Christmas devotions: Consider the Hockey Puck

December 5, 20142 Comments

I’ve been hit in the face with a hockey puck.

A basketball bounced off my head a few times in elementary school and broke my glasses at least once.

A softball came hurtling at me when I was about 13 or so and slammed into my side.

Most people, you know, see balls zooming through the air straight toward their face and do smart things like step aside or jump out of the way or duck.

Not me.

Given the choice between fright or flight, I just choose freeze.

It’s pretty much a guarantee that if forced to make a decision in a moment of pressure, I’ll choose the most stupid thing you can possibly do.

Now you know not to pick me for your kickball team.

I need time, lots of time, to ponder and consider a response to any situation, question, or problem. I can’t just hit that reply on the email message and I generally avoid the phone which requires instant feedback. A comfortable phone conversation for me would look like this:

“Heather, what do you think about _______?”

“I don’t know. Let me think about it and I’ll email you back later.”

That, of course, defeats the whole purpose of the initial phone call, which was to handle the problem quickly.

But I don’t do quickly. Quickly for me results in broken glasses, a hockey puck in the face and a sore back where the softball slammed into me.

Quickly results in foolish decisions, words I wish I hadn’t said, poor judgment, and costly mistakes.

The world pushes and pressures with this relentless rush and my heart bruises easily from all the battering.

Yet, I read this Christmas story and see God choosing a carpenter—not a CEO, not a king, not a go-getter or an up-and-comer—to participate in this miracle of God-in-human-flesh.

This simple man named Joseph, surely he knew so well not to rush the measuring, the cutting, or the smoothing of the splintered surfaces on his workbench table.

Choose your wood wisely. Go with the grain. Etch out the plan before carving.

Long-learned lessons of the carpenter seeped into Joseph’s soul.

In Scripture, he doesn’t talk, not once.

He doesn’t whine to God and lament the news that His fiance was mysteriously and scandalously pregnant.

He doesn’t bully Mary into confessions and repentance and demand an explanation.

He takes his time, this Joseph, and doesn’t spew words out thoughtlessly and apologize for them later.

When he hears the news of Mary’s pregnancy,

he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:19-20 NIV).

In The Women of Christmas, Liz Curtis Higgs writes:

“Joseph did not act in haste. He thought things through. Prayed things through. He ‘contemplated’ (NET); he ‘pondered’ (MOUNCE). When at last Joseph decided to sleep on it, ‘God graciously directed him what to do'” (The Women of Christmas, p. 105).

Joseph considered, contemplated, pondered.

He gave God time to do the work. He didn’t let circumstances bully him into a corner.

He didn’t react. He responded.

I’m the reluctant student learning this same lesson at the feet of my own Carpenter.

For this is what God, is:

For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything (Hebrews 3:4).

Our Father is building and He’s working slow and never rushing.

He’s asking me to ponder, consider contemplate: ….choose the wood wisely, go with the grain, measure and plan before cutting and shaping.

We try to rush the process. We toss out solutions as fast as the projects pile up at our feet.

And we make a right awful mess.

Yet, He teaches us the rhythm of His grace. The rhythm of His will. The rhythm of His strong hands working slowly, masterfully, carefully…stroke after stroke on the raw wood that is us.

This season, let us slow the rhythm of our breathing to match His.

Refuse to be rushed.

Protect the process.

Take the time.

And consider this…..consider Christmas…..consider the wonder of a Savior come and a God at work and a perfect plan and the God who is the builder of everything.

Originally published 12/13/2013

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.

My kid found the kryptonite to bring down Supermom

December 3, 2014December 3, 2014Leave a comment

My daughter climbed into the minivan after school and nailed me with Mom-guilt before she even sat down and buckled on her seatbelt.

“Mom, why didn’t you come to National School Lunch Day and have lunch with me like all the other moms?”

photo by Nataliia Kelsheva , 123rf.com

I sucked in my breath and battled the personal demons of fear of failure, perfectionism, and people-pleasing like I was fighting a sneak attack from a three-headed monster.

This beloved child of mine was essentially throwing kryptonite at me and bringing Supermom to her knees.

We had talked about this. I had sat these girls down at the kitchen table and explained to them that I didn’t like to come on the ever-popular National School Lunch Day when the cafeteria was crowded and loud and it wasn’t a good day for me to come this year, anyway.

