Tag: God

An Origami Failure Learns to Fold

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I am a failure at origami.

My oldest daughter, crafty soul that she is, begged me to help her with some origami projects.  Knowing my handicap for all things artsy and craftsy that require following a pattern, I decided that our best option was to purchase an origami book for kids, complete with simple step-by-step instructions and special papers.

Surely if children can supposedly follow these directions and magically fold panda bears and peacocks, I (in all my grown-up wisdom) could also understand and succeed in folding a paper zoo.  I can, after all, read, and that seemed to be the minimal requirement here.

I was wrong (of course).001

Our origami sessions together typically go like this:

Open book, choose the simplest pattern we can find and then select an appropriate paper.

Fold the paper in half.  Then open it back up.

Fold it in half the other way.  Then open it back up.

Crease here, flip the paper, crease there.

Smile in confidence at one another in the assurance that we have finally mastered this whole origami thing.  Look at us!  Our paper absolutely totally matches the diagram in the book.
We return to the instructions with renewed confidence.

Reverse internal fold, flip, crease, outside reverse fold, open up, fold to center, reverse, flip, spin around, repeat, pull out the flap, push in and squash, inflate, rotate, fold and unfold, mountain fold.

Wait, what?

Pretty soon I’m sputtering in frustration and my daughter is just randomly folding and flipping her paper.  I’m talking to the book as if it could answer me, “What does that mean?  How do you do that?  How come you don’t show a picture of the step in between this and that?  Is this what it is supposed to look like?”

I begin sighing those deep-shoulder heaving sighs that say, “Oh, I should never have bought her this origami book for Christmas.”

Then I declare with supreme Mom-wisdom that what we really need here is a YouTube video with step-by-step instructions.  We Google search.  We find a video.  We pause it after each step and make our paper look like the paper on the computer screen.

We fold.  We create.  We conquer (sort of).

The fact is that I’m not adept at following picture patterns in books and matching my every move to the instructions given, not with origami, sewing, knitting or crafts of any kind.

I have too many questions that the pattern doesn’t answer and too many places where I can go wrong.  I can’t visualize the finished product and the steps needed to get there.

What’s true for me in arts and crafts is sometimes true in life also.  We all can choose the patterns for our lives and then we make continual choices, daily decisions, to yield, bend and fold . . . or not.

Paul tells us:

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2 NIV).

The pattern of the world isn’t meant for us.  The world’s priorities, its pursuits, its dialogue and messages, and its destination all fold us into a crazy mess of disorder and frustration.

We can choose instead to “follow the pattern of the sound words . . .in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 1:3 ESV) and to “obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance” (Romans 6:17 ESV).

Yes, Scripture is our pattern to follow and Christ is our model: the picture in the book that tells us what we should look like in the end.

Yet, while we may choose which pattern to follow, the world or the Word, God Himself takes a hands-on approach to our lives.  “We are God’s handiwork,” after all—the result of His efforts, the creation He forms and re-forms daily (Ephesians 2:10).

So, He is at work folding and unfolding—sometimes moving us forward and then back again.

He creases us now, teaching us and working on us in ways that we won’t understand until years later when He uses those grooves as part of His plans for us and our ministry.

He flips us around.  He pushes us beyond what we thought were our limits.  Sometimes He trims our edges.

Sometimes we complain and balk at the confusing pattern as it unfolds.  We look at the folds He has made in us and think He must be getting it all wrong.  Surely this can’t become that.  It’s confusing and we don’t see and understand.

But He does.  He knows what it takes to transform a piece of paper into a penguin or a peacock.  He knows how to conform us “to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29).

Originally published on August 6, 2012

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 November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Broken Lenses and The Faith Dare

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When my daughters are excited, they jump.

Ice cream!
Jump, jump, jump.

Playdate!
Jump, jump, jump.

Trip to the aquarium!
More jumping.

You’d think after years of being a mom to these jumping beans, I’d have learned to announce good news from afar.

But I haven’t.  My dentist can probably attest to how many times one of their heads has slammed into my jaw as I foolishly stood over them and made a thrilling announcement.

So, when I took the girls to a children’s museum for an exhibit on butterflies, I should have maintained a safe distance, walking behind them the whole way.

But I didn’t.  Instead, I held my camera in my hand and walked next to my oldest daughter who took one look at the massive monarch caterpillar entryway and . . . .

Jumped . . .right into my hand, knocking my camera to the concrete sidewalk.  From then on, the lens made this sickening grinding noise as it turned on or tried to focus for a shot.

My husband performed camera surgery and that helped for a while.  Yet, eventually the lens stuck in place again.  Now my camera clicks and grinds when you turn it on and then flashes red light onto the display before showing the message, “Lens error.  Camera will shut down now.”

