Tag: Faith

Will Break for Beauty Because Eden Is What We Were Meant For

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We took a day off for beauty.

We climbed into the minivan for a drive on a sunny, warm-but-not-too-warm day, passing horse farms and the river, watching sunlight burst through the tops of trees.

Sitting along the edge of the beach, we tipped over buckets of moistened sand to form sand castles.  Pine needles and lost feathers, bits of shell and pebbles smoothed by the waves became castle flags and decorations.

Then we walked and collected treasures washed ashore by the tide.

Children see treasures in ways we do not.  I picked up unbroken shells, shiny, smooth, etched with color and patterns.

My little one picked up massive clam shells covered in barnacles and sand, murky in color and awkwardly shaped.  She handed me slivers of broken shells and even tried putting fistfuls of sand in her treasure bucket.

It was beauty to her.

What is it about the seaside that brings peace to the soul?  Maybe it’s the rhythm of the waves, the comfort of knowing that the wave will come and another and another, in constant motion, totally faithful, reliable, trustworthy.

And that is our God.  He doesn’t wash over us and then pull back never to return again. He brings wave after wave of ever-coming, perpetual grace.  The world is an uncertain teeter-totter of a place, with unexpected terrors lurking around corners and surprises that drop us to the ground.

But God—He is faithful.  God—-He is always grace.  God—He is ever true.

That night, we raced home to eat dinner and become beautiful: Choosing outfits, doing hair.  The girls fought over bracelets.  We traveled to see the Ballet Magnificat, a professional Christian ballet company.

The music began.  Just instruments at first.  The dancers took to the stage and one lone female voice sang,“Praise the Lord, O my soul and let all that is within me praise His name.”

One ballerina stretched her arms high in worship.  Her fingers almost touched heaven she was so long and outstretched.

And I caught my breath at the total abandon in praise to a God so worthy.

That day, we took a break for beauty.  We paused and lingered long with friends and we filled our souls in the deep wells of nature and dance and worship.  It was like brushing against the curtain of heaven.

Our God did it on purpose, putting those first two human beings in a garden, and we long for that Eden even now.  He created us for that place of intimacy in His presence surrounded by beauty.  Stasi Eldredge says it here:

Beauty reminds us of an Eden we have never known, but somehow our hearts were created for.

Scripture reminds me that God is Himself beautiful:

One thing I ask from the Lord,
    this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
    all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
    and to seek him in his temple
(Psalm 27:4)

And God is a Creator of beauty:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In Captivating, Stasi Eldredge says:

Beauty is transcendent. It is our most immediate experience of the eternal (Stasi Eldredge).

God makes all things beautiful in time—and He has set eternity itself in our hearts.  We long for it, ache for the day when we see the transformation He intends, see the untainted beauty of a sinless world.ecclesiastes3

And so glimpses of beauty here and now stir our hearts for heaven, for eternal glory with Him.

In my 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, I’m breaking for beauty in the month of April, because, as Margaret Brownley writes,

Beauty puts a face on God and makes his presence known (Margaret Brownley, Grieving God’s Way).

I’m digging deep into garden soil.  I’m trekking through a botanical garden. I’m watching caterpillars form that chrysalis and then climb out as butterflies.  I’m listening to concerts and walking the halls of museums.

There has to be intentionality here.  We can get so distracted by that tyrannical urgent, so caught up in the rush and noise of the day.

After beauty fills you up, it too often spills out and sloshes over the sides of your heart every time there is rushing, stress, tension, worry, boredom, work, monotony. 

We must work hard to protect the memory and refill often by taking a break for beauty and by seeking the soul-filling glory of God’s presence.

Will you join me this month?

 

 

To hear the song by Kristene Mueller that began Ballet Magnificat‘s performance, you can click here or click Play on the video below from the blog.

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 ‘Enjoy Beauty’?

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

After 9:30 p.m. Mommy Needs a Time Out

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My daughter emerges from her room at 9:30 p.m.

It is now more than an hour past bedtime.

Showers have been taken.  Teeth have been brushed.  I have reviewed my daughters’ Scripture memory verses for the week, prayed with them, read them the Bible passage for the night, kissed them on rosy cheeks and sent them merrily to bed.

