Creating a Culture of Grace in the Home

January 20, 2014January 23, 20142 Comments

My dad was a military man whose father was a military man.

Sometimes, his boot camp methods made it home.

Like the time he woke us all up after we’d gone to sleep, lined us up in the kitchen while we were half-dazed from sleep still, and interrogated us (yelled) over who put the jelly jar back in the fridge without wiping down the outside of the jar first.

Or the time he put all us kids and a baseball bat in a bedroom and told us to fight it out until someone confessed to whatever horrible crime had been committed.

Or the many threats of polygraph tests and elaborate forensic schemes to uncover a culprit or that everyone would be punished severely until someone took the blame.

This was the discipline he knew, so this was the discipline he gave.

I’m a mom. I know the importance of discipline to direct the hearts and minds of our kids. I want my children to learn personal responsibility and the nature of consequences for poor decisions.

But I also know something else….

Our homes need grace.

Not parents who ignore the issues, or who are uninvolved or lazy and can’t be bothered, or who don’t want to follow through with training and right discipline.

Or spouses who give up, or grow bitter, and don’t care enough to talk it out and find a way to grow closer instead of grow apathetic.

No, this: Heaping portions of deliberate grace.

The urge is there, of course.

When my wayward cat dashes out the back door for yet another jaunt through the woods, we want to know….

Who didn’t shut the door? Who was the last one in the house?

Who is to blame for this?

A drain gets clogged and we want to assign responsibility.

Who isn’t following proper plumbing protocol?

Who is to blame for this?

Blame. We want to assign blame. We want someone to fess up.

But so often that just pushes the guilt around, and our kids tremble like Adam and Eve in the Garden, pointing fingers, making accusations. (This woman you gave me. That serpent who lied.)

She did it.

No it was her.

I only did it because she told me to.

Sometimes, truthfully, when we’re stressed and tired and overcome, it becomes less about lovingly correcting character. It’s needing an outlet for the anger of the moment and placing a cumbersome load of guilt onto the shoulders of a kid or even a spouse who’ll be crushed by the weight.

It takes a discerning mom to know the difference:

When to assign the consequences of loving discipline.

And when to hold a repentant child close….or one who simply made a childish, foolish, costly mistake….and whisper, “I forgive you. It’s okay. Now you know what to do next time.”

Jesus told his disciples:

Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously (Matthew 10:8 MSG).

In the NLT, I read:

“Give as freely as you have received” Matthew 10:8 NLT

And Paul said this:

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

The Message says it here:

Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:32 MSG

Don’t be stingy about this. Give mercy, give grace, give healing, give freedom, because I’ve given all that to you. I’ve poured it down in a shower of undeserved blessing on your heads, just drenched your soul deep-down with my love.

So, don’t dispense grace to others with rations of tiny drops or an insufficient trickle.

We’re grace-givers because we’re grace-receivers. We’re human. We sin. We say the wrong thing. We get snippy or react in frustration. We forget. We make a bad choice. We break things. We lose things.

Sometimes we make a right awful mess.

But I want to be a family that “does grace and second chances.”

That means correcting and instructing my children when necessary, delving in deep to the sludge of sin, assigning right consequences when needed and sticking with them.

Yet, it also means knowing their hearts well enough to respond when they need to see Jesus-grace in me. See how He forgave a mob of murderers screaming at the foot of His own cross. See how everyone needs mercy sometimes.

It’s not always assigning the blame that matters.

It’s about teaching them to make a better choice in the future.

More than that: It’s about leading them to Jesus.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!
To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

“The Bad One”

November 15, 2013January 23, 20141 Comment

“I’m the bad one in the family.”

She announces that at lunch as she munches on some strawberries.

I lean in close, thinking I misheard. We were, after all, sharing this deep, meaningful moment in a crowded school cafeteria with the background noise of about 80 other second graders.

“The bad one?”

Who has ever called her this or slammed this ill-fitting and utterly cruel label onto this beautiful and loved daughter of mine? Like an over-sized dunce cap on a child in the corner, this identity reeks of shame.

I wait for her to identify the name-caller, the bully that’s been filling her head with these lies. Surely, it’s not me. I review seven years of my Mom-speeches and Mom-conversations to see if I’m the culprit.

