Tag: Lord

Not the same anymore

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When my son was a baby, I  gave away his infant swing because he hated it.  He was the fourth baby in our line of babies to swing in that very same swing.  Others had loved it, just not him.  So I  gave the swing away and saved space in our living room.  It was a win-win.

Now here  we are five years later and this same kid spent at least 30 minutes swinging non-stop at the playground today.  He shooed me away when I tried  to push him because, “I know how to pump my legs all  by myself now, mom.

So, I sat on the nearby bench in the shade and watched as he lifted himself higher and higher.

This is the same boy.

Sometimes you don’t really catch all the signs that your kids are growing up .  Then there’s a moment when you’re sitting on a wooden bench alongside a playground and it hits you all at once: How big he really is.  How he’s about to start kindergarten.  How he’s changed so much.

And that’s the thing that I’ve been  weighing this afternoon, the changing.  A former baby-swing-hater now loves to swing.

I’ve had changes all  around me in the past year or two, and I have changes before me in this next year once again.

A “baby” starting kindergarten.  My oldest starting high school.   A brand new season where, for  the first time in 15 years, I don’t have a little one at home with me.

I do not love change.  I do not seek it out and I do not enjoy it. I push against change all the time, clinging tight-fisted to whatever reality I know in fear of whatever is unknown.

But here I am in a season of  change, a long  season of frequent and significant changes at that.

So I wonder as I  watch my son swinging away today whether God wants to  do more than just transition and transform the environment around me.  Could it be that He wants to do the same work of transition and transformation inside me?

What can He change within me that maybe I’ve thought could never change?   A habit?  A weakness?  A stubbornness?  A sinful attitude?  A prejudice or judgment?  A fear?

When the Old Testament prophet, Samuel, poured anointing oil over a man named Saul and announced he would be the first king  of Israel, it wasn’t because Saul was already equipped for the job.  Scripture says:

Then it happened when he turned his back to leave Samuel, God changed his heart; and all those signs came about on that day (1 Samuel 10:9 NASB). 

God changed Saul’s heart in that very moment.

Not that Saul was perfect, mind you.  Far from it.  We know his failures as a king and spiritual leader of Israel.

Still, in that moment, God changed Saul’s heart because God had a plan for Saul.

What if I offered up my heart for the Spirit’s work, invited the Lord to do the renovation that needs to  be done?

Joy where there is not joy.  Peace where there is fear. Love for others who are hard to love.  Humility in the places pride has dug down deep.  Compassion in hard ground.   Repentance when my heart hasn’t been soft enough to see the sin.

Change my heart, Lord.  Change my mind and thought processes and attitudes so that I reflect your heart and your mind.

My struggle sometimes is that I don’t want change.   Other times my struggle is that I long for something to  give way and change, but  change feels impossible.  Stuck.  Hopeless.

What then?

Warren Wiersbe reminds us that:

God is not limited by the past.  No matter how many disappointments and failures we may have had in the past, when Jesus Christ comes on the scene, everything has to change….Nothing paralyzes our lives like the attitude that things can never change.  We need to remind ourselves that God can change things!  God can forgive sin and put new power into lives that seem to be utter failures.  God can send revival to a church that everybody thinks is dead.   God can move into a difficult situation and turn seeming failure into victory.  God makes the difference!” (The Bumps are What You Climb On).

Christ’s presence means everything has to  change.

So I settle my heart, I yield, I invite Him in and I invite Him to  make Himself at home.  May He change what needs to be changed in my life, in my circumstances, in my relationships, and in my heart and mind.

Giving Many Thanks, Giving Much Praise

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A little over a week ago, this unexpected envelope arrived in the mailbox.

I had this moment of confusion.  Did I order something I’d forgotten about?001

I had a moment of Christmas morning excitement, wondering: What’s in the package?

Inside, was indeed a gift.

A copy of my own book dropped into my hands with a letter from my publisher.

My own book?  Why?

Then I read those words and gave praise…..Three months after that initial publication, they had done a second printing.

