Tag: devotions for women

Wonder Woman, Here’s Your Cape

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Pride is such a sneaky slave-master.

It confuses and deceives, tricking you into feeling free, distracting you so that you never notice the slow clinking of the restraints on your wrists, the ever-increasing weight of the chains on your legs, dragging you down, holding you back, restraining your worship and your service.

Friends encourage you.  Loved ones compliment you.  A boss pats you on the back.  They say: How well you are doing, how quick…how strong….how capable……and slowly you believe it.

Slowly you try to live up to it.

Because if you admit just for a second that you’re needy or weak, struggling in hidden ways, tearful, hurt, broken, tired, or sad, you’ve taken a hammer to that pristine persona.  You’ve shattered the image of The Woman in Control or whatever fake statuesque creation you’ve built onto that shaky pedestal for others to see.

The truth is it’s hard to admit you’re not Super Girl or Wonder Woman, complete with cape, tights, mask and heroic strength and powers.

Because of pride, that’s why.

Most of us, after all, choose the super hero costume over the average, flawed, everyday, hard-working but imperfect woman we really are underneath all that bright-colored spandex.

But God won’t let us.  Not forever, anyway.

He gently reveals our weakness on the tough days:

….When we forget the appointment.

….Or lose our temper with our kids.

….Or pack our husband’s lunch but leave out the sandwich.

….Or put away the groceries one morning only to find the frozen broccoli a week later defrosted and disgusting in the pantry and the box of pasta iced over in the freezer.

I’ve been there, done that, refused to wear the t-shirt.

Truly, I need the grace.

I need the reminder that on the days I actually remember to sign my kids’ school agenda books and send in the right forms with the right child….on days when I get everybody ready for school AND manage a shower and makeup myself (even more so if I actually get to dry my hair)…that this isn’t because I have super powers.

It’s because I have God.

He helps me.  He gives me rest.  He strengthens me when I’m feeling worn down and He gives me energy when I’m sleep-deprived.  I can’t take credit for that.  I can’t accept the compliments from others and let it go to my heart and my head, making me think that I sure do have it all together.ephesians2

I think of Peter’s mother-in-law, feverish and ill in bed when Jesus and His disciples stopped by for an unexpected visit (Matthew 8:14).

That poor woman, too sick to pretend to be Martha Stewart.  Guests sat in her living room and she couldn’t pour cups of iced tea and serve cookies.  She couldn’t tidy up quickly when she heard them knock on the door and hide the dirty dishes and the pile of clean clothes before inviting them in.

She needed Jesus in her moment of frailty.  He healed her and then she could serve.  He equipped her and then she could give.

On her own, she lingered frail and tired in the sick-bed, but in Christ and through Christ she rose in worship and thanksgiving to care for Jesus and His followers.

And when I’m struggling, it doesn’t mean I need to pull myself together all on my own.  It means I need Jesus.

I need to lean in more onto Christ’s steady shoulders.  I need His counsel, His wisdom, His help to be disciplined and discerning.

Or maybe it means I need to give myself the grace to accept help from others.

Either way, it requires being real and downright honest about who I am (plain old regular human being Heather) and who I’m not (endowed with superhuman powers of perfection and infallibility).

Maybe more of us need to make that honest confession.

I, ____________________ (insert your name here), am in need of God and in need of grace.  I’m not perfect.  I don’t always have it together.  Sometimes I’m a mess.  I often make mistakes.  But I’m forgiven and God promises to help me do everything He’s called me to do.

That’s the challenge, isn’t it?  To remember Paul’s prayer:

Now may the God of peace…equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen (Hebrews 13:20-21 NIV).

We’re equipped to do His will, not to do everything we volunteer for or everything others ask us to do or every good service and fun event we could pencil onto our calendars.

He gives us everything we need to fulfill the calling He’s given us today and no more than that.

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

Be The Mom, Book Review

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Be the Mom: Overcome Attitude Traps and Enjoy Your Kids (Focus on the Family)
by Tracey Lanter Eyster


Sighing.  I find myself doing it a lot some days.  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.bethemom

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.

Sometimes (maybe more often than that), I need the reminders in Tracey Eyster’s book on being the mom—that this time with my young kids is precious and short-term, gone before I know it.  She hits on attitude “traps” that probably many of us fall into—feeling like a martyr, trying to do this whole mom-thing like everyone else tells us to, being too busy to stop and build into relationships with our kids, and even feeling like we’re of little value.  Yes, we begin to feel like we’re “just a mom.”

