Tag: Loving others

I am not your servant

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John 15-15

“I am not a servant.”

My youngest daughter says it first in a matter-of-fact tone.

I can’t hear the other side of the conversation so I don’t know what request prompted this response.

I do know she gets her answer from me.

I say it sometimes to my kids when they ask me to hop up from the dinner table (before I’ve even taken a bite of my own food) to get them something they could easily get themselves.

I say it when they call out “Mom!” while they are watching TV and ask me to stop working to get them a drink of water.

I say it to remind them that, while I love them and I love to do nice things for them, sometimes they treat me like unpaid kitchen help.

And that’s not right.

So I listen in as my daughter repeats her response broken-record-style.

“I am not a servant.”

“I am not a servant.”

Then she sings it in a high opera voice, “I am not a servant…..”

Finally after what seems like the twentieth repetition of this phrase, her older sister bends over and picks something up off the floor.

The six-year-old has grown wise to this new trend, how her older sisters think because she’s smaller, she must perform all tasks menial and low-to-the-ground so they can continue with whatever far-more-important thing they’re doing.

She’s standing up for herself.

After all, what she really wants, what she truly desires in her little sister heart-of-hearts, is for these bigger girls to play with her.

She doesn’t want to fetch dropped Legos off of the floor.

She doesn’t want to get them a paper towel or find them a sharpened pencil.

She wants to be friends with them.

Shortly before His death, Jesus said something profoundly moving to His disciples:

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  (John 15:15 NIV).

Not servants, but friends.

He offered them so much more than the menial tasks of mindless obedience, the fetching and finding and picking up of hired help.

He called them friends.

For the disciples, friendship with Jesus didn’t change what they did.   Jesus loved by serving sacrificially and humbly, and He told them to do the same.

But He invited them into His heart and His plans.

Of course, it doesn’t mean we aren’t serving God day in and day out, loving others in humble of ways, emptying ourselves so we can drench another in the compassion and mercy of Christ.

There is, after all, beauty in late night sessions with a sleepless baby and days spent tending to sick children.

There’s beauty in the ugly, the mess, the pain, and the exhaustion of caregiving.

There’s beauty–God-glorifying beauty— in heading out the door each morning to a job that demands everything you’ve got and more so that you can provide for your family.

The beauty isn’t in the act itself.  It’s not in the changing diapers or the washing away filth.  It’s not in taking out trash or sitting through mind-numbing meetings where supervisors pile on work.

It’s that you’re doing all of that for someone else.

Your labor on behalf of others may not earn you any earthly regard.

You may trudge through another day of work without a nod in your direction and a genuine ‘thanks.’

Your child may overlook the fifty lunches you’ve made for her and complain the one day you forgot that she likes Oreos, not chocolate chip cookies.

And you can feel absolutely invisible.

But right in that moment, Christ chats with you.

He tells you everything the Father taught Him.

He asks if you’ll take part in His agenda, in His passion and plan for loving others with grace, mercy, compassion, generosity, and humility.

Not because He only values what we do for Him.

Not because we earn His favor by going, going, going all the time.

Not because He wants us constantly to be doing at all.

It’s because He’s offered us His presence—in the moments when we’re sitting at His feet and the moments we’re stooping to wash the feet of another.

He desires friendship, and friends aren’t acting out of duty or serving out of compulsion.

We’re living and breathing and serving and loving because He’s given us access to His very heart.

Our friendship with God means we do and we cease doing at the impulse of His love: our lives, our hearts, our actions guided and motivated by His very own love at work in us.

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.

 

Would You Give Up Your Favorite Seat in Church?

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1john4-19

One of our cats ran away for a 30-hour trek into the woods.

Our other cat stayed home.

In sympathy, my daughters talked about our large black cat missing his smaller orange “brother.”  He meowed and we thought it was a meow of sadness.  My three-year-old showed him extra affection out of concern for his worried feline heart.

Maybe he was just meowing because he was hungry.

Because when our orange cat finally sauntered home at 2 a.m., the stay-at-home cat seemed to care less at first.

Then the hissing started.

Four days later there was still hissing.

The prodigal tries to eat food, or brush up close to the larger cat, or snuggle up on the bed where the stay-at-home cat is napping.

And we hear the ugliest, most evil hissing sound.  It’s hardly a warm reception for our runaway.