God sure can surprise you with joy  on the most average of average days when you’re just going about the day-to-day routine and then suddenly grace arrives in your mailbox!

So, many thanks to you, my friends, for reading, for buying the book, for the positive reviews on Amazon.com, for spreading the word, for sharing the book with others and studying it in Sunday School classes and small groups at your church.  You bless me so.ephesians3-20

And all praise, honor, and glory to God, who is surely able to do more than all we can ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Thanks so much to the Women’s Bible Cafe, who chose Ask Me Anything, Lord as the March nonfiction book of the month for their WBC Book Club!  If you are on Facebook, you can join me for a fun author’s chat on Friday, March 28th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern DST (8 p.m Central, 6 p.m. Pacific).  You just need to like their page on Facebook and log in on that day and time to participate!  I hope you’ll join in.  I would be so blessed to chat with you!

Many thanks also to Reedswood Christian Church in Gloucester, Virginia, for inviting me to speak at their women’s tea on Saturday, May 3rd at noon.   Please keep me in your prayers as I share!  I’ll have books on hand that day to sign and sell.

As always, thank you, dear friends, for your encouragement.  Thank you for your prayers.

All glory to Him!
~heather~

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

Copyright © 2014 Heather King

Ask Me More…Where were you?

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She said her dad didn’t love anybody.

Not her mom.  Not the kids.  Nobody.

That’s what the girl told my daughter.  And that’s what my daughter told me.

My daughter struggles to understand this invasion of innocence.

We adults slowly learn to cope with the ugly truth about how sin distorts, taints, and breaks.  How this world is hard sometimes, hurtful and messy.

But she’s not accustomed to the pain yet or desensitized to the sadness, so her heart aches for her friend and she struggles with questions and brings them to me:

What does that mean? How come her family isn’t together any more?  Why does that happen to families?  Where will she stay?  Will she still see her dad?

Pain often provokes our questions, too.

There’s something about tragedy that stirs up doubt and wondering.  We want to wrestle with the beasts of injustice and sorrow, trying to make sense of it all with logic and defeat them with some philosophical musings.

But we just don’t know.

We can’t always see why this happened or how it will all work out or what good could come of any of it or what God is doing in the midst of the rubble.

In Scripture, it’s Job that engages in this fight.

We gloss over his pain so quickly as Christians:  Job was a good guy who had bad things happen to him.  Lots of bad things.  Blah blah blah, yeah yeah yeah.

“Bad things” hardly.

His property destroyed, his servants killed, his own body festering with sores, his wife grown bitter, his friends on platforms of self-righteousness……maybe those are “bad things.”

Yet, every single one of his children was killed at once in a freak accident.

If you’ve cradled your own baby in your arms, stroking his cheek with your finger, cooing baby talk, tickling her baby belly, rocking and swaying and humming sweetly, then consider Job’s loss.

Seven sons, three daughters—-dead like a snapping of the fingers.job19

How could he ever breathe again?  No wonder he just wanted to die himself.

So, he ponders and postulates and asks God to explain Himself.  He longs to put God on trial and pose the questions with God on the witness stand.

“Where were you?” Maybe that’s what Job longed to ask God and have answered.

Yet, God never answers all of Job’s questions, not in this life anyway.

Instead, God lets Job pour out all of that bitterness and hurt, knowing perhaps that what we need most in sorrow is the opportunity to be sorrowful.

Then, God responds, not with answers, but with questions.

Lots of lots of questions.  Chapters and chapters of questions.  Pages and pages of questions.  Just about 60 in all.

But here’s the bottom line:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell Me, if you have understanding… (Job 38:4 NASB)

Was Job there when God parted the seas from the land or set the birds in the sky or there as He makes the sun to rise and set every single day as faithfully as our faithful God?

Does Job even know how God makes it rain, or feeds the lions, or transforms water into ice?

The questions bring Job to this place where he looks in a mirror and sees his own limitations.

I don’t know. 

What else could he say?