With lots of grace, humor and vulnerability about her own tough mom moments, Eyster gives us an attitude check.  She’s laced practical tips with Scriptural encouragement and storytelling, making this book feel like a big sister or an older friend sharing some wisdom she’s learned along the way.

Chances are good that if you are a mom, you’ll find yourself somewhere on these pages.  I did at times.  And when I did, I was reminded to make some changes so my kids feel like they are important to me, worthy of my attention and not the recipients of sighing anytime they need my help or affection.

She writes at the end, “There are no perfect moms, and there are no tips or suggestions that will make you the world’s best mom.  But there are practical tips and training that can embolden you to stay the course.”  Books like hers give us the pick-me-up, gentle reminders and advice we need maybe not to be a perfect mom or the world’s bet mom, but to be a better mom.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Accepting this Gift

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“Is there anything I can do for you?”

That’s what I ask, but there isn’t anything right now….and that’s hard.

It’s hard to be one so used to serving, doing, and giving now mostly watching as another serves me.9550030_s

This, after all, is a love note I write to my family: one husband, three daughters, now one tiny son.  In lunches packed, laundry washed, games played, songs sung, books read, homework helped, appointments made, chauffeuring done, I say, “I love you.”

But this is his message now to me in these first two weeks of life with a newborn, and it’s beautiful and yet all so overwhelming because part of me rebels and revolts, thinking, “I should be doing this.”

Yet, it’s my husband clearing up the dinner table, washing each dish, and there he is driving three far-too-busy daughters to dance classes three times a week and shuttling children back and forth to school and then from school day after day.

He pushes the cart in the grocery store and carries the baby carrier into the church.  He serves the cereal in the morning and then bounces a restless newborn while I fix ponytails and bows into long blonde hair.

He forgoes sleep so I can sleep.

He’s been serving me all along, all these years of working hard and caring for me in many ways.  But now it’s all-the-time service; it’s middle-of-the-night and throughout the day every day and it’s taking over my jobs and chores in addition to his own normal tasks.

I find it so hard to rest and accept the gift of love…to allow someone else the chance to say:

“I love you” as I wash this dish.

“I love you” as I care for these children.

“I love you” as I sacrifice and as I serve.

It still feels like it should be me giving, not receiving…doing, not resting….loving, not being loved.

Yet, I sit for so much of every day and every night now, cradling a newborn, feeding him, changing him, cooing over him, praying for him, running my hands over his soft skin and kissing his totally kissable cheeks.

And I think….

What if this helpless babe refused my help?

What if, in his need, he declined my acts of love?

He’d be utterly desperate, hungry, filthy.  He’d be completely incapable of thriving.  He could try as he might to function with determined independence, but he’d fail and he’d suffer.

He needs me to love him.

And I need to let others and let Christ love me with this unmerited, unselfish, undemanding grace, as well.

Paul wrote:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.  And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not nullify the grace of God” Galatians 2:20-21.

Nullifying grace. How could we do this?

How could we take the amazing grace of God as it pours down all over us and soaks us right through and reject it, make it thoroughly null and void and ineffective in our lives?

Surely it’s by trampling all over this sacrificial gift of God of blessing and forgiveness, salvation and daily mercy, with declarations of our own independence.

It’s refusing the gift and trying instead to earn it.  It’s refusing to receive and demanding instead to be the one doing, serving and giving always.

It’s shaming myself for imperfections and living trapped in self-condemnation instead of accepting the freedom Christ offers.

And really, deep down is the ugly truth, it’s making faith all about me and my performance, and not at all about Him and His sacrifice.

Like Peter, I’m tempted at times to refuse the humility of Christ as He bends low to wash my feet.  How shocking to see the Messiah on His knees.

Foolish Peter—he didn’t know how much He needed a Savior who served, so he told Jesus at the Last Supper, “No…you shall never wash my feet” (John 13:8 NIV).  Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

Foolish me, how I forget that I need:

Grace

Mercy

Sacrifice

Service

Forgiveness

Without them, I have no part in Christ.

Peter submitted.  He stopped protesting and willingly accepted the gift:  “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!” (John 13:9).

This is what I need to learn…the submitting.