We have the classic case of the prodigal son and the older brother who remained at home working the fields.  It’s playing itself out between a behemoth black cat and a skittish orange cat in our very own home.

And this I understand just a tiny bit.003

In Scripture, the prodigal son demanding his inheritance before his father’s death was more than just a young adult rebellion and a little bit of wandering and partying before responsible adulthood.

Sure it sounds so calm and level-headed at first glance when the younger son said to his dad, “Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me” (Luke 15:12).

Yet, it was really the ultimate rejection of a parent.  In essence, the prodigal son said, “I wish you were dead, so I’m going to take my inheritance and leave as if you had already died.”

We sometimes miss the enormity of the disrespect and insult and treat the prodigal as if he just had a wild stage that he needed to get out of his system or simply a little curiosity about the big wide world.

But it was so much more than that.  It was cutting off that relationship in what the son knew was a permanent, hurtful, totally destructive, rude, and unfeeling way.

“I don’t want to ever see you again.  I wish you were dead.  I hate you.”

That’s what the son said.

And here I am with this runaway cat, feeling the tiniest bit of rejection (and worry) that he would choose a night outside over our cozy home with food, fresh water, and places to stretch out for comfortable naps.

How much more the hurt of that father watching his son slamming doors and shouting in anger?

Of course, in their case when this same prodigal son crawled home, humbled and hurting, the father killed the fatted calf and threw a Welcome Home party.

And we haven’t done that.  No special treatment.  No canned tuna opened to celebrate our cat’s return.  It’s just business as usual for us.

But still our other cat hisses in annoyance like that older brother in the field, re-asserting his authority and his territorial rights. It’s more than a bit ugly.

Every week, folks might walk through our church doors who we’ve never seen before or those we haven’t seen for a long time.

In some cases, they will be simple visitors, passing through the sanctuary for only a brief time.  Others might be long-lost friends.  Still others might be the prodigals slipping into the pews, hoping not to draw too much attention to themselves.

And we have to choose how to welcome them.

With open arms.

Or with territorial hissing.

Or unforgiveness.

Or sanctimonious displays of righteousness and very little grace.

This past week, I read of a woman who slipped into the pews of a church before the service began one Sunday morning.  She bowed her head low and cried, mourning the death of her son.

A woman in the church walked over and stood looming over her while she prayed.

Finally, the visitor looked up expecting someone to pray for her or hug her or ask how to help her.

Instead, she was told, “I’ve been attending this church for 17 years and that’s my seat.”

That’s the ugly sound of hissing.

We do this in other ways, making us 200-or-so “older brothers” feel mighty cozy on a Sunday morning while showing the prodigals they really aren’t welcome here.

Perhaps we need the reminder to leave room–and not just pew space–for the younger brothers returning home, for the lost, and for the hurting.

How do you make visitors, new folks, and pretty much anyone feel welcome in your church?

Originally posted March 25, 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.

 

The Craziest Thing Anyone Has Ever Said to Me In Target

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I’d been married a week.

A week.

We visited my great-grandmother and she asked me, “So, when are you going to give your mom some grandbabies?”

A week.

I thought the question was mildly shocking, moderately annoying and mostly downright crazy talk.psalm 30

But, you know, what can you do?  So, I giggled awkwardly or something and dodged the whole wildly uncomfortable conversation.

Not long after that, I was having dinner with a dear friend in a crowd of other friendly folks and someone asked her the question.

“So you’ve been married for a few years now.  When are you going to have kids?”

I thought the question was mildly shocking, moderately annoying and mostly downright crazy intrusive….

It was so much more than that for her.  It was deeply painful, treading like heavy steel-toed boots all over the most tender places of her broken heart.

That’s what she told me later.  How no one ever thought before they asked her that question…and people asked her ALL the time.

When are you having kids?  When are you having kids?  When are you having kids?

The truth was that she was desperate for a baby and yet it isn’t just that easy for everyone, is it?  Hadn’t she prayed and prayed?  Hadn’t she tried and seen the doctor and then had to answer the clueless questions of nosy onlookers?

We just think we’re making conversation and we’re really battering and bruising the sweet soul we’re chatting with over dinner.

Sometimes, it’s ridiculously comical.  Like when I stood in the shoe section at the Target with my three blond-headed beautiful daughters, my youngest at the time less than 2 months old.  Such precious gifts to me.