Or something like that.Photo by Ruud Morijn;

But she re-emerges at 9:30 to tell me a play-by-play account of the book she is reading.  She is a detail person.  I’m pretty sure she is telling me exactly what occurs on each page of this 200-page book.

At first, I nod patiently and politely.  I do, after all, love her.  And, I do share her passion for reading.

Moms should be good listeners.  Moms should make sure their children feel heard and understood.

After a while, though, I hug her close and slowly nudge her back to the bedroom while she is still giving a steady stream of book-narration, and I promise to listen more tomorrow.

Because seriously, it has been loud in my house tonight.

I have helped with homework for 3 children, fed and diapered and carried the crying baby around the house, made dinner, cleaned up dinner, packed lunches, supervised piano practice for 3 kids, sent 3 daughters in for showers and bathed one baby, combed tangles out of hair, folded laundry, read books, brainstormed ideas for a project on Ponce de Leon, prepped backpacks for the next day, laid out the outfits for tomorrow morning, signed agendas and math logs and reading logs, and threatened older children with punishment for any further bedtime delays.

You know, what moms do at night.

At one point, I had a baby crying, a child watching YouTube videos with bracelet-making instructions, one child practicing the piano, and one child asking me to quiz her on Life Cycles because her science test is in two days.

I know you all probably think when I’m in my minivan, I like to blast that worship music right loud and sing at the top of my singing lungs.

But you’d be wrong.

If I have the luxury of just 10 minutes in a car without a child talking to me, I turn the radio off.

O-F-F

Off.

Because, some times, a soul just needs some quiet.

Jesus knew it.  After days of constant ministry, a needy mob following them around incessantly, clamoring for help and help and help all the time help, the disciples needed a change:

Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest” (Mark 6:31 NIV).

A quiet place.

Jesus knows we need that some times.

And it’s not just a break from noise we need.

We also need to come away with Him.

We need to not answer those e-mails, or check that Facebook, or answer that phone.

Our souls need beauty and filling up after relentlessly pouring out to others.  We need Jesus and yet so often we choose to fill that void with anything and everything else.

But as Shellie Rushing Tomlinson writes in Heart Wide Open:

He will ruin you for anything else this world has to offer.  However, it is a sweet ‘ruination,’ because the weaker the hold temporal things have on us, the freer we are to lose ourselves in the One who placed eternity in our hearts.

And here’s the hard discovery, that sometimes when I finally sit in relative silence, it rocks my restless soul more than any amount of noise.

That’s when I know I’m an addict, needing that next fix of adrenaline as desperately as others feel the shaking need for another drink.

I’ve become addicted to the rush of activity, addicted to the pride of feeling needed, addicted to the super-hero powers of rescuing people from crises all….day….long, addicted to noise and distraction and busyness.

So, that quiet falls uncomfortably on my shoulders.  I fidget.  I feel the need to hop up at the slightest distraction.

In my 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, I am taking time to Unplug in March, taking days off of Facebook, off of Twitter, and away from television, and this takes discipline.

I find sometimes that the quiet (in the rare moments when there actually is quiet) is awkward and uncomfortable.

And I find some times that the quiet is refreshing like an ice-cold lemonade after a couple of hours of yard work.

Either way, this is what I know—the quiet is what this soul needs.

Are you taking time to Unplug in March?  How is it going?

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 ‘Unplug’?

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

 

Don’t expect a laptop or an iPad for your birthday

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Laptop, iPad, video game, cell phone.

This isn’t my wish list.  This is what my about-to-be-eight-year-old daughter will tell you she wants for her birthday if you ask her.

Seriously.

Her little second grade friends ask her for birthday present suggestions, and this is what she tells them.  Not, “Oh, a Barbie would be nice.  Maybe some new markers and Play-Doh.  I like Legos.”

No, not reasonable requests.

Crazy expensive requests.

So, I tell it to her straight yesterday.  Not even mom and dad will get you a laptop, an iPad or a cell phone for your birthday….so when someone other than your loving parents asks you for birthday ideas, think of something far, far, far, far, far…..less expensive.

To be fair, if I take her to pick out a present for her friends when they have a birthday, she always holds up the most expensive item on the shelf (an $80 Lego set or the $40 complete Disney princess collection or a $50 Xbox game) and declare that this is what her friend would like.

