His Voice

It is that quiet undertone that you feel singing to your heart.

It is the shout inside your head telling you “no,” this is not for your good.

It is the Word jumping off the pages of your Bible.

It is the hairs standing up on the back of your neck as you participate in corporate worship.

It is the peace that overwhelms you when your life has fallen apart.

It is the sense you feel when you know you are wrong and should apologize.

It is conviction you feel when you recognize your tone was too harsh.

It is the impression that brands you, hammering the belief that you were made for more than this.

He is speaking to you, will you respond?

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.”

Heb. 3:15

It’s just a game

It is half time and I can hardly stand it. Tebow is losing and I doubt they will win. I keep remembering one thing he said last week win they miraculously won. He basically refered people to the fact that important thing was the girl (I think) he saw after the game that had numerous surgeries. He pointed to something other than himself and saw the game as exactly what it was – a game. When the game was over Tebow knew one thing we would all be better off to remember – what really matters in life.

Tebow had just won the game of his life and he was remembering what was really important – others and Jesus. If Tebow loses tonight, he can walk away knowing the same thing. It is a game and he knows what truly matters.

I have often wondered how Tebow doesn’t get rattled when he is being shunned or glorified and it hit me last week when he pointed to the girl with the numerous surgeries.

He knows what really matters.

I wonder what our lives would be like if we lived for what really matters?

We might have failures or success in life but we can know one thing – our Redeemer lives.

Win or lose, Tebow says the same thing – Jesus Christ is his all in all.

Can we say the same?

New Shoes

For Christmas, my husband sort of gave each of us one hundred dollars. We received the hundred dollars but on the condition that we gave fifty of it away. We were told to pray about and ask the Lord to show us who He would like us to share our hundred dollars with. We were not allowed to spend our fifty until we gave our fifty away.  I knew immediately who I wanted to give mine too and waited for the perfect opportunity.

Last Sunday, after church, we were sitting around our usual table at the mall for lunch and my oldest son was having trouble figuring out who he wanted to give his money too. He, naturally, already had big plans as to what he could spend his fifty dollars on and so He tried to convince me to let him spend it and I said no. The boys all began discussing an after lunch basketball game and which neighborhood kids they could invite. As soon as he started naming names, he knew what he needed to spend his money on. One of our neighbor kids really needed new basketball shoes. He excitedly got up and they all went off to buy him some shoes.

It took him awhile to pick out the perfect pair of shoes. He found them and was ready to buy them and looked at the price of the shoes.

$94.95

That was a bit more than the fifty dollars he intended to spend, but he really wanted for our friend to have the new shoes.  Drew eagerly decided to spend all his hundred dollars on his friends shoes.

I was a proud momma. It was a treat to visible see God working in my kid. It is our job as parents to put our kids in positions to be able to share God’s love. It is God’s job to work in the hearts of our kids. I so often get that confused and try to do the work that only God can do. My job is to disciple and put my kids in positions to receive and share God’s love. His job is to work in their hearts.

God promises us that “so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” We pour God’s love and His word into their hearts and move away and allow God to do His work.

Whispers

The sky is dark, the house is quiet, I crawl out of my warm covers and drag myself to the coffee pot. French vanilla begins to fill the air as my coffee and my brain begin to percolate. I grab my fluffy, red blanket, my bible and get in my favorite corner of the couch.

The Lord woke me up this morning. He knew I needed Him and so He caused my eyes to open and crawl out of the warmth and comfort I was so enjoying. I didn’t want to get up and out of my haven of heavenliness. But I did because I sensed God was whispering to my heart and I didn’t want to miss what He had to say.

Psalm 68:19 is the treasure God had for me this morning. It simply says, “Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens.” Just as the hot water oozed into the grinds to give me coffee, His word seeped into my heart and produced a confidence in me that HE, the GOD, was daily bearing my burdens. The weight of my concerns began to lift just as the sun was beginning to rise.

Light was beginning to overtake the darkness and I was renewed with His peace. His Word brings light to our dark places. When we don’t know what the future holds, when our fears choke us, and the blackness of our world is frightening – know that HE daily bears your burdens. The Lord who, “gives orders to the morning, and shows the dawn its place,” (Job 38:12) carries your concerns.

 

 

Top Posts for 2011 # 1

Happy Birthday Jake

Posted on September 9, 2011 by kaseye

Today, Jake would be 12 years old. I wonder what he would be like today. Would it be hard to wake him up for school now? Would be athletic like Drew or musical like Jackson? Would he be rebellious or sweet natured?All the unknowns swirl around my head. What could have been?
Then I ask myself who would I be if Jake was still here? I am sure other trials and heartbreak would have led me to a closer walk with the Lord but I know for certain that I would not have seen God’s saving light so brightly had it not been so dark.
Last night, Tommy Walker led us in a worship song called “Taste and See.” it make me realize that God gave me enough grace to really taste Him and see that He was good.

Having swallowed the bitter pill of death, life seemed flavorless.

However, Through His grace, I swallowed my pill but with The Living Water.

Our tragic circumstances taken with the Living Water of our Lord Jesus can and will allow us to say-that we have tasted and seen the Lord and He is good.

