She Was a Beautiful Woman

September 6, 2013January 23, 20145 Comments

“For the last twenty years of her life, she refused to have a mirror in her house…”

That’s what John Piper tells me in his book, Future Grace.

He writes about Evelyn Harris Brand, the mother of a famous hand surgeon and leprosy specialist, who served as a missionary to India with her husband. When he died, she returned to India, spending one decade after another caring for the malnourished and starving, the neediest among them, the least of these.

What could a mirror matter to her?

Would pearls or fashion help her give?

Would hair-dos and makeup allow her to love?

At 67, she broke her hip, one injury in a long history of sacrificing her body for others. There was the time she broke her arm, the vertebrae in her back that had cracked, the recurrent malaria. Her son begged her to retire and return home for some rest and relaxation.

She refused.

When she died at 95, still on the mission-field, still getting up each morning, preparing for the day, and heading right on out the door without primping and preening in front of the glass, her son said:

with wrinkles as deep and extensive as any I have ever seen on a human face…she was a beautiful woman (quoted in Future Grace, p. 295).

What is this beauty, I wonder?

I need to know for my daughters, how all the hair brushing and braiding, the outfit matching and shoe styles don’t create this radiance.

All that outward show can temporarily hide soul disfigurement. It can fool strangers from afar and win superficial praise.

But when others step in too close, lean in enough to see what’s beyond all the external costuming, they’ll see the ugly underneath.

And God, after all, sees the motives, the selfishness, the sin, the blemishes of vanity and pride that concealer and foundations can’t cover over no matter how thickly applied.

I need to know for my unborn son, so I can teach him to be a man who sees when beauty is real and when it isn’t.

And I need to know this for myself.

One month of pregnancy left to go….thinking now about the days post-delivery when my eyes ring purple and are rubbed red with fatigue….when none of my clothes fit just right and I’m feeling like a stranger in my very own body…. when physically I have others needing me, needing me all the time…

When giving my body for others becomes a moment-by-moment reality.

And this is the message I hear: Motherhood is beautiful.

Well, Motherhood is hard.

It’s the down-and-dirty of self-sacrifice, when you’re not just giving because it’s convenient or you have a little extra to spare for another.

Even my kids laugh now, how before I’ve even eased myself all the way into the dining room chair, someone else needs more, needs another, needs different…..and I hop up to grab a napkin, or stir the milk, or dish out the seconds.

That’s what they can see.

But how much more they don’t even know yet. How for nine months your heart expands all the while you’re throwing up and not sleeping and carrying more weight than you’ve ever borne on your frame before.

You can hope you aren’t left with stretchmarks after you’ve delivered, but you can’t really tell because your skin is so stretched over this human being. Of course, they are there in the end, permanent markings that you’ve carried the life of another.

And, it’d be nice if the weight was ALL baby, but of course it isn’t, not all of it.

Yet, you’ve traded in physical vanities for this reality: You gave of yourself, your very own body, for the sake of someone else.

And who needs a mirror to see the beauty in that?

Physical motherhood, spiritual mentoring, missions, service: Any time we stop staring at our own reflection critically, vainly, selfishly, obsessively, and start looking out to see the need of those around us and then we stoop down and give—not because it’s easy, but because Christ is in us—that’s when beauty shines.

His beauty.

Nothing compares to the radiant beauty of Christ shining in us, not the flashiest of fashions or the most glamorous hair styles.

This is a mystery.

Paul called it a:

“mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints….which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26-27 NASB).

Christ in us, the hope of glory, transforms and radiates in a way undefinable, inexplicable, and we can’t comprehend how He could fill us up and shine on out of our too-frail, too-broken, too-imperfect lives.

Yet, He does.

And no mirror accurately reflects the beauty of a woman who lives and loves sacrificially, who lives and loves Jesus.

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.

The Meaning of Life

August 1, 20121 Comment

My oldest daughter wants to be a ballet-dancing scientist and teacher (not a science teacher, mind you, a scientist and a teacher who also does ballet on the weekends).

My middle daughter wants to be a magician who also tells jokes (thanks to the program we saw at our public library this summer by a very funny magician-entertainer).

I can’t even count how many possible careers I once considered to be the definitive answer to, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Pastor, college professor, librarian, pianist, lawyer, editor, teacher. Any and all of them were on the list at some point.

Most of them probably still are on the list if I’m being truthful.

The thing about life is that so often we’re looking for that one overarching purpose. What were we made for? What did God put us on the earth to do?

And if our answer is at all ordinary or seemingly unsubstantial, it seems like not enough. Our hunt for that one grand design continues.

We ravage books on anything that will help us find the neon sign of God’s will for our lives.

To me, though, the ultimate end of such books is sometimes disillusionment. Inevitably, the author discovers through miraculous circumstances that he’s meant to be a missionary to Africa or she is meant to lead an international ministry to the “least of these.”

Meanwhile, you may be reading this blog in between diaper changes and laundry cycles. Or maybe you’re munching away on your lunch at your desk with papers to file on the left and accounts to enter on the right.

So, what does this mean exactly? Does God only have a purpose for some of us and the rest are just fodder for the world economy or babysitters for the next generation? Are we “ordinary folks” the rejects God decided He couldn’t use for any truly meaningful life purpose?

Or does God have some top-secret design for our lives and we just haven’t performed the correct magical ritual to unlock it–the five simple steps to discovering our purpose?

Of course, there’s a very real way to miss out on God’s plans for you. If we aren’t willing to obey what He says, we will not be in His will.