I have lunch in the school cafeteria with each of my girls every single month on our own ‘special’ day of my own choosing when it fits with our schedule and when we can actually sit and enjoy each other’s company without shouting over the ambient noise of 150 kids plus their parents and grandparents.

In fact, it was on my calendar to have lunch with this very same child just two days later.

But she nailed me with disappointment anyway.

It nagged at me persistently all afternoon even though I knew what she wanted of me wasn’t fair or right or true.

Still I felt the weight of condemnation:

A good mom would have gone to National School Lunch day.

You disappointed her.

You just need to try harder, do more, be more.

Few things cripple the heart of a perfectionist like fear of disappointing your child.

(Or fear of messing them up so much they’ll spend their entire adult life in counseling. Or never move out of your house and lead a healthy adult life. There’s that.)

We’re desperately terrified of failing at this. We know God gave us these precious gifts and from the moment that pregnancy test line appears, we feel the full weight of this responsibility.

Then you hold that newborn life in your hands in a hospital room in the dark of that first night without sleep and you know how desperate you are for God’s help to do this right.

But I read this in Courtney DeFeo’s book, In This House We Will Giggle:

“I don’t want to be Jesus for my kids; I just want to draw them close to Him. I don’t need to be perfect, because He already is… I have to remind myself daily that God offers grace. Yes, we are going to mess up. We will not, cannot, get all this parenting stuff just right. But God fills in the gaps and gives us tremendous grace and mercy along the road.”

That grace fills up my mercy-starved lungs so I can breathe again.

Sometimes I need to let the guilt go.

I need to let the perfection go.

I don’t need to be Jesus for my kids.

In fact, if I try to be Jesus to them, I’ll block their view and they won’t see Christ at all ’cause my bumbling shadow is in the way.

I’m spending this month pursuing the presence of Christ by learning to Abandon Perfection.

Because as long as I keep up the pretense of being perfect, I can’t collapse into the grace-filled arms of my Savior—not as a woman, not as a mom.

And grace is what I need.

I read in Scripture about the woman who splashed that expensive perfume all over the dusty feet of Christ. Those self-righteous men at the table criticized her offering and mocked her worship.

But Jesus said,

Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me…She has done what she could (Mark 14:6, 8).

All those Pinterest boards tell me hundreds of ways I need to be a better mom.

The blog posts overwhelm me with plans and programs and ideas.

The parenting magazines show me everything I’m doing wrong.

The Facebook pictures show everyone else doing it right.

But that’s not life. That’s not real life anyway. That’s the suffocation of perfectionism, impossible standards, guilt and failure.

Ann Voskamp says:

Perfectionism isn’t a fruit of the spirit…Joy is.

Oh, if there’s anything I want it’s the Joy of Jesus in this home.

And here’s the joy I find: I don’t need to be perfect.

I just need to give what I have and do what I can and bring these kids to Jesus.

I’m not enough. I’m not perfect.

But He is.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Abandon Perfection?

I am not a Perfectionist….most of the time

December 1, 2014December 1, 20144 Comments

I’ve always said, “I’m not a perfectionist; I’m a pragmatist.”

My goal is usually to get things done. I’m willing to let some things go as long as I have a viable product by the deadline.

That’s what I say.

by daphoto, 123rf.com

Mostly, it’s true. Pragmatism trumps perfectionism for me in a million ways every single day.

But I stood there in a bustling classroom on Open House Night and realized that maybe perfectionism has been lurking its ugly head in my heart after all.

Turns out, you don’t have to be a perfectionist about everything to struggle with perfectionism in some things.

My stuff doesn’t need to be perfect, but I need to be perfect.

(And maybe I want my kids to be perfect, too.)

I chatted with my daughter’s teacher and loved her. She has this elegant air of grace and gentle wisdom.

But I’m nervous around teachers. They are like superheroes to this teacher’s pet of a neurotic straight-A student like me. So, I found myself just saying things without thinking.

She said she enjoyed teaching my girl.

I said something about my daughter enjoying the year so far, but how sometimes if she gets a B on a paper that’s still a little hard.

She said in the quietest of ways, “Really, I don’t see that about her at all. She seems to be so well-adjusted and not overwhelmed by things like that.”

Oh, right.