What else to answer but this:

“Behold, I am insignificant; what can I reply to You?
I lay my hand on my mouth.
“Once I have spoken, and I will not answer;
Even twice, and I will add nothing more”  (Job 40:3-5 NASB)

So, I confess this to my daughter, “I don’t know, baby girl.”

Sometimes there’s not much else to say.

Yet, there were two things that Job did know:

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.  Job 19:25 NASB

and this:

“I know that You can do all things,
And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.
Job 42:2 NASB

Maybe we don’t always know the answer to “why” or “what now” or “how could this be…”

Still we know this:

Our God lives and will return one day in victory to redeem us and to redeem this broken world.

and

God can do anything  There’s nothing too insignificant to escape His notice and nothing too difficult for Him to handle.

When God asks us questions, we might not always know the answers, but we know He does.  That’s the simplicity and the challenge of faith.

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Free Scripture Verse Cards for Ask Me Anything, Lord

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Today, I’m sending out a special welcome and thanks to the ladies at the First Christian Church in Valparaiso, Indiana who will be meeting tomorrow (Friday, December 6th) to begin their study of Ask Me Anything, Lord.  I think you ladies are the very first to use the book for a group study!  How exciting!!ask-me-anything-lord_kd

I pray that God will use His questions in Scripture to draw you closer to Him, encourage you in ministry and in your faith, and help you overcome any lingering fears, insecurities, doubts and feelings of insufficiency as you follow Him.

Would those of you who aren’t members of this study group pray for them as they begin this journey?  How beautiful are the prayers of God’s people for one another, as sweet incense wafting up before His throne.

And, to say thanks to this group of ladies, I’ve created these free Scripture verse cards to accompany the study!.  Because, after all, God’s Word forms the solid foundation for our feet even when the earth trembles around us.

Just click the link to print your own sheet of Scripture verse cards!  Ask Me Anything Lord Verse Cards

For my local friends, many thanks to you also for praying for me and for coming to visit me at my book signing last Saturday!  I was deeply blessed by your presence and encouragement.

I will have one more local book signing before Christmas, so if you’re still hoping to grab a book, get it signed, or even purchase some as Christmas gifts, here’s your chance!  I’ll be at:

The Wild Rabbit Cafe
Main Street in Gloucester, VA
December 14th
2-4 p.m.

I’ll have books available for purchase that day.  Plus, I’ll be running a drawing for a tea-and-chocolate gift basket and a Wild Rabbit gift card to two lucky winners.  You can enter just by stopping by and chatting with me!  (Thank you so much to The Wild Rabbit for providing the gift certificate prize!!)

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

On the Air: A Radio Interview About Ask Me Anything, Lord

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He asked me which question was the hardest to write about….

I sat across from the morning show host of the radio station WXGM (99.1 FM) and was chatting about my new book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions.

It’s a book about how I, the queen of all question-askers, learned to stop talking so much and started letting God ask me questions.

God asked other people questions throughout Scripture.DSCF2165

To Adam and Eve, He asked, “Where are you?”

To Elijah, He asked, “What are you doing here?”

To Peter, He asked, “Do you love me?”

Our God is a relation-builder, a reconciler.  Right from the beginning, Adam and Eve made a mess of things, disobeyed Him, and hid in the garden.  How could they be so foolish, thinking a few fig leaves could hide their whereabouts from an omniscient, all-powerful God who had made them just days before?

But God didn’t lecture, chastise, yell, or rain down fire on them.

Instead, He sought them out with a simple stroll in the garden and this asking:  Where are you?

He didn’t ask because He didn’t know.  He didn’t ask for His own benefit.

He asked to show two wayward children who trembled in fear and hid in shame among the foliage that He loved them.  He still desperately wanted relationship with them, and He would go to great lengths and make the ultimate sacrifice in order to draw all of us back to Him.

These questions of God’s are all through the Bible, and when we let Him ask them of us they root out fear, help us overcome shame and insecurity, and promise God’s presence and faithful provision in whatever circumstance we face.

So I sat across from the radio host last week, a copy of my book about God’s questions sitting on the desk in front of him.  That’s when he asked me, “Which one was the hardest to write about?”