But she claims that role for herself, telling me, “I’m the one who gets the most punishments. I don’t have self-control. So, I’m the Bad One.”

It’s little more than a logic exercise for her as she shrugs her shoulders and delivers the explanation all matter-of-fact and void of any emotion.

This is the internal dialogue she’s been having, the way she has accused herself, identified herself, classified and labeled herself, gathered the evidence and declared herself guilty all on her own.

What’s a mom to say? I feel the pressure of a moment, how to explain love, grace, discipline, and salvation all right then and there as she unwraps her granola bar?

But I can’t. I can only start the dialogue, open it up right there and begin the surgery, then return to that wound over and over to clean out the infection, the festering pus of lies, until she’s healed and whole.

So I begin.

No more calling yourself “The Bad One.” You are loved, totally loved, no more or less than any other member of this family. You sin. We all sin. You need to be disciplined sometimes. We all do. But Mom and Dad always, always love you.

I consider the self-condemning lies and slander I fill my own head with and I think about the whispered and anguished confessions of my friends struggling with their own self-hatred.

You’re the Flaky One.

You’re the Stupid One.

You’re the Ugly One.

You’re the Fat One.

You’re the Mess-Up.

You’re the Failure.

You’re the Awkward One.

We shackle ourselves in this way even though:

“There is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1 NLT).

Christ offers us the freedom of grace and we choose the imprisonment of self-hatred. We are, far too often, are harshest critics.

How Satan loves to use that against us, keeping us from obeying God’s call and preventing us from resting easy in grace by preying on our weaknesses.

As Mary Demuth writes in The Wall Around Your Heart:

It’s time to recognize, stark as it may seem that when you abuse yourself, you participate in the same kind of destruction that Satan wants for you (p. 73).

And, just like the conversation with my daughter, this isn’t something fixed in two minutes, five, or an hour or more. It takes time, this gradual healing and move toward wholeness.

It begins by rejecting the labels we’ve placed on ourselves and the lies Satan has shackled us with, choosing instead to accept that Christ calls us:

Friends…His Children…and Beloved.

We’re not worthy.

Maybe that’s what we think.

Yet, even as Judas trudged into the Garden of Gethsemane and betrayed the Savior with a kiss, still Jesus said:

“My friend, go ahead and do what you have come for” (Matthew 26:50 NLT).

Even then, He chooses “friend”–not “betrayer,” or “backstabber” or “The Bad One.”

Later that evening, I scan the aisles at a thrift store and stop periodically to remind this child:

Don’t take your shoes off and try on the 50 pairs of high-heeled shoes.

Do not crawl underneath the clothes and skip from aisle to aisle.

Do not pounce on the couches and jump on the cushions.

Do not touch every ceramic, glass, crystal, porcelain, or other thoroughly breakable item you see on every shelf we pass.

I tell her the truth: This behavior is unacceptable and I will discipline you if it continues.

BUT….

I love you. I want to help you learn to make better choices because of that love.

I try to teach this to my daughter, beginning right there at a school cafeteria table.

I try to teach this to myself.

Sometimes we mess up, make mistakes, and sin. But we are saved, redeemed, transformed and wholly loved by the very God who created us and uniquely designed us for a calling and a purpose.

God doesn’t label us, abuse us, condemn us, shame us, or hate us.

He made us.

He calls us.

He equips us.

Yes, He loves us. That’s the truth.

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.

How a Smelly Fish Can Rescue Us

October 30, 20131 Comment

What wisdom is this?

My children hopped into the minivan and answered the weekly question.

“What’d you learn in church today?” They know I’ll ask; talking about church lessons is what we do every Sunday afternoon.

So my daughter tells me the basics: Jonah and the big fish.

Her sister fills in the peripherals about eating crackers shaped like fish and other sea creatures for snack and we praise their teachers’ creativity. Then she holds up storyboard cutouts she made with construction paper and markers.

Here’s Jonah (he looks remarkably like a Veggie Tales character). Here’s the fish. Here’s the ship. Here’s the island.

She holds them up for display and, in my mom-way, I praise her work and notice the details.

They finish off the story together about hearing God, about disobedience, about forgiveness, about God’s grace.

Mostly, it’s normal Sunday fare, the retelling of a story they’ve heard, read and seen a hundred times at least.

