Life Through My Eyes

I'm constantly having those proud mommy moments. Two of my sons directed this short film. It's based on a true story.

Never judge someone by what you see. You never know what the story is behind that person's life. There's always a story. My family has a story. This true story could have been based on my family. There was a time when we felt hopeless. There was a time when we were almost homeless.

A Sacrifice of Praise

For me going through a trial is easy in the beginning. When I'm faced with a trial the first thing I start to do is listen my praise & worship music. I start to quote Scriptures while I go about my daily rituals. I might even stop in the middle of doing laundry and rejoice by doing a Texas-two step (dance). Why? Because I know that trials don't last forever. But what about the trial that seems to have no end in sight?

During this journey with Christ, I have gone through some trials that were long. It was difficult for me to praise God in the midst of them. Those Scriptures that were being quoted started to cease because my flesh got tired and weary. Then one day it dawned on me that I need to praise no matter what my circumstances were, how much money I had or didn't have in the bank or what my present surroundings looked like. I had to offer up a sacrifice of praise. How do I offer a sacrifice of praise? I couldn't really answer that question until I understood what it meant to offer a sacrifice of praise.

Sacrifice - The act of making an offering to a deity, in worship or atonement. To give up,
yield or relinquish for the sake of something else, as a person, thing, or idea.

Praise - To express adoration of; glorify.

I realized in order to continue offering up an expression of adoration and glorifying my Lord, I had to deal with me first. Praise to God begins with self.

Psalms 103:1-2, Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits.

Oh at times how I quickly forgotten all His benefits. Just like an earthly child has benefits from his or her natural father, I have benefits because of my Heavenly Father. The opposite of Praise is forgetfulness. To forget the benefits of the Lord is to disregard His covenant Lordship.

Praise is due to God because He answers prayer!
Praise is due to God because He is the King of Kings!
Praise is due to God because He is the creator of all things!

The commitment to praise the Lord requires a disassociation from dependency on other people. You can't look for man to praise God for you because you're "going through." He's your God. He's your Savior. He's your Deliver. Praise Him because he is worthy!

Psalm 18:3 - I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from my enemies.

The saints from old had a saying that would always get me on the right track. They used to tell me "I dare you to praise God and see won't He come through for you!" Today, I daring you to praise God and see what happens.

Be Still My Soul

On June 30th we will be moving to the Vancouver, Washington area. These past two weeks have been very unsettling because WE have been trying to connect the dots to make this transition smooth. The other day was one of the hardest days we've experienced since moving to Lewiston. And we've had some hard days. It seemed as though the dots just weren't connecting. I started to get this knot in my stomach because it is a big move. It's a faith move.

Then I started thinking about how God has never let us down. I needed to change the way I was looking at this move. Yes, it is a faith move, but God is positioning us for our destiny. Although we love it here in Lewiston. The people in Lewiston/Clarkston are phenomenal, but we feel as though we are suppose to move. Right now we are still in the midst of the transition, but in a later post I will go into more details.

The dots are starting to connect without us doing much of the work. Last night Don and I came up with this great plan for a business. We are ready for the open doors of ministry. I can't wait to share in the upcoming months all the things going on behind the scene.

I just had to tell my soul to be still. So what ever you're going through today, just tell your soul to be still.
*Turn off the music on the sidebar and be blessed.

Forgive and Forget?

I woke up this morning reliving an image that played over and over again in my mind last night. It wasn't real, but I walked away from it with a real life changing experience. I see forgiveness in a whole new light.

There I was gathered there among the multitude of people. I really wasn't sure which group I belong to. After all, I could see a little bit of myself in each group. I felt more comfortable being a part of the group of women who mourned and lamented Him.

Our mourning didn't last very long because He told us not to weep for Him, but to weep for ourselves and our children. Why would he say a thing like that? Puzzled by His response to our mourning, I continued to move along the crowd until I came to a rapid halt. Almost falling flat on my face due to the sudden stop, there before me were the ones whom I needed to forgive.

"So glad I didn't fall on my face in front of them. They would have gotten a good laugh." I whispered to myself.

There was no way of moving throughout the crowd now. It was like being packed in a can of sardines. The smell was horrid. It was the stench of bitterness eroding away at the hearts of the people.

As I looked in front of me, I could see a glimpse of Jesus there on the cross. I saw His mouth moving and I was trying to make out what He was saying. It was hard to hear him at first because the crowd was noisy. I had to focus on Him and Him alone because I knew the Words He was speaking were for me. At last I heard.

"Forgive them for they do not know what they do."

Surely I must have been mistaken. Could He have really been talking to me? Maybe it was just my imagination running away with me. I stood there for a minute thinking that in order to be like Him, I must do as He would do.

I turned and looked at the people I needed to forgive. Before I could think twice, I uttered the words, "I forgive you."

As I'm fully awake now and ponder the image that so engulfed my mind last night. I started to wonder if I had to forget what happened. All my life I heard the saying, "you can forgive, but you don't have to forget."

I then remembered that in order to be like Him, I must do as He did.

As Jesus was there on the cross forgiving the world of their sins. He wasn't keeping a mental record so that he wouldn't forget what was done to Him. He forgave and He forgot. I've come to the conclusion that the saying "you can forgive, but you don't have to forget" shouldn't be a part of my life.

