I've Moved!

Yep, I've packed up and moved to Wordpress Land. And all of these posts have come with me.

Join me in my new home.

And be sure to update your links.

Sandra Heska King

Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Heska King

Melting Moments

mounds of blueberry fluff

float in a strawberry sky

kiss

embrace

become one and

spill over

into swirling tongues

that lick the horizon

melting moments.

Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Heska King

So What Is Real?

Are you for real? Can online relationships be real?

Today Karin Fendick and I swap posts in the spirit of "friendship and community" as part of a High Calling Blogs community writing project called You Are Real. I don't remember now how I "met" Karin, but I love to rest at bit a her place where she shares her heart and some beautiful photos.

So today I welcome Karin (His FireFly). I love what she says about what can happen when God is involved in online relationships.

Oh, and I'm posting today on Real Stuff, Real People over on her blog, Flickers of a Firefly. Check it out!

And click over to HCB and check out the links to some other stories.

And now . . . here's Karin.

Road Home

So What Is Real?

I live on twenty beautiful acres of Manitoba prairie. I can walk through the grass and feel it tickling my toes. That grass is real.

I can hear how solidly the wooden door of our house shuts us safely inside against a summer storm or bitter winter wind. The house and the shelter it provides are real. The brittle cold that wind brings is very real.

My husband’s arms wrap around me, a warm and tangible love that is real indeed.

I have family and friends and fellowship with a body of believers called “church.” Relationships are sometimes deep but can often be shallow as well. We don’t always present our true selves or reach into the core of others. Yes, they are real flesh, but perhaps not quite genuine.

Words on a screen can be another way to hide. Life on the internet might be a chance to present yourself as someone you are not; after all, no one can truly see you, only the words you leave behind. There’s lots of falsehood and deception. Games are played. Lives can be shattered.

But God! When God has His hand involved, all things are possible.

God chose to use the World Wide Web to lead me on a journey of re-creation.The woman who first began pounding the keyboard was brought to a saving knowledge of Jesus via an internet contact. Jesus is very real.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV

I was introduced to the workings and gifts of the Holy Spirit while chatting online.Yes indeed, the Holy Spirit is real, alive and active.

The Lord introduced the man who He had chosen to be my husband, you guessed it, through the internet. Our love, our life and our marriage are solid, real and rooted in Him.

As writers, we can use words to describe, create, build up, connect, encourage and support. People in cyber space may not be able to give me a pat on the back with their hand in a way I can feel with my physical body, but they have touched my heart and spirit in ways often more profound.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV

By participating in the High Calling Blogs Network, I am beginning to build relationships with others writing for God’s glory. What we share with our words is accomplishing much in the building of His Kingdom. While I may never meet my friend Sandra Heska King face to face (though wouldn’t it be an awesome time, Sandy?) we can connect spirit to spirit with God at the centre of our fellowship. I would call that as real as the mosquitoes buzzing around my hands as I type. As real as the sun warming the grass that needs mowing. As real as the One Who holds us all in His hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Karin (HisFireFly) is a sold out disciple of Jesus Christ learning more each day what it means to abide in Him. She desires to walk in radical obedience to His voice and prays that her life brings glory to The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit.

Karin and her beloved husband live in rural Manitoba with their dog Faith and various barn cats on 20 beautiful acres the Lord has provided for them.

Stop by for a visit at Flickers of a Faithful FireFly, Karin’s personal blog about Jesus, love, prayer, and life in rural Canada


Copyright © 2010 by Karin Fendick

Letting Go Of Ego

Embraced by self I dissect every failure.
Gripped by pride I focus on every flaw.
Oppressed by fear I stumble with every step.

So . . .

I am
letting go of ego
and clinging to the great
I AM.

NOTE: This post is part of the One Word Blog Carnival on EGO. For other thoughts, visit One Word at a Time.

Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Heska King

There are Rules? A Photoplay Prompt

I wondered what those little lines were on the "P" section of the turny thing-a-ma-jig on my camera! I always freaked when I accidentally bumped into those boundaries.

But guess what? They are supposed to help in photo composition using something called the "rule of thirds." This is the kind of thing I learn by being a part of the High Calling Blogs network.

Am I the only one who had (note past tense) no clue?

I snap pictures I like to look at. That stir something inside. Sometimes (okay, often) they're off center, out of focus, blurry, imperfect, and crooked.

Like me.

There are rules?

I don't like breaking rules. But how can I break the rules when I don't even know the rules? How can I stay within boundaries when I don't know what or where they are?

Claire Burge has posted another PhotoPlay challenge over at HCB using the rule of thirds. Or breaking it.

I've seen some of the entries. They're good. Really good.

But I'm stepping out on a limb. Slipping in under the deadline wire. Taking courage to share. In order to learn. Sharing pictures (I mean photos) that seem to follow the rule--or break it. Taken before I knew there was a rule.

So these may not follow the rule. They may not even break the rule. Because I didn't know there was a rule. But I like them. Imperfect as they are.