My daughter is the well-adjusted one.

It’s me with the problem. It took a near-stranger to see right through me and call out the ugly I’m still holding onto like a security blanket.

She didn’t realize it, of course. Yet, one simple conversation like that keeps nudging at my heart.

It turn out I have areas of my life where I accept imperfection and areas where I expect to meet impossible standards that set me up for failure and leave me desperate for grace.

You too?

Messy closets…..I can let that go.

Messing up with my kids, with my husband, with a friend…..unacceptable.

must

perfect.

Do not lose your patience.

Do not forget to sign the school agenda or the reading log or the quiz or the behavior sheet for any child.

Do not neglect or overlook anyone or anything.

Always say the right thing.

Always be there for everyone with wisdom and grace.

Yet, here’s the truth of the Gospel: Perfectionism keeps us from Christ. Jesus came for the imperfect.

Perfectionism feeds into that prideful self-righteousness that says I can be right without Jesus. I can be good enough. I don’t really need a Savior. Only sinners and mess-ups need rescue.

And while I say it: “I need Jesus,” what I really mean is: “I need Jesus in a thoroughly acceptable and comfortable good-Christian girl kind of way.”

That rich young ruler found Jesus walking along the road and knelt before Him. He made a show of humility: dropping his knee before a dust-covered-carpenter-turned-wandering-rabbi.

The man asked: “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17 NASB).

And when Christ listed off the commandments, the man said, “I have kept all these things from my youth up.” (Mark 10:20 NASB).

He’d spent his entire young life striving within himself to do and do and do the right thing, never breaking the rules, never faltering.

Yet, he still missed out on Jesus. He couldn’t give everything up to follow after Christ.

And that’s what Jesus wants, not perfect self-righteous rule-followers who focus so hard on taking the right steps that they never walk forward.

He just wants our heart.

I’ve spent this whole year pursuing the presence of Christ, and here I am in December: the month when I “Abandon Perfection.”

It’s fitting really.

Too often we stress over Christmas, the busyness, the rush, the show. We need to fulfill every tradition. Create beauty. Teach our children about Jesus and about giving.

Pinterest tells me I need to make Christmas ‘magic’ for my children.

Yet, too often we make Christmas about do and do and do.

What if this year we Abandon Perfection and simply make Christmas about giving Jesus our heart?

I want Jesus. I want His presence. And that means coming now, before I’m perfect. Coming as we are.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV).

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Abandon Perfection?

Eat Cereal and Go to Disney?

October 10, 2014October 10, 2014Leave a comment

My daughter announced at the breakfast table that if we wanted to go to Disney World we all needed to eat a particular cereal.

“You want to go to Disney, right?”

She asked her five-year-old sister. Such an unfair question. Of course, the five-year-old nodded, ‘yes.’

“Then you need to eat this cereal, see?”

I peek over my shoulder to see what she found: a contest on the back of the cereal box. One grand prize winner. Yada yada yada.

Not exactly the reality she was trying to spin for her siblings: Eat this box of cereal = a free trip to Disney for the family.

But my children feel they have a deprived existence because:

(A) We do not own a dog.

(B) We have never been to Disney.

I promise her that I’ve entered plenty of Free Trip to Disney contests before yet I’ve still never been there. It’s because I never win anything.

(Well, once I won a drawing at the public library for the adult summer reading program. The nice librarian called and told me I had won and could come pick up my prize. I was ecstatic with joy. So much so that he felt the need to assure me that it was just a tiny little prize and not to expect anything big. He didn’t want me to be disappointed. It didn’t matter. I had WON something.)

But as I try to protect my dear daughter from the inevitable disappointment of finding that eating this particular cereal did not by default mean we’d be standing outside Cinderella’s castle next summer, I remember my prize from last week.

We made our annual family trek to the pumpkin patch. When I paid to get in, the nice lady at the farm handed me a jar of homemade pumpkin butter.

She said the first 25 families that visited the farm that day were receiving a gift.

We had won!

In fact, she didn’t have any more jars there on the shelf behind her, so I’m pretty sure we were number 25, making this all the more reason to celebrate.

And all I had to do was show up.

Oh, we love to complicate things don’t we?

I think how difficult I can make this sometimes, asking what I need to do to win God’s affection or attention and earn His favor.

