If I Put a Spoon Under My Pillow, Will It Snow?

January 30, 2015January 29, 2015Leave a comment

“This is it.”

My kids are desperate for snow. More specifically, they are desperate for a snow day.

Apparently, so are their teachers.

In early January, the tiniest picture of a snowflake appeared on my weather forecast. The details said wintry mix overnight, no accumulation, yada yada yada, blah blah blah.

My kindergartner arrived home from school that day with specific instructions from her teachers.

Place a spoon under your pillow.

Wear your pajamas inside out.

Flush an ice cube down the toilet.

Her older sister calls out, “And do a snow dance! You have to do the snow dance.”

It was simple math to them. Do this + this +this + this = guaranteed snow day.

It did not snow.

This week, snow was again in the forecast. My Facebook filled with chatter and pictures of weather maps all foretelling the great snowstorm of 2015.

It snow-dusted, just enough to turn the world a little white. Not enough to cover the grass even. Not enough to delay anything, much less close it down.

I don’t mind really. I enjoy snow well enough, but only when it’s outside and I’m inside with a book and a cup of cocoa.

But my kids mind. A lot. They are Virginia girls, desperate for at least a few sizable snowfalls a season.

Every single time there is a whisper of a snowflake or two falling in the night, our town is abuzz, the Wal-Mart shelves clear out of milk and bread, and my children brace themselves for a real and true snow day.

“This is it.” That’s what they think.

Maybe Joseph felt the same way.

All those years, he waited and waited, holding on perhaps to a distant memory of those visions from God of his family bowing down to him.

He waited in a pit while his brothers plotted his death, and then settled for selling him into slavery.

He waited as an Egyptian slave, working faithfully and with integrity for his master.

He waited when he was falsely accused and thrown into an Egyptian jail.

So many times, he might have thought, “This is it. This is my big moment of rescue and redemption!!”

But it wasn’t.

There was the night in the Egyptian prison when Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker came to Joseph with dreams they couldn’t understand. Joseph interpreted the dreams, but then asked for help, saying to the cupbearer:

But when all goes well for you, remember that I was with you. Please show kindness to me by mentioning me to Pharaoh, and get me out of this prison. ¹⁵For I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing that they should put me in the dungeon (Genesis 40:14-15 HCSB).”

This is it.

That’s what Joseph thought. “Here’s my chance!”

Then the cupbearer forgot about Joseph for another two years.

Waiting is hard enough. But getting your hopes up and then discovering disappointment, is even harder.

Joseph could have given up. Maybe he did.

Years later, though, that cupbearer finally did remember Joseph. And, perhaps when Joseph least expected it, God came through.

In God’s perfect timing. In God’s perfect way. God came through.

Had the cupbearer remembered Joseph years before like he had promised, Joseph might have made it out of prison. Maybe. Perhaps. We’re not really sure. Pharaoh could have just dismissed the cupbearer’s story as little more than a novelty.

But in this precise moment, the Pharaoh needed someone to interpret his dream, and Joseph was the one to do it.

Interpreting that cupbearer’s dream had seemed like a wasted opportunity, yet years later that is what God used to rescue Joseph from prison.

What we do today might not seem to matter, but God doesn’t waste our faithfulness.

His timing is precise and perfect, even when it doesn’t feel like it in the moment, even when disappointment presses in, and even when the waiting feels like it can collapse your heart.

We can’t place our hope in circumstances or people like a forgetful cupbearer.

We can’t always decipher God’s plans and predict when “this” really is it.

We can’t make it snow despite all of our snow dances and inside-out-pajamas.

We can, however, live God-glorifying lives day-in and day-out, being faithful even to the most mundane tasks that earn us no worldly recognition or honor.

Our hope, after all, isn’t in circumstances or people or ‘connections’ or our own abilities. They will take us on an endless emotional roller-coaster of misplaced expectations and inevitable disappointment.

Our hope, though, can be rock solid, unshakeable and steadfast when we place it in Him and Him alone.

“Rest in God alone, my soul, for my hope comes from Him” (Psalm 62:5 HCSB).

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.

Having Hope When You’ve Been Stepped On

January 5, 20151 Comment

My daughter was about two-and-a-half when she stepped on a butterfly.