And this random lady waltzed right on over and gave me creepily personal tips on how to have a boy next time.

In the Target.

With my kids there.

And I didn’t know her.

Good gravy.

Or when people see my beloved baby boy and say right there in front of my three precious girls, “So, you finally got your boy.  I bet your husband is happy.”

Like my daughters were just three attempts at having a son gone wrong.

We just say things, don’t we?  We aren’t meaning to be mean or hurtful.  We just say….stuff….  It seems innocent enough and we just don’t think maybe there’s a world of hurt left trailing after our destructive conversation.

It doesn’t get any harder than when we see a loved one grieving. We want so much to say the right words, soothe the hurt, ease their throbbing pain because we love them so.

But sometimes we get it all wrong.  We try to cover over their hurt with platitudes that sound so right, “It’s God’s will.  It’s for the best.  He always works everything out for the good” and yet what we’re essentially saying is, ‘Suck it up and get over it.  You’re a Christian so you shouldn’t be sad.”

Holley Gerth says in What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days:

While we mean well, comments like those are like stripping off someone’s sackcloth. Instead of helping, we leave their hearts even more exposed. What our hearts need is something new to cover them in hard times. And that’s what God offers.

We leave their hearts raw and exposed, open to further wounding.

Yet, God, such a gracious God, covers us with protection and love.

“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever” Psalm 30:11-12

It takes time, yes, it can take so much time.  But he does this—he removes our sackcloth and clothes us with joy.What-Your-Heart-Needs-for-the-Hard-Days

And what I want to be is the kind of person who shares this grace with others.

We won’t get it right all the time.  We’ll say the wrong thing and maybe mess it all up.  Maybe we just don’t even know what to say when we are eyewitnesses to the hurt inflicted by a sin-stained planet.

But we can start here.

Dear friend, I don’t even have the right words, but I love you.  I am praying for you.  I am here for you.

And we can start here—-thinking through our questions before we ask them, so we don’t leave a hurting heart raw and exposed after what we just thought was casual, totally normal small-talk.

And we can start here, praying this:  Dear God, May we be wise and grace-filled in our conversations with others today.  May we speak the words that show Your love—and nothing less than that.—Amen.

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

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

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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.john15-12

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.pathwaytopurpose

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?’

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

 

It Would Be Easier if We Didn’t Have to Love Our Enemy

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My daughter was about 3-1/2 years old when she made this enemy.

After a week of summer dance camp, she declared that she absolutely did not want to take ballet in the fall.

Did she enjoy dance?

Yes.

Did she have fun at the camp?

Absolutely.

Did she want to try the dance classes?

No.

End of story.  No explanation.  I plied her with Mom-questions.  She stuck to her decision without explanation.

In October, we sat together on one of the benches in the dance studio waiting room watching the tiny dancers file out after class.  We picked up my oldest daughter and headed out the door.1corinthians13, photo by Cora Miller

That’s when my girl said it: “I didn’t see Madelyn in the class.”

Madelyn?  Who are you talking about?

Then she exploded with the report that Madelyn always wanted to sit on the triangle at dance camp even when other kids wanted to sit on the triangle and she wouldn’t let anyone else sit there no matter what.

She sucked in one big breath, harumphed, and tossed her arms criss-cross around her chest while stomping her feet for effect..

Well, babe, Madelyn was in dance camp, but she isn’t in the regular dance class.

“Oh.”  Long pause while 3-1/2 year old process new information.

“Well, I want to take ballet then.”

All this time, territorial conflict with another preschool child had dominated her life choices.

Territorialism, jealousy, just plain old being annoyed with another person….it doesn’t get much easier handling all that mess as a grown-up.

We’ve all been there, forced into relationships with folks that drive us insane maybe with their negativity or pettiness or meanness, maybe insecurity, pride, constant bragging, insistence on arguing with everything you say, trying to compete with everything you do.

But I tell my girls this:

You don’t have to be best friends with mean kids, but you have to be kind and loving to everyone.

1 John 4:20 says it this way:

“If anyone says, ‘I love God’ yet hates his brother, is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom He has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

I quote it at my kids, but taking it to heart?  Practicing what I preach?  That’s a little harder.

