Tag: testimony

How could I forget?

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I am a postcard hunter.

My kids tease me about this and when I head into the gift shop at the art museum, they whine about my postcard search.  I show them what I’ve collected–one postcard for each of us, specially matched to our own interests.  Like the  Egyptian mummy cat for  my daughter who loves cats and the African giraffe sculpture for my son (giraffes are his favorite).

On our trip to Wisconsin, I search for four days for postcards only to finally track down a nearly hidden rack of them in the Minneapolis airport.

I’m pleased.  My kids are indifferent at best.  Postcards.  They don’t get the point or the value.

But for one  thing, I’m the one with the money and few souvenirs are as inexpensive as a postcard.

Plus, I have  a long history  of postcard memories.  I have some from my sixth  grade class trip to  Amish country in Pennsylvania and from the time I flew to visit my grandparents in Texas when I was  12.

I can flip through the postcards and remember  trips to  amusement parks and caverns and historical  sites and  museums. Those  help  me remember where I’ve been.

And I have  the collection of postcards others sent  to me.  Those  help me remember the people I’ve loved.

I have postcards  from  my dad, sent as he traveled with the military bands when I was a girl, and postcards from my grandmother on her trip to St. Petersburg, and even postcards from my great-grandmother  on her  travels in the 1950s.   They all  passed away so long ago,  and yet here in my collection I have their handwritten notes and a connection to their travels.

Maybe my kids don’t  really get postcards because they think  they’ll  remember.

But I know how often we forget.

How forgetful I can be.  Life pushes me faster and faster, rushing through this day and the next, and even those moments you most expect to remember blur into the fog of it all.

Memory isn’t passive, not the way we expect it to be.  No, remembrance is an active discipline, a choosing not to forget despite our humanness, our busyness, our moving on.

We think we’ll remember the miracles, the accounts of how God delivered us, the times He carried us right out of the pit, the stand-still encounters with God when it seemed like He cut through all the noise of this world and the cacophony of our own emotions and He spoke to us, God to person, one clear voice cutting through it all with a message we’ll never forget.

Yet, we forget it after all.

Psalm 78 shows how fickle remembrance can be.  Israel strayed from God.   He disciplined them.  Then:

They remembered that God was their rock,
the Most High God, their Redeemer  (verse 35 CBS).  

So,  they repented and returned.  He extended  grace and they followed closely for  a while,  until:

They did not remember his power shown
on the day he redeemed them from the foe (verse 42). 

They remembered and then they didn’t.

Asaph the Psalmist relays all the details of God’s miraculous provision,  the plagues in Egypt manna and water,  wilderness direction, victories  in the Promised  Land.

Still, they forgot all  that God had done. .

Could this be me?

Could forgetfulness  in my own heart lead not just  to apathy,  but to  waywardness?   And not just that, but to worry?  If  I forget what God has  done, I also forget all  that God  can do.

And He is faithful. He is so  faithful.  He is generous and gracious.  He is compassionate.  It’s not just that He provided, but HOW He provided that  I want to treasure and honor.

It’s been a year almost since we moved into our new home and people still  ask me, “How do you like your new house?”

I  tell  them the same thing all the time.  How I  drive into our neighborhood and round this one curve in the drive back to our home.  As I  do, I  see our house come into view and I breathe a  prayer of thanks.

It has been a year.  I am still thankful.  I keep breathing out that prayer of thanks because I do not want to forget.

And when I need new help  and new provision, , when there is trouble, when I am struggling, I remember the goodness of the Lord and how I celebrate every time I drive into this neighborhood.

We think we’ll  remember,  but how often we forget.

So we choose to remember.  We choose to  collect these postcards  of faith.  We choose to  commit over and over again to  gratitude and praise.  We choose to  give testimony to ourselves and to others:  Come hear what God has done.   Come know who our God is.

Christmas Devotions: When you find something good, don’t keep it to yourself

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It’s an annual surprise.

Some afternoon, usually in March, I hang up my gray winter coat for the last time of the season.

There’s no official ceremony or anything and the groundhog’s shadow-predictions never prove perfectly accurate.

It’s just a simple thing.  One day I casually drape my coat across the hook in my closet and there it lingers through spring, summer and fall.