I can know it in my head. It’s grace. It’s mercy. He doesn’t need me to perform elaborate rituals or scream and shout for the prize of His divine attention.

Still I forget.

I think surely I must have let Him down and disappointed Him or missed a step and messed things up along the way. Maybe He’d have blessed me, but I did something wrong and now He can’t. Or I made a wrong decision somewhere and stumbled out of His perfect plan for me.

It makes it seem so fickle. Like I’m playing some guessing game and the prize for guessing correctly is His favor and affection. But one wrong answer and I’m out.

Yet, James 4:8a says:

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

Draw near.

I read about the resurrection appearance of Jesus, how He appeared first to Mary Magdaelene and then to the other women who had visited the tomb that morning.

In her devotional, Revealing Jesus, Darlene Zschech asks:

Why did Jesus appear first to two women? The answer is so simple. They were the ones who showed up first.

We won’t always get it right. Sometimes just ‘showing up’ begins with that first humble act of repentance, of praying in earnest that the Holy Spirit do His work, search our hearts, purify and refine.

But showing up also means just coming as we are. Not trying to figure out some complicated formula in order to gain admittance to see Jesus. We don’t have to delay coming to Him because we’re not ready yet or worry that He’ll send us back because we’re so unworthy.

We come.

We just. Come.

And we ask: Lord, I long for Your presence and I’m drawing near to You today. I’m resting here at Your feet and I’m desperate to spend time with You. Forgive me, cleanse me. Please draw near to me. ~Amen~

I like my marshmallows crispy (AKA burnt)

October 3, 2014October 3, 2014Leave a comment

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

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

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

On a night when we have time, when we miraculously aren’t scarfing down dinner and rushing into the car for an evening of dance classes followed by church activities, we like to roast the marshmallows over the flame.

photo courtesy of Viktor Janacek, picjumbo

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

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

And it dies.

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

How breathless I’ve been.

The running, the pace, the schedule.

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

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

Remembering that, too.

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

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

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

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

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

Then we run dry.

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

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

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

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

In the Our Daily Bread Bible, I read:

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

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

It was catchy and cute then.

It’s breath in my lungs now.

Do you feel the grace here?

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

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

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

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

But by His Spirit.

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

Originally posted September 20, 2013

Sometimes Love is a Missed School Bus and a Cup of Tea

September 12, 2014Leave a comment

I woke her up at 8:05 a.m.

She had a rough night. We all did. With four kids sick with the Great Cold of 2014, I had spent most of my night slathering on Vicks, refilling water bottles, rocking a baby and fetching more tissues.

This daughter shone her flashlight on my face at 5 a.m. to announce tearfully that she hadn’t slept all night and now she’ll never get any sleep and she’ll fall asleep at school and she’ll never make it to ballet…..and the world was just absolutely going to blow up because of all of it.

I’m not the most compassionate nurse of a mom anyway. Seeing as how that was about the bazillionth time a child had woken me up in that one night, I had to muster some grace for the night shift.

Walk the child back to bed.

Vicks—rub, rub, rub.

Hand tissues.

Hand plastic bag for placing used tissues inside instead of dumping them on the floor next to your bed (please and thank you).

Refill water bottle.

Speak truth. The world is not about to end. Stop crying. If you cry, you will feel worse. You have not been awake all night; I have and I can assure you that you were asleep for some of it.

Place hand on child’s head, smooth back hair, reassure self that she does not have a fever, and pray for her to sleep. Dear God, please let her sleep.

Make it back to the bed in time to fall asleep before the next child wakes up an hour later.

So, this morning, I wake her up late. “Twenty minutes until you need to be outside waiting for the bus.”

Breakfast, here.

Clothes, here.

Tissues, here.

Lunchbox in backpack. Book in backpack. Zip it up!

Brush your teeth and I’ll brush your hair while you do that. Saves time.

But I look at this child in the mirror. She’s still crying and she’s a mess of red-faced blotchy miserableness.

She’s sick and she’s tired.

I could push her out that door to meet the bus.

I’m a workaholic. I’ve said it to her already that morning, “No fever. No throwing up. This is just a cold. You’ll feel better in an hour.”

But something in me stops the stampede of my pushy, workaholic, drill sergeant self all over the tender heart of this beloved girl.

I hear it, this strong voice telling me to just stop right there and: Love her.