I knew right away what to answer.

It was God’s question to Cain: “Where is your brother?”

When I wrote the book, I had so many questions in Scripture to choose from.  God is such a question-asker.  He fills Scripture with His patient pursuit of His people.  So, I had to leave some out.  I couldn’t cover them all, not in one book anyway.

I didn’t want to write about Cain.  What could we have in common, after all?  The first murderer and a middle class minivan mom like me?

It seemed like an easy topic to skip over, too irrelevant to my life to pay it any mind.ask-me-anything-lord_kd

Yet, even though I wanted to skip God’s question to Cain, I couldn’t.  I knew God wanted me to write about it, and once I started typing on that blank word processor all about it, I couldn’t stop.

Community, after all, can be messy.  Relationships are prone to failure.  They trip us up with their pits and obstacles and shaky ground.  We shove into each other’s space, stepping on toes, bruising egos, making assumptions and getting it wrong.

That’s what Cain’s story is about, really, about how his discontentment, jealousy and unforgiveness grew to disastrous levels until he exploded in rage and destroyed another person….and himself.

Over time, I realized just how much God needed to ask me the same question that he asked this first murderer in history.

Heather, where’s your brother?  Where’s your sister?

It turns out that Cain and I have far more in common than I realized…surely far more than I wanted to admit.

Jealousy….anger….comparing the ministry of someone else to my own meager-looking offerings….defensiveness….whining….broken relationships….needing to forgive others….needing to be forgiven.

That was Cain.

It’s me sometimes, too.

Maybe you’ve been there also.  Maybe you’ve been Cain.

Or, perhaps you’ve even been Abel, subject to the cruel lashing out of someone who’s been hurt or overlooked.

I don’t know who needed the reminder that day while I chatted on the radio or even who needs to know this today, but God created us for community with Him and community with others.  When that’s broken, it rips apart our testimony, it distracts us from ministry purposes, and it taints our offering with bitterness.

So, God asks us this question:  Where is your brother?  Where is your sister?

And He reminds us that He loved people…messy, sinful, broken people…enough to die for them.

Enough to die for me.

Enough to die for you.

If He loved us that much, surely we should love others, too, even when it’s hard and requires repentance or forgiveness, admitting we’re wrong or trampling our own pride.

In the end, the hardest of God’s questions to write about became one of the questions that taught me the most.

To read more about the questions God asks, click here for information about Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions.

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Out and About: A Radio Interview and Book Signings

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It’s been an exciting season here for me with a new baby and a new book!  Many thanks to you all for your prayers and encouragement!

Yesterday, I shared a little bit about the book on our local radio station’s morning show!  I’m sure I’ll write more about it later, but for now I just wanted to say thanks to the many who were praying for me and sent me messages afterward saying that you were listening in!

For locals, I’ll be signing books at two locations in the next two weeks.  Please consider stopping in and seeing me (even if you already purchased a book!).ask-me-anything-lord_kd
I’d love to have the company and opportunity to chat or pray with you!  If you are interested in buying a book that day, I’ll have them for sale (cash or check only please) and will sign them right there for you!

On Saturday, November 30th from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., I’ll be at the Heaven & Earth Christian Bookstore in Hayes, Virginia (in the YRC Shopping Center).  I’ll be giving away a tea-and-chocolate gift basket and a $20 gift card to Heaven & Earth to two lucky winners.  To enter, you simply need to stop by and put your name and number in that hat!  While you’re there, you can get in some Christmas shopping!!  They have amazing Christian books, music, gifts, cards, and ornaments!  I might be doing some shopping of my own that day.

On Saturday, December 14th from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., I’ll be at The Wild Rabbit Cafe on Main Street in Gloucester, VA.  Stop by for some coffee, hot chocolate or tea and visit with me!!  I’ll have a tea-and-chocolate gift basket and a gift card to The Wild Rabbit to give away to two lucky winners!

Ask Me Anything: Giveaway Winner and “You want me to do what?”

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It’s time to announce the Giveaway Winners!