With my camera out of focus, I’ve been wondering how often we experience brokenness in similar ways.  Something sends us hurtling to the ground—a hurt, a sickness, loss, sadness, fear,13594380_s death, confusion, loneliness, conflict, fatigue—and suddenly our perspective is askew.  We see everything through a lens that is stuck and out of focus.

Certainly we lose God’s perspective often enough.

This earthly life of ours will always be accompanied by a darkened view and limited line of sight.  Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:2, NASB).

It’s not until Glory that we’ll receive heavenly lenses and eternal scope.

Until then, we’ll probably still be asking: Why did that happen?  How long will this take?  What’s the point of this and the significance of that?  Is there any hope?  What is around the corner?  What will my future hold? 

But here and now, even the darkness can be enlightened at times.

We can remember …

….that God breathed life into dust.

The materials we give Him do not limit what God can create.  Peter tells us,

“Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right” (1 Peter 4:19).

In any situation, we can have full confidence in our faithful Creator, who makes beautiful things out of dust and even forms the dust itself.

…that God restores life when all seems dead.

In the book of Job, we read: “There is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail.  Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant” (Job 14:7-9).

So if you are feeling the weight of broken branches and fallen leaves, when you feel fruitless, abandoned, cut down to the very stump and left for dead, allow hope to refocus your lens.  Despite seeing fruitless death, we remember that God restores and redeems.

… that even rain is a blessing.

In the book of Joel, God promised Israel restoration and renewal if they would repent and return to Him.  Following judgment and famine, they would see new growth, but it required rain to wash away the dry, crumpled weeds and to saturate the earth with life-giving water.

Joel tells the people to “rejoice in the Lord your God!  For the rain He sends demonstrates His faithfulness” (Joel 2:23 NLT).

Even in the downpour, we can praise Him for bringing new life with His faithful love.

Oh, it’s not easy of course.  Our lenses are still faulty.  It’s the way we’re made.  We’re finite.  Limited.  Created without the ability to see the long-term and the eternal.

We’re broken cameras, all of us.

In The Faith Dare, Debbie Alsdorf writes:

When we focus only on self and become consumed by the conflict, we begin to live under it rather than being an overcomer through faith in Christ (p.. 160).

Let it be our prayer, though, that He be our vision, that He provide our focus, and that He guide our perspective.  It’s the only way to truly see.

Devotional adapted from A Broken Lens, originally published 10/14/2011

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

Turning Aside and Saying Yes to God

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I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to be there or so I thought.

Shopping off schedule, not on my normal day, shifting things around to accommodate other schedule shifts, cramming activity into the overstuffed container of life.  And now here I was, shopping at a Wal-Mart in the middle of the afternoon instead of during my normal morning jaunt through the store with a shopping cart and a coupon book before the crowd arrived after lunch.

I pushed my way through the sale items at the front of the store with my focus on my mission—shop, gather the items on my list without distraction, save money, and leave.

But then I saw her, a friend at the pharmacy counter.  Stopping for a quick ‘hello,’ the kind of cheerful greeting we small-town folks exchange in the Wal-Mart all the time, I pushed my cart to the side of the aisle hoping not to be in the way of other annoyed shoppers on mission.

This friend, though, didn’t need just a cheerful chat, but a sharing-the-heart kind of talk, a prayer right there in the middle of Band-Aids and Tylenol.

God sent her to the Wal-Mart at just that moment and then He rocked my world all crazy, turning my schedule upside down and sent me right on into that Wal-Mart at the exact same time she would be there.

I like to hold this white-knuckled control over my calendar and my agenda, fitting everything in just right and not being willing to bend, to flex, to rearrange and adjust, not without whining and complaining at least.

Yet, here is what happens when I release, open my palms and offer up the plans, saying ‘yes’ to God even in the daily.20931038_s

A few days later, God over-turned my normal routine again with special school events and unexpected trips to the post office.  There I was driving down the Main Street of town when I ‘shouldn’t’ have been and I was thinking of the to-do list items to cross off, the errands to run, the destination and the mission all over again.

But He opened my eyes to see ‘her,’ a woman I knew limping along the sidewalk painfully slowly.

I didn’t even debate over my plans.  Instead, I zoomed into the nearest driveway and she climbed into the mini-van (after I shoved aside the napkins, papers, and other Mom mess) so I could drive her to work.

A little blessing for her.

A huge blessing for me, this reminder of God’s divine agenda, the appointments He sets for us and the way I can miss them so easily in my stubborn addiction to having my own way.

C.S. Lewis wrote:

“the great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant (or unexpected) things as interruptions in one’s own life, or real life.  The truth is, of course, that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life.”