Yet, my eight-year-old stops me there breathless as we sit in the idling minivan while Dad drives us home from the church building.

“Mom,” she says, “what if the whale was God’s way of rescuing Jonah?”

What if it was part of God’s plan, a salvation mission, a blessing, a large, smelly, hulking mass of grace out there in the middle of the sea on a stormy night?

I’ve heard grown men and women finally come to that conclusion about Jonah, but this child of mine thinks it through slowly.

Because he was out in the middle of nowhere. And sure the fish was smelly and he could have been digested, but he’d never be able to swim on his own to land. He would have drowned.

God sent a fish to save Jonah’s life.

That’s what she concludes.

Not just his physical heart-beating, breath-filled, flesh and blood life either.

That fish gave Jonah the time, the opportunity, and the reason to repent and declare: “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9 NIV).

Yes, it says it right there in the Bible that I open later as I sit at my kitchen table and ponder this child’s wisdom:

Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights (Jonah 1:17 NIV).

The Lord provided that fish, just as much as manna in the wilderness for a wayward nation, and a ram in the brush for Abraham to sacrifice, and loaves and fish to feed a hungry crowd of more than 5,000.

Miraculous provision and mysterious grace–that’s what that fish was.

Sometimes the grace we encounter is just such a mystery, salvation disguised as circumstances that reek with stench and leave us sitting in the darkness day after solitary day, maybe even as circumstances that seem to vomit us out onto the shore.

Jonah saw the provision of the whale as the unmistakable evidence of God at work.

We don’t always see. We might not know the end result, the reason, the whys and wherefores of this and that.

Perhaps, like Jonah, God disciplines and redirects us. Perhaps, He simply redeems the evil and downright difficult circumstances of a fallen world, protecting us and delivering us in the end.

Perhaps we won’t know all the ways He’s at work in our lives.

Why didn’t we get that job or promotion?

Why not this relationship?

Why this illness?

Why was I stuck in this traffic jam and late for the appointment?

Why this brokenness?

Can we always see the reason for the big fish? No, not always. Yet, we trust that it’s there, a purpose or plan, and we’re just too finite-minded and near-sighted to see it.

We can stop beating the sides of the beast in hopes we’ll be released right out into the middle of the sea….and instead start praising God from the belly of that whale, thanking Him that even when we don’t see the reason or the destination, He’s in control and He’ll take us safely to the shore.

That’s what an eight-year-old teaches me on a Sunday afternoon drive home from church.

What wisdom is this?

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, is available now! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Wonder Woman, Here’s Your Cape

October 21, 2013Leave a comment

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.

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.

Accepting this Gift

October 16, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

“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.

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.

Ask Me Anything: No More Hiding in Shame

October 11, 2013January 23, 20143 Comments

Welcome to the first “Ask Me Anything Friday!”

For the next few weeks, I’ll be posting short excepts from my book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions, as we prepare for the book release in November.

For more information about the book release, you can click here.

I hope you enjoy these glimpses into the study on the questions God asked in Scripture and what happens when we allow God to search our own hearts and draw us closer to Him.

~heather~

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God asked them a question.

Adam and Eve sinned that first sin in the Garden of Eden and they impulsively hid.

That’s when they heard God’s steps as He searched for them and they heard Him ask that one simple question:

“Where are you?”

“At least some part of them probably wanted to remain silent and continue cowering among the leaves as long as possible. They had wandered away from God’s side, choosing sin over innocence, and then when their eyes were opened, they were so filled with shame that they hid from God.

It’s no different than my daughter when she is in trouble. When Momma discovers her disobedience, she’s sad. She cries a bit at punishment and feels remorseful.

The ultimate pain for her, though, is if Momma tells Daddy what she did. It’s not because Daddy is going to punish her again. She’s already received discipline from me. She just so desperately wants to hide away her sin from him because she’s ashamed of it and knows he will be disappointed.

Shame is so destructive. It builds up walls in our relationships, preventing us from experiencing the freedom of vulnerability and intimacy. Adam and Eve were burdened by shame and they couldn’t even stand face to face with God, even the God who created them and loved them.