We do this every spring as we prepare for Easter, order a cup of caterpillars and follow their journey to new life. We watch the change, marvel again at the miracle: how the tomb doesn’t always mean death; maybe it means resurrection.

We remember that we are the ones who die to self and then gain new life in Christ, like caterpillars willingly spinning themselves into tight dormancy only to be made new.

We watched those caterpillars climb all over the tiny plastic cup for about a week. Then they scaled the sides of the cup, flipped themselves upside down and wrapped themselves into a chrysalis.

They looked dead for a week.

One morning, I shuffled around the kitchen, moving through routine with my eyes barely cracked open. Poured cereal. Made tea. Oversaw teeth-brushing and hair-brushing.

Then I saw the wings.

The chrysalis had cracked open and there in the morning light sat our first butterfly, fanning his wings slowly, testing the air, while the other caterpillars remained entombed.

Over the next day or so, the other new butterflies pushed their way out and flexed their wings.

We squeezed drops of sugar water on freshly cut chrysanthemums and watched the butterflies strengthen. First they sat in stillness. Then they hopped to the bottom and explored. Then they started flying around in circles, eager for freedom.

So, we set them free.

We gathered into the garden in the warm sun of a spring Saturday and one by one released each butterfly into our garden.

But we forgot to explain the difference between butterflies and bugs to my youngest daughter, I suppose.

When one of the butterflies flew up and then back to the ground, she squashed it. Quick as any reflex, she just stomped down her tiny foot on the ‘pest’ just like we would any spider.

We all tried to stop her. It was like a slow motion moment in a film, with us leaping to try to rescue the butterfly and prevent the impending doom, but failing in the end.

Amazingly enough, that butterfly still lived. We eased him and his bruised wing onto a flower where he could enjoy some food without needing to fly.

Maybe you’ve been that butterfly.

Eager to fly. Excited for freedom. Hoping for beauty.

Then crushed, bruised, broken.

Maybe you’ve started this year with anticipation, holding your breath for that first sign of good news.

And you’ve already felt like a giant foot has squashed you to the ground.

Maybe it seems like nothing ever changes even though you desperately long for it to change.

Proverbs 13:12 says:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

Hope isn’t a fickle whim, a fanciful impression that maybe good things will come your way.

Hope is a steadfast knowledge, an anchor of truth that without a doubt you know: God is good and He will take care of you.

And when you feel a little bruised and battered, like a butterfly crushed at that first taste of freedom, hope can feel a little shaky, a little elusive, a little hard to see in the deep of the dark.

Surely Noah must have had those days, floating on that ark long, long after the rain had ceased and the world was covered in a blanket of endless water.

How long, Lord? When will this end, Lord? Will we ever get off this ark, Lord?

Are we stuck here forever? Will we walk on dry land again? Can we please live without the stench of a floating zoo in our nostrils day and night?

He started sending out messengers of hope: ravens and doves.

He was desperate for the sign, the assurance of dry, solid ground.

The dove brought him an olive leaf. More than that, the dove brought him renewed hope.

Max Lucado writes:

“An olive leaf. Noah would have been happy to have a bird but to have the leaf! This leaf was more than foliage; this was promise. The bird brought more than a piece of a tree; it brought hope. For isn’t that what hope is? Hope is an olive leaf—evidence of dry land after flood… (From A Love Worth Giving)

And so, when we are weary and defeated, we can seek hope. We can send out those doves and ravens and ask God for a sign of dry land after flood.

And so, when we are strong, we can be the dove for another. We can bring olive leaves to the hurting. We can bring reminders of hope and God’s faithfulness to those who can’t see the solid ground.

Do you need an olive leaf today? Do you need to bring an olive leaf to someone else who is hurting?

Here are 30 Bible Verses on Hope to help.

Christmas devotions: How Many Days?

December 12, 2014December 12, 2014Leave a comment

“Mom, how many days until Victoria’s birthday?”
Nine.

“How many days until we go see The Nutcracker?”
Nine.

“Once we see The Nutcracker, how many more days will it be until Victoria’s birthday and then to Christmas?”
Zero and Four.

“How many days until the last day of school before Christmas break?”
Seven.

“How many days until our program?”
Two.

“How many days to Christmas? Do you know how many hours that might be?”
Thirteen and go ask your dad.