Then, on a morning (usually in November), I stop deceiving myself into thinking that sweaters are enough to keep my teeth from chattering.  I reach past my fall jacket in the closet, pull down that same wool coat from its trusty hook, slip my hands into the sleeves and dip my hand into the pocket.

Whatever I left there eight months before is what I’ll discover on that first pocket search of the winter season.christmas13

I’ve pulled out Mom-things, like pacifiers and baby socks (don’t all moms pop baby socks into pockets)?

Grocery store receipts unfold like magician’s handkerchiefs—always one more emerges from hidden corners.

There are pens and paper clips, ticket stubs, rocks for my daughter’s collection, hair clips and ponytail holders, cough drops, and maybe even tissues (unused, thankfully).

There’s generally little treasure among the trash.  Mostly my life out and about with my kids consists of periodically dumping the overflow of their stuff into my pockets when my hands are full.

Occasionally, though, I reach into that winter coat for the first time in November and pull out coins.  Better yet, a dollar or two or three….or even ten.

That’s enough to make this girl happy dance in the middle of my closet.

Then, pulling myself together, I announce the news to my kids, post a happy-face announcement on Facebook and tell my husband the story later that night.

Discoveries, after all, are meant for sharing.  They’re the kind of spill-all-over joy that we can’t keep quiet about.

Maybe that’s how the Shepherds felt standing on that darkened hillside with snoring sheep.

Perhaps it even explains what the angels were doing, singing their praise songs in the night sky to an audience of somnolent herdsman about a Savior being born.

All of heaven exploded with the “good news that will cause great joy for all the people!” (Luke 2:9), the Messiah, the Lord.  They couldn’t contain the excitement!

One angel made the announcement, but others crowded the sky and joined in the chorus: “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God” (Luke 2:13).

The angel’s joyful news sent the shepherds tumbling all over themselves to see “this thing that has happened, which the Lord had told us about” (Luke 2:15).

When we hear good news, don’t we long to see with our own eyes, to experience this joy ourselves? 

That’s what sharing our testimony does: it ignites passion, it incites curiosity, it encourages a searching and finding of the truth, the Savior, of salvation.

Then, when the shepherds found the manger and peered over the corners at the baby-King, “they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them” (Luke 2:17-18).

They had discovered Jesus and no way could they keep that quiet.

No matter how many times Jesus asked those he healed in his ministry to keep quiet about it, still they rushed home and called up the local newspaper to tell their story.

Jesus himself finally told one man to:

“Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you”  Mark 5:19.

Surely his story is our story, too.  We have this testimony, of what He has done and the mercy He has shown.

Our God-stories, the discoveries of how He’s been so good to us, those moments of amazing grace and unexpected mercy in the middle of the daily grind, are all meant to be shared with others.

And the miracle of Christmas is ours to tell and ours to share; it’s the hope that others need and the joy this desperate world is searching for.

So, sing it!  So, tell it!  Don’t let that familiar feel of your salvation, the way apathy closes us in a cozy blanket of complacency, ever let us overlook the awe of this:

God loved us so.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16

Originally posted October 19, 2012

Oh, the stories I could tell

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It takes an entire day for the job, but finally it’s done.

That morning I had dashed out to the garage and opened several huge Rubbermaid bins to find the sealed bags of clothes I needed.  Having three girls means we own girls’ clothing in every size for every season and when it’s time to transition from size to size it’s a chore.

Oh my, is it a chore.

I sorted through the dressers and in the closets.  I pulled out piece by piece of clothing from the bins and covered my living room and kitchen in piles for this size and that season and this child and that one.

Then I washed all of the “new” clothes, dried them, folded them and hung them on hangers.Photo by: Martin Damen; Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_wolfelarry'>wolfelarry / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Packing away the old size, I dashed out to the garage once more and then returned inside to collapse on the sofa with a cup of tea.

Done!

It isn’t without its share of memories, this sorting through old clothes.

I pulled out the outfits and remembered the preschool programs, the weddings, the birthdays, and the handmade treasures…

It’s like flipping through the pages of a photo album and I find myself telling the stories to my daughters as I fold down the ruffles and lace.

I tell them how I know exactly at what age my oldest daughter decided she had to wear dresses, all dresses, all the time—even nightgowns instead of pajama tops and bottoms.

I know it because in the size 4T bag of clothes I find dress after dress after dress.  You’ve never seen so many dresses: Dresses for play and for church and for school and for special occasions and everything in between.