Yet, it is grace that counteracts shame in our lives…

This is a grace that Adam and Eve had not yet experienced as they stood among the foliage in the garden, hiding their faces in shame. There had been no sin in that paradise and therefore no need for grace. They didn’t know that while there are consequences for sin, there is also forgiveness available.

It’s a grace I struggle at times to comprehend and feel even though I’ve seen and experienced a life overflowing with God’s grace. I fall easily into works-based living, expecting perfection and achieving failure. I see the stains of sin on my heart and even when they are washed away, I still feel dirty, unusable and bound for the trashcan sometimes.

I struggle with a prison of self-condemnation. Long after I’ve repented and sought forgiveness, I feel the heaviness of guilt—no, shame really. It’s a prison of thoughts—“You’re unworthy. God can’t use you. You fail, all the time you fail, same sins all the time.”

Shame imprisons us and hides us away from God. We feel unworthy of His attention and beyond salvation. That’s why Adam and Eve covered themselves in palm leaves and stood still with hushed breaths as God came walking in the garden. They were paralyzed by the shame of what they had done. It probably seemed as if there was no hope of restoration.

That is what we feel sometimes, too, but this is what we can know:

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9, NKJV).
” Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7, NIV).
“He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:10-12, NKJV)
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Romans 8:1, NKJV).

Because of Adam and Eve’s sin, God purposed to send His Son, Jesus, to die for all our sins so that we could be cleansed, thoroughly washed clean, all sin stains removed.

Why?

So that our relationship with Him—the relationship broken by that initial sin in the Garden of Eden and then re-broken over and over again in our disobedient lives—-could be restored.

He “reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18, NKJV).

That was a plan enacted by God in immediate response to Adam and Eve’s sin. They and all their descendants were not beyond His reach, even with sin so ugly and shame so heavy that it interrupted their relationship with Him.

God’s grace produces reconciliation.

Satan’s accusations—even long after we’ve repented—bow us low to the ground with shame. We become burdened with sins already forgiven and are unable to look up into God’s face any longer. We can’t walk in relationship with our Savior when we are too ashamed to match His gaze.

So, like Adam and Eve, sometimes we hide from God rather than respond to His call.

Yet, God whispers the searching question to our shame-filled hearts, “Where are you?”

He wants us to return to His side and resume our intimate walks with Him through life, to converse, to share, to listen and respond, but first He must meet us where we are and then heal the heart paralyzed by shame.

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.

Dear Daughter: To Victoria

September 30, 2013January 23, 20146 Comments

Dear blog friends and followers,

We’re on the final countdown to our baby boy’s arrival here and I’m taking the time to finish up those last-minute preparations—like double-checking the hospital bag, stocking up on everything at the grocery store so I won’t have to shop the day I come home from the hospital, and vacuuming the floor one last time so no one thinks my house really ever gets as messy as it really gets.

In the meantime, I’ll be posting some letters to my children here–one for each daughter and then one for my son–and I hope they bless you, too.

You’ll see posts from me while I’m really still in the hospital, even perhaps when I’m actually delivering a baby! Don’t be too impressed. I’m not live-blogging during a C-section or writing elaborate prose from my hospital bed despite grogginess, hormones, and people coming to take blood samples at 4 in the morning (why can’t they do that during the day when you’re in the hospital?)

No, I’ve written all this in advance and scheduled it for the days I’ll be away. There, I’ve spilled the secret!

I’d love your prayers this week. We should be meeting our baby on Wednesday (October 2nd).

Many blessings to you while I’m away,

~heather~

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Dear Victoria,

You made me a mom. God specially chose you for that purpose and what an honor and joy it has been from that first moment I held you in my arms after you screamed and a nurse toweled you off and handed you over to me, a brand-new, uncertain, clumsy, scared-out-of-her-mind, totally-in-awe new mommy.

But then, I’d been amazed at you all along. You taught me about morning sickness (and how you can have it all day, every day), about OB visits, about birth plans, about prenatal nutrition, and how there simply isn’t anything quite so miraculous as feeling a tiny life moving within your very own body.

I’ve been learning from you ever since. As you like to put it, you “trained me” to be a mom and all that it requires, not just the walking the floor at night with an inconsolable infant, or the diapering and bathing.

No, more than that.