Top Posts of 2011 #3

 

Some Questions Never Really Die

Posted on January 26, 2011 by kaseye

 

A friend of mine gives a warning on her blog when she is writing about grief and how she is processes it. I am going to be kind and give you the same warning. Consider yourself warned.
Yesterday was a rough day. ROUGH. It started out with a root canal and went downhill from there. It is a bad day when a root canal is the highlight of the day. I was standing at my sink washing dishes and Jackson ran in and said the neighbor was hit by a car. (HE IS OK, he is home with his mom right now with only bumps and bruises) I ran out after Jackson, crossing the street to the neighbor’s front yard to find a sweet mom in the grass holding her baby boy. He was crying but thankfully, coherent. He looked scraped and bruised but otherwise okay. I moved into action mode, called 911, got the witnesses, talked to the police, and took care of the older boys.
Once all the chaos settled down and all the boys were taken care of, I calmly walked back to my room and locked my door. I was shaking all over and trying to catch my breath, as I was assaulted with memories. Doubt and fear ravished the outer layer of my heart, moving quickly toward full-blown panic. I ran a bath, allowing the warm water to calm the outside but the water did nothing for the questions clamoring to be answered. “Why?” rang out so loudly in my head I couldn’t fight it. It begged to be asked, again and again, Why? Why? Why? Why did Jake have to die?
I don’t know why. He didn’t answer my questions, He listened to them and eventually settled my heart. I was thankful for my memory verse, reminding me that I needed him to fill my heart with His peace and not allow it to be filled with doubt. Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

He did just that, He didn’t answer my questions but filled me with Him.
He was enough. Doubt and fear receded.
Peace overflowed.

“To manage a life of pain, as a believer in Jesus, remember: This is all the hell you will ever bear.” (M’Cheyne)

Top Posts of 2011 #2

Purchase “God Enough” Here

It was a cold Colorado night, forty degrees and rapidly dropping. I was off to freeze through yet another football game, a scrimmage that I  was dreading. Drew was the quarterback for a new team of boys that had never played the game.

First-time football players defending your quarterback against more experienced players is not a good thing. I was in for a night of cringing and praying that my growing boy would just keep getting up after each hit. I looked for him on the bottom of every pile and prayed that he’d still be moving.

As the scrimmage moved along, I watched in slow motion as a man-sized child came around from the back and horse-collared my son. His body dropped to the ground as the mini Hercules jumped up and down in celebration. He had sacked the quarterback.

Drew finally got up, but slowly. He motioned to me that he was fine and went back onto the field. As the game continued, he was hit over and over again. Play after play, he went to the ground. I kept thinking to myself that someone needed to stop this madness but I didn’t say a word, which in hindsight is totally out of character for me.

I am usually right behind the coach offering my suggestions like Sandra Bullock in the movie Blindside. One of my many favorite scenes is when she calls the coach on her cell phone from the stands. Why didn’t I think to do that this night?

Instead I just watched and waited. Dread filled my heart. Drew wasn’t looking right. He bent down to take the snap, stood straight up, walked off the field, and fell to the ground.

By the time I got to him, he was moving in and out of consciousness, and he couldn’t feel his right side. Someone told me later that I kept saying over and over, “You can’t do this to me again. You can’t do this to me again!” This was not the first time I had watched one of my children move in and out of consciousness.

As I kneeled down over Drew, sprawled out on prickly green turf, there was an all too familiar terror growing deep within. I prayed and told God “NO!” Riding to the hospital, I turned my head to the back to watch the paramedic work on Drew as we sped away from the field.

I fumbled with my cell phone trying to call Brad but my legs and arms were shaking and I couldn’t dial the right number. I watched as they pricked Drew with a needle as long as a ruler. The paramedics were stabbing him up and down his arms and legs numerous times trying to get his body to respond to the needle. Nothing.

He could not feel the needle, and all I could feel was the tension and the numerous shakes my own body couldn’t control. He felt nothing, and I was feeling everything.

I could barely see the top of Drew’s head. All I could see was his blond hair spilling out over the white bed sheet. I just kept telling the Lord, “I can’t do this again. I can’t Lord. Please don’t make me. Just please let him be okay.”

As I rode in that ambulance, my mind was going places it shouldn’t go. I mentally weighed which results I could and could not handle. If he was paralyzed, I could handle that. If he was brain damaged, I could handle that. I could handle anything if God would just let him live. In the fear and terror of the moment, I was giving God His options.

After Drew’s initial tests in Colorado Springs, the doctors decided to airlift him to Denver, to be safe. After a long night and many tests later, it was determined that he had sustained a  severe concussion. The mental horror had been lowered to mild panic, and I was starting to breathe normally for the first time in several hours. As the dark night unfolded, I sat in the molded plastic chair lulled by the steady beeps and hums of equipment and began to process what had happened. Quiet tears tugged at the corners of my eyes.

Why is it that on one trip to the hospital, I left empty handed and another I walked out with my life still intact? I was staring at Drew but my heart was gazing at the past asking the same questions we all ask at some point. Why Lord? Why, me? Why, us?

Taken from my book, God Enough.

Go to www.kaseyewing.com to order the book. It comes with a free mp3 download of my hubby’s song the same title.