Sometimes, I need to let others give to me when I am needy and when I am weak.

And grace from Christ….that’s not something I need “sometimes.”  It’s grace I need moment by moment, day by day, new every morning.

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

Take My Picture!

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Originally published 1/12/2013

“Take my picture, Mommy!  Take my picture!”

In the middle of Sunday morning chaos, pulling on stockings, buttoning dresses, clipping on bows and tying on ribbons, my three-year-old twirled in her dress and posed for a Kodak 015moment.

And I clicked the camera.

I don’t ever remember being this way, so eager to say, “Cheese.”  I’ve always been the one declining photos, offering to hold the camera, tossing into the trash any pictures of me I don’t like.

But when I’m out and about with my daughters (or even just running around the house frantically trying to get four females ready for Sunday morning church service)… they want to stop and take pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures.  Not of the scenery.  Of them.

It takes us three times as long to walk down the Main Street of our town and probably twice as much time on location on our family “field trips.”  But I don’t mind.

I love that they feel beautiful enough to want to pose.

There was a day I stepped into the bathroom to put away a stray toothbrush, and I caught one of my girls watching herself in the mirror.  She smoothed her hair and glanced up at her reflection, pleased with what she saw.

How beautiful is the girl who feels beautiful in her own skin.

This rare gift, how do you teach it?  How do you help them keep it for life?

Somehow, most of us grow out of it.  We glance in the mirror and critique the image or sigh in frustration.  We step on the scale and slander ourselves with our thoughts.  We pose for that picture and know we won’t be happy with it later, not with the smile or the hair or the wrinkles or the chin or ….

Even my husband, in the early days of falling in love, would sit across me from the table and I could feel him watching.  I didn’t know where to look.  I was uncomfortable in his gaze.  What imperfections would he see in me if he looked too closely or watched too long?

Later today, I’ll take my seat at a piano and offer up the music for a wedding ceremony.  There will be a moment at that wedding when the soloist will sing, “How Beautiful the radiant bride who waits for her Groom with His light in her eyes” (How Beautiful, Twila Paris).

The beauty of the bride isn’t so much the hairdresser and the hair spray, the makeup, the gown.

It’s that she walks down that aisle feeling loved.  In a moment, she knows she is wanted, precious, and she radiates the joy.

And it’s beautiful how she loves him.  So we, thinking of another, run out of time to be so self-analyzing, so self-criticizing, so self-condemning—so “self.”

It’s a verse for meditating on all week, with a reminder of how beauty is looking to God–our Groom–thinking of Him and less of me.  Beauty is caring for others.  Beauty isn’t feeling shame, but feeling redeemed, feeling precious, feeling loved.

“Those who look to him are radiant;
    their faces are never covered with shame” (Psalm 34:5).

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

Rules about Pumpkins: The Lord is My Portion

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We have this long-standing family rule. My husband tells my daughters every year at the pumpkin patch before we scramble onto the tractor for the hayride out to the fields:

“You have to pick a pumpkin you can carry….yourself.…as in Mom and Dad aren’t carrying your pumpkin for you.”

They nod their little blond heads in understanding, but when my daughters hop off the back of that hay-covered wagon, their eyes scan the fields for the site of the perfect pumpkin.

And perfect typically means more than just deep orange (not green) and no rot (if they could find one without dirt on it, that’s a bonus).

Perfect usually means “big,” too.

Sometimes, like this year, one unique child will search for half an hour in that field only to pick the tiniest of all miniature orange pumpkins.

Inevitably, though, another child combines rolling, scooting, dragging, and bent-knee carrying complete with huffing, puffing, grunting and groaning to transfer her chosen pumpkin onto the tractor.

Or they’ll blink large, beautiful blue eyes in my direction and ask, “Mommy, can you help me carry this?,” hoping that somehow Mom missed hearing Dad’s speech this year.

Bigger is better.  That’s what they think sometimes.

I need more, more than I can truly carry, more than enough, more than can fit, more than is comfortable…..

As our daughters grow, so do their chosen pumpkins.

Perhaps it’s time to amend the rule because “what you can carry” seems like a dare to choose the largest pumpkin they can maneuver out of the field and onto the tractor.lamentations3

I take this dare at times, too.

Because I feel needy at times, that’s why.

In need of energy, of supply, of vision, of joy, of inspiration, of affection, of deliverance, of encouragement, of peace….and yes, of even more and more than that.