Thanks to all those who participated.  I absolutely loved hearing the book titles you’d choose to tell your own story and am reminded of how much we can learn from one another.

I used a random number generator to select the comment number of the winners and they are: Mary Reese and Betsy Marmon!

Congratulations!  I’ll contact you privately about getting these signed copies of Ask Me Anything, Lord to you.

If you didn’t win, you can still get a copy of the book here:

Visit me at Discovery House Publishers to read a sample chapter and order online!

Follow these links to find the book at Amazon,  Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

Or click here to order an autographed copy via PayPal.

The book will also be available on e-readers (like nook and Kindle) and in some local Christian book stores in November 2013.

And now, for the final excerpt from Ask Me Anything, Lord.  Enjoy!

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You want me to do what, God?

You want me to parent these children? You want me to stay in this marriage? You want me to lead this ministry? You want me to start this program?

When God calls us, it isn’t about us at all; it’s all about Him. We’re the ones looking at our qualifications and feeling mismatched for the job He’s assigning us, whatever that calling looks like in your life.

Moses reacted that way at the burning bush all because he focused on himself. He asked God:

“Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’” (Exodus 3:11 NIV).

It was his way of saying he wasn’t qualified for that.  “It’s all about me and ME isn’t good enough.”

God, on the other hand, focused not on Moses, but on Himself.  He said:

“I will be with you . . . I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ . . . ” (Exodus 3:12-15 NIV).

There are moments and days when I fell like Moses, when I begin to wonder how I could possibly minister to others when I’m working so hard at basics like keeping calm with misbehaving children and not stressing about my calendar.ask-me-anything-lord_kd

When I feel so empty, how can I pour out to others?

It’s one thing to serve and encourage when we’re overflowing; God’s goodness just sploshes over the tops of our lives and refreshes all who cross our paths. But, what about when our cup seems dry? What happens when a thirsty neighbor lifts up needy hands in our direction and we ladle out empty air?

In some ways, that’s where Moses was. He felt enthusiastic to the point of foolishness about leading the Israelites decades before when he was still in Egypt. Unfortunately, he was oozing confidence and overflowing with a vision of leading a slave revolt that depended on his own strength. He believed then that if it all depended on him, well then he was enough.

Then he murdered an Egyptian in his enthusiasm. His own people rejected him. Pharaoh sought to punish him. That’s what happened when he served in his own strength.

At the burning bush, however, Moses clearly recognized that if this deliverance thing depended on him, well then he simply didn’t cut it.

And that’s what we say sometimes when we tell God that we can’t possibly do what He wants us to do.

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers wrote:

“Jesus was saying, ‘Do not worry about being of use to others; simply believe on Me.’ In other words, pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow ‘the rivers of living water’” (John 7:38 NIV).

Similarly, the Psalmist wrote, “Then those who sing as well as those who play the flutes shall say, ‘All my springs of joy are in You‘” (Psalm 87:7, NASB).

God is the Source, the Spring from which comes all our joy.

He’s not an immovable Fountain either, located at only one place or accessible at only certain times of the day. He is our Portion and Provision every moment of every day. 

When we find ourselves carrying our cups back to Him like Oliver Twist in the orphanage, asking shamefacedly, “Please, Sir, can I have some more?” we’re forgetting that we serve a generous God, who longs to pour out His grace on us. He isn’t stingy and doesn’t want us thirsty or starving.

The more times a day we lift our cups to Him, the more times He will fill them. If that means we’re having a quiet time every five minutes all day long, then that’s what it takes that day to fill up at the Fountain of God.

I know that when I’m running back to the well every few minutes, it’s because I’m a needy and leaky person, with holes punched all in my heart from stress and busyness.

Yet, it’s also because I’m pouring out to others and God is willing, even joyful, to replace what I’ve spilled over into the cups of my husband, my children, my friends, my Bible Study girls, my church members, the Wal-Mart cashier and the girl who cuts my hair.isaiah41

The frequency of our visits to the Well doesn’t reveal our weakness or failure. It reveals our dependency on Him and how much we pour out to others. 

