Weekend Walk: The Competitive Edge

Several of my college professors sauntered into class on the first day of the semester, dropped their oversized literature textbooks onto their desks and announced, “If you expect to get an ‘A’ in this class, you can forget it.  I don’t give ‘A’s.’  At best, most of you will get a ‘C’ out of me.”

I took that as a personal challenge.

In fact, my irrationally competitive spirit can sometimes be a good thing.  Sometimes we accomplish more because of the adrenaline of the challenge, the race, and the competition.  That usually works for me.

And yet sometimes it’s a terrible addiction.  Like when you’re compelled to do the best, be the best, be the fastest, the first, the most impressive, and the most accomplished—even when it really doesn’t matter.

Or maybe one day you “fail” or come in second or make a mistake.

Or when you’re so focused on lifting yourself up, that you fail to come alongside others and give them a boost when they need it.

Or like when you’re a mom and you’re telling your child all the time, “You don’t have to be the first, the smartest or the best.  You just need to try your hardest and use the gifts God gave you to be who He called you to be. And I love you always.”

But deep down you want them to totally leave other kids in the dust.  Then your children start suspecting that when you tell them you love them and you’re proud of them, really there are some conditions attached.  Maybe they know that the deep-down hidden message in all this is to “Achieve.”

Or like when it’s time to throw a birthday party or be the classroom mom and an ordinary cupcake isn’t good enough.  You have to personally bake and decorate the kind of product that could land you on Cupcake Wars.  Your personal life goal is for all the other kids to say, “I wish my mom were as cool, fun, creative, and wonderful as you are.” (Throw in “beautiful” for good measure.)

Yes, that competition trap is a doozy.

All week long, I’ve been praying about killing the competition between my kids, encouraging them to be each others greatest cheerleaders instead of ultimate rivals.

Then I started thinking maybe my own drive for competition could use some killing.

In fact, maybe we all need the reminder in the body of Christ to unite for one purpose—the glory of God and the truth of the Gospel—rather than competing for attention, success, praise, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and number of people in the seats.

Here’s a verse I’m meditating on all this week, to remind me that ultimately all this striving matters very little and while it might spur you on to earn good grades or throw the best birthday parties, Christ would rather see us cheerleading than competing.

Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others (Philippians 2:3-4 HCSB).

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

What Silence Means…

It’s when they’re quiet that you need to be worried.

That’s parental advice passed down through generations, usually learned from personal experience.

I learned my lesson, too.

My oldest girl did this thing when she was three years old called a “tantrum.”  Maybe you’ve heard of them?  Maybe you’ve seen one . . . or thrown one.

After a particularly rowdy tantrum on the car ride home one day, she stomped into the house still screaming, ran into my bathroom and slammed the door.

Unfazed, I took my time setting her baby sister down for a nap and tossing my keys and arm-full of papers and baby paraphernalia onto the kitchen counter.  I breathed in deep breaths of Mom sanity.

Then I realized that the banshee wail had subsided into silence, frighteningly loud silence.

Throwing open my bathroom door, I saw my red-faced preschooler crouched on the carpet, her hands covering her head as she sobbed.

On the floor next to her was her hair.

Her hair!

Her long, totally beautiful, golden curly hair.  In her rage, she had climbed onto my bathroom counter and dug through to the bottom of my makeup case where I hid the hair scissors.  Then she had systematically snipped off the two pig-tails on the tip-top of her head.

She was bawling.  I was bawling.  We raced to the local hair salon and plopped her up in the chair for a rescue mission.  Our superhero that day sported a comb and some clippers.

Sometimes we think silence means inactivity and stagnation, abandonment and loneliness, but instead it’s often a sign of focused activity.

With kids, that might mean trouble.

With God, though, as heart-wrenching and full of despair as His silence is, we needn’t fear the quiet.  It’s often a promise that He’s at work right there in the middle of your circumstances, deeply involved in your life.

This was me not long ago.  I thought I had it figured out, what God was doing and how He was at work and how He planned to bless and care for us, but I was wrong.

The thing about cramming God into boxes is that He shatters the confines of the cardboard.

So, when life didn’t go as I had planned, I cried out to Him: What are you doing?  What does this mean?

Why can’t I hear You?

The silence is so oppressive and filled with overwhelming sadness.  We just want to hear His voice, His quiet voice or His booming command, His encouraging cheer, or His tender whisper.  Whatever He wants to say, we’re desperate to hear it.