I explain that there are presents parents buy you.  There are presents other family members might buy you.  There are presents friends from school might buy you.

And there are presents so expensive, ain’t nobody gonna buy them for you.psalm66

You have to match the request with the giver.  You have to know whom to ask.

And sometimes, don’t we all get this wrong?  Don’t we carry needs to friends, carry worries to Facebook and Twitter, carry sadness to the phone and bitterness to the coffee shop?

But do we carry it all to Christ?

He’s the only One who can forgive and wash clean.  He’s the only One who can care for our every need, deliver us, redeem us, heal us, and restore us.

Yet, there we go, turning to others first and Jesus last.

Why is it that prayer is so often our final act of desperation instead of our first response to trouble?

Why do we so often try every other possible means of escape besides God?  And only after we realize that we have no hope in this hopeless and impossible situation do we finally give it over to Him?

Judas, that betrayer, collected his 30 silver coins.  Maybe he counted each one, stacking the silver into a pile, planning his financial future.

But Scripture tells us there was regret.  There was the deep conviction of sin.

 When Judas, who had betrayed him, realized that Jesus had been condemned to die, he was filled with remorse. So he took the thirty pieces of silver back to the leading priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he declared, “for I have betrayed an innocent man”  (Mathew 27:3 NLT).

He took that blood money right back, hoping to be absolved of the heavy guilt.

And he confessed his wrong.  “I have sinned….for I have betrayed an innocent man.”

There, he said it.  He was a sinner.  Jesus didn’t deserve that cross.

Shouldn’t confession have shaken the conviction right off his shoulders?  Hadn’t he tried to take it all back, hand the coins over, and smooth right over that sin-laden path he’d traveled?

But the thing about taking our burdens to anyone but Christ is that no one else can handle them.

Those chief priests and religious elite took one look at Judas’s stack of coins and said,

“What do we care?” they retorted. “That’s your problem” (Matthew 27:4 NLT).

He’d rejected, denied, and handed over to death the only One who could have forgiven the very sin he now carried.  No Pharisee or religious leader could cleanse or absolve such guilt.

Only Jesus.

No only that…they didn’t even care.

Do we do this?  Do we expect worldly goods and other people to assuage our guilt, to calm our fears, to satisfy our hearts, instead of taking everything to the only One who can save and redeem and fill us?

The Psalmist gave this testimony:

For I cried out to him for help,
praising him as I spoke.
If I had not confessed the sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
But God did listen!
He paid attention to my prayer.
Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer
or withdraw his unfailing love from me (Psalm 66:17-20 NLT).

God doesn’t turn us away.  He doesn’t reject our requests or shrug us off like they did for Judas,’ What’s that to Me?  That’s not my problem.”

No, He listens to our prayers and does not withdraw His unfailing love from us.

So, we bring our sin to Him.  We bring our needs to Him.  We bring to Him our worries, fears, messes and mistakes, our everyday struggles, and the stress that keeps us up in the night.

He alone can save.

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Wind-Up Toy Caterpillar Versus Four-Year-Old, A Lesson in Gentleness

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“Be gentle,” I tell her.

She’s cradling this tiny wind-up caterpillar toy, purple with polka-dots, in her four-year-old hands.   Last week, she re-discovered it in the toy bin and declared that it was worthy of show-and-tell.

So, she’s waited with excitement all week for that one morning when she could tote it into school and show it to her classmates.winduptoy

I slipped that tiny $1 caterpillar into her stocking two Christamases ago and here he is a survivor.  More or less intact, he’s only lost one antenna.

But is he up for the trip to the school?  Is he hardy enough to face one four-year-old and her 19 classmates?

I test him out on our coffee table.  Wind, wind, wind and then I let him go.  He inches across the wood quickly and my daughter giggles at the sight.

We scramble that morning to the minivan, though, all breathless with feeling late, feeling busy, feeling overwhelmed by the day and it’s not even 9 in the morning.

And I say it quickly to her because I’m a mom and I have to say certain things, “Be gentle.   He will break easily.”

She nods like I’m such a worrier.  Silly mom.  As if I didn’t already know that. 

I hear that toy buzz, buzz, buzzing during the drive.  I hear her tossing that cheap plastic around in her hands.