As God loves me, imperfect as I am.

Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Heska King

A Towla Worm and Chill Bumps

I've said it before.

The Bible often leaves me breathless.

Gasping for air.

With major chill bumps.

Like now.

I'm more than halfway through Stone Crossings by L.L. Barkat, but I often go back to re-read what came before. And I'm hung up on the crimson (scarlet) worm, the towla worm, that she describes.

"How then can a man be righteous before God? 

How can one born of woman be pure?

If even the moon is not bright

and the stars are not pure in his eyes,

how much less man, who is but a maggot--

a son of man, who is only a worm!"

Job 25:4-6 (NIV)

Maggot--rimmah. A sign of decay. Of death.

Worm--towla. A sign of sacrifice. Of life.

The crimson "worm" is really an insect, a grub. About the size of a little berry. When the time is ripe, the wingless female climbs up a tree and attaches herself to it. There she lays her eggs, births a family. She excretes a crimson juice that covers her "children" and leaves a red stain on the wood. She dies so they can live.

"But I am a worm and not a man,

Scorned by men and despised by the people."

Psalm 22:6 (NIV)

Worm--towla.

Back in the day, folks harvested the bodies and crushed them to make a scarlet dye. L.L. puts it this way:

"Such colorful artistry was not lost on the ancients. They gathered this scarlet creature and crushed her to produce a crimson dye. And crimson, right up there with blue and purple, was used to dye wildly expensive clothing and tapestries. So it seems that Jesus, crushed in shame, offers to cover my nakedness--not only with the linen of his life, but also with an exotic color reserved for the rich and royal.

Just picturing this wine-crimson grace, I feel my soul tingle, as if it's growing wings. And the shame of my past, though real, cannot keep me earthbound." 

This reminds me again of the Hebrew word tiqvah, translated "hope" in Ruth 1:12 when Naomi says, "If I had hope . . . "

Tiqvah is first used in Joshua 2:18 and translated "cord." David's other great-great grandmother, Rahab, the Gentile harlot, tied a cord in her window, and her family was saved when the walls of Jericho fell.

A scarlet cord. Likely stained with the crushed body of a towla worm.

Sacrifice. Hope.

The Bible gives me chill bumps.


Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Heska King

Endless Energy-Boundless Strength

I’m not saying my husband is cheap

Even though he wears a special "uniform" for summer yard work. He cuts off the sleeves of his white dress shirts and completes the ensemble with faded, tattered, and holey jean cutoffs, with strings hanging to his knees--and has no problem wearing the outfit to town. Sometimes I can grab him by the back of the collar on his way out the door. I wish I'd thought to take a picture. (Putting that on my to-do list.)

I’m not saying my husband is cheap.

Even though we’d been married for 25 years before the green mohair sweater that his high school girlfriend gave him finally unraveled--with a little help from someone whose identity shall remain unnamed.

I’m not saying my husband is cheap.

Even though he has the reputation of digging “perfectly good” food out of the trash at work--and if something in our refrigerator looks okay and smells okay, it must be okay to eat. Never mind if it’s been in there for a month. And forget about expiration dates.

I’m not saying my husband is cheap.

Even though he will clean up any leftover food on another's plate. Not just family. Our children’s friends learned that they could just push their half-empty plates toward him.

I’m not saying my husband is cheap.

Even though our kids still convulse with laughter when they recall my chasing him out of the house and through the yard to grab his white T-shirt enough times to finally shred it into an unwearable rag.

It should come as no surprise then that his favorite season is summer.

And that one of his favorite parts of summer is Alpenfest.

And one of his favorite parts (if not the favorite part) of Alpenfest is to stand in line for an hour to gobble up any free (or reduced-with-a-button) food that’s offered--doughnuts, chicken, soup, pancakes, banana splits, etc. And sneak back for seconds if he can.

He also enjoys the opportunity to take me out to a free concert. I can't remember the last time he took me to one where he actually had to purchase a ticket. Come to think of it, our first date was to see the Philadelphia Orchestra in Ann Arbor, and I had to go purchase the tickets. I don’t remember his giving me money or paying me back. Hmm.

Luckily, there are many good family-friendly fun options during Alpenfest, like the Young Americans who perform outside at high noon. I'm always amazed by their endless energy and their boundless strength--no matter how hot the summer sun. They bring their enthusiasm off the stage and right into the crowd.



A free concert. But not cheap. 

I want their enthusiasm. To live out a life of faith that isn't cheap. A life that's free. But costly.

And I want to live it out with extravagance. With endless energy and boundless strength.

And summertime excitement.

“That's why, when I heard of the solid trust you have in the Master Jesus and your outpouring of love to all the followers of Jesus, I couldn't stop thanking God for you—every time I prayed, I'd think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!” Ephesians 1:15-19 (Message)

NOTE: This post is part of the One Word Blog Carnival on SUMMER. For other thoughts, visit One Word at a Time.

Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Heska King