So when we peer into an empty cup and think we’re too dry to walk this Christian life, too empty to share with another, then we’re forgetting that It’s All About Him.

That’s the mistake Moses made. He assumed the ministry depended on himself. Truthfully, though, none of the ministry we perform in our homes or outside of them is contingent on our ability, brains, beauty, education, character or godliness (thank goodness!).

It’s really all about Him, and He promises: “For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, ‘Do not fear, I will help you” (Isaiah 41:13 NIV).

Taken from Ask Me Anything, Lord,© 2013 by Heather King. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 49501. All rights reserved. www.dhp.org.

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Ask Me Anything: A Giveaway, Book Orders and a Lesson on Feeling Insignificant

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I was cradling my newborn son when my husband brought the package in from the porch and opened it next to me.

Inside was my early author’s copy of my book: Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions.  It was the first time I held it in my hands, the first time I’d seen the actual book with my own eyes instead of just a picture file sent to me by the publisher.

There I sat holding two physical reminders of God’s blessing and grace in my hands: a precious baby boy and a brand new book.

So, today I’m celebrating with a giveaway!!! Because joy like that you just can’t keep all to yourself!

I’ll be giving away two autographed copies of the book to two different winners.

Here’s how to enter:

You earn one entry into the giveaway for each of these things, but in order for your entry to count, you need to comment to THIS POST letting me know how you entered.

Entry Opportunity #1: Leave me a reply to this question at the bottom of today’s post: (Yes, it needs to be here and not on Facebook please!)

If you wrote a book about your life or what God has been teaching you, what would it’s title be?

Entry Opportunity #2: Share this post on Facebook and leave a comment below saying, “I shared on Facebook.”

Entry Opportunity #3: Share this post on Twitter and leave a comment below saying, “I tweeted this post.”

Each entry needs to be a separate comment please!  The individual comments are your separate entries.

I can’t wait to hear from you!

Entries can be posted any time between now and midnight on October 31st.  I’ll announce the winners using a random number generator on next Friday’s post (11/1).  I can only ship within the United States, so please keep that in mind when entering.

Have you already ordered your copy of the book?  That’s okay!  Maybe you could win a copy to share with a friend, a women’s ministry leader, a family member or to give as a Christmas gift!

If you don’t win the giveaway or one copy just isn’t enough, here’s what you need to know:

Visit me at Discovery House Publishers to read a sample chapter and order online!

Follow these links to find the book at Amazon,  Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

You can click here to visit my Amazon Author Page.

Or click here to order an autographed copy via PayPal.

The book will also be available on e-readers (like nook and Kindle) and in some local Christian book stores in November 2013.

And now, on to the promised weekly excerpt from my book.  I hope you enjoy!!!

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Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the Lord all night and when the first signs of day started breaking through the darkness, “the man asked him, ‘What is your name?’” (Genesis 32:27-28, NIV).

It’s such a deceptively simple question. We know our names. It’s one of the first words we learn to respond to, one of the first words we learn to write with our tiny hands gripped around a pencil and guided by our moms and dads. ask-me-anything-lord_kd

Our name.

Who we are wrapped up in a few letters and typed up on our birth certificate and Social Security card.

Sometimes, though, it’s not so easy to remember what our name is.

A few weeks ago, I was sound asleep and slowly awakened into consciousness by a sound traveling across the house, into my room, and all the way into my two ears so comfortably laid on my pillow: “Mama, mama, MA-ma, ma-MA, mama, mama, mama  . . .”

From the time I put feet to floor and walked the tiny space between my room and my baby’s room, I had heard “mama” 62 times. It was never an upset cry or a yell, just a determined and incessant calling out for me. And in those few moments between my bed and her crib, I longingly recalled the days when my name used to be Heather.

Is that what my name had been? Most days it really isn’t anymore. Perhaps you find yourself in this position, too—so defined by roles, that your true identity is shrouded in mystery and long since lost. Are there days when you feel like your deep-down soul is buried under mounds of roles and expectations? You aren’t you anymore—you’re “Mom,” “Wife,” “Daughter,” “Employee.”