Scripture promises us this—The Lord is our Chelqi—-our Portion.  It’s one of His names, part of His character, the implicit promise dependent not on what He does or has done, but on who He is at the very core of His being.

That’s what it says in Lamentations 3:24:

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him”  (NASB)

and Psalm 73:26:

My flesh and my heart may fail,
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (NASB)

and again in Psalm 16:5:

The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup;
You support my lot (NASB).

He is our Portion.  He is Enough.  He is exactly what we need, how much we need, at the exact moment we need Him.

We needn’t try to fill our arms with more than we can carry, fearful that He’ll give us what we need today, but not tomorrow.

In the wilderness outside of Egypt, God rained down supernatural manna for the Israelites six days a week, enough for each day with extra to set aside for the Sabbath once a week.  And He told them this: Gather enough for today.

Just for today.  Trust me for tomorrow.  I’ll provide again.

Some of them tried to stockpile and store, thinking their own personal planning and feelings of security trumped God’s instruction.

But He meant it…daily bread.  This much, and no more, is perfect.  Trying to live off yesterday’s harvest leaves us with rotten manna, worm-filled bread, starvation for sure.

So, tomorrow and every single day we return for fresh filling and fresh provision, a perpetual looking to the Lord our Portion for all that we need.

And He is ALL we need.  We trust that He isn’t stingy or absent or moody and inclined to provide one day, but not the next.

We don’t gorge ourselves in the fields of life, choosing other methods of filling our void and our emptiness, lumbering back to the tractor with our arms filled with everything that looks so perfect, but never fully satisfies.

He is enough.  His provision is perfect in our seasons of fatigue and sorrow and desperate need .

Charles Spurgeon said it this way:

It is not “The Lord is partly my portion,”nor “The Lord is in my portion”; but he himself makes up the sum total of my soul’s inheritance.  Within the circumference of that circle lies all that we possess or desire.  The Lord is my portion.  Not his grace merely, nor his love, nor his covenant, but Jehovah himself.”

Oh yes, sometimes I think what I need is rest.  I need peace, Lord bring me peace.  God, give me joy.  Father, provide for this need.

But it’s not that He gives me a portion; He is my portion.

It is God Himself that I need, all that I need, everything that I need, and He is enough for me.

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

Heather, Meet Sheep: Part I

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She stood in the back, penned in on all sides, standing in the tall grass, watching as we passed, fluffy and off-white, round and full, appearing like a tangled mess of cotton balls with black sticks for legs.

The other animals interested my daughters more.  They hovered around the bunny hutch, chasing the rabbits from side to side, squealing over so much cuteness.

We peered into the dark of the pigs’ hut, spotting amidst the piles of hay tiny piglet ears and little piglet eyes that peeked out and then dodged back down for more napping.

The baby goat, calmer than most goats we’ve met, lingered at the fence edge so we could pet him and coo over his sweet friendliness and gentle ways.

At the pumpkin patch that day, we hunted for clues scattered throughout the farm and then unscrambled the letters to decode the hidden message—all for a prize, of course.

The clue took only a second to find, the marveling over the other farm animals took a bit longer, and then off the girls ran to hop onto the wagon for a hayride out to the fields.

But me, I could linger there for a while because amidst hay and signs teaching the kids that male turkeys are called “Tom” and a hen lays one egg a day, was another sign.

That sheep.  The one in the back.  The one that just stood watching us run around like excited suburbanites out in the country for an outing….

That sheep was named Heather.015

Like me.

I snap a picture of the sign, hoping I’ll remember the truth found here at the pumpkin patch.

Heather, the sheep, that’s who I am: the one in need of a Shepherd, the one who is fearful, the one who needs tending and continual leading, the one who can’t find her way to safe pastures or make decisions on her own.

Heather, the sheep who thinks she’s a farm laborer at times, meant to haul burdensome loads on her back, forgetting that sheep aren’t burden-bearing animals.

God didn’t make them to carry the weight or the responsibility, not like the oxen, the horses, the donkeys even.  We’re not meant for hauling around concerns, cares, or worries.

Sometimes we can’t even stand on our own feet all in our own strength.  Our Shepherd doesn’t load our shoulders down with packs and plows; sometimes He hoists us up onto His own strong shoulders and carries us instead.  He bears the burden when we cannot.

