharisee, Sadducee or Rabbi.

He needed a Samaritan, one who had been drenched in grace until her parched soul just couldn’t stand to keep the Living Water all to herself. She had to spill out her joy so others could come see Jesus for themselves.

The disciples didn’t understand. She was….so different. So unexpected. So unlikely.

But God loves to use the weak, the small, the foolish, the most unexpected and unlikely of all because it’s never about us anyway. It’s always about Him.

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.

VBS for Grown-Ups: Even When You’re Left Out….

June 23, 2014June 23, 2014Leave a comment

Vacation Bible School. That’s just for kids, right? Silly songs. Silly skits. Silly costumes. Kids stuff. Sure.

This week, I’ll be singing songs and doing those silly skits from Group Publishing’s Weird Animals VBS at my own church.

Here on the blog, I’ll be sharing with you those same stories, the same lessons, the same truth, but for grown-ups.

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Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high,
who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes, with the princes of his people (Psalm 113:5-8).

“Mom, can you tie my shoe?”

I kneel down, slightly off balance, and whip the laces into loops and knots.

“Mom, can you wash my hair?”

Bending over a daughter with her eyes pinched tightly shut, I scrub with shampoo and rinse away suds.

“Mom, can you show me how to play this on the piano?”

I stoop to press the keys, one hand pointing to the music, the other playing notes.

“Mom, can you hold my hand?”

Tilted to one side, I lean over to entwine our fingers and we swing our arms together.

“Mom, I’m hurt!”

Dropping to the ground, I clean the wound and press on the miraculously comforting Princess Band-Aid.

Life with children is a life bent low. It’s the ministry of kneeling down, stooping over, leaning, and bending to wipe, scrub, heal, hold, read, listen–to love. So often, it’s the movement down to hug a child and lift her up.

God bends low to reach His children, too.

He could have sat, poised on His righteous throne, holy and unresponsive to our need.

But He didn’t. Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Sacrifice, is the great Love of God bending low so He could raise us up.

And He continued that ministry. Finding Peter’s mother-in-law sick in bed with a fever, Jesus “bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her” (Luke 4:39).

Petitioned by a leper for healing, Jesus “reached out his hand and touched the man” (Luke 5:13).

Confronted by an angry mob gathering stones to throw at the adulterous woman, Jesus “stooped down and wrote on the ground” (John 8:8).

He could have stood at a distance. He had the power to heal with words alone, and sometimes He did.

These ten lepers, society’s outcasts, living away for so long from family, friends, faith, they didn’t even know they could come to Jesus. They knew the rules. Stay away from others. So, “they stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!'” (Luke 17:12 NIV).

And He healed them with a word, just simple instructions.

But other times He chose to make it physical, and it so often required Him to bend low, to stoop, to reach out.

Jesus didn’t mind the mess. He touched the “unclean,” when it was against the rules for them to have contact with other humans for fear they’d stain the holiness of others.

Jesus got down in the dirt with people. And not just the high and mighty, the lofty, the righteous, the elite.

With the shunned, ignored, rejected. With the outcasts. With the unclean and the sin-stained.

With them.

With us.

Even now, He promises, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20 NIV).

If you feel left out…rejected…outside….outcast…shunned….dirty….not good enough, never good enough, never gonna be good enough…..

Drink in this truth:

Even when you’re left out, Jesus loves you.

God is not waiting for us to get cleaned up, to overcome, to fix it all up, to force holiness either. He isn’t put off by our faces smudged with dirt, our hands caked with mud, our fingernails lined with soil from trying to claw our way out of the pit we’re in.

Instead, David tells us:

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand (Psalm 40:2).

You cannot be so deep in the darkness to be beyond His reach. You cannot be so covered in dirt that He’s scared away or disgusted.

God puts on His muddy boots, wades in and rescues us so that we can be with Him.

As Lysa TerKeurst writes:

We may be overlooked by others, but we are handpicked by God.

Originally posted May 11, 2012

Keep Praying, Keep Hoping, Keep Looking

June 20, 2014June 25, 20142 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

So it continues.

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

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

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

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

Prayer is perpetual; it’s insistent and consistent.

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

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

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

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

I read the Psalms and here is the reminder anew:

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

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

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

Keep praying….keep hoping….keep looking.