God’s involvement in my agenda isn’t always painful or unpleasant, but it does have this way of being unexpected.  Like Proverbs 19:21 says:

“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”

Yes, I’m a ‘many plans’ kind of person who learns slowly to yield to this God with a perfect purpose.

God interrupts, intervenes, and now I must choose—whine and complain, reject and insist on my way, or submit and adjust and trust His plans, like Moses in the wilderness outside Mount Horeb as he tended his father-in-law’s sheep.

Moses wasn’t meandering along, aimless and purposeless.  He had a plan to lead “the flock to the back of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God”  (Exodus 3:1).

But God lit a fire within a bush and captured Moses’s attention.

What if Moses hadn’t stopped?  What if he waited until later, choosing to finish his own plan and then return to check out the curiosity?  Or if he’d ignored the interruption, adamantly determined to do things his way, in his own timing, and in his own strength?

Oh, how Moses would have missed out on God’s glory and God’s purposes for his life and his people!

Instead, Moses yielded.  He said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight” (Exodus 3:4).

This turning aside is what God teaches me in this walk of obedience, the willingness to be interrupted, the trusting Him with my agenda and not worrying and fretting over the unexpected and the out-of-control.

Turning aside when I see God at work, I join Him there and give Him praise.

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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

You Think You’ll Remember

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I stopped three years ago.

They say you stop scrapbooking with your third baby just because you’re so busy or somehow you’re now over all that new-momma pride of first-time mothers or even second-time parents.

But that’s not what did it for me.  It’s that I scrapbooked not because I’m crafty or creative, in love with paper and colors, a fan of stickers and shaping scissors, or content to spend a few hours (or days) cropping photos and writing in the margins with a gel pen.

I scrapbooked because that’s what moms do.

Good moms anyway.

But I found out it had become a dreaded chore, the dragging out of the massive Rubbermaid container, the aching back after hours of gluesticks and paper cutouts, the stressing over straight lines and paper scraps.

Mostly, though, it was the clean-up afterward that did me in.  I may have time to make the albums (maybe?), but who has time to clean up from the project?

Perhaps if I had an entire room hidden away somewhere where mess could endure and not rattle my brain with annoyance and confusion, crafts and creativity would be fun.  Play with the paper, leave the scraps out on the table.  Arrange the pictures and leave them unfinished for another day.

Life’s not like that, though.  Mess needs to be stashed away.  It takes time to set up and time to clean up, so mostly I just leave the project alone before I begin.

For 3 years, it’s been stashed.  More memories of my girls poured in, so I piled them into boxes and plastic buckets and pushed them under the bed or stacked them up in this closet and that one.

Sometimes I’d at least remember to label the photos I printed and left in boxes or the pictures they drew that came off the fridge and made it into the box for keeping.033

Not always, though, and that was my mistake.

Because you think you’ll remember every detail of the who and when and what.  You think you’ll remember the stories, the firsts, every reason behind the paper that sits stacked in a cardboard box in your closet.

But really, we forget.

I dragged boxes out from various corners and hidden places and sorted through the papers and photos.  I didn’t find out how much I remember; I discovered how much I’d forgotten.

Who drew this, Mom?  Who is this, Mom?  What does this paper mean, Mom?

My children wanted to hear the details of the story and I struggled to remember which one of them had drawn that detailed picture of stick people with fingers sticking out of their arms like twigs or written me that note:  I luv mom.

How forgetful I am.  Life pushes me faster and faster, rushing through this day and the next, and even those moments you most expect to remember blur into the fog of it all.

Memory isn’t passive, not the way we expect it to be.  No, remembrance is an active discipline, a choosing not to forget despite our humanness, our busyness, our moving on.

I glance through my notes from a women’s conference two days later.  Right now, I still recall the mannerisms of the speaker on the stage, the intonation when she read this verse, the way she punctuated this lesson, the tiny details of the story she shared, and the way I laughed or cried or nodded my head from my blue cushioned seat across the arena.

How long will that last?

I think surely I will remember this promise, of course I will remember that challenge.  But maybe not.  Maybe I’ll feel vaguely encouraged, but not recall the why and wherefore.

We think we’ll remember the miracles, too, the accounts of how God delivered us, the times He carried us right out of the pit, the stand-still encounters with God when it seemed like He cut through all the noise of this world and the cacophony of our own emotions and He spoke to us, God to person, one clear voice cutting through it all with a message we’ll never forget.

Yet, we forget it after all.

Amos the prophet says that we even forget the lessons God has taught us:

“‘My people have forgotten how to do right’ says the Lord” (Amos 3:10 NLT).