In the book, Knowing God by Name: A Girlfriends in God Faith Adventure, I read:

“Sheep don’t come across as stressed-out creatures… Sheep don’t worry about where their next meal is coming from, if they will have a place to sleep each night, when the next enemy or thief will attack, or even what the next day holds.  When sheep are sick or in need, they simply turn to their shepherd, instinctively knowing he or she will take care of and comfort them (p. 125).

They simply turn to the Shepherd, just one swift movement from worry to trust, handing it over to the one who cares for them, never doubting, not for one brief stressful moment, that the Shepherd loves them, cares for them, knows best, and will provide.

We know our Shepherd.

Jesus said:

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep” (John 10:11 NASB).

He did this for us, so great a sacrifice for such small creatures, such fearful ones, not the strong or the hardy, but the weak and fearful who are so easily led astray and scattered at the slightest sign of danger.

I read this, too, in Knowing God by Name:

“The needs of sheep, compared to the needs of other animals, are greater because of their instinct to be afraid, and when faced with fearful situations, to run.  Sheep can never be left alone.  They often stray, requiring the shepherd to find and rescue them” (p. 123).

And He does this, too: traipse over wilderness to lead us back, pull us all cowering out of the crevices and corners where we’ve tried to hide away in our terror.  He gives us constant knowinggodbynameattention, eternal love, continual faithfulness.

Yes, He lays down His life for us.  That’s the sacrifice He gave once for all.

But He doesn’t abandon us even now, rescuing us from predators, battling off the enemies that threaten to devour, bringing us back from the places of foolishness we’ve wandered to.

Why should I fear?

Why tug burdens onto shoulders not meant to bear them?

Why plot my own course rather than trust His lead?

Why tremble at enemies when my Shepherd will fight for me?

I’m a sheep, so simple, so weak, so well-cared for.

That’s what a sign on a post at the pumpkin patch reminds me.

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

Roasting Marshmallows, Fanning Flames, Finding Grace

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She holds the marshmallow too close to the blue flame and it ignites.  Then she blows with one puff of her cheeks and giggles at the sight of her charred and blackened puff of sugar on a stick.

I tease her that she burns them on purpose and she confesses as much: “I like them crispy.”

We’ve huddled around the tiny Sterno burner set in the middle of our kitchen table with long forks poked through marshmallows to roast them and make S’mores, a favorite treat.

There are recipes for microwave S’mores, oven S’mores, toaster oven S’mores, but on a night when we have time, when we miraculously aren’t scarfing down dinner and rushing into the car for an evening of dance classes followed by church activities, we like to roast the marshmallows over the flame.

Not living on a campground, however, we use the Sterno instead–filled with fuel that burns blue and purple when lit by my match.

When we’ve each charred our marshmallow and smashed it down on the milk chocolate with the two graham crackers, I smother the flame with the lid, blocking the fire from the necessary oxygen for burning and thriving.

And it dies.

Just sputters right out, so simply, so quickly, so inevitably… suffocation through lack of breath.

How breathless I’ve been.

The running, the pace, the schedule.

The remembering: appointments, agenda books, reading logs, library books, dance schedules, Bible verses, lunches, emails, jackets, reaching out to friends, counseling my children.

Trying not to forget the Holy Spirit words stuck to my fridge, my bathroom mirror, my car:  Love is patient.

Remembering that, too.

It’s beauty day in and day out, watching these children grow, loving on them, learning from them.  This is the blessing that makes me pause and whisper thanks to God.

It’s beauty to minister, beauty to serve, beauty to love others with God’s love and to give generously to them just as He has given generous heaps of mercy and grace to me.

Beauty takes sacrifice, though, it takes giving and giving and giving and sometimes I forget.

I forget that running breathless too long suffocates, cutting off the oxygen we need to survive.

How often we do this, too:  Fueling our flames with our own resources, running our own self-provided fuel.zechariah4

Then we run dry.

The prophet Zechariah teaches me this truth.  He has a vision—-“a solid gold lampstand with a bowl at the top and seven lamps on it, with seven channels to the lamps. Also there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left” (Zechariah 4:1-6).

I rush past the words in my Bible, treating them like just another mysterious prophetic vision, obscure, and disconnected from my life.

But even Zechariah didn’t understand at first, and the angel has to explain:

“This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty (Zechariah 4:6).