This is my house.

Every day. All day. From three of my four children and I’m sure if the 14-month-old could count and talk, I’d be doing this for him, too.

Mom is the walking Advent calendar, the perpetual countdown machine. Punch in the numbers and out spits the carefully calculated response.

Unless I’ve answered enough times that day, in which case I point mutely to the calendar on the wall and let them do the math.

We are living for the countdowns and loving the promise that on appointed days at specific times, we will celebrate. The big day will arrive. The anticipation will give way to fulfillment.

Yet, so much of life seems to hang on uncertain hooks with undefined strength. The deadlines are hazy. The promise is there, but not the timing. We can’ t count down the days and know that on this date, at this time, the one we’ve circled in red on our calendar, God will come through for us.

The waiting will end.

The promise will come.

The deliverance is here.

The prayer will be answered.

The waiting eats away at our hope; it’s the corrosion of impatient despair.

What to do? What to do when you read the words that God will work this out but each day you wake up thinking “Maybe this is the day” and each night you lie back down, “Maybe it’s tomorrow?”

For 400 years, Israel paused. For 400 years, they waited for the Messiah and heard only silence between the Old Testament’s end and that first moment that John the Baptist stepped out of the wilderness and yelled out for the people to repent.

In the Gospel of Mark, the very first words we have recorded from Jesus are “The time has come.” (Mark 1:15). How appropriate.

Maybe some had long since given up hope. The anticipation perhaps gave way to cynical apathy. Or frenzy—maybe the desperation spurred them on to follow any false teacher with any false message of hope.

Yet, just when the perfect time had come, Jesus was there. He wasn’t late, not for a second. And He wasn’t early.

Paul wrote in Galatians that:

“when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship (Galatians 4:4-5, NIV).

And later in Titus:

God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time, and which now at his appointed season he has brought to light through the preaching entrusted to me by the command of God our Savior (Titus 1:2-3).

The writer of Hebrews tells us:

But [that appointed time came] when Christ (the Messiah) appeared as a High Priest of the better things that have come and are to come (Hebrews 9:11 AMP).

The appointed time came and God answered. He is faithful.

Those prophets said it centuries before:

“For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay (Habakkuk 2:3, NASB).

God’s promises are for the appointed time.

It feels like so much hesitation and delay, but “It will not fail….wait for it….it will certainly come.”

Christmas does this. It gives us hope for the waiting room and the silent days because God did not fail His people. He had not abandoned them. He never let go of the promised salvation, never wavered or faltered. Nothing interrupted His plans. No one stood in His way. He never for one single second lost sight of the perfect plan for the perfect time.

Christmas is God showing up in glory in the way and on the day they least expected His presence, but in the way and on the day God planned all along.

I don’t want to miss Him showing up in my life. I don’t want the waiting to rile up doubts. I don’t want to settle my heart into complacency so I stop even looking for the glory and just shift my eyes to the mundane.

In the waiting, let us keep hope. In the waiting, let us keep watch. In the waiting, let us busy ourselves with obedience for today, trusting tomorrow to Him.

Originally posted December 12, 2011

Dear Girl, When Momma Lets You Down….

October 24, 2014October 24, 2014Leave a comment

I let her down.

Not intentionally, of course, but there it is. You can try to do everything right as a mom and always be perfect and still not always get it either right or perfect.

We had planned it out for a few weeks since the invitation from the school came. They asked me to be a guest reader for Read Aloud day at my daughters’ school and all four of us were excited.

We chatted about what books might be the best choices.

I made sure to ask my oldest daughter how to keep from embarrassing her when I visited her class. (Don’t read with too many enthusiastic or dramatic hand gestures. Apparently, that is highly embarrassing.)

She was also highly skeptical that I could come up with a picture book that would interest mature, chapter-book-reading fourth graders, but I was convinced I had chosen a winner.

When the big day came, I read to two classes, hugged two of my daughters, and arrived at the third daughter’s classroom only to find she wasn’t there.

They switch classes all day long in this grade and apparently my scheduled time to read occurred when neither my daughter nor any of her classmates were actually in their own classroom.

Not only that, but her teacher was absent, as well, so I couldn’t even explain my predicament and find a quick and easy solution.