It’s as if we no longer wear nametags at events; we just post job descriptions to our shirts and that’s how people come to know us. We meet, we shake hands. They say, “So, _______, what do you do?” We answer and suddenly that’s how they know us, not by who we are, but by what we do.

Nicole Johnson wrote and performed a skit about a woman who uses a label maker to define and categorize everyone around her, even to the point of hurtfulness when she labels her isaiah43young daughter “fat.” Do you ever feel like your face is obscured by neon-colored labels printed out and stuck all over you by the people you meet every day?

These labels oversimplify who we really are, transforming us from a dynamic person with unique feelings and thoughts into “working mom” or “stay-at-home mom,” “church-goer,” “liberal,” “conservative.” People often think they know us by the box they have placed us in.  Sometimes we even forget that we aren’t defined by labels and roles and categories and boxes. Then we wake up one morning and feel like somewhere along the way, we’ve just gotten lost.

God doesn’t lose sight of us, though.

Even when we forget our name and the essence of ourselves, He remains intimately aware of us, His creation. Part of God’s unfathomably deep love for us is that He never overlooks our complexities. Isaiah tells us:

“God says, ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.   . . Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, And I have loved you;’” (Isaiah 43:1, 4 NKJV). 

Later, Isaiah writes:

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:14-16, NIV).

God knew Jacob’s name. He didn’t need to ask. It’s the same with us. He knows exactly who we are and what has brought us to this place.

Yet, He draws us into closer intimacy with Him by asking the question, “What is your name?” He wants to remind us that individuals matter to Him. He isn’t just a Savior who died for all humanity; He died for you and me and every other person uniquely and specifically.

Taken from Ask Me Anything, Lord,© 2013 by Heather King. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 49501. All rights reserved. www.dhp.org.

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Ask Me Anything: Seeing The Impossible

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“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”
Ephesians 1:18, NIV

When Hagar ran off into the wilderness with her son for the second time in Genesis 21, she ended up wandering in the Desert of Beersheba. She was a homeless single mother, without friends, caring for her boy in unfamiliar desert territory and running out of supplies.

Her circumstances were desperate.askmeanything8

Placing Ishmael under a bush, she walked away so she wouldn’t have to watch him die. “And as she sat there, she began to sob” (Genesis 21:16 NIV).

It’s in the impossible situations where God is often most visible.

So it was with Hagar. God visited with her once again and asked:

“What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink” (Genesis 21:17-19 NIV).

Just like His question, “Where have you come from and where are you going,” this new question, “What’s the matter, Hagar?” shows that He was concerned about her. He knew where she was and what her circumstances were. Not only that, but He opened her eyes to see the deliverance He had prepared for her.

Nothing about Hagar’s circumstances changed. She was still a homeless single mother, short on provisions and without friends or direction.

It’s possible that God miraculously placed a new well nearby where she sat. Scripture simply says “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water.”

It could also be, though, that the only thing that changed was Hagar’s vision. Blinded by impossibilities and overwhelmed with despair, Hagar had given up when a well was so close. God revealed to her grace and provision that she simply hadn’t seen before.ask-me-anything-lord_kd

In the same way, God miraculously gave supernatural sight to Elisha’s servant in 2 Kings 6:15-17.  Surrounded by an impossibly large enemy army with horses and chariots, the servant cried out in despair, “Oh no, my lord!  What shall we do?” Clearly, they were doomed to defeat. Yet, Elisha assured his anxious friend:

“‘Don’t be afraid . . . those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’  And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.’ Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (2 Kings 6:15-17 NIV).

Suddenly their odds of winning didn’t seem so impossible anymore, yet their reality was unchanged. Those heavenly defenders had been there all along; the servant simply hadn’t seen them.

Pray that God will open your eyes to His provision and plan for you.

Sometimes we feel that our circumstances are too impossible even for God.  We forget that He is the God of creation, who spoke the sun and moon and all of the earth’s creatures into existence out of nothing.