You taught me how to care about another person enough to murder my own selfishness on a daily basis. You humbled me, showed me all I didn’t know, revealed all the ways I wasn’t perfect and didn’t have it all together.

Nothing in this world has taught me how to pray like being a mom, nothing drops me to my knees faster or more often than my children. That started with you.

You still teach me now.

How to be a good friend. How to make people a priority. How to give generously, unselfishly, and with extravagant joy to others.

How to always give your best effort. Many people may look at you and be jealous of your accomplishments, your God-given gifts and opportunities at church, at school, in music, dance and theater. Maybe they’d even foolishly call you “lucky.”

I know the truth.

I see the time you spend practicing, studying, memorizing, rehearsing, performing, and working when others rush through necessary tasks to enjoy fun and relaxation. I know it’s never me pushing at you, reminding you, nudging you, or pressuring you.

It’s the way you set goals for yourself–like jumping rope five times in a row, then 10, then 15, then 20…..until you can whip that rope over your head and leap over it 50 times without stopping, all because you decided you would, you made a plan, you worked hard, and you didn’t give up no matter how many times you tripped and had to start over.

But the awards that sit on a shelf or hang from the wall in your room aren’t what matter. They never are. It’s about who you are, so much strength of character and the willingness to stand up for what’s right against all that is wrong. It’s your deep tenderness, the way you sob at sad movies and books and have a heart so compassionately moved by the hurting, the needy, the outcasts, the orphaned.

These lessons that I’ve been teaching you, my Victoria, are ones I’ve been stumbling my own messy way through for too long. When I speak these words to you, I’m giving sermons to myself reflected in you.

This is what I need you to know:

You are loved, deeply and truly loved. You don’t ever need to be perfect to earn that from us or from God. Your value is never about what you do; it’s who you are, and who you are is amazing.

We all need grace. You’re going to mess up. You’ll forget sometimes, make mistakes, choose the wrong answer, say the wrong thing, lose control, make a mess, and not be the best at everything. That’s what grace is for, and when you’ve received that kind of mercy, be sure to give it to others gladly, humbly, and without stinginess.

Don’t allow worry, anxiety, and fretting to steal your joy. You can trust our God. He really can care for you and every detail of whatever you face.

Before you were born, your dad and I prayed for you, about choosing your name, and how to be your parents. We prayed that God would give us a Scripture as a blessing for you, and I remember the night your dad opened the Bible next to me and read these words:

But let all who take refuge in you be glad;
let them ever sing for joy.
Spread your protection over them,
that those who love your name may rejoice in you.
Surely, Lord, you bless the righteous;
you surround them with your favor as with a shield (Psalm 5:11-12 NIV).

We do pray this for you, for God’s favor, His protection, His blessing, and that He will fill you with gladness and a song of joy.

Love,

~Mom~

A Matter of Opinion: Breaking the Chains of People-Pleasing

August 28, 2013January 23, 201410 Comments

I looked ridiculous.

Standing on my deck in sopping wet clothes, barefoot with no makeup and my hair still not fully dry from my shower, I sprayed down a bunch of blankets and clothes with my garden hose.

Yes, I watered my laundry.

I had a reason of course.

It was cleaning day (so unlike I Love Lucy, I was not dressed in pearls and heels), and sometime during my normal routine, I realized that one load of laundry had been shushing around in the washer all morning….as in, it was just cycling round and round endlessly without ever draining the water and spinning the clothes.

So, I pulled every last piece of laundry out and hauled it all to the deck. Water pooled all over my floor, soaking my socks and shoes, and I stripped them off and plopped them by the back door. After I had yanked out every blanket and sock, I bailed out the washing machine by hand, first in buckets and eventually with a tiny plastic cup.

I was pretty proud of myself for successfully launching ‘Operation Rescue Clothing’ until I realized that everything I had just placed out in the sun to dry had been hauled out of soapy detergent water.

So, clearly I needed to rinse it before it dried.

With the hose.

Naturally.

What else to do . . . drag it all back in the house, flooding every room in the process, so that I could rinse everything out in the shower only to haul it all back outside?

So, I improvised.

After a minute or two of standing there with the hose spraying water on my laundry, I realized I looked (and felt) like a sponge that could have been wrung out.

And it occurred to me how embarrassing it would be if someone saw me out there, looking ragged and wet and watering my laundry instead of my veggies and flowers.