Sometimes I want to edit the command, soften it a little, make it fit a little more comfortably instead of stepping on my toes.

Maybe:  “For anyone who does not love his brother….when his brother is a pretty nice person….cannot love God, but when his brother is annoying, a jerk, mean, or immature, then it’s fine not to love that guy.”

Of course, that’s not Jesus.

God is love, and Jesus showed that best by loving the unlovely, by loving the enemy.

So, I could pit myself against the ‘unlovable’ or I could choose Jesus and the discipline of kindness and sacrificial love.

It starts with prayer, but the temptation is there, too, to pray that God change them when what I need to pray is that God shows me His love for them.

Because maybe, just maybe, the person who needs changing is me.

Paul wrote this to the Thessalonian church:

 constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father (1 Thessalonians 1:3 NASB).

Love itself is part of the labor.

As Beth Moore says,

Sometimes loving comes easy.  Other times it nearly kills us (Children of the Day).

This is at work and it’s at church.  It’s with the annoying mom in the PTA and the gal who drives us crazy on the sidelines at soccer.

It’s in our own homes, too.

Sometimes love is hard.  It’s labor and toil and discipline to believe the best, to serve and feel like you’ve given all and then given some more.  It’s looking past imperfections and choosing to focus on the good and lovely and of good report (Philippians 4:8).

Love means choosing to give grace and forgive.  It means not keeping score and a list of wrongs.

Love

….is

….patient  (1 Corinthians 13).

I think of a favorite promise:

 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns (Philippians 1:6 NLT).

God’s not finished with me yet and He won’t give up on me.  I cling to that.

Yet, here’s the challenge, too:  He hasn’t finished with others either.  He hasn’t given up on them.

So, maybe I need to give them the space and the grace to let God continue that work because, after all, He’s given that space and grace to me.

In June, I took time for friendship and learned that God uses others to bring me into His presence, sometimes in unexpected ways and sometimes through unexpected people.

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 ‘Invest in Friendship’?

 

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

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

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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.1john4-19, photo by Cora Miller

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 

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

The Letters You Are Writing

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I wonder what she would have called my baby boy.

Peanut.

That’s what I decide.

My youngest daughter would approve.  She likes to call him Andrew “Peanut” King and whenever she does I think, “Yes, Ms. Shirley would like that.”

Ms Shirley called my first baby, “Princess.”  It was premonition, I think, knowing this tiny newborn would be a ballerina princess who only wore dresses from the ages of two to six.

Week after week, Ms. Shirley spoiled my daughter rotten in our church nursery, earning her own nickname: “Church Grandma.”Victoria Picture 001

Later, when I gently handed my second daughter to Ms. Shirley at the nursery door, our Church Grandma announced that her name would be “Precious.”

Then one Wednesday night my oldest daughter clung to Ms. Shirley while screaming in hysterics, wanting to stay in the nursery with her rather than come home with us—her very own parents!

That was the last time we really saw Ms. Shirley other than a hospital visit after her car accident on Veteran’s Day weekend all those years ago.

I guess Victoria knew in her Spirit that God was calling her Church Grandma home and didn’t want to leave her side one second too soon.

I think of Ms. Shirley all the time, certainly when I walk away from the nursery door and always on Veteran’s day weekend…

And when I held my third daughter as a newborn and thought, “Pumpkin.  Ms. Shirley probably would have called you Pumpkin.”

Now my son.  Surely she would have called him “Peanut.”

She left this deep imprint on our lives, so deep I can still feel the tenderness of her memory years after she last held my children and gave them nicknameLegacys.

This is the power of legacy.

And I think, as I sit here now, that legacies so rarely involve fame on a grand scale or power or high position.

They involve people.

Ms. Shirley loved my children.  That’s how she poured out a generous abundance of blessing on me, a young mom trying to serve in the church.

Yesterday, I sat in our church library overwhelmed by God’s goodness and the sweetness of our church family.  Next to me sat a pile of my very own books on a table.

I signed copy after copy of that book for others, fully aware each time as I put the tip of that pen to the paper to sign my name:

How humbled I am.

How this is God’s grace.

Writing a book is a special God-blessing, but I fully realize as I cuddle my baby boy and as I kiss my daughters as they head off to school:

I’ve been writing all along.