So, I read to other people’s kids and not my own.

Then I tracked down my girl in the school, knocked on the door, and slipped in quickly to let her know what had happened, that they scheduled me to read for a time when she couldn’t hear the book.

And then I went home.

Two girls climbed into the minivan at the end of the school day bursting with exciting news about this and that. My third daughter climbed in quietly. I heard the sniffles from the far back of the minivan about halfway home.

When I asked her if she was crying, all she kept saying was, “You went to the wrong class.”

I knew the truth. I had gone where I was supposed to go when I was supposed to go there, but it didn’t change the bottom line.

We pulled into the driveway at home and unloaded the backpacks and lunchboxes. I settled my kids into the routine and then snuggled next to my still-tearful daughter on the big, comfy bed.

“I was so disappointed. I told all my friends you would come and what book you would read and I waited all day and you didn’t even come.”

I guess she misunderstood and thought I was just going to come back later.

It really didn’t matter whether I was justified or not, she was disappointed and sad nonetheless.

I’ve been there.

People let you down sometimes. Even well-meaning, good, godly people can disappoint you.

No one is perfect and certainly circumstances aren’t always perfect. Sometimes they conspire against us to turn life into a crazy mess of unexpected obstacles.

Truth be told, sometimes I feel a little disappointed with God, too, because even though I know He is working out things for my good and even though I know His plans for me are best, sometimes they sure don’t feel “best,” “good” or “perfect.”

In fact, maybe the plans I’ve concocted seem to make a whole lot more sense in the moment.

But I read two verses in Holley Gerth’s book, What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days:

“You are my strength, I watch for you; you, God, are my fortress, my God on whom I can rely” Psalm 59:9-10

So we know and rely on the love God has for us – 1 John 4:16

I believe this truth, that we don’t really know and can’t begin to comprehend God’s great love for us.

Yet, even if I’ve packed my head with all sorts of knowledge about the heights and depths of His love for me, what I really need is to rely on His love.

Because He’s reliable. Because He’s trustworthy. Because His love for us is never-failing, never-giving-up, always-and-forever, I can’t do anything to mess it up love.

So, I can rest in that. I can stretch back into the arms of Christ and relax all those tense muscles of worrying and fretting and trying to hang on for dear life to every detail of every day.

And when life shoots unexpected arrows at me or plans seem to go awry, still I rely on His love. I trust that He is my strength. He is the fortress where I can be safe.

He will not let me down.

Circumstances will let me down. People will disappoint me.

But God will not.

On this I can rely.

P.S. One hot cup of tea, some hugs from me, and a quick email to my daughter’s teacher to set up another time to read made my daughter’s day much better.

14 Bible Verses and a Prayer on Waiting

August 11, 201416 Comments

Psalm 25:4-5 ESV
Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
for you are the God of my salvation;
for you I wait all the day long.
Psalm 27:13-14
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.
Psalm 33:20-22
We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you.
Psalm 37:7 ESV
Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him;
fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way,
over the man who carries out evil devices!
Psalm 37:9 ESV
For the evildoers shall be cut off,
but those who wait for the Lord shall inherit the land.
Psalm 40:1-3 ESV
I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
Psalm 62:5 ESV
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
Psalm 130:5-6 NIV
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
and in his word I put my hope.
I wait for the Lord
more than watchmen wait for the morning,
more than watchmen wait for the morning.
Isaiah 30:18 ESV
Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you,
and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him.
Isaiah 40:29-31 HCSB
He gives strength to the weary

Photo by Weerayut Kongsombut; 123rf.com

and strengthens the powerless.
Youths may faint and grow weary,
and young men stumble and fall,
but those who trust in the Lord
will renew their strength;
they will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary;
they will walk and not faint.
Isaiah 64:4 NIV
Since ancient times no one has heard,
no ear has perceived,
no eye has seen any God besides you,
who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.
Lamentations 3:25 ESV
The Lord is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
Micah 7:7 NIV
But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.
James 5:7-8 HCSB
Therefore, brothers, be patient until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth and is patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, because the Lord’s coming is near.