Those olive trees, that lampstand, the lamps all around, held a message for Zerubbabel….for me….for all of us who love and serve others every day.

In the Our Daily Bread Bible, I read:

“The prophet saw two olive trees that supplied oil to a bowl that fed seven lamps on a golden lampstand.  As we think about the reality behind this symbolism, we can be encouraged.  You and I are not the source of light that enlightens the world.  We can only receive the oil of the Holy Spirit that fuels the living flame He produces.  If we burn steadily through the long, dark hours, it is because we have learned to yield our lives to the Spirit’s unlimited supply of power and strength.  This comes only through continual fellowship with Jesus our Savior (p. 1018).

I sang this as a kid, a little sing-songy Sunday school tune:  “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning…..”

It was catchy and cute then.

It’s breath in my lungs now.

Do you feel the grace here?

You and I don’t have to be enough, don’t have to keep ourselves going, keep up the pace, keep things together….we aren’t the source and the world doesn’t depend on us or rest all heavy and cumbersome on our wimpy shoulders.

We seek the oil of His Spirit poured into us and that is our Source, our Strength, our fuel that keeps on going and doesn’t run dry or sputter out or suffocate and die.

Not by my might (I’m so weak and helpless really).

Not by power (I tire easily and can’t keep all this together).

But by His Spirit.

Oh yes, Lord, fill us anew with Your Spirit.

Need some more grace in the midst of it all this morning?  Christie over at So Beloved has a sweet encouragement for you.  Click here to read her post this week!

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

Dear Pinterest, May I Suggest a Glossary?

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She says the word ‘just’ and I cringe.

Something about that word, the way it frustrates and deceives, never quite used as intended, never fully revealing the truth.

She says, “Mom, you can just….” and “how about we just….” and, in her innocence, she believes the lie.

That this is easy.

I explain to her that despite the Pinterest headings on the pictures that promise “Simple,” “Easy,” DIY for beginners,” “Quick,” and “Painless….” her mom is in fact craft handicapped.

So, no we do not “just” snip, fold, twist, tuck, glue and ‘voila’…create masterpieces.11918590_s

In fact, these projects always seem to involve more effort, mistakes, mess, physical trauma, and failure than the pictures and the headings make you believe.

Dear Pinterest, may I suggest a glossary of terms for non-crafty folks like myself?  Perhaps a translation tool?  Or a handy dandy guide to assessing your actual ability to reproduce the adorable projects people post?

Maybe a “Warning Label?”

Like this:

“5 Easy steps..”:  Each step really includes 5 other sub-steps not included in the instructions because the writer assumed you’d be craft-smart enough to know without being told or shown.

“Simple….”:  This project is designed for people far more artistic than yourself.  For them, it is indeed “simple.”  For you, it will not be.  Consider yourself warned.

“For beginners…”:  These instructions are written by people who are not beginners and who have forgotten how ‘beginner’ Beginners really are.  Sure, it’s easy for them; they’ve been whipping out afghans, dresses, pillow cases, cakes, and wreaths for years.  You, however, are truly a beginner, still apt to burn your fingers with the glue gun and stab at your fingertips with a sewing needle.

And my favorite:

“Just”:  “Just” implies that the steps you’ll be given are simple, a snap, easy as 1-2-3.  But in reality, the instructions are long and involved, utterly confusing and complicated, and at some point will not work the way they are pictured or portrayed.

It’s not just the pitfall of arts and crafts.

It’s faith, too.

We forget sometimes that faith is hard.

We say, “just believe,” “just trust God,” “just hold on to the promises,” “just wait on Him,” “just keep praying….”

“Just,” that’s how we oversimplify when really it’s desperately difficult.

And rather than wade in waste deep to the muck and mire of messy faith, we stand on the shore and shout out pat phrases and cliches like ineffective life preservers.

Here’s what’s true:

Some days we’re going to mess up.

Sometimes God’s provision is hard to see, when the bills are crushing in and it’s one broken thing, one unexpected expense, one medical crisis after another after another.

Sometimes you can sit all day at that kitchen table with your Bible and journal, praying desperately for direction and still He remains silent for a season.

Some mornings you wake up believing implicitly that God has got this whole massive world tucked into the palm of His capable hands only to feel the earthquake threaten your faith foundation just ten minutes into the day after one tragic phone call or one message of hurt, pain, fear, and need.