Not what was right… so much as how to actually do it.

Even our best intentions to bless others or to reach out remain meaningless until we actually remember to follow through.

So, I transfer my notes from the conference over, being intentional, taking the time to fill in the details.

I take that card written, addressed, and even stamped out of my car and actually place it in the mailbox.

Taking the time….making the time…to remember before I forget.

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

Magic Tricks, The Family Calendar and Radical Obedience

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He made rabbits appear out of nowhere.  He seemed to read minds.  He pulled colorful bouncy balls out from behind children’s ears.

The magician at our local library amazed my kids, particularly my middle daughter who checked out four books on magic that day and altered her future career plans.

“I want to be a magician who tells jokes,” she declared.

Today, I am feeling a little like a magician without the recognition and the jokes.  No fabulously mysterious cape, no collapsible magic wand hiding a bouquet of flowers, no long flowing sleeves to stash cards and colorful scarves, and no top hat from which bunnies appear.  My Mom-attire is much less impressive.

And yet, every year at about this time, I perform a seemingly magical feat that defies all explanation, a trick that doesn’t necessarily astonish audiences, but probably should.

I set the family calendar for the new school year.8496988_s

Astonished? Amazed? Flabbergasted? Speechless?

Maybe you should be.

Even those of you without kids or with grown children can easily find your calendar as overstuffed as ours.

Of course, there are things outside of my control, like the school schedule and when ballet classes are offered.  So, I wait for official announcements and postings, hoping God performs the necessary miracle to make it all fit just right.

Then I sit down and scan the mess.

There are non-negotiable activities that instantly earn a place on the weekly agenda.

There are the things I believe God has asked me to do this year, which I choose to obey.

There are the “Oh please, mommy . . . .” activities like gymnastics, soccer, swimming lessons, 4H, Girl Scouts, fencing (yes, fencing), art and sewing classes.  This we carefully narrow down.

Then there are the 50 other possibilities that are wonderful and good: The Bible studies, prayer meetings, committees, volunteering, and classes.

When we think we’ve made it all fit, unexpected birthday parties and get-togethers, after school activities, and events squeeze into the corners of Saturdays and evenings.

Of course, it’s all good.  And maybe, just maybe, if I don’t let my kids take swim lessons every time they are offered my daughter won’t make it to the 2024 Olympics.  That would obviously be the world’s loss.

But today, as I was reading in 1 Corinthians, I was reminded of the one thing that sometimes gets nudged out of our lives by the incessant activity we magically jam, cram, and squeeze into our calendars until they burst.

Paul wrote:

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV).

Even if we invest our time in everything good and noble, we might be mis-managing our calendars.

Ultimately, speaking God’s language, knowing God’s Word, giving away to the poor, and sacrificing our very lives are all worthy, but even they are utterly meaningless if we don’t do them in love.

So then, what about committee meetings and weekly groups and gymnastics lessons?

Yes, meaningless without love.

Thus, I’ve been praying this year about leaving room for God’s love in our family calendar.

We’ll do what is necessary, what God has asked us to do, and we’ll love our children by allowing them to (within reason) develop gifts and talents God has given them.

And then I’ll refuse to feel guilty for declining to do every other good thing that comes my way.

Sometimes radical obedience is missions trips, quitting jobs, massive moves, full-time callings, speaking up, reaching out.

Sometimes what’s radical is obeying the smallest promptings of His Word, and this is how I determine to obey God, asking for His direction and choosing not to commit or promise or enroll until He confirms His will for our year.

May my agenda be His agenda.  My plan, his plan.  My schedule, His schedule.

I’m instantly challenged—an activity I planned on for the fall may not happen.  I think of ten things I could do to replace that on my schedule.

I pray instead.

And I hear this prompting, “Embrace rest.”

That’s a radical call for a doer like me and it takes radical obedience to let it go and enjoy the breathing room over the suffocating schedule.

After all, in the end, Paul tells us that “the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor. 13:13) and love doesn’t require magic, but it does require 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

5 Prayers for our Schools

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It was one of those statements in a sermon that sticks with you forever.

About nine years ago, one of our pastors said, “If when you pray for me all you ask is, ‘God, please bless my pastor,’ then don’t worry about praying for me.”

Not pray for him?  Who, after all, would reject a blessing prayer?

But really, he didn’t mean to reject prayers, just to emphasize the importance of specific prayers for others.prayersforschools

It’s true for husbands, for children, for pastors and other ministry leaders, and for our schools.  If my idea of praying for them is, “God please bless these people today,” then I’m really not requesting much, not petitioning God much on their behalf.