God hasn’t stopped being a creator God. He can create something out of nothing.  He can place wells where there has been no water.  He can create a heavenly army to deliver you when you are defenseless.

Remember that, “With man this is impossible, but not with God. All things are possible with God” (Mark 10:27 NIV). You can trust that the God Who Sees you will know what you need exactly when you need it.

Taken from Ask Me Anything, Lord,© 2013 by Heather King. Used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan. 49501. All rights reserved. www.dhp.org.

To pre-order a copy of this book, click here.

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

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her upcoming book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, will be released in the Fall of 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

Packing, PreOrdering and Preparing for Book and Baby

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People keep asking me if I’m ready for my son to be born.

I think of the mostly empty duffel bag sitting on my bedroom floor and realize perhaps I need to take this countdown to my due date more seriously.

With my first baby, of course, I had a typed up birth plan and a printed list of important phone numbers weeks in advance.  We had faithfully attended childbirth classes and I packed my hospital bag neatly (with a checklist) at 36 weeks.  I created a ‘baby playlist’ and burned CD’s with relaxing music to help me in the delivery room.

The crib was up, car seat installed, dresser stocked, and diapers ready long before she was due to arrive.

And of course, she was a week late.

I’m just about two-and-a-half weeks away now from holding my baby boy, my fourth baby, and so far I’ve packed some socks, an electric teapot, a mug and some teabags.  Oh, and some slippers.

A girl has priorities.

The truth is that from that first positive pregnancy test and the week you sit all nervous on a doctor’s examination table waiting to see your baby pose for pictures for the first time, all fuzzy in black and white, wiggling limb buds with a heart beating so hard and so fast… you are in preparation.

You are waiting.

The life grows and sometimes it all rushes by so quickly.  Other times (like in those early days of nausea, morning sickness, and awkward weight gain where you don’t look pregnant, but you do look bigger) time creeps on and you feel like this….surely…..will….last……forever.

But it won’t, of course.

There’s the season of waiting and preparation.

Surely, it may have felt like one interminable case of waiting, waiting, waiting on God for Sarah.  But more than a decade after God’s initial promise to bless Abraham with a son, Sarah labored and delivered and then held her baby, Isaac, and she laughed with joy.

And a young teenage girl named Mary heard the news from angel—she’d bear a son, the Messiah, our Savior.  No double lines on a pregnancy test to confirm God’s promises, no appointment at the doctor’s office to test her hormone levels or laying back and waiting for an image on the ultrasound screen.

No, it was the leaping of John the Baptist in his own mother’s womb, the Holy Spirit dancing of an unborn babe, that told Mary life was in her, God’s life, long before her clothes stopped fitting and her hands and feet swelled.

Her waiting didn’t last forever, though.  A night in Bethlehem ended the anticipation and the expecting.

Birthing occurs.

All that God has been doing in the hidden places of the womb, the forming in the darkness, the creation we can’t see, pushes right out into the light.

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).

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).

God’s appointed time comes.

Until then, we prepare, we trust, we pray, we obey the tiny steps and trust God with the results.  We marvel and praise Him for the signs that life is growing and maturing within us and it stirs up that hope, that expectancy that yes, God is at work here.

And while I’m packing that much-neglected hospital bag, I prepare in other ways for another kind of birth….ask-me-anything-lord_kd

One I can share with you.

So many have asked, so many of you have faithfully prayed, and here is the first sign that my book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Lives to God’s Questions, will be here soon.

It’s been a summer of editing and proofreading, of working with the publicist, and approving the copy.

Now, the book is available for preorder with a release date in November!

You can follow these links to find the book at Amazon,  Barnes and Noble and also at Christianbook.com.

You can click here to learn more about the book and what God has already done in the writing and preparing for publication.

You can click here to visit my Amazon Author Page.

An e-book version will be available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the Apple store shortly after publication.

Thank you so much for praying, for encouraging, for blessing me in so many ways.  I am so grateful to God for each of you.

~heather~

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 on November 1, 2013!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2013 Heather King