Because we feel afraid.

I drove off that night on an arbitrary errand, alone in my car, praying away in the quiet.  Then I hit the play button on the CD for our church Christmas cantata:

“Peace, oh my soul, weary from the struggle
Don’t be afraid, Love knows your deepest need.
There is a light shining in the darkness.
There is no shadow where it cannot reach.
Peace, peace, Jesus has come
O soul, be still, receive your King”

The song faded and one lone voice cut through the silence:

“The Lord is with you . . . Fear not, Mary ….For nothing is impossible with God….Joseph, fear not.  Fear not!  For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given…Fear not; for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy…Fear not!  They will call Him Immanuel–which means, ‘God with us.’  Fear not, for I am with you”

My husband asked me when I flopped on the couch later, “Were you crying?”

How could I do anything but cry?

I had been desperate for the slightest trickle of His voice and He had drenched me in His Word.

But even when I didn’t hear Him, God was still there, still active, still with me. That hadn’t changed.

In his book, Greater, Steven Furtick writes:

God is often working behind the scenes of your life, orchestrating His destiny for you.  Even though you don’t have a clue what He’s up to.  Just because you haven’t heard God call your name or tell you specifically what to do with your life doesn’t mean He’s not conspiring great things for you.

Sometimes we feel like Job: “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me” (Job 30:20).

But even in the silence we can hold to the promise:

As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me.
Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice
(Psalm 55:16-17).

He hears you.  And when He chooses to speak, the wave of His voice might wash over you and knock you off your feet and carry you to safety.  For now, just keep listening, keep waiting, and don’t be afraid of the silence.

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

Naming, Name Changes, and Being Made New

Her name suits her.

She asks us about it all the time and we’ve told her the story over and over.

Why is she named Victoria Eileen and what does it mean anyway?

You’re named after your grandmothers, we tell her, Godly women who are strong in their faith. We prayed over our first baby, prayed about naming her just right— a name that was clearly feminine and clearly strong, a name for an overcomer, a fighter, a stand-up-for-what-is-right kind of woman of God.

Victoria—“Victorious One.”

It fits this feisty little person, the perfect name from the first day I held her in my arms in the hospital and she screamed and screamed, trying desperately hard in her newborn way of making her needs known. She befuddled nurses and her first-time momma.

Yet, submitted to God, believing in Jesus, with His Spirit in her, she’s a mighty force to be reckoned with underneath her princess exterior of swirly skirts and long blonde hair.

When she asks us about her name, we tell her the whole story of what it means, and why we picked it and what we hope it says about her future and her character.

I can’t imagine how that conversation went in Hosea’s house.

God told the prophet Hosea to marry a “promiscuous woman.”  His marriage was to be a living testimony of how the long-suffering God remained faithful to His people Israel, despite their ongoing adultery with foreign gods and idols.

That sounds hard enough.  Yet, in obedience, he married Gomer, a frequent runaway lover.

Then God told Hosea to have children with this faithless wife.

When she had a daughter, God told them to name her “Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”), for I will no longer show love to Israel, that I should at all forgive them” (Hosea 1:6 NIV).

Then she had a son and God said, “Call him Lo-Ammi (which means “not my people”), for you are not my people, and I am not your God” (Hosea 1:9 NIV)

The Message translates these names as “No-Mercy” and “Nobody.”

Every time moms in the marketplace cooed over these precious babies and asked, “What’s the baby’s name?” the answer came back as a label and message from God.

No-Mercy.

Nobody.

Have you ever felt labeled and even condemned by your name, your heritage, a nickname, a curse, the hurtful words of others that you can’t seem to erase from memory?

Has your past held you captive?

Surely these two children could relate to your pain.

But the beautiful thing about Jesus is that He doesn’t leave us untouched by His presence.  He’s a Creator God, making things new, making US new.

He changes us and renames us, giving us a new identity in Him.  Paul tells us:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Corinthians 5:17 NIV).

In Hosea 2:1, God tells the prophet:

Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’

Or as the Message says:“Rename your brothers ‘God’s Somebody.’  Rename your sisters ‘All Mercy.’”

Eugene Peterson asks: Under what circumstances have you seen “No Mercy” turned into “All Mercy?”  How about “Nobody” changed to “God’s Somebody?”

That’s our story, yours and mine!  Our story of redemption and transformation, how we’re shedding who we used to be and stepping into new clothes of righteousness—new names, new lives.