How sad it is when people live their lives holding on to hurt because they choose to forgive, but not forget. Many marriages have fallen apart because a spouse chooses to forgive, but won't forget the violations that were made against them. Prodigal children won't return home again because the last time mom and dad "forgave" them, there former mistakes were presented at the family dinner table for all to see. Friendships that had a beautiful bow wrapped around it no longer exist because we can't seem to forget the hurt. The church deacon was embraced after a great error only to be reminded by the saints of his ways each time he came to church.

In order to be like Him and do what He said, I first had to get a definition of what it means to forgive. After that then I'm able to decide if I'm making the right chose by choosing to forgive and forget.

Forgive - to give up resentment against or the desire to punish; to stop being angry with; to pardon; to give up all claims to punish or exact penalty for an offense; to overlook.

As I read that definition, I did not see the words "remember what wrong has been done to you." I read and understood what Jesus was really saying when He said, "Forgive them for they do not know what they do."

Blestshe

I posted on my blog about how God made a way for my hospital bill which was over $11,000 was paid. Since blogging I've met a dear lady Civilla's Cyber Cafe . She was making a comment on my blog and had to do a word verification. Unbeknown to her, God used her and this word verification to speak to the entire King Family. Civilla could have just thought it was random letters that appear quite often during a word verification. Not Civilla. She knew that God had spoken and the word was for me. She took it a step farther and took a picture of it and emailed it to me. Thank Civilla ;)

I'm putting it here to share with you all because it's not just for me. Like me, many of you have been going through some major trials. My family and I have had our fair share during the last year. For those of you who don't know me, I need to let you know that at times I can be very transparent. For years I sat under the teaching of Pastor Paul & Denise Goulet (www.iclv.com). Transparency is their middle name. As I give you a glimpse into my life during the past year, hopefully it will inspire you to share and be transparent.

About a year ago my family felt as though the wind had been knocked out of our sail. One morning we woke up and realized, "What in the world have we done?" We moved to Idaho in Sept. of 06. Before moving to here we lived in Las Vegas. Don had a very good job with benefits. He made enough money for us to live good. I was able to be a stay at home mom & home school the kids. We lived in a single story ranch style house inside a gated community. We had new cars, went on cruises, etc. The only problem with his job is that it kept him away from the family.

We had this brainy of an idea one day to move to Lewiston, Idaho. Sure why not. We knew the Wilsons who had already moved there and loved it. We had a church because one of the pastors from ICLV was pastoring a church there. We prayed and were very specific about some things we needed to happen in order for this move to take place. We needed to sell our house, which we tried selling 3x before with no success. Even when the market was hot. Don needed to find a job in Lewiston.

We went to our leaders and told them our plans and ask them to pray with and for us. Put the house on the market. Took a vacation to Lewiston. Don got a job while we were here on vacation. Got back home and about 2 months late our house sold.

Back to the past year. Things were going okay. Some disappointments. We just continued to encourage each other every day. Things will get better, they always do. Don't they?

Spring of 2008, we experience some hurt. We have a motto in our family that we say to each other: "We will not give anyone the privilege of making us bitter. Because bitterness will only keep us away from our destiny." God told us to be still. That was hard for me to do because I don't have a problem with confronting. You know that old saying, "You can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the girl." We decided to be still and know that He is God.

Summer of 2008, we found out our house was infested with bedbugs. Yikes! We were trying to figure out how we got them. Did we get them from staying in a hotel? Did they come in from all the teenagers that were hanging out at our house on a weekly basis? We talked to the landlord and they had someone to come and spray. It didn't work the 1st or 2nd time. We had to throw away most of our furniture. Which we couldn't replace. We had bites all over our bodies. We were exhausted from lack of sleep. Then I got a call one night that my 22 year old nephew had past away. Thank God for my pastor giving us a night at a hotel so that we can get some sleep. Only to get up the next morning and Don's truck wouldn't start. I just wanted to lay on the ground in the parking lot and cry. Finally got rid of the bedbugs on the 3rd try. They had to remove all oxygen from our house. Thank God for the youth pastor and his family for letting us camp out at their house.

Fall of 2008, out of no where I started to have seizures. At first my husband and I didn't tell anyone until the kids witnessed one. I knew then that I had to go to the emergency room. Since that night, I have seen my fair share of doctors and specialist. I've also had my fair share of seizures. Sometimes multiply seizures. We are still in the process of figuring out why the seizures occurred. We laugh when we hear people say what they think can be causing the seizures. They don't have a clue. We've been open in the past about going through this trial, but have now decided to keep the most recent discoveries private until further testing is doing and some things are confirmed. We told our kids that no matter what happens, God is good. We decided as a family that after every seizure, we would worship and praise our Lord. To come out of a seizure and hear the sound of my husband and children praising and worshipping the Lord is heavenly. As of today, I've been seizure free for 25 days. It's the longest time span I've had between the seizures. God used His people to show so much love to our family throughout this time. We will forever be thankful to our church family.

These past few weeks things have shifted so fast in our lives. Now we have so many doors that are opening for us. We are still in the mist of a major trial, but it's like God has come along and blew on our sail.

When the word verification said "blestshe" I knew it was for me. I'm blessed and so are you. I was reading Deuteronomy 28:1-14 and it confirmed the word verification. I have diligently obeyed the voice of the Lord my God. Blessings will come upon me and overtake me. No matter where I live, in the city or in the country, I will be blessed. I will be blessed going out and coming in. The people who rose up against me will defeated before my face. My storehouse is blessed. The fruit of my womb is blessed. My husband is blessed. You my friend are blessed.

*I would love to hear comments from you. In your comments, please don't diagnose my condition or give me your opinion about the cause(s) of my condition.