But I shrugged it off because it didn’t really matter what anyone thought of me. The fact was that I had done what needed to be done.

And isn’t that the important thing? .

Unfortunately, not to me, not all the time. It’s not so simple for me to shrug off the opinions of others.

Yes, I could be a charter member of People-Pleasers Anonymous, and this could be my own personal prison, the chains that keep me doing what is expected but not what God intends.

In the end, though, I know the truth that could set me free: God’s opinion about us is all that matters.

But it’s a realization that’s so hard to hold onto. I understand, I agree, I know it all in my head.

Yet, the truth doesn’t root itself deep enough in my heart to break those chains of people-pleasing and appeasement right off my hindered soul.

Here, though, I pause in my Bible reading to consider what God said about King Hezekiah:

“He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord…” (2 Kings 18:3 ESV).

The Message says it this way, “In God’s opinion he was a good king… (2 Kings 18:3 MSG).

In God’s eyes….in His opinion….

It’s God’s opinion that counts, that helps us put one foot solidly down on the ground after another, moving in the confident assurance that we are pleasing to Him.

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

God is the only one we should be living for, and we need His grace to handle the successes and the failures, the applause and the criticism, and everything in-between. Sometimes our efforts will be fruitful and other times fruitless, but as long as we please God, it’s all for good (p. 59).

John Bunyan wrote:

If my life is fruitless, it doesn’t matter who praises me, and if my life is fruitful, it doesn’t matter who criticizes me.

In Song of Solomon, the bride endured her brothers’ ridicule as they sent her out to labor in the fields. She begs the king, her beloved: “Do not gaze at me because I am dark” (Song of Solomon 1:6).

That’s what she’d been told, the insults and judgments about her worth and beauty that had tainted her heart and mind.

But the king declares with love:

“You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you” (Song of Solomon 4:7).

Others pointed out the flaws and others could have applauded her beauty. Either way, she could have spent her whole life captive to the accolades, the pats on the back, the criticism, the naysayers, the insults, and the apathy.

But the King saw through eyes of love and grace and set her free.

This is all that matters for me, too—the opinion of my God, who looks with eyes of grace on me.

Originally published as ‘A Matter of Opinion’, July 18, 2012

Grace, Book Review

August 3, 2013August 3, 2013Leave a comment

Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine
by Max Lucado

Each of our testimonies is unique and our God-story always carries that personal touch. We all can share with others the story of what God did for ME. But at the core, no matter what God has done, no matter where He found you or where He’s taken you, your story is about grace. It’s true for all of us.

All of our stories at their bottom line are about grace. None of us, after all, deserve one half-second’s notice from a God so holy, and yet He humbled Himself for us, came here for us, died for us. It is surely “much more than we deserve.”

Maybe because this grace is so universal, we often overlook it, forget it, stop being thankful for it, recognize it in name but not in deep-down life-changing everyday reality. We slip into self-condemnation and falter into works-based faith, propelling ourselves into performance and busyness and standards we can’t ever meet.

So, an inspirational book on grace may be a healthy reminder for all of us, and Max Lucado’s book on Grace is pure “Max.” He’s an artist with words, painting inspirational chapters, each one a quick and simple read that stirs the soul. It’s not a theological treatise. It doesn’t really claim to be. It’s more like sitting at the feet of a storyteller while he embellishes on a single theme.

The study guide that accompanies the book serves as a tool for individuals who want to dig deeper or for group study. While the book itself mostly revolves around stories (Biblical and otherwise), the study guide walks through Scripture.

If you’re a fan of Max Lucado’s style or if you’re in need of some inspiration or if you’ve recognized in your own life the habit of forgetting grace rather than embracing it, this book may be just the refresher your spirit needs.

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.”

Living With the Tension

July 26, 2013January 23, 20142 Comments

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?

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.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: grace

Creating a Culture of Grace in the Home

“The Bad One”

How a Smelly Fish Can Rescue Us

Wonder Woman, Here’s Your Cape

Accepting this Gift

Ask Me Anything: No More Hiding in Shame

Dear Daughter: To Victoria

A Matter of Opinion: Breaking the Chains of People-Pleasing

Grace, Book Review

Living With the Tension

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