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

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

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

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

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

Originally posted June 7, 2013

A family motto for summer

June 18, 2014June 25, 20141 Comment

My daughter asks, “Why is it so much easier to get along with friends than with sisters some times?”

Four days into summer vacation and she’s already pleading for more time with friends and less time with siblings.

But here’s the truth I tell her….time with others destroys masks, facades, and fake perfection. It has a way of dragging all of those sins and faults, all of that selfishness and the bad attitudes from where they stay safely hidden during play dates and public outings.

Anyone can behave for a few hours on a play date.

That’s what I tell her.

Then I remind myself: Any mom can respond sweetly to her child who is having a meltdown in the Wal-Mart aisle five minutes into your shopping trip when there are people around who might overhear you.

And those TV moms—sure, any of us could be super creative, fun, and even-tempered enough to fill 40 minutes of film footage once a week.

God isn’t satisfied with superficial sweetness, though. He wants genuine transformation. He wants the world to look deep and long at us and see the reflection of Christ, not some plastic Jesus or some temporary super-Christian persona.

It’s part of His design with family and others to wield us as tools, chipping away at one another, breaking off the pieces that simply need to go, and masterfully forming us little by little into tried-and-true, walking and talking, in-season and out-of-season examples of Christ in the world.

Proverbs tells us:

Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17).

So He places us in families and in community with one another.

And then He gives us summer seasons…when we’re up close and personal and with each other all day instead of scattering away to schools, activities, and our own busy lives.

It’s so much time so close together that causes the explosions….when she won’t share the game, and she says something unkind, and she makes annoying noises, and her piano playing is too loud, and she’s hungry and impatient, and she wants to go to the library when she wants to stay home in her pajamas all day…when all this “self” collides with the “self” in everyone else, that’s when He reminds us of grace.

Maybe that’s the lesson in summer, after all.

Grace to rest.

Grace to stop the frantic running from school pick-ups to evening activities, tossing back granola bars to your kids from the front of the mini-van while you rush to ballet where you yank hair back into buns and push in bobby pins before class begins.

Grace to linger over the cup of tea in the morning instead of putting on the drill sergeant hat and barking out commands to children to get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair, find shoes, pack lunches and then kiss them on the cheek and send them out the door just in time to rush onto the school bus.

Grace to skip the chores and pack the car for the beach.

Grace even that I need to extend to myself—to not adhere completely to the writing schedule, to post late to the blog or even miss a day—because we’re out enjoying the summer and I’m taking this time I’ve been given with my kids for these few short weeks and I don’t want to miss it. ephesians4-32 photo by Jaroon Ittiwannapong

And grace for each other.

This is the mom speech I make for my daughter after a sibling melt-down.

In this family, we give grace because we need grace. When someone makes a mistake, we don’t mock, or point fingers, or jump up eagerly to show off how they were wrong.

After all, we need grace. We receive grace, so we show grace to others. It becomes my call, my standard, my motto for this summer with my kids:

We need grace.

We receive grace.

We show grace.

Paul wrote this:

And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ (Ephesians 4:32 HCSB).

And that’s how we breathe in and breathe out when daily annoyances and mistakes, sins, and forgetfulness, bad days, troubles, and trials threaten to consume us.That’s what we do when others step on our toes and bruise our feelings. We forgive because we’ve been forgiven.

This summer, we lean back full into this grace and rest. Choosing not to be stressed over the schedule, but to relax in relationship. Choosing to forgive the hurts and cease the fault-finding as Christ uses this season together to transform us.

That’s the grace that is summer.

Originally posted June 12, 2013

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

15 Bible Verses on Peace

June 17, 20141 Comment

Numbers 6:24-26 (NASB)
The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.’
Psalm 29:11 (NASB)
The Lord will give strength to His people;
The Lord will bless His people with peace.
Psalm 119:165 (NASB)
Those who love Your law have great peace,
And nothing causes them to stumble.
Isaiah 9:6 (NASB)
For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us;
And the government will rest on His shoulders;
And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 26:3
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
John 14:27 (HCSB)
“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Your heart must not be troubled or fearful” (HCSB)
John 16:33 (NASB)
These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Romans 5:1 (NASB)
Therefore, having been justified by faith, ^[awe have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Romans 8:6
The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 14:17-19 (NASB)
for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.
Romans 15:13 (NASB)
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NASB)
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Colossians 3:15 (NASB)
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.
2 Thessalonians 3:16 (NASB)
Now may the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace in every circumstance. The Lord be with you all!