The apostle Paul told the church in Corinth:

 Your lives are a letter written in our hearts; everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you. Clearly, you are a letter from Christ showing the result of our ministry among you. This “letter” is written not with pen and ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. It is carved not on tablets of stone, but on human hearts.  (2 Cor. 3:2-3).

No matter how much I write in my life, no matter how successful (or not), no matter how much or how little impact my words may have, my greatest writing is written on human hearts.

So it is for you, as well.

Anne Ortlund wrote:

You know, the longer I live the more I realize that all that’s important in this life is God, and people, and connecting the former with the latter.  I’m willing to shed a lot of things to strive after the Important (Disciplines of a Beautiful Woman).

I read this, too, in The Love Dare for Parents:

Your body will age.  Your clothes will become dated…..But the waves of your life and influence will continue to live on and ripple through the hearts, minds, and faith of your children (p. 198).

We are so often glorifiers of fame and students of worldly success, but impact always trumps personal glory.

Ms. Shirley taught me that by serving in a church nursery.

I’m learning that every day as a wife, mom, and friend.

We all are writers on human hearts and the messages we imprint on the lives of others are the greatest ‘work’ we will ever produce and the most beautiful offering we could give to God.

Never forget what matters, not while you care for a newborn, potty train a toddler, answer a preschooler’s questions, help a child with homework, love them through the difficult days and the joyful moments.

Never forget it as you serve in the church for little glory or recognition that the letter you are writing is beautiful, precious to God, and worth more than any bestseller.

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

How Gray Hair is Worship

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I was 24 years old and headed home from the hospital after having our first baby.

My husband took me through the drive-through of a fast food place to compensate for 48 hours of hospital food and I popped the passenger’s side mirror down for a look at my new Mom face.

Two days ago I was an ordinary woman.

Now I was “Mom” to a tiny pink creature snuggled into her carseat.DSCF2165

Did I look different?  Could the miracle be reflected on my face, not just in my postpartum body?

I looked into my eyes, examined the reflection critically and hopefully, and then I found it.

My first gray hair.

No one told me about this.  They promised that my brown locks might change after delivering a baby, but I was hoping for curls or at least some waves in my stick-straight hair.

No one said I’d begin to go gray the moment I gave birth.

Dear women, we need to keep each other informed about these things!

So, I just had to absorb the shock right there while staring into the car mirror.

There have been other moments since then, of course, the slow acceptance of the changes that Mom-life brings:

More gray hairs.

The putting aside of jeans that do not now and will likely never fit me again.

The loss of sleep and “me” time.

The inability much of the time to finish sentences, remember why I came in the kitchen, or call my children by their rightful names without first running through every other child’s name.

And the hardest of all, the accepting of the post-C-section body in the full-length bathroom mirror.

But after mild shock (or perhaps a private cry) and the eventual resignation, there’s something deeply beautiful about this idea:

That Christ gave His very own body up for me…..

Surely I can give of my very own flesh to others.

It’s not just a mother’s privileged sacrifice, but this is ministry and this is Christ-love.

That’s what Paul tells the church:

Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well (1 Thessalonians 2:7-8).

How do I care for my son in 2 a.m. feedings and all through the day every day?  I’m nurturing him with my very own self, putting aside my own agenda and desires to satisfy him, love him, pour health and growth and well-being into him.

Paul says he did this, cared for the church so much that he tended to their needs and nourished their faith with spiritual food brought forth from his own unselfishness.

He didn’t just share the gospel of God.  No, it went beyond that, to the very giving over of his life also, all because he loved them.

Yes, Paul laid his body down for the church, for the lost, and ultimately for Christ, enduring the beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, storms, imprisonment, snake bites and more that came with His calling.

Our calling likely requires sacrifice, too.  Maybe not the same as Paul’s.  Maybe not the same as a mother’s.

But God calls us to lay self down and pick up that hefty splintered cross daily to follow Him.

Sometimes I want self-protection instead, comfy ministry without sacrifice or self-denial.  I want my rights, my privileges, my agenda and my plans.

Yet, here is my calling, a ministry to my family, a ministry to others…..

Long ago, a man named Darrell Evans sang:

I lay me down…

I lay it down…

I lay my life down…

A living sacrifice to You

In order to lift up Christ, I lay this down.

All of it.