Some days you want to give up because this calling is too hard and you can’t even see the tiniest bit of purpose or hope or sign that all this sacrifice is worth it.

This isn’t “Simple,” “5 Easy Steps,” “Just” faith.

This is real life faith.

This is where we’ve exhausted all of the belief we have and the circumstances haven’t changed, so we bring it to Jesus because we don’t even know where else to go.

And like the father in Mark 9, we pray:

“if You can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”” (Verse 22, NASB).

God, if You can help me…

That’s what the father prayed, and Jesus reminded him: All things are possible to him who believes (verse 23).

Surely the desperate dad had heard the promise before.  He could have nodded his head complacently and pretended to “just believe” and “just have faith.”

Instead, he confessed the truth to Jesus:  “I do believe; help my unbelief” (verse 24).

I believe.  And yet, sometimes, Lord, it’s hard to believe.  If life were easy, faith would be easy.  But life isn’t and faith is hard.

That’s the truth.

This father prayed for mercy because he was human.  He doubted and struggled.

We confess this, too, and this is the assurance we receive:

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:13-14 NIV).

Dust.  That’s what we are: Small and dependent, near-sighted and earth-bound.

Have mercy on us, God.  Help our unbelief. 

That’s what we pray when life isn’t “simple” or “easy” or “just.”

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

A Heart At Rest

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Too often it’s the insignificant things.

Like the dishes I had to leave unwashed as I unexpectedly rushed out the door…or the items on the to-do list, there because they need to be done, but truly tomorrow might do just as well as today.

It’s the project that sits unfinished, the playroom with evidence of an abandoned toy sorting marathon on display, and the increasingly evident need for a vacuuming.

Too often this is what overwhelms me, the ultimately unimportant and insignificant trifles and I’m tempted for just one selfish moment to say, ‘no.’14157735_s

‘No, I can’t.  No, I’m too busy.  Not today, not tomorrow, not later or in an hour.  No I can’t give this; it’s mine and I need it.  No, you’ll just have to ask someone else.’

While others are needing the hands and feet of Christ right now in this place where they find themselves ….and while God has told this perpetual Martha to abandon the mess in the kitchen and just sit down restfully at His feet or perhaps head out the door to serve another….still I glance incessantly over my shoulder at the kitchen, thinking of what I need to do.

How can my priorities be so awry?

I know it when I’m there… with a friend, on the phone, lingering at church, sharing the cup of tea, holding a crying daughter, baking cookies for another daughter to share with her class, surprising yet another girl in the lunchroom at school and sitting in a noisy cafeteria while she nibbles on her sandwich.

I know this is what matters.  This is what is important.

People are always more important than productivity. 

The dishes will be done.  I’ll stand on the kitchen mat soon enough with my hands soaking into the suds, rinsing cereal bowls and cups. This, too, will be service and love for others, for my family.

Yet, right now what matters is being with God and loving others as He does, not fretting over the remnants of breakfast in my sink.

God challenges my perspective, shifting my viewpoint that is ever so stubbornly focused on my own needs.

He did this for Peter, too, as Jesus explained that He would die and be raised again.

Peter argued with the Savior:  No way, Lord.  That’ll never happen to you!

“Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s” (Matthew 16:23 NLT).

That’s my problem, isn’t it?  My blindness to God’s perspective and the way that selfishness tunnels my vision until all I can see are my needs, my rights, my worries, my struggles, my life with my priorities.

I’m seeing things from a human point of view and never lifting my head high enough to see from God’s eyes.

This, then, is the deeply penetrating truth that challenges me: If I’m being obedient to God and loving others as He has told me to, then I needn’t worry about the peripheral, the secondary and the insignificant. 

He will give me the time.  He will help me. He will take care of what I need.

I can trust Him with it all, with every bit of my worry, my cares, my needs, my agenda.  When I’m serving God in obedience, my stressed out, frazzled, distracted soul can rest in His presence.

That’s what it says in 1 John:

“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence”  (1 John 3:18-19).

Put love-based-on-truth into action and there I find that heart of rest simply because I’m where God is, doing what He’s called me to do, being obedient to His direction and timing.

In What Happens When Women Say Yes to God, Lysa TerKeurst writes:

I must confess I have moments where my heart is at rest in His presence, but they are broken up by pitfalls and pity parties.  Sometimes I just simply want to be selfish.  But when I choose selfishness, I may be happy for the moment, but I’m miserable in the long run (p. 98).