And then I hear her, “Oh mom, he broke!”

Sigh.

I refrain from “I told you so” and mom speeches.  I choose grace.

We arrive at the school and she finds the pieces that had fallen into the pile of lost fruit snacks, french fries and broken crayons on the minivan floor.

Then, I hold three separate parts of a purple plastic caterpillar and hope my English-major brain can figure out the engineering difficulties of a wind-up toy.

Somehow I manage to snap those pieces together.  I test him out–success!  And then I carry him into her classroom and set him on the show-and-tell table.

She flashes me a smile and I know I have earned my Super-Mom cape (and maybe some chocolate as a reward).

Later, she tells the whole story to her sisters: How mom saved the day by fixing him just in time.  She pauses for dramatic effect and then says, “Really, Mom did that.”

I am now the stuff of Super-Mom legends.

But she leaves out one little part of the story….how he broke in the first place.  How she hadn’t been gentle enough.

This gentleness with others, isn’t it what we leave out so often?

Paul writes it here:

Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near (Philippians 4:5 NIV).

We can can make excuses about how we’re just “honest” or we “just tell it like it is.”  That’s just who we are.philippians4-5

We can assume the worst, lose patience, rage, condescend and degrade into sarcastic mocking.

Or sometimes we have this way of being gentle to strangers, but that harshness, that short temper, that criticism oozes out to the loved ones sitting at our own dinner table.

Too often, we know the weakness of the ones we love.

Our husbands.  Our children.  We are their protectors.  We should be the healing salve to the hurts, treating wounds with tenderness and grace, overlooking failures, encouraging strengths, applauding efforts.

When we’re hurt, angry, frustrated, impatient, though, we tend to stab where it hurts most, highlighting faults and bruising the same feelings again and again.  It’s our self-defense; we wound others when we’re wounded.

Yet, gentleness isn’t a God-request.  It’s not a Holy Spirit suggestion or an option for good days that can be ignored on bad days when we’re stressed, tired, overwhelmed, or haven’t slept all night because we are, in fact, moms.

Paul tells us in Colossians that gentleness is the garb of Christ:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience (Colossians 3:12 NIV).

Gentleness is part of living Christ to the those around us, in our home and out of it.  We are to wrap ourselves in it so others see Jesus in us.

“Be gentle.  People break easily.”

That’s the message I remind myself as I put that wind-up caterpillar back in the toy bin after his show-and-tell adventure.

A gentle tongue is a tree of life,
but perverseness in it breaks the spirit (Proverbs 15:4 ESV).

The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit (Proverbs 18:21 NIV).

The words of the reckless pierce like swords,
but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Proverbs 12:18 NIV).

Gracious words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones (Proverbs 16:24 NIV).

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

This is All His Story (A Lesson from The Theater)

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Looking at that stage, you would have thought that there were 40 little stars in the show.

From gingerbread cookies, to a mysterious gypsy, from village peasants to silly hobgoblins, forest sprites, and a bridge troll who wants payment from forest travelers, you couldn’t tell at a glance who was telling the main story and who was telling an aside in the performance of  The Story of Hansel and Gretel.076

My husband says that everyone on the stage has the job of telling their story.  Some get to have a name and some dialogue.  Others don’t.  But no one is simply there for background noise.

Every actor acts as if his character’s story is the main story.

But this is the life lesson that stings as it tramples down over our pride—We aren’t the main story in this world.  None of us are.

This story isn’t ours at all; it’s God’s.

Chris Tiegreen wrote:

All of our life is a struggle between self-centeredness and God-centeredness.  We know our lives are supposed to revolve around Him and His will, yet we have so many personal dreams and goals.

It’s not that our story doesn’t matter to God or that He views us as just “one of the crowd,” a random human in a sea of human need. 

To God, each person matters.  Each of us is a treasure.  Each of us is beloved and worthy of sacrifice.

Our personal story always matters to Him.

But sometimes we think we know how our story should go, never considering how our life connects, overlaps, and intertwines with the lives of those around us.

This self-centeredness, thinking it’s my story and that God needs to bend His weighty will to my own personal plan, always shows up in my prayer life.