Hosea’s kids probably had to fight for their new identity.  Townsfolk likely slipped up time after time.  “No-Mercy,” they’d say, and she’d reply, “That’s not my name anymore!  Haven’t you heard the good news?  My name is “All Mercy” now.  God changed it!”

And her brother, “Nobody,” likely had to correct friends and neighbors and the school teacher who always treated him like a fool: “God says I’m no longer, “Nobody!”  I’m “God’s Somebody” now!”

God says that about you, too.  He says, “You’re mine.  I’ve given you my name and called you my child.  You are a sign of my mercy, you are loved, you are important to me.”

Yet, just like Hosea’s poor children, who likely had to stand up for their name change time and time and time again . . . so we must continually refuse Satan the prerogative of defining us by our past.

Instead, those names from our past, those identities are just part of our testimony now, a reminder of how God redeems, renews, and recreates, how He makes “beautiful things out of us.”

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

Weekend Walk: When Grace Is Enough

Last Saturday, I bravely went where I as a mom had never gone before.

We hosted our very first sleepover.

My girls struggled with sleeping days ahead of time.  One of my daughters complained that it was so hard to pay attention in school when all she could think about was having a friend over to stay the night.  After all, how can you sit still for math timed tests and spelling questions when a friend is coming over to your house?

They had plans.  Big plans.

All this remains a mystery to me.  I was never a fan of sleepovers and still struggle when I have to stay in a hotel away from home for even one night.  I like my space, my bed, my pillow, my routine.  I’m a homebody and an introvert.  Even as a girl, sleepovers were more nerve-racking than fun.

But I yielded to my friend-focused daughters and their pleading blue eyes and allowed them to invite over their friend.

Then we did the sleepover thing.  We made cookies, played dress-up, ate pizza, watched a movie, and painted fingers and toes.  The girls whispered and giggled in their room after the lights went out and squealed a bit at the thunderstorm booming outside.

And when it was over, I sank into the sofa in satisfaction.  I did it.  I, Mom to Three Daughters, had survived a sleepover.

That, I felt, should cover me for a while.  Maybe at least I would be free of pestering for three or four months.  A season of peace.  It sounded heavenly and was worth the effort.

I was wrong, of course.

On the way home from church the very next day, the girls started begging for another play date and sleepover.  Every day this week, I’ve been nagged and whined at.  They exchanged phone numbers with friends at school.  At Back to School Night, the girls spent 50% of the time showing me their classrooms and 50% of the time telling me that they had invited various friends to come home with them the next day.

One child snuck a note into her backpack to the school office: “Olivia will be riding home with Lauren King after school today.”

When I went to have lunch with my daughters at school, I had to ban conversation about play dates after ten minutes of being bombarded with, “When can she come over?” questions.

Now, having friends over really is fun and truly I love giving my daughters the opportunity to build into friendship and develop gifts of hospitality and people-focused lives. They are continually teaching me the value of relationship over tasks and to-do lists.

But surely, I felt, I deserved one week of “thanks, Mom!” before hearing “Please, Mom, can I have some more?”

Maybe God feels that same disappointment with us at times.  He saves us, redeems us, calls us His own, draws us in close to Him in companionship and friendship—in adoption!  He meets our needs and delivers us from circumstances and the Enemy.

And if we’re really holy perhaps we’ll toss a hurried “thanks” over our shoulders before running full speed ahead to the next crisis of need.

Of course, He’s so gracious to deliver us time after time and invites us into the kind of open and honest relationship where we can always tell Him how we really feel, what we lack, and what has us frightened and worried.

But perhaps we could learn to pause longer in gratitude and settle down in joy at His deliverance, knowing He takes care of us, knowing that He has it all under control and that we don’t need to run fretting back to the throne hour after anxious hour.

This week, I’ll be meditating on one verse every day that reminds me that God has already delivered me and for that I linger in thanks and praise:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust”
Psa
lm 91:1-2

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

Attack of the Mutant Christmas Lists

Their Christmas lists keep growing.

I thought we had it all settled.  In fact, being the slightly neurotic Type-A mom that I am, I turned my daughters’ wish lists into a color-coordinated spreadsheet in Excel that tracks what the girls want, how that corresponds to what her sisters are getting, and what store has the best prices for said item.

Then I’ve established a four-month shopping program charting which presents I can afford to buy during each of the months until Christmas.