I had just read it the day before in Pathway to Purpose:

“It is a cure for an affliction may of us have, which my friend calls destination disease. That great phrase describes being more concerned about getting to our destination than in finding delight on the journey. Learning to love causes us to linger in the company of others and find enjoyment and companionship along the way” (Katie Brazelton).

Learning to love isn’t just a begrudging necessity of this Christian life, a small blip in the journey on to bigger and better purposes and plans.

Loving others is Christ’s command.

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:12 NIV).

Loving others is what we’re here to do. It is the great purpose. It is the great design.

Am I too busy pushing my agenda in this moment to show the truth of God’s love and grace?

Katie Brazelton writes this in Pathway to Purpose also:

“Love, then, is spending ourselves, investing ourselves, in the daily and eternal well-being of others” (pp. 64-65).

I could push that daughter out the door to the school bus and she’d make it okay.

But that wouldn’t be loving her. Not this time and not in this way. This child is not a hookie-playing, school-skipping, excuse-making kid. She’s a good kid and a diligent student who is sick, got too little sleep and feels rotten.

I love her and I want her to know that I love her.

That’s the point.

So, I send two kids out to the bus instead of three.

I write a note to her teacher. I make her a cup of tea.

An hour later, she is feeling a bit better. She still has a cold, but she says she’s ready to go to school.

I drive her in, and she says it to me twice on the way, “Thanks for taking care of me, mom.”

This month, I’m Learning When To Say “Yes” as part of my year-long pursuit of the presence of Christ.

And I pause here today because saying “yes” isn’t one choice or one destination. It’s a lifestyle of listening in the moment.

I say “Yes” to the Spirit’s voice.

“Yes” to His direction even in the smallest of things, the every day, and the ordinary.

And today I say “yes” to loving others, starting with this precious girl.

How can you love others today?

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Learn When to Say, ‘Yes?’

Epic Failures; Epic Grace

August 13, 2014August 13, 20142 Comments

Mom Failures.

I’ve had them, had some doozies actually.

Anyone else?

There was the year my oldest daughter had been pestering me all week with her chattery excitement about an upcoming birthday party for a friend. The day of the party, I told her it was time to go and double-checked the invitation on the way out the door. That’s when I found out that the party actually ended at 2:00, not began at 2:00. She had missed it completely. We drove anyway just to bring our present and apologize, but everyone was already gone.

I had one tearful extrovert of a 5-year-old that day.

And it was my fault. My own failure that had ruined her super-exciting day.

I apologized a million times and it still didn’t feel like enough. I took her to one of those play places with a million bouncy inflatables and she had the most fun jumping herself into exhaustion, but I still knew the truth—I had failed.

“Bad moments don’t make bad mamas!” That’s what Lysa TerKeurst says.

She’s right, of course. One missed birthday party doesn’t define me, doesn’t stuff me into a box of rejection or label me as a Failure-With-a-Capital-F.

But in that moment, it’s so hard to soak in any grace when your soul is rock-hard with shame.

And when you mess it all up, all those other mistakes come crashing right back down on your head from the places you’ve shelved them. Pretty soon, you’re covered in the trash of remembered failure.

You always….You never…..

We hear the absolute declarations that we simply are not good enough, our own voice of condemnation echoing in our own head and heart.

You always make a mess of things.

You never get it right.

You’re always so stupid, so flaky, so forgetful, so short-tempered….

You’ll never be as good as she is…

God can’t use you.

Chris Tiegreen writes:

We are apt to think that failure disqualifies us from serving God well. To the contrary, sometimes it is the only thing that does qualify us. It removes any pretense of self-reliance. Like a phoenix rising, we ascend from the ashes of our own undoing, testifying to the resurrecting power of God. From failure to forgiveness, weakness to strength, death to life—it’s God’s way. Remember that the next time you despair over your failures (365 Pocket Devotions).

We’re mess-ups, all of us. Somehow, some way, at some time, we’re going to fail.

That’s why we need grace, after all. That’s why we needed a Savior: because on our own, we’ll never be perfect, never good enough, never all right.

But there’s Jesus, not just ready to pour out forgiveness afterward; He prays for us in advance.

Jesus looked right at Simon Peter sitting at the Passover Meal, that Last Supper, and said:

“But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32 NIV).