I tell God, “Here’s what’s happening to me and it’s yucky.  I’m hurting.  I need you to answer my prayer and provide…..and here’s how You can do that.”

I’ve given God three-step strategies to provide for me or rescue me.  I’ve created mental timetables, agendas, and budgets and called out to God as if I presided over a boardroom meeting and He was the lackey in charge of production.

Foolish me, prideful me, self-centered me…I forget.  I forget that He is always the main event.  He is the hero.  He always knows my need and the best way and time to provide.   He knows how my story fits into His story.

You can pray for that specific job, at the expense of someone else who needs it and who God designed for it.  Or you can pray for the perfect job God has planned for you.

You can pray for that specific spouse you want to marry.  Or you can pray God brings you the perfect husband or wife at just the right time.  romans8-26

You can pray that God blesses your ministry efforts here.  Or you can pray that God directs your steps to the ministry He has designed for you.

We bring to Him our problem.

We leave the solutions up to Him.

That’s how we yield our story to His and allow Him full reign over our life’s direction.

This is why Paul told us more than just this verse that we like to quote so much:  “in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose”  (Romans 8:28)

The verses immediately before that say:

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.  And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God (Romans 8:26-27).

Then, yes, when we’ve allowed the Spirit to intercede for us according to God’s will, He works everything out for our good.

And not just for our good.

But for the good of the person to our left and the one to our right and even those so far off to the side of the stage we can’t even see them.

He sees us all and knows the perfect plan that will work for our benefit and for His glory.

But we yield our story to Him, we lay it low at His feet and let Him take center stage in our life, in our dreams, in our needs, and in relationships.

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Trust the Director (A Lesson from the Theater)

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Lesson Two: Trust the Director

She said there was a magic oven, a gingerbread house, a fireplace, an enchanted forest and a bridge to hide the troll.

We couldn’t see them, of course.  Not yet.

For months, the cast of The Story of Hansel and Gretel interacted with an invisible set, pretending to eat an invisible house, ducking behind an invisible wooden bridge, all because the director told them, “This is where it’s going to be.  This is what’s going to happen.”057

And they had to trust her.

So it is with us.  Our Director tells us to step here, walk there, and do this, and in so many cases, we don’t see the purpose or the ultimate design.

We have to trust Him anyway.

During those weeks of rehearsing with no props, no set, and no costumes, the actors could have assumed it would last forever and that they’d walk on an empty stage on opening night in their street clothes.

Yet, behind the scenes, there was a bustle of activity.  A costume designer measuring, shopping, and sewing.  A prop master searching for the perfect basket.  Painting and building sets.  Printing tickets.  Prepping make-up.

Our God is also at work behind the scenes, even when we can’t see the evidence.  Then, at just the right moment, He provides for our need and unveils the completed design He’s been working on all along.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

On looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. . .  Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.”

It’s in retrospect that we see God’s glory in our circumstances.  Just like Moses, we see God’s glory as He passes by.

Moses entered the most holy place of God’s presence on that sacred mountain and with inexplicable boldness, he asked God to “show me your glorious presence” (Exodus 34:18).

Mortal and sin-plagued as we are, we can’t see God’s face.  We can’t take in the fullness of His glory without falling dead at His feet.

Yet, God told Moses,

“As my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand and let you see me from behind.  But my face will not be seen” (Exodus 34:22-23).

What if we’re staring at our surroundings, straining to see God and we see nothing?  No sign of His presence.  No hint of His favor or blessing.  No indication of his design.hebrews10-36

Perhaps He has hidden you in the crevice of a rock and covered your face with His hand.

Then when He has moved in all His glory, we will look again and see where God has been.  We will see what He has done by the trail of His presence.

In the meantime, as we squint our eyes to see the now-invisible glory, we take those steps of faith, trusting that if our Director says to ‘move here,’ we go even if we still can’t see, even if we still don’t understand.

When Naaman, the powerful army commander for King Aram, asked Elisha to heal him of leprosy, the prophet sent a messenger telling Naaman to bathe in the Jordan River seven times.

It was ridiculous.  Mundane.  Not a glorious enough miracle for Naaman’s powerful position.

Yet, after blustering about the foolishness of it all and complaining about how ridiculous it was, Naaman obeyed.