30 Bible Verses on Hope

June 3, 20142 Comments

Job 14:7-9 NASB
“For there is hope for a tree,
When it is cut down, that it will sprout again,
And its shoots will not fail.
“Though its roots grow old in the ground
And its stump dies in the dry soil,
At the scent of water it will flourish
And put forth sprigs like a plant.
Psalm 31:24 NIV
Be strong and take heart,
all you who hope in the LORD.
Psalm 33:18
But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
Psalm 33:20-22
We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love be with us, LORD, even as we put our hope in you.
Psalm 39:7 NIV
“But now, Lord, what do I look for?
My hope is in you.
Psalm 43:5 NASB
Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.
Psalm 71:5 NASB
For You are my hope;
O Lord God, You are my confidence from my youth.
Psalm 71:14 NASB
But as for me, I will hope continually,
And will praise You yet more and more.
Psalm 119:81 NIV
My soul faints with longing for your salvation,
but I have put my hope in your word.
Psalm 119:114 NIV
You are my refuge and my shield;
I have put my hope in your word.
Psalm 146:5 NIV
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord their God.
Psalm 147:11
the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.
Proverbs 10:28 NASB
The hope of the righteous is gladness,
But the expectation of the wicked perishes.
Proverbs 13:12 NASB
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 23:18 NASB
Surely there is a future,
And your hope will not be cut off.
Jeremiah 29:11 NIV
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Lamentations 3:25
The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him;
Romans 5:2-5 NIV
through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 8:24-25 NASB
For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
Romans 12:12 NIV
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
Romans 15:4 NIV
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
Romans 15:13 NIV
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Ephesians 1:18 NIV
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people
Colossians 1:27 NIV
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
1 Timothy 4:10
That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe.
Hebrews 6:198-20 NIV
God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
Hebrews 11:1 NASB
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
1 Peter 1:13 NIV
Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming.
1 John 3:3 NIV
All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Why do we call this Friday “Good?”

April 18, 20142 Comments

She asked me why we call it “Good Friday.” Why “good?”

Why “Happy Easter” or “Happy Resurrection Day?”

What makes this so “happy?”

How could we celebrate this death, this sacrifice, this sadness? We should be so much more serious and sad, she tells me.

Like the disciples who mourned, like Mary Magdalene crying beside the tomb, surely we should remember this day with tears.

This she asks in confusion.

On Thursday, we ate the bread and drank the cup.

That’s what Jesus said that night in the upper room with disciples scattered around:

“This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me” (Luke 22:19 NIV).

So, we remember.

She is thinking of grape juice and crackers, a snack when you’re hungry, but I tell her it’s more than that.

And she asks, why do this? Why talk about blood–so gross, so morbid and earthy?

It’s too corporeal for holiness and for the sacred places, the striking red against the purity of the righteous life.

Why Mom?

That’s yucky.

I think today about the remembrance of it all and why it matters.

Today is Good Friday.

Last year, Good Friday was also the eight-year anniversary of my dad’s death.

So I sat with my daughter brushing her hair and telling her about my dad: little remembrances here and there and what makes that day special.

Then what makes this a day holy and set apart from other days? Why Good Friday?

Because there’s beauty in the remembrance. There’s honor and power in recollection.

I think this about my dad. Talking about him makes his life real here and now after death. It makes it more tangible, relevant.

These daughters of mine who never knew him and only see the pictures in a photo album, mostly after he was sick and didn’t look like the dad I remember, what other way for them to know than for me to tell?

And you just don’t want the anniversary of his death to slip by forgotten because it would be forgetting him.

Is it any different remembering our Savior in this season?

In German, they don’t call this day Good. They call it Mourning Friday.

But isn’t that the beauty of this day? That even as we remember Christ’s death, even as we talk about the cross and give it true attention, even as we drink the cup so apt to stain white and we eat the bread broken, even as we tell our children the stories and we say:

This is what He did for us. Not some pristine ritual, not something pure and clean. It was bloody and painful. It was death. It was hard. And sacrifice like that was suffering.

It wasn’t pushed on Him because He was too weak. Jesus “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:7-8 NIV).

This is what He chose to do for us because of love so great.

Love so good. Love so amazing, so divine…

Even as we say this and tell this to our children, the beauty of remembering the cross isn’t just the Mourning of our Savior, it’s the Good News that the resurrection came.

Why Good?

Why Happy?

I tell her remembering is how we worship, how we give thanks, how we honor His gift to us.