Black Tea Strong and Sweet with a Drop of Milk

June 16, 2014June 16, 2014Leave a comment

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
John 15:15

She always asks me if I’d like a cup of tea.

From visit to visit she remembers I like black tea, not those fruity teas or herbal teas. She places the sugar beside my cup and says, “You like it strong and sweet, right?” Then she sets the milk down on the table because she knows I pour in a little milk and not cream.

Her house is a home. It’s clean but not perfect with all the signs of family and love and growing. Magnets of the kids’ artwork dot the refrigerator door. I see toys and school papers and the book she set aside so she could sit with me.

I marvel at her because this gift she has, this hospitality, this welcoming friends into her home and making them feel cozy and relaxed, this is a gift I don’t have.

I always thought hospitality meant fancy party planning and expensive china. It meant having a house straight out of a decorating magazine and the whipping up of gourmet dishes with names I can’t pronounce.

And here I am this simple girl.

Hospitality seemed so complicated. So stressful.

But my friend shows me this, it’s really pouring a cup of tea and welcoming someone in.

She never makes me feel like an interruption in her day and she sits there and lets time pass without stress or bother and just chats in this easy way she has of talking open and honest.

It’s refreshing like cool water on a parched soul.

All this month, I’m pursuing the presence of Christ by investing in friendship because when I’m learning from His people, I’m learning from Him.

My friend reminds me that Abraham didn’t scramble to shove dirty dishes into the oven, toss the laundry pile into the backroom and stash papers into the closet when God showed up unexpectedly with two friends.

He didn’t shoo them away with a list of why he’s too busy that day to chat, but maybe they could schedule a lunch date next week….

He didn’t flick off the lights, close the curtains and duck in a corner, pretending he wasn’t home in hopes they’d back on out of the driveway and leave him be.

No, when Abraham saw the three visitors trudging up the distant path, he “hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground” (Genesis 18:2).

Then, he immediately (and without complaint) abandoned his plans for the day and made their comfort his sole focus.

He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my lord, do not pass your servant by. Let a little water be brought, and then you may all wash your feet and rest under this tree. Let me get you something to eat, so you can be refreshed and then go on your way—now that you have come to your servant” (Genesis 18:3-5).

He showed hospitality to God.

Abraham begged the Lord to “not pass your servant by” and God didn’t. He rested in that place. Rather than delivering a divine message and being on His merry way, He sat in the cool shade of the tree, eating and chatting with Abraham.

God and Abraham “hung out.” john15-15

And when the visit was over, the Lord, having been shown hospitality, shared with Abraham the plan for Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction. This was not the purpose of the visit, but it was a divine revelation borne out of intimate fellowship.

While we have the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives continually, still there are moments when He shows up in clear and powerful ways in the middle of our busyness.

He appears at the tent of our heart. He inquires if we’re home, if we’re willing to spend time with Him.

Do we tell Him to come back tomorrow because we’ve already fulfilled our quiet time quota for the day? Or do we usher Him into the center of our hearts and show Him hospitality?

Chris Tiegreen wrote:

When He comes to you in the heat of the day, do you bow before Him, offer Him the refreshment of your hospitality, and give of your possessions? Do you aim to serve? Then don’t be surprised if God lingers. Don’t be surprised if He communicates with you as with a privileged friend.”

And this is my heart, that God linger here and “not pass your servant by.”

So we make Him welcome. We invite Him in. We rest in His presence and rejoice in this miracle of friendship with Him.

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

What Super-Hearing looks like when you are a parent….

June 13, 2014June 13, 2014Leave a comment

My husband has super hearing. He can detect the slow-but-steady drip of a faucet across the house.

I also have super hearing. I can hear a baby cry in the middle of the night from the other side of our tiny home despite being in a deep sleep myself and without the use of a baby monitor.

Someone hand us our capes because we have earned them.

They promise in parenting books that you’ll know your baby’s cry from those of all the other infants wailing in the church nursery.

Not only that, your hearing will be so fine-tuned to your baby, you’ll know the difference between a hungry cry, a frustrated cry, a hurt cry, and “I’m crying for no other reason on earth than that I would like my mommy to hold me right now while standing up and rocking back and forth and maybe even a lullaby would be nice!!!!”