What grace is this?

Before Peter ever denied Christ, Jesus had been praying for him.

Before Peter’s sin, Jesus already assured him of restoration, promising not just that he would “turn back,” but that Peter could be the one to “strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus promised Peter, “After you’ve failed and you’ve returned to me, I can still use you. More than that, that’s WHEN I can use you.”

Sometimes our own failure makes us most useful to God.

When we receive grace, we learn to give grace.

When we are at our weakest, we learn to rely on His strength and not our own (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Maybe we don’t see the hope right away, not with the mess lying fresh all around us. It’s hard to see beauty in all those ashes. Hard to see grace in the hard and mercy in the difficult.

But the Psalmist wrote:

The Lord helps the fallen
and lifts those bent beneath their loads
(Psalm 145:114 NLT).

Have you tripped up? Have you fallen? Have you crashed headlong into that dark pit?

Do you feel weighed down by the load of shame and guilt and condemnation?

The Lord is there to help you and to hold you up.

Give what’s broken to Him and let Him bring you to something new, something beautiful, and something for your good.

We are Staycation Failures

July 21, 2014July 15, 2014Leave a comment

A few years ago, my husband and I realized we had to take a few days off of work. Both of us. At the same time.

This probably doesn’t sound exciting, but to us this was revolutionary.

We didn’t go away. We didn’t take vacations. We didn’t take time off other than for dental appointments or to have a baby.

But since a vacation away wasn’t in the budget, we decided to try the wonderful trend of stay-cationing.

We know plenty of friends who staycation successfully. They have a fabulous time visiting all the places within an hour of home that no one local ever takes the time to visit.

We, however, had a whopping failure of a week. By Friday, we had both ended up working. We had answered the phone and ended up in ministry meetings. We still went to all the normal activities at church and in the community. We did all the normal chores with all the normal responsibilities and hadn’t even slept in because we had young kids and they don’t know how to do that.

We need to get away, really away. We need to retreat, to shake off the daily and reconnect with each other and with beauty and rest and with the eternal.

Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest.”

It’s all of the daily life choices and battles that chip away at our faith. We’re distracted. We’re annoyed. We’re confused. We’re tired.

Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Over time, I feel it, the weariness, the burdens. They accumulate over days and months.

Daily quiet times help. I temporarily rest at His feet and toss the bundles I’m carrying to the side. But, I leap up from the table after time in the Word and it’s back to phone calls and emails, carpooling, activities, planning and laundry.

And the thing about daily life is that it is . . . daily.

Shocking revelation, I know. But it’s not just the motion that tires me over time; it’s the perpetual motion.

It’s rising every morning to empty the dishwasher and reload it . . . . again.
Making beds, packing lunches, toasting bread and pouring milk . . . again.
Tossing clothes into the washer and grabbing towels out of the dryer . . . again.
Cleaning dried-on toothpaste off the bathroom walls . . . again.

Eventually I need more than a temporary refresher. I need to retreat from it all to re-establish rest. In Mark 6:31, it says,

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

This month, I’m pursuing the presence of God by learning to Retreat and Refresh, and it’s then I re-align my focus.

The thing about being bogged down in the daily is that our definition of crisis begins to distort.

In the past few months, I’ve lain awake for hours in the middle of the night over minor worries that have turned into a crisis of anxiety.

Patsy Clairmont wrote, “At times, trusting God in the minutiae of life is as difficult as trusting him for a walking-on-water miracle.”

I’m tossing and turning at night because I’ve gripped my hand around each of these issues so tight God can’t pry my fingers off with a crowbar. My knuckles are white.

So I am removing myself from this close-up perspective of my life where the tiniest anomaly blips onto my radar as if it’s the end of the world. I’m putting aside the to-do list that runs my life like a drill sergeant. For this week, I’ll stop staring at my life and lift my head up instead to see Jesus.

In Psalm 3, David wrote, “But you, O Lord, are a shield for me; My glory and the one who lifts up my head.”

Instead of going through life shoulders hunched, head down, eyes staring at circumstances, I’m asking that God lift up my head so I can see His face, see His eyes of love and grace, see the reminder in the palm of His hands that He’s going to do everything imaginable and more to take care of me.

In that same Psalm, David also wrote: “Salvation belongs to the Lord” (verse 8). This “salvation” means “deliverance from the immediate pressure” he was feeling.