And that gift wasn’t just a trinket wrapped in a package with a bow.

It was good. Truly good. The greatest gift at the highest price.

And the resurrection; that’s our joy. What better reason to be happy than to know the cross was not the end and the tomb didn’t destroy our hope?

Because of this, we have life everlasting.

And because of that day, we can see any crisis as an opportunity for Him to shine with resurrection power, to resurrect the dead, to defy all expectations and trample all over the circumstantial evidence by doing the impossible.

Yes, this remembering is good.

What Caterpillars Know That Sometimes I Forget

April 14, 2014April 14, 20141 Comment

There’s always a rebel.

This cup of caterpillars arrives in the mailbox and I set it up high so we can watch them grow.

And do they ever grow.

Within a few days, they start scaling the walls of the plastic cup and demonstrate their acrobatics by clinging to the lid and hanging upside down. First one caterpillar, then another.

Every year, this one lone caterpillar delays. All four of his roommates hang over his head and tuck themselves right up into a chrysalis.

The rebel caterpillar enjoys the food down below, munching at leisure, no more competition for the bug buffet.

Sometimes we wonder if he’ll ever climb on up there already!!

But inevitably he does. One morning, he pads his way up to the top and drops himself upside down just like the others. He wraps himself in the brown chrysalis and waits for the change.

Now all five of them hang in their mesh butterfly house, waiting to emerge. Mostly they rest there, perfectly and completely still.

They look dead.

Totally, completely devoid of all life.

But we move their home just slightly and we see one caterpillar wiggle and squirm inside the chrysalis.

A sign of life now and a sign of life to come.

Could it be these insects know more about hope than we do?

That even in a season of waiting, a time of rest, a moment of seeming-death, still they cling. They submit to the dormancy for the beauty that is to come.

Maybe they know there is something more. That hope and future God promises us, that’s why they climb on up, that’s why they hang themselves right upside down.

Because of what is to come.

And in the middle of the death seasons, the long waits and the God-mandated resting, sometimes we forget this. We can abandon all hope of future, of promise, of new life and the return of joy.

It’s Holy Week. Yesterday, we waved those Palms and we sang, “Hosanna!” Today, I prepare my heart for the Good Friday to come, for Communion and remembrance and meditation on the cross.

I read this morning:

Jesus “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV).

Jesus knelt in that Garden and He prayed, “not my will, but Yours be done” despite the pain, and the humiliation, the torture, and the death because of the joy to come. He submitted because of resurrection hope.

And we have this. That empty tomb is our hope, too. Our God, who defeated death and the grave, has a plan and a purpose, a hope, a future. We are never alone. We are fully loved and redeemed, forgiven and set free.

All that is dead can become life in His hands. All that is broken can be beautiful. All that is lost can be found.

He can make all things new.

Even the impossible becomes possible with Him.

That is resurrection joy.

Those caterpillars don’t abandon hope of life. They don’t linger in that tomb of a chrysalis. In due season, they push right on out and stretch and dry those wings so they can fly to freedom.

Jesus didn’t die on that cross hopelessly uncertain of the future. He had his sights set on Sunday morning and the “joy set before Him.” That’s why He endured that cross.

But we sometimes lose hope.

Naomi walked through that time of deep loss and life-shattering grief. Her husband dead. Her sons dead. The mourning overshadowed her.

She couldn’t be herself any more. She felt broken beyond repair. So, she changed her name: Mara or “bitter” (Ruth 1:19-21) because she thought surely God couldn’t transform her tragedy and bring new love, new life, and a Redeemer.

There’s that demon-possessed man, too. When Jesus and the disciples met him, “for a long time …he had not lived in a house but among the tombs” (Luke 8:27 ESV).

He lived life in the tombs. Maybe the sorrow felt more comfortable than the joy? Maybe death felt less painful than life?

He preferred the grave.

And then there’s us.

In seasons of waiting, maybe of sorrow, perhaps even of death, do we abandon ourselves to the bitterness and make ourselves cozy among the tombs?

Or do we cling to Christ because of resurrection hope? Do we hold on for dear life to the Savior who defeated death?

Do we hide away in the shadows and settle into the despair or do we run like crazy into His arms when He calls us out of darkness and into light?