I want to be specific, be particular, praying in faith that God knows best, but laying my requests all out there before His throne.  Not just a “pray-and-run” kind of petition, shooting out a list of people or places to bless in one minute and then rushing on with my day.

I want to get knee-deep involved in intercession like the Levites who prayed for the refugees returning home to Israel to rebuild the Jerusalem walls in the book of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 9).

How to pray then?  What to ask God for?  You might have ideas, too, but here’s a prayer tool to get us started as we begin this school year:

5 Prayers for our Schools

Mondays:  Safety and presence of God:  God, we pray for Your presence in our schools, public, private and home-school settings.  We ask for peace to reign in the hallways, the classrooms, and playgrounds.  Please protect our children and school staff and prevent evil from infiltrating the school grounds.

Tuesday: School administrators and office staff:  Lord, we thank You for the administrators and office staff who keep our schools running smoothly and who are responsible for making decisions both about our children’s education and their safety. We ask that You give them strength and wisdom and help them establish a positive learning environment.  Help them balance the pressures of standardized testing with the goal of encouraging a love of learning.  We pray that they can foster an atmosphere of creativity, passion, and joy among all the educational staff.

Wednesday: Teachers and assistants:  Lord, we pray for the teachers and assistants who are putting long hours in during the early days in the school year. There is so much to get set up, students to assess, routines to establish. Please give them the energy they need and strength for each new day. Help them to know You are with them. Give them wisdom as they get to know each student—reveal strengths and needs, highlight situations that need intervention, show teachers where students deserve encouragement and praise!

Thursday: School nurses and counselors: Lord, we ask that you bless the school nurses as they run their clinics and the counselors working with our kids.  Our nurses not only manage the intricate schedule of medications for our students, but they are also a source of compassion and love every day.  Our counselors need to rightly discern students who need help and intervention and fight against bullying and other problems in our schools.   Give them wisdom, gentleness, and compassion.  Fill them up daily with Your love as they pour so much of themselves out for others.

Friday: Staff (Cafeteria, janitorial, bus drivers and more):  God, there are so many men and women who work in our schools, providing food, transportation and more for our kids.  They are often the ones responsible for keeping our schools healthy and our children safe.  Please give them joy in their work, bless their hands as they serve each day.  Help them know how much we appreciate their efforts on behalf of our kids.

How do you pray for our schools and their staff? 

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 November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

5 Prayers Before the School Year Begins

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I stood in the line of nervous parents and excited-though-apprehensive elementary school children at Open House last year.

My kids squealed when they saw their friends from last year, waving from our line to others behind us, beside us and in front.  After families stepped up to the table to receive their classroom assignment for the year, they walked by us as they headed to the classroom.  We asked them, “What teacher did you get?” and then we cheered or compared notes and gave advice.

In between greeting other parents and kids, I prayed.prayersbeforeschool

A lot.

Sometimes I mess up and treat God like little more than a pagan idol–acting as if maybe if I cross my fingers, rub a rabbit’s foot, do a fancy jig and offer to sacrifice something, He’ll answer my prayers just because He sees how desperate I am.

“Oh Jesus, please give me daughter a great teacher this year…..please, please, please, pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaaasssssseeeee.”

Yet, while He loves the sincerity and passion I have for praying for my kids, He knows what they need without me trying to manipulate Him into giving me my way.

And while standing in line at Open House isn’t a bad place to pray, it’s not the only time to pray.

After all, when it was our turn, we stepped up to the table and the principal handed us an index card for each daughter with their room number and teacher’s name for the school year. The decision, however, had been made weeks in advance as teachers met to match students with the right classroom, teacher, and classmates.

So, maybe that’s when to start praying?

Or maybe the answer really is that we never stop praying for our kids.

Not ever.

We move from need to need, praying today for today, but also for tomorrow and for five years from now and on into their adult years, their marriages, their careers and ministries.

So, here are five prayers I start praying before the school year begins, long before I step into that line on Open House night and certainly before I kiss my kids on the head, pray for them quickly and watch them step onto the bus on the first day of school.