And you?  Has God asked you to do this, to care for another as attentively and sacrificially as a nursing mother pouring in life to an infant in her arms?  Has He asked you to share, not just the Gospel, but your very own life, as well?

Perhaps for your husband, for your children.  Maybe for the struggling young mother in your church, the single mom, the homeless and hurting, the young children sitting in your Sunday School class?

This is our daily worship, the sacrifice we lay on the altar for God’s glory and for Christ’s name.

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

Roasting Marshmallows, Fanning Flames, Finding Grace

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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.

There are recipes for microwave S’mores, oven S’mores, toaster oven S’mores, but 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.

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.zechariah4

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).

Those olive trees, that lampstand, the lamps all around, held a message for Zerubbabel….for me….for all of us who love and serve others every day.

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.

Need some more grace in the midst of it all this morning?  Christie over at So Beloved has a sweet encouragement for you.  Click here to read her post this week!

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King

A Heart At Rest

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Too often it’s the insignificant things.

Like the dishes I had to leave unwashed as I unexpectedly rushed out the door…or the items on the to-do list, there because they need to be done, but truly tomorrow might do just as well as today.

It’s the project that sits unfinished, the playroom with evidence of an abandoned toy sorting marathon on display, and the increasingly evident need for a vacuuming.

Too often this is what overwhelms me, the ultimately unimportant and insignificant trifles and I’m tempted for just one selfish moment to say, ‘no.’14157735_s

‘No, I can’t.  No, I’m too busy.  Not today, not tomorrow, not later or in an hour.  No I can’t give this; it’s mine and I need it.  No, you’ll just have to ask someone else.’

While others are needing the hands and feet of Christ right now in this place where they find themselves ….and while God has told this perpetual Martha to abandon the mess in the kitchen and just sit down restfully at His feet or perhaps head out the door to serve another….still I glance incessantly over my shoulder at the kitchen, thinking of what I need to do.

How can my priorities be so awry?

I know it when I’m there… with a friend, on the phone, lingering at church, sharing the cup of tea, holding a crying daughter, baking cookies for another daughter to share with her class, surprising yet another girl in the lunchroom at school and sitting in a noisy cafeteria while she nibbles on her sandwich.

I know this is what matters.  This is what is important.

People are always more important than productivity. 

The dishes will be done.  I’ll stand on the kitchen mat soon enough with my hands soaking into the suds, rinsing cereal bowls and cups. This, too, will be service and love for others, for my family.

Yet, right now what matters is being with God and loving others as He does, not fretting over the remnants of breakfast in my sink.

God challenges my perspective, shifting my viewpoint that is ever so stubbornly focused on my own needs.

He did this for Peter, too, as Jesus explained that He would die and be raised again.

Peter argued with the Savior:  No way, Lord.  That’ll never happen to you!

“Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s” (Matthew 16:23 NLT).

That’s my problem, isn’t it?  My blindness to God’s perspective and the way that selfishness tunnels my vision until all I can see are my needs, my rights, my worries, my struggles, my life with my priorities.

I’m seeing things from a human point of view and never lifting my head high enough to see from God’s eyes.

This, then, is the deeply penetrating truth that challenges me: If I’m being obedient to God and loving others as He has told me to, then I needn’t worry about the peripheral, the secondary and the insignificant. 

He will give me the time.  He will help me. He will take care of what I need.

I can trust Him with it all, with every bit of my worry, my cares, my needs, my agenda.  When I’m serving God in obedience, my stressed out, frazzled, distracted soul can rest in His presence.

That’s what it says in 1 John:

“Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence”  (1 John 3:18-19).

Put love-based-on-truth into action and there I find that heart of rest simply because I’m where God is, doing what He’s called me to do, being obedient to His direction and timing.

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

I must confess I have moments where my heart is at rest in His presence, but they are broken up by pitfalls and pity parties.  Sometimes I just simply want to be selfish.  But when I choose selfishness, I may be happy for the moment, but I’m miserable in the long run (p. 98).

Yes, I have moments when serving comes easy and I feel the peace in obedience.  But I have those other moments when selfishness tempts me to hide away and to hoard my time or resources.

Ironically, it’s only when I’m pouring out to others that God can fill me up with His presence.

It’s only when I cease striving for myself so that I can serve someone else that God meets all my needs, for provision, for rest, for peace, for wisdom, and for time.

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

Copyright © 2013 Heather King