One of the meanings of this Hebrew word for salvation is “room to breathe.”

Sometimes the daily grind is suffocating and busyness knocks the wind out of me. I need deliverance from the immediate pressures that monopolize my attention and salvation from the stresses that take my breath away.

I’m leaving so I can find room to breathe.

To read more about this 12-month journey of pursuing the presence of Christ, you can follow the links below! Won’t you join me this month as I ‘Retreat and Refresh?

VBS for grown-ups: Even when you don’t understand….

June 25, 2014June 25, 2014Leave a comment

Vacation Bible School. That’s just for kids, right? Silly songs. Silly skits. Silly costumes. Kids stuff. Sure.

But is there any message in Scripture that God delivers just for people 12 and under? We older and ‘wiser’ ones sometimes make faith so complicated when the simple beauty of truth is what we really need.

This week, I’ll be singing songs and doing those silly skits from Group Publishing’s Weird Animals VBS at my own church.

Here on the blog, I’ll be sharing with you those same stories, the same lessons, the same truth, but for grown-ups.

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I’d been a mom for just under two years when I got pooped on for the first time.

It turns out new babies can’t quite tell when the diaper is on and when Momma has removed it for bath time.

You just never expect this. You go to college, study hard, earn a degree. Go back to school and earn a Master’s degree. Have your dream job.

Then two years later you’re cleaning yourself up after being mistaken for a diaper.

Every mom has Kodak moments of familial perfection. For a few minutes, it’s domestic tranquility.

Kids are healthy.
They used their manners at the dinner table.
The homework is done.
The laundry is put away.
You cooked a delicious and healthy dinner in your Crock Pot and baked homemade bread.

You are, in fact, Super Mom, the ultimate domestic diva. You are June Cleaver, Betty Crocker, and maybe even Mr. Clean in one grand super hero package.

Until noses start running and children start fighting when you have a headache. A stomach virus shoots through your family. You realize that “dressing up” now means wearing the jeans without the worn knees and Sharpie stains from your child’s experiments with permanent marker.

Does Super Mom lose her cape now?

But right then when you’re the diaper, when you’re worn down and weary, when you’ve cleaned toilets and scrubbed floors and you feel broken and overlooked.

Maybe you pray it: “Can you help a girl out, God? It’s pretty hard to feel like this job has any eternal significance. Do you even know what it’s like to put other people first all the time?”

But oh, may we pause there and remember who we’re talking to.

Oh, sure, Jesus was the Savior of mankind. He had the power of divinity at His fingertips. He could multiply the bread instead of having to knead it by hand. He could command the fish into the nets instead of pushing a cart around Wal-Mart with a shopping list, a budget, coupons, and a toddler.

And yet.

When we over-romanticize the life of our Savior, we forget the utter humility and selflessness of Jesus, who emptied Himself for us and sympathizes with us on our hardest days.

Christ bends Himself low to wash our feet and heal our hurts.

And maybe it doesn’t make sense.

Like Peter, I’m tempted at times to refuse the humility of Christ as He stoops 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.”

Even when he didn’t understand Jesus’ purpose or plan, 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).

Maybe Peter didn’t get it, but Jesus knew these disciples needed to see humble ministry face-to-face so He could tell them this:

I’ve set the example. Go and do the same.

As I’ve washed your feet, wash one another.

I’m still needing this lesson now, on days when I’m the diaper, when I’m worn or weary, when it seems like I’m making no difference, that Jesus made Himself low….for the disciples….for me.

Sometimes grace does the unexpected. Sometimes God shatters the confines of the cardboard box we’ve put Him in and we just can’t understand: “Why, God? Why this? Why not that?”

It doesn’t make sense.

Not to Peter.

Not to us.

Yet, here is what we know:

Even when you don’t understand….Jesus loves you.

And He has a plan and a purpose for this and for you, so we bring it all to Him as an offering:

Lord, I don’t get it, but I know You love me.

Lord, it seems all wrong to me, but I know You love me.

Lord, this ministry You’ve called me to doesn’t seem to have any eternal impact, but I know You love me.

Lord, I don’t see how this can possibly be used for good or how this can be Your best plan, but I know You love me.

Like Peter we submit and we trust. We quiet our quaking hearts and choose to rest in His love.