So I remember what the caterpillars have known all along: even what seems like death is truly just waiting on new life. Hold on tight, dear one. He brings new life. He brings beauty. He brings you wings so you can soar.

Ask Me More: The Unexpected Ways of Grief, and the Expected Presence of our Savior

January 13, 2014January 23, 2014Leave a comment

Grief has a way of surprising you.

It’s the impish way memory has of trampling in all unexpected and unannounced in moments you least expect and on the most average of days.

It wasn’t ever my dad’s birthday or father’s day or even the anniversary of his death when the sadness came heavy.

No, it was when I walked into the fire station for my four-year-old daughter’s field trip years ago.

A dozen preschoolers clamored for a chance to scramble up into the driver’s seat of the fire engine. I sucked in my breath, blinked tears out of my eyes and then wiped them off my cheek, trying to look natural, like there was just dust in my eye.

My dad was a firefighter.

I explain this to someone else: that sometimes it’s not the days when you are most prepared for grief that are the hardest. But it’s the way an unexpected sound or sight or smell can usher in a memory that just knocks the breath right out of you.

She speaks wisdom in return: Better to have those memories that stir up grief than to completely forget.

Yes, how much better not to forget because, given time, Jesus turns those ashes right into beauty and surely we wouldn’t want to miss the sight.

Somehow even the pain and the tears become sweet when we bring them to Jesus and receive the memory not as bitter loss, but as a precious gift that He gives.

When Mary Magdalene sat outside the empty tomb of Jesus on Resurrection morning, she cried with hopelessness.

Grave-robbers. Defilers. Someone had been in there and taken the body of her Lord.

She still called Him, “Lord” even after she’d seen Jesus hang on that cross. Even when others might have been stunned by the failure of the man they thought was Messiah, still she believes at least this: He is still Lord.

Somehow she clung to belief and managed to carry it even with her sorrow. She held on tight to see what God would do.

After the disciples rushed into the tomb, saw the emptiness and ran back to others with the news. still Mary lingered outside the last place she’d seen Jesus. She “stood outside the tomb crying” (John 20:11).

It’s not to Peter or John that Jesus appears first. He doesn’t rush into the town to show the crowd His resurrected body.

He appears first to this weeping woman at the grave and asks,

“Woman, why are you crying?” (John 20:15)

Jesus met with her in her despair and asked her to bring the grief to Him.

Maybe her eyes were so cloudy with tears or maybe her brain just couldn’t comprehend the matter, but she thinks Jesus is no more than a gardener. So, she begs him to tell her where Jesus’ body may have been moved.

He stops her there, not just in her sorrow, but in her accusation and anger, and He reminds her of His presence by just speaking her name– “Mary.”

Did she recognize the way her name sounded when Jesus spoke it? Did He open her eyes to see what had been veiled before?

Whatever happens, she realizes it’s Jesus Himself, not some gardener laboring over weeds.

“Rabboni!” (Teacher), she yells as she worships a risen Savior. That becomes her testimony and her joy, “I have seen the Lord!”

And over time, slowly and without me ever knowing when it all happened, the memories I used to meet as a shocking reminder of loss have become like dear friends stopping by for a surprise visit.

I’ve learned, like Mary, that God is present even in the places of sorrow.

I think this as I plug in the record player a friend gave me last week.

She brought me this old technology in a brown carry-case and I’ve toted it home and placed it on my kitchen table. I pull out records that I couldn’t listen to before, ease one out of its sleeve and place it on the turntable.

The moment that needle dips down into that first groove, my kids come running to marvel over the mysterious sound.

We listen to some of my dad’s records, and for once I’m not tearful.

It’s sweet. Like the memories alone keep him present.

And I think, how precious that God walks us through the tears and reminds us of His presence even in the brokenness.

How precious that He calls us by name, that He knows our sorrow and even asks us to bring it to Him by asking, “Woman, why are you crying?“

Our Resurrected Savior wipes away tears. But even more than that, He gives us hope for a future that is forever and ever in His presence.

Want to read more about the questions God asks?
Check out my book, Ask Me Anything, Lord, available in paperback and for the Kindle and nook!

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.

Broken Lenses and The Faith Dare

August 23, 2013August 23, 20132 Comments

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, 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.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

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