Believe it or not, I love this.  I enjoy gift-giving, especially to my children.  I don’t just jot their lists down, I listen to their interests and likes and spontaneous desires for months.  In fact, I begin writing down possible gift ideas on my day planner in June.

Yes, June.

And I mentally categorize their verbal requests into:

A: That’s a great idea!  I wonder where I can get that?
B:  Hmm. . . I’ll consider this one, but I may need to change my plans for other gifts.
C. Maybe not for Christmas; maybe for a birthday.
D. Ain’t gonna happen, honey.

That last category is for all those gifts that cost more than anything else we own in our home or toys that will likely break after the first use or sit dusty and forlorn on the shelves the week after Christmas.  It’s for duplicates of things they already have (how many Pillow Pets does a child need?) and for gifts that just seem downright silly to me.

But still the requests come in.  Like video games and Nintendo DS systems and the iPod touches and Kindles that apparently every other first and second grader in our town owns.

Thanks to birthday parties, friends, and the ever-constant barrage of commercials, my children have mutant Christmas lists.

While it seems so childishly foolish to long for novelty slippers or a new video game, don’t we often want what this world offers?

Perhaps it’s material things that constitute our wish list or physical beauty or instant gratification.

Or maybe our heart’s desires are truly Godly things, but we want them on our terms, under our control, in our timing . . . ultimately looking for fulfillment in them rather than God alone.

…Like ministering because we’re dependent on praise and attention.  Or working and serving because we’re addicted to success and accomplishments..

Or the ever-alluring need to be in Control.

And the oh-so-tempting rush of feeling needed and useful.

These aren’t sticks and stones idols that sit on the shelves of our hearts, so obvious and easily tossed out with the garbage.

No, Tim Keller writes that, put simply, idolatry is “taking a good thing and making it an ultimate thing.”

So even the best, most honorable desires of our heart might turn out to be idols leading us astray—all because we’re dependent on ministry for our value or friendships for our worth or anything other than God alone for our identity and hope.

Kelly Minter writes, “It is so essential that the only true and wise God be exalted, not only above all religious gods, but over all the things we put in place of Him” (No Other gods: Confronting Our Modern Day Idols).

But sometimes we just don’t know what’s lurking in these hearts of ours, not until God takes an idol away or asks us to hand it over.  It’s then we start feeling the pangs of withdrawal and realize just how addicted we really were.

Like when He tells us a busyness addict to rest.
Or a success addict to step down.
Or an approval addict to handle criticism.
Or a relationship addict to walk alone for a time.
Or a control addict to strap in for a wild ride of His design and not their own.

If we were Abraham, a wealthy landowner with status and connections, and God told us to leave and go, would we?

And if we went, would we go willingly and cheerfully, or would we whine and complain and create wish lists along the way to refill the voids?

Abraham not only trusted God and obeyed, but he managed to keep his eyes set on eternal things.  He didn’t look for fulfillment here and now or even in good things that just weren’t God things.

Scripture tells us:

“For he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.  For he was looking forward to the city with foundations whose architect and builder is God”  (Heb 11:9-10).

What tent is God asking you to dwell in?  What has He asked you to lay aside?

Set your eyes on eternity.  Hand over the keys to your house, carry your tent on your back, and trust God to plan and build a city with a permanent home for you there.  He is, after all, all we need.

Check out these great resources all about this:

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

When I Fell In Love

I can’t say exactly when I fell in love with this man.

He was on stage the first time I saw him, portraying Mr. Elton in a production of Jane Austen’s Emma (my favorite), and I was an audience member.   He delivered the first line of the whole play while pretending to read from a book:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Immediately, I laughed aloud, until I realized that no one else seemed to get the joke.  More than a little uncomfortable, I slumped down in my chair.

(The first line of Pride and Prejudice was ‘read’ by a character in Emma.  There now, aren’t you laughing?  This is the kind of thing that strikes me as hilariously funny.)

I actually met him a week later after a college worship service.  Someone in the crowd pointed to the guy up front with the guitar.  “See that guy,” he said, “You just saw him on stage last week.”  I think I even confessed to being the girl who laughed at the first line of the play all by my lonesome self.

Unbeknownst to me, this young guy who led worship and the drama ministry and acted on stage in productions based on my favorite literature had just prayed a daring prayer two weeks before.

He told God he wasn’t looking for a relationship any more.  He was content to be single until God hit him over the head with a 2 x 4 and told him “Thou shalt marry this girl.”