I read that for the first time about 10 years ago when I was pregnant with my first child and preparing to be the Best Mom Ever and thought, “What mysterious magic is this?”

I’m a concrete person. Abstract assurances that I’ll figure this whole super-mom-hearing-thing out flustered me. What if I didn’t know the difference between her cries? Couldn’t they help a new mom out with a CD recording of audio samples?

Track 1: Hurt baby.
Track 2: Hurt baby variation 1: Gas
Track 3: Hurt baby variation 2: Teething
Track 4: Tired baby.
Track 5: Hungry baby.
Track 6: Frustrated baby.
Track 7: Needs a diaper change baby.
Track 8: Nothing is wrong, but baby just needs to cry right now and nothing you are going to do is going to help her stop crying. Welcome to parenting.

So I’m reading this promise today:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15 ESV)

and this:

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Galatians 4:6 ESV).

And I realize anew the joy of this: God knows our cry.

Not like us, though, taking our time figuring it all out. Trying it out, getting it wrong, starting again, making progress. Slowly we learn to recognize His voice from the noisy mess of the crowd and the world and the flesh and the Enemy.

But He knows. He opens those arms of adoption wide and He says, “You can call to me and I’ll hear you. I know Your voice. You don’t need to call me Master….you can cry out, ‘Abba! Father!”

The neglected, the abused, the abandoned, the orphaned may scream for attention and clamor for rescue and notice from earthly fathers who aren’t there or who fail.

Yet, we’ve been given this special gift, the privilege to cry as beloved children of a perfectly loving Father.

How often do we fail to call to Him, though?

We cry out in self-pity. We cry in anger. We cry in accusation perhaps or worry or doubt.

I do this sometimes. I find myself all knee-deep in the mess and want to whine, complain, argue, rant, or plead.

And all I really need to do is hand that trouble right over to Him. “Abba! Father!” It’s the cry that He hears. It’s the cry He knows. It’s the cry that stirs His heart to compassion and receives His undivided attention.

This is our faith-cry, knowing we need help, knowing He’ll help us.

It’s not worry or fretting, anxiety or terror. It’s trusting that when we bring Him our need, He brings us His presence.

To Get to the Other Side

June 11, 20142 Comments

Most moms cry on the first day of school.

They watch their babies step onto that big yellow bus, faking smiles and putting on excitement for the sake of their children. Then that bus pulls away and they pull out the tissues.

Not me.

I cry on the last day of school.

It’s hard to explain really. I want my kids home and I long for summer all year. I’ve never been one to celebrate with a mani/pedi that first day of school in September as if I’ve re-asserted my freedom from the constraints of children.

I cannot wait for summer to begin.

But somehow that last day of school for me is like the emotional upheaval of making it to the top of Mt. Everest and back.

We did it.

We survived.

Not just dragged our tired behinds across the finish line, either. We had a great year and I’m so proud of these girls and all they’ve learned and how they’ve grown.

They bring home broken crayons, used gluesticks and a pile of awards and certificates and I just pray with this gratitude that spills out in those pesky tears like an emotional dam bursts and I’m just gushing:

Thank You, Lord. You answered my prayers. You gave them great teachers, good friends. You gave them success and helped them shine. You guided them through a million tiny and seemingly not-so-tiny decisions and worries.

You brought us right on through and onto the other side and I am just so thankful.

Exhausted.

But thankful.

I’ll cry a bit. And then maybe I’ll flop right down on this new shore and take a nap because this momma is plumb wore out.

Somehow this year we survived a new book, a new baby and a C-section recovery that took mom out of the driver’s seat and made dad the king of the carpool. We made it through preschool three days a week, community theatre productions and a Christmas cantata, Engineering Club, a computer competition team, the school talent show, three girls in dance classes three nights a week with a recital to boot, and a steady stream of church activities.

There were times that I thought I could not make it if one more child brought home an unexpected project for school.

Could.

Not.

And I’ve discovered that I really do have a “look” that I flash whenever my child brings home a handwritten note in her best cursive writing asking for a playdate this Saturday when we have 12 other activities already on the weekend agenda.

But here we are. The last day of school.

The last….day…..

I wonder how the disciples felt climbing out of that storm-tossed boat after fighting for their lives and stumbling in their faith right before the calm.

Did they crawl out of that fishing vessel, soaking wet, panting, dragging out one limb at a time and then stretch themselves out in the sand until they could catch their breath?