And that obedience took perseverance.  He had to obey without giving up, dipping down in that river again and again, never seeing the healing until the seventh time he ducked his head down in obedience.

At any moment, he could have said, “this clearly isn’t working,” and walked away with the leprosy still ravaging his body.

But because he obeyed completely and awaited the appointed time, God showed up in His glory and healed him.

Like the actors rehearsing without props and without a set, we move where God says to move.  We do what He tells us to do.

We trust our Director’s vision and instruction, and we do it with faith and patience, obeying without giving up, just as Naaman did.  We obey with anticipation, knowing that we will see God’s glory as He passes by.

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Dear Daughter, Remember that Nightmare About Divorce?

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Dear daughter,

Remember that morning when I found you slipping quietly out of the bathroom into a corner of the house all alone?

I stopped that mad rush of cereal pouring, hair brushing, and shoe finding to smooth down your wild morning hair and ask if you were okay.marriage

Those tears, the loud kind that burst uncontrollably out of your soul, they shook your whole body and I couldn’t understand what you were saying because those words stuck right in your throat.

A nightmare.

I rocked you just as if you were still my baby girl (even if your head touches my shoulders now).

What was it about? 

I expect monsters, fire, death or even a bad grade on a test.

But you tell me one….slow….word….at a time: I dreamed you…..and……dad……got……divorced.

You stun me.  We hadn’t fought.  There was no tension in the home.  No need to fear.

Hadn’t you watched us hug and kiss goodbye every morning?  Hadn’t you seen me stop cooking that dinner and setting that table every evening to hug your dad and welcome him home for the night?

Why are you afraid?

But it wasn’t really about us at all.  It’s about a scary world where marriages don’t often last and your friends split their time between dad’s house and mom’s house.  It’s about a friend telling you, “My dad doesn’t love my mom anymore.  He doesn’t love any of us.”

And even the safe place seems like shaky ground.

I tell you the truth.romans5

How we are happily married and being together even now is joy.

I tell you how seriously we take that vow we made when we said, “I will love you forever” and slipped those rings onto our fingers.

Sure, we meant romance love and feeling love, but we also meant committed love, covenant love, I-will-make-our-marriage-a-priority love.

Divorce smashes the lives of good people, Christian people, godly women and honorable men.  It’s real and ugly and I don’t want to sugarcoat the danger.

Sometimes even the best wife who has done everything right walks that hard road of aloneness and betrayal.

But I want you to know this, too.  There were decisions I made as a teenage girl, as a single young woman, that made this marriage I have beautiful–not perfect perhaps, but lovely—from the start.

I want you to hear this wisdom: sometimes a good marriage starts when you’re 13 and that first boy asks you to the school dance.   Remember this:

1. Do what God has called you to do—Don’t worry about boys, love, dating, or marriage.  Focus on Jesus.  Grow beautiful and strong in Him.  Go to the college that’s right for you, not the one a boyfriend attends.  Fulfill your calling and your potential.  Don’t look for love; let God bring it to you.

2. Wait for God’s best—That first boy who asks you out isn’t necessarily “the one.”  You are beautiful, smart, funny, strong, kind….Boys might swarm around you; don’t be swayed.  I saved myself body, soul, and mind for the one man who was God’s best for me and your dad is totally worth it.

3. Make sure He’s in love with Jesus—Attending church twice a year, saying you love God but couldn’t be bothered with discipleship or Bible-reading or Christian service?  That’s not loving Jesus.  That’s calling yourself a Christian without the fruit.  If you want to respect your husband as a spiritual leader, he needs to show that leadership before the wedding day.

4. Fall in love with your eyes wide open—You won’t find a perfect man.  No person is perfect and no marriage is perfect either.  Know what his flaws are in advance and be committed with a plan to love him, not change him.romans12

5. Ask hard questions–Some couples marry without talking about kids, career plans, church, or money. Ask the hard questions before marriage.  Don’t just shrug your shoulders and figure love will carry all.  Love dies on battlefields like those all the time.