I stretch out on my living room floor and sew a button onto a shirt while my youngest daughter runs her fingers through the buttons in the tin.

And I tell about visiting my great-grandmother’s house when I was a girl and playing with her tins of colorful buttons and stacking her empty spools into towers.

We moms are storytellers so often, the caretakers of the family saga, the ones who remember grandma, great-grandma, and the babies, the births, the marriages, the days both joyful and hard.

So I take time to give my daughters this heirloom: these memories, these stories, these word pictures from the past.

It’s more than just generation-to-generation storytelling, though.  I consider this as I sew and tell those stories that Saturday afternoon.

All this month, I am drawing near to the presence of Christ by creating beauty, and this is the truth I find:  That God’s creative work in our lives compels us to tell others about Him and what He has done.  This is a story we have to tell…

The Psalmists urged us to:

Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! (Psalm 105:2 NIV).

Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does (Psalm 96:3 NLT).

I want my life to be this perpetual testimony of God’s grace and kindness and the giving Him glory.

I want this so that when others talk about me–when they tell the story of my life—they will talk about Him.  Let my story be utterly wrapped up in His Story, indistinguishable and inseparable.

Tabitha was a woman who followed Christ in her city of Joppa and “was always doing good and helping the poor.”

When she died, the people called for Peter to come and as he stood there in the room with her body: “All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas (Tabitha) had made while she was still with them” (Acts 9:39).

I stand in front of my own piles of clothes and remember our family stories.

That’s what the widows did.  They held up physical reminders of Tabitha’s past, of her kindness and self-sacrifice, of her service, of the way she used her gifts to glorify God and bless others.

So Peter called for Tabitha to come back from the dead and even this became part of her story, her testimony to God.

Amazingly, “she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.” (Acts 9:40-42).

The miracle started with a woman serving others in the simplest of ways.

It continued with the women in her town telling this story to Peter.

And it ended with God’s glory and with many people believing in Him.

We also are storytellers about the heroes of faith from the past and about the God who does wonders.

And we also are forming our own story, serving, loving, giving and trusting that the legacy we leave is one that gives glory to the God who saved us, even if it’s as simple as buttons and sashes and telling the tale to our children.

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 ‘Create Beauty’?

Originally published February 18, 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

Grace, Book Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Renew, Revive, Restore Us Again

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I could recognize the discouragement. The perpetual fatigue in the face and in the slumping of the shoulders, not extreme, but ever so slightly burdened down low.

It was clear in the mechanical activity, not the joyous friendliness of cheerful service like before. Now my friend moved from point A to point B, task one to task two, not smiling, just doing because doing is what needed to be done.

I recognized the discouragement because

I

Have

Been

There

Before.

We who have been weary can see the signs in others, the trudging, the exhaustion, the worn out soul fraying at every edge and held together with patches and slipshod stitchery.

So we come alongside our friends, our Christian sisters and brothers, those whose burdens we’re supposed to remove so they can walk free and unencumbered for a time.  We remind them of God’s goodness, His grace.  We encourage them in their efforts, cheering them on with reminders to persevere and not give up and yes, there will be a harvest in time, and no, it isn’t all in vain.

How do we know?  That’s what they might ask.

Oh my friend, how I know.psalm51

Because contrary to what you might have heard or expected, the Christian life isn’t all easy and Christian service isn’t all joyfully inspiring and pouring out to others out of an overflow.  Sometimes we’re emptying out the last few drops from our own parched souls, not knowing what to do when we’re dehydrated and depleted and still others hold out needy hands for more.

Yet, we know this also.

We pour out…everything….and He pours in anew.

You might think you’re alone in this, stumbling over your own weaknesses, serving to exhaustion, not seeing the reward or the gain or the purpose or the point.

Yet, the prayers of saints long before teach us that others have desperately needed to be renewed, revived, restored.

The Psalmists prayed:

Will You not revive us again
so that Your people may rejoice in You?
(Psalm 85:6 HCSB)

and

Restore our fortunes, Lord,
as streams renew the desert.
Those who plant in tears
will harvest with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their seed,
but they sing as they return with the harvest  (Psalm 126:4-6 NLT)

and

God, create a clean heart for me
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
 Do not banish me from Your presence
or take Your Holy Spirit from me.
 Restore the joy of Your salvation to me,
and give me a willing spirit (Psalm 51:10-12 HCSB).  