Or did they hop out of there totally unflustered, like they hadn’t been screaming for rescue just moments before?

Something tells me they didn’t just shrug that typhoon off and move along.

Maybe they took the time to cry and thank God for salvation.

Like me today.

I knew we’d make it, though. At times it felt like I was hanging on for dear life, but I knew He is faithful.

God’s grace does that. It holds us up and carries us on, and our calling is never too much for Him to handle.

Too much for us? All the time.

Too much for Him? Not for a second.

So we throw the full weight of our survival onto Him, casting those cares over and over onto shoulders strong enough to carry them.

We trust in His promise.

Those storm-weary disciples could have done this.

Jesus didn’t invite them out for a pleasure cruise that day. He didn’t tell them, “Get in the boat so we can sail around for a bit and maybe catch some fish.”

He gave them a promise of destination:

Now it happened, on a certain day, that He got into a boat with His disciples. And He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side of the lake.” And they launched out. Luke 8:22 NKJV

Jesus never abandons us halfway. If He makes a promise, we know He won’t abandon us in the boat. He’ll take us to the other side.

The miracles that don’t look like miracles

June 9, 20141 Comment

I heard the sad news that the man in this story passed away this morning. I’m remembering him today just as he shared a sweet memory of his own mom and I’m praying for his family….

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Years ago, the sweet man who led our church choir leaned back in his stool at the front of the music room. He told us in a slow southern drawl what he remembered about his mother.

On the dark and stormy nights of his childhood, when the thunder raged and lightning struck close enough to illuminate his room, he would awaken to find his mom sitting in a chair at the foot of his bed. She sat with him through the storms, praying over him, even while he continued to sleep.

That’s what he remembered about her: her presence in the stormy nights.

Last night, I supervised the brushing of teeth and the donning of pajamas, packing lunches and backpacks, and laying out clothes for the new day. We read bedtime stories. We prayed as a family.

This morning, I poured cereal and I buttered toast. I placed ice packs in the lunches and zipped up the backpacks.

I helped with shoes and socks, combed hair, and reminded my daughters (too many times) to brush their teeth and to do it well because they don’t want cavities or bad breath and, by the way, we’re going to the dentist next week.

I checked the weather and then I held out jackets for each girl. I broke up a fight and gave a crying daughter a hug, calmed her down, and then placed the two sisters on a school bus. Photo by Viktor Hanacek at PicJumbo

The day was like every day.

I don’t remember these childhood moments, not my mom tying my shoes or helping me put on my jacket, supervising bath time or pulling my hair into pigtails.

But she did them. My life is filled with years and years of everyday acts of love I don’t remember.

Usually these acts of love remain unnoticed and undervalued . . . unless they’re missing. Those children who aren’t fed well, bathed, read to, hugged, kept safe, and tucked into their own cozy beds at night feel the lack.

What will my kids remember about this time with me? It’s not likely they’ll remember the moments of jackets and breakfasts and backpacks.

But they might remember the special times, like waking on a stormy night to see mom by the bed.

And I wonder, what do I remember about God, my Father? Usually, it’s the stormy times when I awaken in fear only to find His presence. It’s the times He’s kept me safe and delivered me from danger.

Yet, we so often overlook the miracles of everyday grace, the simplest signs of His affection and the fact that He cares for our needs and yes, sometimes even our desires.

When we always look for the glorious miracle, the immediate and the extraordinary, we miss thanking God for the gradual, the expected, and the small.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “A slow miracle is no easier to perform than an instant one.”

We revel in the answers to prayer that come fast. The ones that don’t require interminable waiting and inconvenient patience.

We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” and then miss the miracle of everyday provision.

In the book of Nehemiah, the exiles who returned to Jerusalem skipped sleep, fended off enemies, prayed, and labored with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other. They hefted bricks until the walls of Jerusalem were complete, all in just 52 days. It was a miracle. Even their enemies knew that:

When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God (Nehemiah 6:16).

How easy it would be to overlook the miracle, though, because it didn’t look miraculous.

As Kelly Minter writes in Nehemiah: A Heart That Can Break:

“It’s worth noting that so far we’ve read nothing of angels, burning bushes, or talking donkeys. Instead, we’ve seen God use what we might consider ordinary to bring about extraordinary transformation: prayer, repentance, willingness, hard work, sacrifice, humility, faith. Though miraculous displays of God’s power are to be desired and cherished, I’m equally impressed with God speaking silently to Nehemiah’s heart in the most ‘normal’ of circumstances. Be encouraged that the common, everyday realities are ideal environments for God to put something in our hearts to do” (Minter 116).