6. Give and Receive Respect–If he annoys you with stupid jokes, doesn’t understand or care about what you have to say, can’t hold a job, loses his temper easily, or embarrasses you in public now, he sure will later.  Marry someone it’s easy to respect and be proud of.  And, make sure he treats you as the precious gift from God that you are, valuing your opinion, not dominating you or devaluing you.  Paul wrote to “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10 ESV).  Make that your goal because kindness always matters. It matters when you’re dating, when you’re first married, and when you’ve been married 20 years.  Give respect and kindness; expect respect and kindness

7.  Build the friendship–That friendship you develop before marriage is what you should cultivate every year after “I do.”  So when the kids are grown and gone, the freshness of young love fades, and your body ages and changes, you’ll still be best friends.

Marriage can be beautiful and holy, a sacred place where God transforms us to be more like Christ, where joy grows, selfless and sacrificial love blooms, and you help each other produce fruit as individuals and as one together.

This was my prayer for my own marriage on my wedding day.  This is what I pray for you and I’m starting now:

 For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be (Romans 5:2 The Living Bible).

Love,
Mom.

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Social Media Fasting and 5 Ways to ‘Unplug’

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Social Media

One day a week, the earth manages to keep revolving right along on its axis without me.

It’s a blow to my pride, perhaps, but surely that’s the point.

I began a once-weekly social media fast a little over a year ago. The constant connection, constant pull, constant noise, constant interaction of this always-online world was crushing my introverted writer’s heart.

So, once a week I shut it down and shut it out. It’s a way of fasting, going without so I can re-focus on God.  I have the time then to be still and rest in His presence, time to enjoy family and beauty.

And, I miss out on a crisis or two of Facebook drama.

But the world goes on.

I’m reminded that:

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2-4 ESV).

He may have been talking to Israel about golden calves and bronzed images, but I know this means electronic gods, too.

This world has become so noisy and information-heavy.  How would we even know if God is speaking to us?  We’re far too busy and surrounded by noise to notice.

John Piper said, “One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that our lack of prayer was not from lack of time.”  He called social media the acceptable addiction of our modern society.

Facebook?  Twitter?  The Internet in general?  Texting?  We shrug these addictions off as simply the way of things in this modern world.

So I rebel against modern convention.

I unplug and walk away and let the world keep going right along without my heavy-handed involvement.

This month, I choose to be more purposeful about this social media fasting.  In my 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, I choose in March to ‘unplug.’

I’ll continue my social media fasting and intentionally fill that space with Him.  I will linger in His Word, enjoy His creation, rest with my family, read a good book, bake some bread, knit a scarf, play a game with my kids.

I will unplug from the noise and plug in to the essentials and what really matters.

On the warm days, I’ll pack my baby into the stroller and stride down the Main Street of our town.  Without a smart phone or texting plan, I will revel in the quiet.  I will think, pray and notice the beauty of the clouds, the flowers, the trees all over again.

Maybe this month you can join me in choosing to unplug at least one day a week? Here are some possibilities:

  1. Social media fast:  One day a week (or more), leave Facebook and Twitter and the world of social media alone.  Replace that time with something soul-filling.  Walk, pray, read, rest, play, build relationships face-to-face.
  2. Bible Before Computer: Put your Bible over your computer keyboard at night so that in the morning, you are reminded to read the Bible first before getting online.  You’ll be much more successful at this if you have to physically remove your Bible before typing on the computer!
  3. Put the Phone Down: Choose times to give the smart phone or texting a rest.  Maybe: No texting during meals.  No smart phone during Bible studies, in church or during your quiet time.  Set a goal and then stick to it.  People can wait an hour for you to text them back.
  4. Set a Timer: The Internet has a way of sucking us in and taking far more of our time than we intend (or maybe admit!).  Try setting a timer for how long you want to be online.  When the timer dings, you know to stop.
  5. Take a day off of television: Turn off the TV.  Choose a worship CD or Pandora radio station with worship music and enjoy some alone time or family time without the television.

Perhaps you’ll be surprised at how hard this really is and that’s a good discovery.  It means you’re rooting out that addiction and that idolatry and that’s painful.  It burns deep to deny our flesh.

But we’ll be drinking deep of what truly satisfies, the Living Water that our parched souls are panting after, instead of trying to quench our spirit thirst with brine.

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
Psalm 63:1 NIV

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.
Psalm 42:1 NIV

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 ‘Unplug’?

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.

Copyright © 2014 Heather King