Yes, I have moments when serving comes easy and I feel the peace in obedience.  But I have those other moments when selfishness tempts me to hide away and to hoard my time or resources.

Ironically, it’s only when I’m pouring out to others that God can fill me up with His presence.

It’s only when I cease striving for myself so that I can serve someone else that God meets all my needs, for provision, for rest, for peace, for wisdom, and for time.

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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

Not Perfect, But All

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It’s beautiful.

Not perfect, but beautiful.

The stitches aren’t tightly even, each one the same and pulled taut against the next in one long continuous line of knitted row after knitted row.  There are mistakes.  There are corrections.

There is learning.

But the beauty is there, unmistakable, the beauty of a gift, of an offering that took sacrifice and thoughtfulness and care.

Why else would an eight-year-old devote so much of her summer vacation to discovering the favorite colors of others and knitting them hand-made scarves to suit?yarn heart

As she knits, she learns.  Each scarf goes faster.  Each row becomes more even.

Less mistakes.  Less dropped stitches.  Less recovery and fewer requests: “Mom, can you help me?”  At first, I’m checking almost every row, periodically unraveling stitches to reach the start of all the trouble.

Two steps forward, one step back.  Sometimes more.

Now, though, her needles fly and she doesn’t carry me mistakes to fix; she brings me finished work with pride, with joy in the making and joy in the giving.

She hasn’t made a single scarf for herself.  Only for others.  Even her sisters line up stuffed animals who (clearly) need mini-scarves for the fall and winter season, and she knits a special order for a toy monkey and toy cat.

But those first scarves, like the wobbly steps of a weak-kneed toddler, aren’t perfect.

Still she gives.

And they are still beautiful.

I look up on a Sunday morning from my place at the piano keys to see one of the recipients on the church stage, draped with a yellow scarf,  a handmade gift from my daughter.

She wears the present with joy and I’m struck by the beauty—the beauty of one who cherishes the treasured offering of another without criticism, complaint, or the impossible standards of hostage-holding perfection.

And I’m struck by the beauty of my daughter, who gives not to show off, but to show love.

Perfectionism paralyzes….

We hoard and we hide because our offerings aren’t perfect.

She’s more capable, more talented, more equipped, more recognized…

He’s more educated, more bold, more articulate….

We compare, we fret, we worry, we feel so insufficient, and so we don’t offer any gift at all for fear of the failing.

My daughter knitted this summer.

I edited, proofread, wrote.

I sat in front of a word processor staring at the final draft of my book, tasked with proofing the text for the very last time, looking for spelling errors, for periods out of place, and for missing words.

My impulse was to hold on.

It’s been over two years since I finished writing that book, and now looking back I want to tinker and adjust, alter and amend.   I want to patch this here and fix that there.

But at some point, I had to attach the file to an email and hit send.  Off it goes, out of my hands, into the hands of the editor and on to the printer.  It’s done and I can’t go back anymore.

Perfectionism screams, “There’s always more to do.  Don’t ever offer up what isn’t absolutely right.”

But then there would be no offering.

Not now.  Not ever.  I’d wake up one day long from now and realize that I never gave because what I had was never good enough.

Better to offer as my daughter does: 

Giving with passion…

Giving with love…

Giving out of hard work and effort and time…

Growing, learning, improving, but only through the doing and the giving….  That is, after all, how we learn, not with the giving up or the hiding away, not with the wishing for more or the lost opportunities.

We learn through the mistakes, through the process, through the work itself and through the handing it over, an offering to God, a gift to others.

God didn’t call perfect people or those already equipped.

He called those willing to go and do.

Like the prophet, Amos, we know our own weaknesses, but we give anyway:

Amos answered Amaziah, “I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel’ (Amos 7:14-15 NIV)

A shepherd.  A fig-grower.  That’s what he was.

God called

He obeyed.

God used.

God received the glory.

Thus, we lay down our gifts all full of holes and mistakes, with corrections and revisions, ones that aren’t perfect but ones that we labored over long.  We place them down on the altar and offer them up for His use, for His glory, for His name.

And then we go back and strive again, never for ourselves, always to give anew.

Never giving perfect.  Instead, giving all.

Heather King is a busy-but-blessed wife and mom, a 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