Their prayers would be unnecessary, meaningless even unless they felt the need for the renewing, the reviving, the restoring work of God in us.

We need the grace again, the joy again, the steadfast spirit again, the life again.  That’s what they asked.

That’s what we need, too.

Eugene Peterson wrote:

Nothing suffers from time quite so much as religion.  The skeletal structure of obedience becomes arthritic, and the circulatory system of praise becomes sluggish.  The prayer ‘revive us again’ keeps the body of Christ youthful and responsive to every new mercy and grace in God (Praying With the Psalms).

So we offer to help carry the cross for a time through this valley and we remind them of the hope and the promise as we travel along together.

We tell the fullness of our testimony, not just the revival, the renewal, the restoration after the fact…not the destination without the journey or the end result without the in between.

No, we remember that we were worn out and limping and God renewed us.

We were dead and hopeless and God revived us.

We had lost everything and God restored us.

God did this for me, that’s what we say.  And He will do this work in you, too.

And we pray, of course we pray.

We ask God to fill them right up again, fill their own parched souls so they are overflowing. We ask for strength anew and energy for each day, for reminders of the vision and reassurance of the harvest.

God’s plan isn’t for us to walk through discouragement alone, not any of us. How could we ever survive it, after all, if we thought we were the only ones and that somehow we must be here because of our own fumbling and faltering?

But to know others have been there, have made it through, and have traveled back to tell us the good news and to pray for us along the way…that’s the grace God gives for a wearied soul.

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

Pocket Discovery

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It’s an annual surprise.

Some afternoon, usually in March, I hang up my gray winter coat for the last time.  I never know which day will be the very last of the cold season. We’ve even had freak winter snowstorms in April. There’s no official ceremony or anything and the groundhog’s shadow predictions never prove perfectly accurate.

It’s just a simple thing.  One day I casually drape my coat across the hook in my closet and there it stays through spring, summer and fall.

Then on a morning usually in November I stop deceiving myself into thinking that sweaters are enough to keep my teeth from chattering.  I reach past my fall jacket in the closet, pull down that same wool coat from its trusty hook, slip my hands into the sleeves and dip my hand into the pocket.

Whatever I left there eight months before is what I’ll discover on that first pocket search of the winter season.

I’ve pulled out Mom-things, like pacifiers and baby socks (don’t all moms pop baby socks into pockets)?  Grocery store receipts unfold like magician’s handkerchiefs—always one more emerges from hidden corners.  There are pens and paper clips, ticket stubs, rocks for my daughter’s collection, hair clips and ponytail holders, cough drops, and maybe even tissues (unused, thankfully).

There’s generally little treasure among the trash.  Mostly my life out and about with my kids consists of guiding them, protecting them, and holding their stuff, periodically dumping the overflow into my pockets when my hands are full.

Occasionally, though, I reach into that winter coat for the first time in November and pull out coins.  Better yet, a dollar or two or three….or even ten.

That’s enough to make this girl happy dance in the middle of my closet.

Then, pulling myself together, I announce the news to my kids, post a happy-face announcement on Facebook and tell my husband the story later that night.

Discoveries, after all, are meant for sharing.  They’re the kind of spill-all-over joy that we can’t keep quiet about.

Maybe that’s how the Shepherds felt standing on that darkened hillside with snoring sheep.  Perhaps it even explains what the angels were doing, singing their praise songs in the night sky to an audience of somnolent herdsman about a Savior being born.

All of heaven exploded with the “good news that will cause great joy for all the people!” (Luke 2:9), the Messiah, the Lord.  They couldn’t contain the excitement!

One angel made the announcement, but others crowded the sky and joined in the chorus: “Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praise God” (Luke 2:13).

The angel’s joyful news sent the shepherds tumbling all over themselves to see “this thing that has happened, which the Lord had told us about” (Luke 2:15).

When we hear good news, don’t we long to see with our own eyes, to experience this joy ourselves? 

Won’t you, after hearing my story, dip your hand into your winter coat with a little more anticipation this year?

That’s what sharing our testimony of discovery does, it ignites passion, it incites curiosity, it encourages a searching and finding of the truth, the Savior, of salvation.