Originally posted March 16, 2013

VBS for grownups: Even though you’re different

June 24, 2014June 23, 2014Leave a comment

Vacation Bible School. That’s just for kids, right? Silly songs. Silly skits. Silly costumes. Kids stuff. Sure.

This week, I’ll be singing songs and doing those silly skits from Group Publishing’s Weird Animals VBS at my own church.

Here on the blog, I’ll be sharing with you those same stories, the same lessons, the same truth, but for grown-ups.

***********************************************************************************************

Many years ago, I sat across from a ministry leader at a McDonald’s, having a deep life conversation while snacking on chicken nuggets. We had met that day because I wanted to talk to him about going deeper in ministry, feeling like I wanted to be ready for whatever God had planned for me to do. I wanted to be useful, effective, a vessel fit for God’s purposes, and I was looking for some guidance.

So, he leaned back for a minute and gave me his words of wisdom as my spiritual adviser.

“Heather, if you ever want to be effective in ministry, you’re going to need to be more like her.”

I sat stunned for a minute and thought about the implications. The girl he named was a perfectly good Christian, but she was my opposite in every way.

Not just some ways, mind you, but pretty much in any way it’s humanly possible to be different from someone else–that’s how different we were.

Extrovert versus introvert. Feeler versus thinker. Spontaneous versus super-organized-planner-with-three-calendars.

So, what exactly did it mean for this man to tell me I had to be like “her” in order to be effective in ministry? Did it mean that God couldn’t use me with the spiritual gifts I had?

Had God made a mistake when designing spiritual gifts, accidentally giving some people gifts like teaching and administration rather than gifting us all with mercy or serving?

Were introverts all God-mishaps who needed just to get it together and become extroverts in order to be used by God?

I wanted so much to be used by God, though, that I decided to become more like “her.”

And I made myself sick with the effort.

That’s what so often happens when we are pushed and yanked and smashed into positions we shouldn’t be in to become people we’re not called to be and forced to do what God didn’t design us or ask us to do. All that effort to be someone else can make us sick and stressed. It steals our ministry joy and stunts our growth and effectiveness.

Forced sameness crushes us and destroys the beauty of God’s design.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10 NIV).

We are His handiwork, His masterpiece, His poem, and we are designed for His own purpose and plan.

Made just right.

Even when others don’t see that and they try to shove us into uniform boxes of acceptability and usefulness.

Even when we’re embarrassed by the differences and wish we could just fit into the same mold everyone else seems so comfortable in.

Even when we think He can’t possibly use us, because He only uses people like “her.”

Even though you’re different….Jesus loves you.

The Samaritan woman at the well needed this. She needed a Savior who saw beauty in unexpected places.

This Messiah, this Jewish teacher, sitting at the well in the heat of the day shouldn’t have been talking to a woman, much less a Samaritan woman.

More than that, she was a sinful woman who likely drew her water from the well at noon so she could avoid the jeers and stares of the town gossips.

Not only did Jesus break all the societal rules and talk with her, not only did Jesus love her, not only did He extend salvation to her, but He used her to share the Gospel with others.

That’s what she did. She dropped her water jar right there and ran to town saying, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him (John 4:29-30 NIV).

She didn’t just find Jesus herself. She brought others to Him, a crowd of others, all of them needing a Savior.

Surely Jesus knew sitting down by that well that the best person to minister to that Samaritan town wasn’t a Jew, not a Pharisee, Sadducee or Rabbi.

He needed a Samaritan, one who had been drenched in grace until her parched soul just couldn’t stand to keep the Living Water all to herself. She had to spill out her joy so others could come see Jesus for themselves.

The disciples didn’t understand. She was….so different. So unexpected. So unlikely.

But God loves to use the weak, the small, the foolish, the most unexpected and unlikely of all because it’s never about us anyway. It’s always about Him.

Heather C. King – Room to Breathe

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

Tag: Jesus

Christmas devotions: Consider the Hockey Puck

My kid found the kryptonite to bring down Supermom

I am not a Perfectionist….most of the time

Eat Cereal and Go to Disney?

I like my marshmallows crispy (AKA burnt)

Sometimes Love is a Missed School Bus and a Cup of Tea

Epic Failures; Epic Grace

We are Staycation Failures

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