  1. For the right teacher and classroom:  God, you know my children best.  Yes, you know them even better than I do.  You know exactly what teacher is going to work with their strengths and weaknesses and what teacher will help them reach their potential and be excited about school and learning.  Please give the teachers and administrators wisdom as they place our children into classrooms and help my children be matched with the perfect teacher and the classmates who will be good friends rather than bullies, mean girls, or distractions this year.  Please bless the teacher’s summer, helping it be restful and fun so he or she can start the school year with enthusiasm, excitement and energy!
  2. For safety:  Lord, it’s hard for me to let my children go where I can’t see them or be with them all the time.  I want so much to be there to protect them and guide them, intervene for them, and love them through the hard things.  But, I know You are with them even when I can’t be.  You can care for them better than I can.  Please watch over them with Your providential care and protection.
  3. For their choices:  Father, my children will be making tons of decisions every day.  Please help them to know they can always turn to You for help when they need it and please help them draw on the wisdom from Your Word that we’ve tried to teach them.  Let Your Holy Spirit direct their steps and guide their hearts to do what is right.  Help my children be a witness for You all day, on the playground, in the lunch room, in the classroom and more.
  4. For us as parents: God, we need just as much help as our kids do for this school year.  Help us make wise decisions and know how to mold their character, give advice, when to get involved and when to let our children handle things on their own, and how to train up this child in the way that he or she should go.
  5. For their friendships:  Lord, one of the biggest decisions my kids will make this year is about who to befriend.  Please give them discernment and wisdom to know how to choose good friends, those who will lead them to you, those who will encourage success and help them do the right thing.  When there are children being picked on or ignored, I ask that you will show my child how to give them compassion and to reach out to them in love.  Give my children the strength to lead others to You rather than be led by others away from You.  Please protect them from bullies, mean girls, and bad influences and help them know how to stand up for what is right when necessary.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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

Back to School: 5 Ways to Bless a Teacher

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ways-to-bless-a-teacher

School supplies hit the shelves of our local Wal-Mart en force a few weeks ago and it is taking ALL of my mom self-control not to delve right in and buy every Sharpie marker, Post-It pack, and notebook in every color and pattern.

At least I have a few weeks to work my way through the supply list for my kids’ school because summer doesn’t end until after Labor Day for us.  Moms in other parts of the country, however, are on the final countdown to early wake-ups, packed lunches, homework and making it to the bus on time.

So, it’s time to start prepping for back to school season…for all of us really, whether our schools start in August or September…. because it can’t possibly be too early to pray for our kids, their teachers and school staff.  To be honest, I’ve been praying about what teacher my kids will have since March.

It’s not just our kids we want to bless as we send them off for a day of learning outside of our homes, though.  No matter what kind of school our child attends, there are teachers and leaders who impact their lives.  Homeschoolers have Awana, Scouts, and church leaders.  Private and public school students have a whole team of educators and administrators who impact their lives, too.

As I drove home from Open House the first year my children attended public school, God cut through my anxiety about teachers, bullies, academics, mean girls, and more to remind me:

This isn’t just for your kids.  This is for you, too.

My kids are my mission-field.  Their teachers and school staff are part of that ministry.  They pour themselves into my children and I want to pour myself out in blessing and encouraging them right back.

Here’s what even crazy busy moms and others can do to bless our teachers and schools.

  • Pray for them:  While we can’t solicit prayer requests or set up prayer groups in the public schools, moms can still get on their knees for students and teachers.momsinprayer You don’t even have to pray alone.  For two years, I’ve prayed with a local group of moms through Moms In Prayer International. We met once a week to pray for our own kids and the schools they attend.  Each week, we asked God to give wisdom strength, energy, and joy to the teachers, administrators and other school staff. To find a group for your school or to learn how to start one, please visit Moms In Prayer International.
  • Volunteer: This isn’t just for stay-at-home moms!  There’s a great deal of flexibility for school volunteers. You could help with the school newsletter, serve on the PTA, man the prize table at a school carnival, shelve books in the school library, listen to children read, walk kids back and forth to testing or pictures on special schedule days, make copies, and more.
  • Send Supplies:  We all get the lengthy school supply list at the beginning of the year, but keep in mind that supplies need to be replenished over time.  Many teachers and teaching assistants buy glue sticks, pencils and other supplies with their own money.  Here are some supplies you could send in (depending on grade level):
    • Pencils
    • Paper
    • Notebook reinforcers
    • Dry erase markers
    • Glue
    • Tissues
    • Clorox wipes

You can also periodically check with your child’s teacher to see if there’s anything he or she needs.