Then, when the shepherds found the manger and peered over the corners at the baby-King, “they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them” (Luke 2:17-18).

They had discovered Jesus and no way could they keep that quiet.

No matter how many times Jesus asked those he healed in his ministry to keep quiet about it, still they rushed home and called up the local newspaper to tell their story.  The blind can see, the lame can walk—how to hold that in?

Jesus himself finally told one man to, “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you”  Mark 5:19.

Isn’t that the story for all of us?

Our testimonies of what God has done, the discoveries of how He’s been so good to us, those moments of amazing grace and unexpected mercy in the middle of the daily grind, are all meant to be shared with others.

That’s part of the joy, extending the celebration and encouraging others to go seek our God themselves, dig in His Word, trust in His promises.  What they discover there will be worth shouting about and more cause for a happy dance than whatever treasures I pull from my coat pocket this November.

Christian Writers Blog Chain

Today’s post is part of the October topic ‘Discovery’ by the ChristianWriters.com Blog Chain. You can click on the links on the right side of this page to read more articles in this series.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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

Remembering or Not Forgetting

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The first time I ever voted was in a presidential election just a few months after my eighteenth birthday.  At the time, my polling place was my old elementary school, which I hadn’t visited in about seven years.

In the grand scheme of life, seven years isn’t a long time to wait before returning to an old haunting place.  I was young, though, and those seven years were nearly half my life at the time, so I waxed a little nostalgic when I remembered “the old days.”

I walked through the once-confusing halls where we used to form lines only on the blue square tiles and never on the white.

Then I stepped into the cafeteria where I had once been utterly overwhelmed by long lunch lines that never went fast enough.  There was always so much noise and chaos and teachers flickering the lights to signal us to quiet down.

That gym was also the frightening place where I had failed at rope-climbing and gymnastics and kickball.

My memories of elementary school were of general bewilderment.

Not really knowing where I was going.

Missing the bus once because I’d gotten lost walking to my brother’s classroom to pick up his homework.

Navigating tricky relationships with girls who were cooler than me and who all, unlike me, had a favorite singer in New Kids on the Block.  They even had boy band buttons and sweaters, notebooks, and necklaces.

When I returned as a voting adult, it all seemed so much smaller than I had remembered.  The halls and rooms that had loomed so large weren’t so big after all.

Not just that, but I had some emotional re-sizing to do.  All of the elementary school crises that had stressed me out in fourth and fifth grade were put in perspective.

Did it matter that I was the only girl (yes, the only one!) who hadn’t rocked out to New Kids on the Block tunes at my friends’ birthday parties?

Had I been stunted and set for a life of failure all because of my elementary P.E. hopelessness?

I suppose the biggest lesson for me that day was that memory is a faulty thing, rarely accurate, mostly relative and generally a slave to the emotional filter we’re using at the time.

After all, the size of that school building hadn’t changed an inch.  I had grown.  I had changed.  Now I saw that same campus differently.

We have a way sometimes of relying on our own memories too much.  We think, “God gave me this miracle!  I’ll never forget it!”

Yet, within a month we’re stressing out over another need, totally forgetting that God has delivered us before and He could do it again.

We look back on the past and think, “Things were so much better then!  If only I could get back to such happiness, such simplicity, such ease!”

That’s when we sound most like the Israelites on their way out of Egypt, who turned 400 years of slavery into their own version of “Those Good Old Days.”

They whined (weren’t they always whining?):

 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic (Numbers 11:5).

At no cost?  It seems to me their fish and salad diet came at a great cost, the loss of freedom and harsh labor conditions, the murder of their sons, and restrictions on their worship.

In that moment, though, wandering in the wilderness, facing opposition and obstacles, they were willing to trade their freedom for the old salad bars of Egypt.  Why?  Not because they remembered.

It was because they forgot.

And that’s what we do so much of the time.  We forget what God has done for us.  We forget where we came from and all that He’s brought us through.  We forget what it was really like.

Remembering the truth—that takes work—and the telling and re-telling of our life stories.

God tells us when we drink the cup and eat the bread and Scripture says, “Do this in remembrance of me.”

We tell ourselves when we write out prayer journals and gratitude lists to remember what God has done.

We tell each other when, like Paul, we proclaim “the testimony about God” (1 Corinthians 2:1).

We tell our children by talking “about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up” (Deuteronomy 6:7).