So we thank Him for the daily bread, for forgiveness, for mercies made new every morning, for unceasing faithfulness, and His goodness (Lamentations 3:23-26). We thank Him for the quiet and the everyday and His presence.

It may not be showy and ostentatious. Still, it’s love. That’s worth remembering.

Bad Boy

June 6, 2014June 6, 20142 Comments

“No, no, no. Bad boy. Bad. Boy.”

I’m in the back room of our house and I hear my oldest daughter chastising someone in the living room.

We don’t have a dog and it’s useless to lecture cats about their behavior. So, I’m curious and concerned. Who could she be talking to?

I see her in the living room sitting with her eight-month-old baby brother, who apparently is grabbing at her long Rapunzel-style hair while she holds him.

“Bad boy,” she says again.

I scoop him right up and then I explain it to her gentle:

“Babe, we don’t call him ‘bad boy.’ He’s beautiful and wonderful and curious. You can teach him, ‘no’ and you can give him other things to grab than your hair, but we don’t label someone as a ‘bad boy.’ Ever.”

But then the next day, I’m changing the baby’s messy diaper and I hear my four-year-old behind me.

“Oh, Andrew. Bad boy.”

I explain it all again to her and my other daughters listen in. I hope they don’t miss out on the truth of what I’m saying here because this is just plain important.

We do not call him Bad Boy.

I just don’t know where it comes from. I’ve never talked to my children like dogs. I’ve never changed a diaper or disengaged my hair from the pudgy hands of an infant and said, “Bad girl” or “Bad boy.” I can correct their behavior without the hurtful labeling.

So, what is this natural inclination to legalism and to guilt-ridden, shame-filled name-calling?

Isn’t this Christian walk this difficult balance of knowing we are depraved sinners in desperate and absolute need of a Savior? Prone to evil. Apt to sin. Not worthy of heaven on our own merit or labor.

And yet we are also dearly loved and covered by the heavy blanket of grace. And the God who loves us, He knows we’re not perfect. He knows our clumsy way of tripping right into messes of our own making.

If He thought we were perfect, He wouldn’t have sent His Son to redeem us. We wouldn’t have needed it.

Ephesians says it right there:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV).

So, I want to be holy to please the God I love. But when I mess it all up, I never seem to accept the forgiveness He offers. I just keep apologizing and rehashing the disappointment. I expect the discipline and the punishment.

This is because I let Him down. This is because I did something wrong.

This is because I’m a ‘bad girl.’

In an article called How to Rise a Pagan Kid in a Christian Home, Barret Johnson talks about Phil Vischer, the creator of Veggie Tales, who said, “I had spent 10 years trying to convince kids to behave Christianly without actually teaching them Christianity.”

Johnson asks:

Do you teach your kids “be good because the Bible tells you to” or do you teach your kids that they will never be good without Christ’s offer of grace? There is a huge difference. One leads to moralism; the other leads to brokenness. One leads to self-righteousness; the other leads to a life that realizes that Christ is everything and that nothing else matters.

So, do I want to strong-arm my children into good, moral behavior? Do I discipline them so their hearts are turned to Christ and the desire to be like Him? Or do I discipline so they will act respectful, tell the truth, sit still in church, not embarrass me in public, and stop hitting their sister in the back of the minivan?

I’m reading, The Good Dad, by Jim Daly and he pins me right down because I’m too often a woman who expects perfection from myself and a mom who expects perfection from my kids:

We all fall short of God’s standard of perfection….This understanding of our own imperfections helps us avoid the modern-day legalism that endangers so many Christians…It’s okay for your kids to fail sometimes. Because that’s often how they learn best.

Nobody’s perfect. That’s why we need Jesus.

That doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want, sin however we feel like it, no consequences, no worries.

It just means that while we strive for holiness, we know it’s not all on our own. We rely on Him to help us. And when we fail, God isn’t yelling at us, “bad girl.” So we can stop yelling it at ourselves.

We live thankful for the grace.

We rest in His love.

We stop looking back and keep moving forward.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: Christianity

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Bad Boy

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