Yet, there are those of us who have prayed heartfelt confessions of submission so many times and we’re still searching for the plan.

Honestly, as a teenager I was baffled at how some prophets responded to God’s call. God said, “Go” and so many of them (Moses, Jeremiah, Gideon, Barak) answered, “I’m too young. I can’t. Send someone else.”

Now, if God said to me, “Go,” I was sure I’d be the “Here am I, send me” kind of girl. I’d be like an audience member picked to be on The Price is Right, screaming my head off all the way to the stage in wild excitement.

But there are times when it feels like our names just aren’t being called. Others take the stage and are commissioned. We clap for them and listen even harder for our turn.

Have you been there?

Perhaps, though, we need to stop searching for one sole purpose like there’s only one point to our life. The truth is, God has a plan for you and that plan involves here and now and not just tomorrow.

Colossians 1:16b tells us, “all things were created through him and for him” (ESV)

Chris Tiegreen writes:

“If you have ever struggled to find meaning in your life, consider this amazing truth: You were created for Jesus. You weren’t created incidentally as a by-product of the rest of creation. You were specifically designed for Him. You are a bride, handpicked for the Bridegroom; or an adopted son, chosen specifically by His Father” (Worship the King, p. 104).

God created us for Him. More specifically, Scripture says: “Everyone who is called by My Name, whom I have created for my glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him” (Isaiah 43:7)

Why are you here? What’s your grand purpose? What’s God’s plan for your life?

To give Him glory.

Today that might mean dishes, diaper changes and laundry—with a cheerful heart, fully invested in the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of the children God has specifically placed in your care.

Today it might mean praying for a coworker in the next cubicle over. It might mean quitting one job and starting on another. It might mean mentoring a younger woman or meeting with your neighbor for coffee.

God doesn’t just have a plan for your life: He has a plan for your every day. Don’t become so focused on the grand design that you miss the beautiful, God-ordained moments of ministry He brings across your path today and tomorrow and the next day.

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.

Our Jesus Style

November 9, 20112 Comments

“Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14, NIV).

The first time it happened, I thought I was going crazy.

I rifled through my two-year-old’s dresser and pulled out a new bright red Minnie Mouse t-shirt and some jeans. Then I placed them in the pile with the other girls’ clothes for the day.

My toddler took one look at the red shirt on top, screamed “no,” grabbed it and went running through the house like she was heading for a touchdown.

I have three daughters. I’ve faced wardrobe protests before. There’s the “I only wear dresses, the frillier and sparklier the better” and the “I only wear pink and purple” child.

In the other extreme, we have regular Sunday morning meltdowns with my other daughter who “hates pretty” and refuses to put on a dress. Oh how I mourn the closet full of hand-me-down dresses just hanging there unused!

So, seeing my two-year-old streak through the house with a red shirt didn’t phase me in the least. I dressed my other kids and then hunted for my naked toddler.

But when I found her, the shirt was missing. I looked around her, in the rooms she had been in, back in the dresser, and under the kitchen table (her usual hiding place).

Did I not just see her running with this shirt? Did it disappear into thin air? Had I finally completely lost my Mom mind?

Undaunted, I grabbed another shirt, pulled it on over her head and finished the morning dressing ritual and started washing dishes. I took some crust from their breakfast toast over to the trashcan and dumped it in almost without looking. Then I walked back to the trash with my used teabag and napkin and tossed those in, as well.

Walking away, though, I realized—I had seen red crumpled clothing in there. The Minnie shirt was now covered in crumbs and splotches of tea, but I salvaged it and threw it into the washing machine.

Now I’m on to her. I carry out the clothes in the morning. The two-year-old’s disappear routinely. I no longer hunt through the house for them. I know they’re in the trash can.

My little one has developed a strong opinion about what she wears every day.

I wonder what would happen if we were as careful about the attitudes, beliefs, and heart conditions we clothe ourselves in every morning. Maybe we should be that picky.

It’s a favorite metaphor of the apostles, reminding us to peel off the old clothes of flesh, lust and sin and to purposefully put on a brand new outfit everyday. We are to clothe ourselves in Christ.

Paul described it this way:

But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator . . .

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity (Colossians 3:8-14, NIV).

In other words, take it off, take it all off. The anger, the bad attitude and grumpiness, the bad language, the lies. All of those pesky remnants of our pre-Salvation self have to go.

And we stare at the closet and choose the new clothes we’ll wear each day with great care. Clothes of compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and most of all love.

Add in to that mix the favorite outfit of Peter: “All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another” (1 Peter 5:5)

The bottom line, for Paul is that we should “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14, NIV).

Unfortunately, our old fleshly selves have a way of sneaking their way back into our closets. We think we’ve restyled only to snap in anger during the morning rush. How did that discarded sin find it’s way into our wardrobe again? More importantly, how did we end up wearing it today?

Mostly, it happens accidentally. We aren’t picky enough about the spiritual clothes we don every day.

If you’re like me, you spend the last few minutes of time in bed each morning thinking about what you’re going to wear and all the things you need to accomplish that day. You’re planning it all out.

So, in those few moments before your feet hit the floor, plan the style of your heart. Choose to wear Jesus each day. Reject the clothing of your old self and instead pull on love and step into compassion. Spice things up with a scarf of kindness and a jacket of forgiveness. Wear your own favorite shoes of humility and gentleness.

It’s our Jesus style. It’s what people should see when they glance our way—our Savior. His pattern in our lives is unmistakable.