Through telling, we remember, maybe not perfectly, maybe not flawlessly.  But at least we don’t forget.

How do you remember what God has done for you?

You can read more about this topic here:

Today’s post is part of the August topic ‘Memory’ by the ChristianWriters.com Blog Chain. You can click on the links on the right side of this page to read more articles in this series.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King

One of the King Girls

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“A sterling reputation is better than striking it rich;
a gracious spirit is better than money in the bank” 
(Proverbs 22:1 MSG).

“The King girls.”

That’s the name people give my daughters.  At school, at church, and at ballet, they have their individual personalities, but together they have a group identity, like a famous trio or a girls’ band.

We should make t-shirts.

Over the weekend, we recognized a teacher from their school and introduced ourselves.  “Hi, I’m Heather King,” I said.  “My daughters are Victoria and Lauren King . . . ”

“Oh yes,” she said quickly, “The King girls!  The AR (Accelerated Reader) superstars!”

We said goodbye to her and walked into a lobby area to register for auditions for a children’s theater production of Willy Wonka.  My older girls stepped up to the table and the lady there made the inevitable announcement, “The King girls!”

Yes, that’s us!

Even I call them that, but then I tell them why.  It’s one of my speeches.

I say: Our reputations and our names are never just our own.  We never represent only ourselves.

All of us have taken on the role ambassadors in some capacity, so we must always remember how our choices impact, not just our own reputation, but the reputation of others linked to us.

I tell them they are “King girls” in two ways.  They are daughters of James and Heather King and representatives of our family.  People look at them and make judgments about our family, our parenting, and about our faith.

But they are also Daughters of the King, the Most High God, and it is this connection that matters most.  They are living, breathing, walking-around representatives of God at home, at school, at church, at ballet, and in their community activities.  Yes, even at Wal-Mart.

When people hear my daughters’ names, they think of our family and hopefully of our faith.

What happens when people think of you?  What images pop into their heads in the instant someone pronounces your name?  When they see you step up, with whom do they associate you?

Without knowing God personally, what can they deduce about Him when they look at your life?

We might want to shirk this responsibility, preferring instead a determined independence.

Yet, it’s impossible.  People are people.  We humans make judgments, assumptions, connections.  We peer into each other’s lives and try to understand how it all fits.

It’s the way of life for sojourners.  If we packed our bags and flew around the world, shopkeepers and taxi drivers, cafe owners and villagers would watch us and decide, “That’s what Americans are like.”

So we earthly travelers, always foreigners far from our heavenly home, meet people every day who don’t know Christ.   They watch us and think, “That’s what Christians are like.  This is what it means to know God.”

It’s something David experienced even as a young shepherd boy playing his harp while the sheep grazed in the pasture.  King Saul, tormented by an evil spirit, wanted someone to soothe him with music and commissioned his court to find just the right fellow.

“One of the young men answered, ‘Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him‘ (1 Samuel 16:18 ESV).

That was David’s reputation—the essentials of his character and skill, but more importantly God’s presence in his life.  This is what people said about him in town and talked about in the king’s court.  “The Lord is with Him.”

In the same way, after Paul’s conversion from Christian persecutor to defender of the Gospel, word got back to the leaders of the Jerusalem church.

“‘He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God because of me” (Galatians 1:23-24).

There’s the point of it all.  David’s talent and his communion with God weren’t for his own personal benefit and gain.  Paul’s astounding testimony and life revolution weren’t to receive accolades and adoration.

People saw their lives and glorified God.

Paul urged the church to keep this responsibility in mind:

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ
(Philippians 1:27a ESV).

and

Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night so I’ll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns (Phil. 2:15-16 MSG).

That is what we desire.  As we meander through this life of ours, running errands, working at our jobs, leading our kids through grocery store aisles, meeting with teachers, sitting by hospital beds . . . we pray that others will glorify God because of us.

Don’t you want this?  I so do.  It’s my passionate desire that with one glance at my life people will see Jesus and say, “She’s a Jesus girl.  She loves God.  She’s crazy in love with the Bible and bubbling over with God’s Word.  It’s her favorite thing to talk about–the thing that makes her come alive.”

Let us all be “breaths of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society” so that people can glimpse “the living God” when they watch us.  And they are watching; that’s a given.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com 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.  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2012 Heather King