  • Show respect:  Let’s face it, when we think there’s a problem, we Mama Bears can be pretty tough.  Remember that the teacher you are talking to is a person with feelings, too.  Be sure to handle concerns appropriately.  You’re much more likely to have success that way.
    • First of all, don’t believe everything your child says. Give the teacher a chance to tell his or her side of the story, as well.
    • Let your child try to handle things on her own if possible.
    • Ask questions rather than making assertions and demands.  Teachers are professionals who likely have valuable input.  Try asking:Blessing a Teacher
      • How can we have more success this year?
      • What do you think we can do differently at home?
      • What can we change in the classroom?
      • What behaviors are you noticing in the classroom that we can address?
      • How can we work together to solve this problem?
    • Never show up at the classroom unexpectedly to talk to a teacher and don’t try to hold an impromptu conference on Back to School Night or during Open House. It’s unlikely they’ll be able to give you their full attention or even remember later what you talk about during those busy times.  Always ask for a separate conference time—maybe even over the phone—at their convenience to talk about your child.
    • Don’t teach your kids to disrespect teachers by criticizing them at home in front of your children.
  • Be an encouragement:  If you need some ideas for teacher gifts, consider handmade presents, snacks, chocolate, gift cards to area restaurants or Starbucks, or lotion.  I’ve posted my all time favorites on Pinterest here: http://pinterest.com/roomtobreathe3/cute-gift-ideas/The best gift, though, is a thoughtful, personal thank you note telling just what you appreciate about them as a teacher.  That’s something that fits every budget and that they can cherish forever.Teachers probably hear plenty of times through the year what’s wrong.  Let’s be sure we take the time to tell them what’s right and to thank them for it.

It’s more than a little scary to entrust our kids to teachers and school administrators that we don’t really know.  That’s such a powerful reason to be in prayer for them and to try to make this relationship a successful one.  Ultimately, we can be a blessing to teachers by keeping in mind what Paul said: “Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24 NLT).

What are your best tips on how to bless our teachers and schools?

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 November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Living With the Tension

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I sing to my children, “Jesus loves me, this is I know….” and “Jesus loves the little children.”

Jesus is love.  That’s the message in the melody.

I sing (more like chant): “God is so big, so strong and so mighty! There’s nothing my God cannot do.”

And there it is, the lesson of God’s greatness, His majesty and power.

I sing again: “God is so good….God is so good….God is so good, He’s so good to me.”

His goodness, His grace, His might, His love.  I sing them as lessons, I read them on the pages of Bible storybooks and bedtime devotionals and my kids soak these in, the stepping stones of theology and doctrine.

Somehow kids can take all this in, the vast array of God’s character, the completeness of who He is, and accept it without conflict or contradiction or competition.

But we age so often into adult extremists, wanting to shove God into ill-fitting categories, taking stands along divisive theological battle-lines, innocently enough most of the time.  We don’t realize it usually.  Generations swing wide from one dangerous cliff to another, rarely achieving the balance, and we swing along with them.

We’re rarely comfortable with the tension implicit in God’s character.

But this is who God is: Perfect, living as the only One who can balance the holy tension between the extremes in this spiritual tug-of-war.  Labels don’t fit Him.  Our pat explanations don’t always work.  Our well-reasoned arguments fall short.

In our churches, we see this.  In our Christian books and our favorite pastors, we assume allegiances just like the early church declaring, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos” (1 Corinthians 3:4 NIV), more comfortable following humans than following our enigmatic God.

In the past, we proclaimed the importance of righteousness and living holy lives, digging ourselves into trenches of legalism and creating a Christianity more focused on moral expectations than salvation.

Now, we praise brokenness, moving past the healthiness of confession and vulnerable living, setting ourselves up all comfortable and cozy with sin–because we’re forgiven, after all.  And sin is sin and we’re already saved, so why bother reaching for holiness?

We used to drag people to the front of a sanctuary to say the sinner’s prayer and voila, pronounce them saved for all eternity.

But we’ve moved away from “cheap grace” without discipleship or fruit or revolution and now we’re “fruit” judges, examining people’s finances and the size of their homes and the cost of their shoes to determine if they’re radically committed enough to make it into heaven.

We preach messages of encouragement to one another, reminding burnt out, hard-working Christian servants that God loves us for who we are, not what we do.  We don’t need to perform for Him, don’t need to DO anything to earn His affection or merit forgiveness.

Then we tell them the church needs workers and salvation displays itself through service and how are you working for the Lord?

We categorize God into Old Testament ogre of divine retribution and New Testament Savior offering grace.

Which is God?  What is true?

Does God desire righteousness or brokenness?psalm108

Does He save us by grace alone or should our faith work itself out with fear and trembling?

Does God love us regardless of how we perform or does He want us to be working for Him?

Is God holy, just, big, good, and pure?  Or is He gracious, forgiving, all-loving, and compassionate?

Yes.

Not either/or, one or the other, this or that.

But yes and amen.

God is perfectly able to inhabit this place of holy tension.

In our faith, we “become like little children” (Matthew 18:3 NIV), simply trusting Him, accepting the truths without turning them into combat zones.

Our God is holy and gracious, just and compassionate, saving us because of His grace and calling us to serve.

We return to Scripture and see that even in the Old Testament, God is characterized by grace.  He enacted a long-established plan to save us; it wasn’t an invention of the Gospel writers of the New Testament.

Because of His great love for His people Israel, He disciplined them with captivity.  Yes, even in discipline there is love.