There I was two weeks later being introduced to him.

And a week after that, I was the new pianist on his praise team (and he’s still my worship leader nearly 15 years later).

I fell in love with the way he used his gifts and talents for God’s glory.

There was his calmness, too.  I loved my dad, but life with him wasn’t calm; it was loud much of the time and sometimes downright volatile.  This man, though, measured his words with wisdom and careful thoughtfulness.

And the first time he dropped the word “obsequious” into a sentence effortlessly, I think I experienced whiplash. (I’m a sucker for SAT words).

Add to that his quick and witty humor that kept me giggling endlessly in the corner of the praise team section, and I realized that he was smarter than me and that was okay.

We’ve never been an opposites-attract kind of couple.  We’re probably two of the most alike people who God matched together.

Except for the fact that he only cares about doing what’s right and not whether it pleases anyone else while I’m a people-pleaser.

And the fact that he can rest and take time (perhaps . . . dare I say it . . .procrastinate) and I’m neurotically pushed to do and do and do relentlessly, first, fastest, and rest when you die.

I can’t say when it happened, but at some point I fell in love.

I can’t speak for him and say exactly why he fell in love with me.  Nor can I say exactly why God loves any of us either, surely not my awkward, nervous, uptight, worrying self.

Amazingly, though, this isn’t a “fall in love” kind of love at all.  God doesn’t grow to love any of us over time or awaken one morning and realize how much He cares.

He loves us.

It really is the beginning and the end of our story.

Like the first time I saw my daughters, I loved them in an instant.  I didn’t slowly grow to appreciate their character or develop feelings for them over time.

In Jeremiah, God declares, “before I formed you in the womb I knew you”  and David similarly prayed, “you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13).

God loved you before you squinted your eyes at the first burst of light, screamed out and got cleaned off, bundled up and handed to your mom.

He loves you when you feel loved and when you feel overlooked, when you received a blessing and when you endured a trial.  This love of his doesn’t wax or wane, change or alter or depend on us and what we do or say or feel or think.

We’ve never been good enough, pure enough, beautiful enough, or wise enough to earn it.

But even though we’re unworthy, even when we’ve strayed, even when we’ve felt that seemingly incurable distance from Him or poured out in painful honesty what’s troubling us…

Still He loves.

He says, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3).

And what can we do with this everlasting and unfailing love, so amazing and confusing because it’s far more than we deserve?

“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

How can you respond to God’s love today?

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

Weekend Walk: Baking Cookies/Reading the Bible

Bake cookies.

It was on the official to-do list.  Sometimes we pull down the flour and sugar canisters and pull out the measuring cups and spoons because of a sweet tooth or just the fun of baking together.

Today, though, it was a must instead of a can, a have to instead of a get to, a duty and not a pleasure.

Bake sales, after all, require baked goods and cookies were to be our offering.

So the mission began, emptying cabinets of cookie cutters and dragging out the flour and rolling pin.  Looking up from the recipe, though, I saw this cutie pie rolling herself out like a cookie and giggling hysterically.

Suddenly, there was joy just in being together, in the pure delight of presence.  We took turns rolling out the dough and cutting out cookie shapes of hearts and flowers, butterflies, pumpkins and fall leaves.

Time in the kitchen so easily becomes a chore, cooking for necessity and baking on a deadline.

But moments together need to be rescued from task lists and enjoyed: Giggling over ourselves covered in flour.  Teaching how to push the rolling pin across the dough.  Recalling shared stories.  Kissing tiny noses dotted in sugar.  Admiring our goodies fresh from the oven and then sampling them as they cool.

So, when I pull down my Bible from the shelf and open my study book onto my kitchen table (still dusted with flour), it’s tempting to read to get it done, to check it off for the day and set it aside again until tomorrow.

“Devotions” is on my to-do list also.

Time in God’s presence, though, should be our joy and delight and the very life-breath to our suffocating souls.  Never just a task on a to-do list waiting for the line crossing it out, time with our Lord should beckon us and fill us with longing for more.

Our verse for the week reminds us to delight in His Word and center our lives around this relationship with our God rather than relegating it to the outskirts of our time and hearts:

 But they delight in the law of the Lord,
    meditating on it day and night.
 They are like trees planted along the riverbank,
    bearing fruit each season.
Their leaves never wither,
    and they prosper in all they do (Psalm 1:2-3 NLT).

Take pleasure in His presence.

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