Jeremiah the prophet declares:

“It will be a time of trouble for my people Israel. Yet in the end they will be saved!” (Jeremiah 30:7 NLT)

and he reminds them of God’s promise:

“I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love.  With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself” (Jeremiah 31:3).

The prophet spoke of punishment and grace, captivity with the promise of freedom, destruction with the assurance of future restoration and hope.

Because this is who God is, this is His perfection, this His greatness that is beyond our capacity to understand—but that we worship.

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 November 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

God and Cupcake Sprinkles

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Today is my “baby” girl’s fourth birthday and we’re off celebrating as a family.  Hurray!  I’m sharing with you my post from last year’s celebration, a reminder of how God loves us and gives us good gifts.063

Originally posted July 23, 2012

I was sorting cupcake sprinkles . . .by hand.

Really.

I removed all of the pinks from the mix and took out some of the oranges and yellows, too.  The color combination needed to be mostly blue, white, and green with some hints of yellow and orange.

But you can’t buy a sprinkle mix like that at Wal-Mart, so I bought the colorful star-shaped sprinkles and sorted them by hand.

And I thought, “God loves me enough to do this.”

Let me explain.

My baby girl turned three years old yesterday.  For weeks, my older daughters and I had enthusiastically reminded her that her birthday was coming soon.

We pestered her with questions.  What do you want for your birthday?  How old will you be?  What do you want on your birthday cake?

Then she made her declaration.  She wanted Octonauts presents and an Octonauts birthday cake.

Now for the uninitiated among you, the people who don’t live and breathe and move children’s television programming: The Octonauts is originally a British children’s show about undersea explorers and the oceanic animals they discover and assist.  It’s only recently appeared on American television.

That means that if we lived in the United Kingdom, we’d have no problem popping out to the local party store for supplies.  But here in the good old U.S. of A. the store shelves aren’t exactly stocked with Octonauts toys and party favors.

So, I did what any reasonable mom might do.  I walked my daughter down the party aisle at Wal-Mart and showed her the many wonderful birthday decorations there were available in America.  Mickey Mouse.  Princesses.  Fairies.  Strawberry Shortcake (my favorite).

She settled on Mickey Mouse and we headed home with a relieved Momma in the driver’s seat.  Yet, less than a week later, she made another announcement.  Mickey Mouse didn’t cut it.  She did in fact want Octonauts.

I had tried to convince her to accept less than her heart’s desire.

What’s a mom like me to do: A non-crafty, not particularly creative, cake decorating failure of a mom?

I’ll tell you what.

We took our Play-Doh ocean animal cutters, washed them well, and used them to cut sugar cookies in the shape of lobsters, dolphins and starfish for her friends at church.

We had yellow cake mix already at home, but she asked for chocolate.  So, we made chocolate cupcakes.

I printed out pictures of the Octonauts and created our own cupcake toppers

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I bought the aforementioned color mix of sprinkles and then pulled out the unwanted ones so the color combination could be perfect

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I waited in line at Wal-Mart to have a bag of Octonauts colored balloons blown up (three year old birthdays must involve balloons) only to have the lady at the desk tell me, “We no longer do balloons.  There’s a national helium shortage.”

Really?  A national helium shortage is going to stop me from giving my girl balloons?  Not hardly.  I bought the helium balloon kit for $20 so we could inflate them ourselves (with helium to spare for family birthdays for a year or two).

Then we put it all together.  A family dinner of the birthday girl’s choice.  Singing happy birthday, blowing out the candle, balloons, chocolate cupcakes with Octonauts toppers and sprinkles all to celebrate my baby.

 

(Although, why she needed chocolate cake when all she did was lick off the icing is beyond me.)

So, why?  Perhaps she’ll never remember her third birthday and maybe over time her interest in ocean animals will fade.

But she’ll remember being loved.  And I do love her.  I’m crazy, head-over-heels, over-the-top, absolutely in love with this sweet gift from God.

Matthew 7:11 tells us:

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

This verse never becomes more real to me than when I’m picking out good gifts for my daughters.

God loves you enough to pick through sprinkles for you and to find a way to defeat a national helium shortage.  He’s a God of attentive, detailed affection for each of his beloved children.

We may assume that coincidence, chance, luck, good fortune, Mother Nature, friends and family, a congenial boss or even our own effort and ability are responsible for the blessings and benefits we experience.  That’s not true.

All the gifts we receive, tied in bows and placed into our hands with joy, come from a God who is crazy, over-the-top, head-over-heels, absolutely in love with us.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). 

This week, let’s be aware of the many ways God showers us with good gifts, even the smallest reminders of His providential care, and remember to give thanks.

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