I'm Leaving An Inheritance

Proverbs 13:22 A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. But the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.

I read this about 2 months ago and it stirred something in me. No no no I wasn't jumping up and down with excitement because our financial retirement is secure. Quite the opposite. I was a little discouraged. How in the world am I suppose to leave an inheritance for my children's children when I'm not sure I can leave one for my children. Things are tight. Let's not forget what Houdini did. One night while we were asleep, Houdini visited our retirement account and did some kind of magic trip. It was a magic trick that had gone wrong and we weren't laughing. Still, in spite of it all I was stirred with excitement. I don't have lots of money to leave my children's children, but I have a great inheritance to leave. My children can and will inherit more than money from me.

God has given me so many gifts and talents that I can pass on to my children. I can teach my girls to sew and they can teach their daughters. What a precious inheritance that I will leave for the females in my lineage. I love the holidays when the girls and I are standing over a big mixing bowl crumbling cornbread to make homemade dressing. In the kitchen we talk about life. It's an opportunity to share secrets. Secret ingredients to make a meal that's sure to touch the heart of their future husbands and put his mommas food on the back burner.

I love to utter the words King Lemuel's mother uttered to him in Proverbs 31. I teach my sons to stay away from wayward young women. Don't give them your strength and when they come your way, I tell them to run like they stole something. (I don't encourage my kids to steal, but you know what I mean.) Oh what an inheritance the men in the King family will receive as they pass on the wisdom on what to look for when trying to find that good thing.

I'm not sure how much money we will be able to leave our children and their children. I'm at peace about our retirement, my children and children's children financial future. I'm not the least bit worried because the 2nd part of the verse tells me that Houdini and his friends are storing up for us.

*Here on this blog I will leave an inheritance of wisdom and transparency for my children and their children. Wisdom to follow God because they are world changers. Transparency so that the world can see God in them.

Marriage Is a Promise to Love

Marriage is a covenant between two people who deeply sense that their lives are, and always will be, shared as one.

Marriage is the fulfillment of a dream and an awareness that reality also can bring us the beauty of dreams.

Marriage is a promise that today is the beginning of a future that will nurture love, respect, honor and mutual faith as the greatest strengths for its foundation.

Marriage is an understanding between two sensitive, intelligent, and caring people who have evidenced that true love can survive all obstacles and grow stronger with the passage of time.

~Edith Schaffer Lederberg

Whew!

It's Saturday and I just found out that I don't have to take Trae driving today. He's 17 almost 18. He's graduating in May. He got his permit a couple of months ago and every Saturday some how I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of his car. At this present time I can not drive. I really don't like being at the mercy of a 17 year old to drive me around when Don's at work.

Trae brought his first car last month. A friend from church works at a dealership as a mechanic. Eddie found a great car that was a trade-in. It was almost to good to be true. It's a 1987 Oldsmobile with only 84,000 miles on it. At the price of $500.00, we jumped on it. We paid half and Trae paid half.

I'm at my wits end sitting in the passenger seat. For example 2 weeks ago we were driving. I directed him to get in the right lane because we are going to make a right at the light. What does he do? He gets in the left lane and goes straight. I told him to turn left because he missed his right turn. He turned left and ran onto the curb. I grabbed the steering wheel. I told him to pull over and I was going to drive. Sarah (10) was sitting in the back seat starting crying because she said she didn't want to die. I'm like what?! She said, "Mommy the doctor said you can't drive because of your seizures and Im afraid we're gonna die."

I was so upset then. I realized that she was right, but my son wasn't driving the way I wanted him to. You know, maybe the problem wasn't his driving. Maybe the problem was I didn't have control over the way he was driving.

Oh, that word control. How many times have I missed out on precious moments in life because I didn't have "control." It's a good thing I'm careful about the type of music I listen to. You know what song I'd be listening to all the time?....."Control" by Janet Jackson.

God help me to sit in the passenger seat with my hands in my lap, a smile on my face and sweet praises coming from my mouth.

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.

What do you see?

Has anyone asked you lately what do you see when you look at your husband? I for one can answer no. It's a question that I do have to ask myself sometimes.

On Wednesday morning of last week I took a look at my husband. I no longer saw him through the eyes of a woman who was abused and rejected on the day her married her. I still remember when he asked me to marry him. I told him I was a mess and he would be taking a big chance by marrying me. He said okay and married me at his own risk. (Now that I think about it, maybe I should have made him sign a waiver. haha) It baffled me until one day when I realized he saw something in me. He was looking at me through a set of eyes that were not his own. He saw me through God's eyes.

When was the last time you saw your husband through God's eyes?

A times I can be so quick to jump up and judge the motives that I think are dwelling within the heart of my husband. He'll respond to something I said not quite how I wanted him to. Or he won't respond at all. Then I have to say to myself that maybe he responded the way he did because he really didn't understand what I was saying. Maybe he's upset and thinks I want him to solve all my problems. At that moment I have a choice to make. I can allow the enemy who's job is to come between us by allowing him to kill the moment and make something out of nothing. Steal the moment by taking away precious time that I can focus on the good that's within my husband. Or cause this to make me bitter and eat away at me for hours or days and eventually destroy what we've built. I choose neither of those. However, I do choose to see the purity that dwells within him.

When I can see the purity that dwells deep within his heart, it allows him to be transparent and open his heart to me. He doesn't have to be afraid of me dwelling there because I'm looking at those good things. I'm looking at the vision that God has given him regarding our family. I can see him wanting to be vulnaralble without appearing weak. Those sweet words of affection for me are hidden there in that secret place. Oh how he wishes he had just the right words to express them. I love dwelling here because this space is so big. I can see so clearly how he views me as a mother and how it saddens him when I'm too hard on myself. His heart rejoices because I'm content with the simple things in life.

As a woman, I'm bombarded with words from others and images from the ads that tell me I need to question his motives. I can't allow anyone or anything to question the motives of his heart. I know his heart because I dwell there. As I'm there dwelling in his heart, I see someone who's familar. I love this place, his heart. Here I get to see him.

Tamale Pie

Ingredients for the filling:
2 lbs. ground beef
1 onion, chopped
2 cups enchilada sauce
1 can of corn
1 small can of sliced black olives
1 tsp. salt

Ingredients for crust:
2 1/4 cups of white corn meal
2 cups of water
1 can (12 oz.) of evaporated milk
1 tsp. salt
1 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese

*Preheat oven to 425 degrees
*Grease baking dish

Filling: Cook ground beef and onion in skillet; drain. Stir in enchilada sauce, corn and salt

Crust: Combine corn meal, water, evaporated milk, 1/2 cup of cheese and salt in saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes or until it thickens.
Reserve 2 cups of corn meal mixture; cover with plastic wrap or foil. Spread the remaining corn meal on bottom and up the sides of baking dish.

Bake for 10 minutes.

Spoon beef filling into corn meal crust. Spread reserved corn meal mixture over beef filling.

Bake for 15 - 20 minutes. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup of cheese.

Bake an additional 5 - 10 minutes of until cheese is melted.

It's almost similar to the recipe on the back of the Albers corn meal box. Just some variation.

Marriage Is a Lifetime of Love

Marriage embraces two people in love for a lifetime of sharing.
Marriage is a unique sharing of day-to-day events.
It's having someone with you in spirit to give support and love at all times.
Happiness in marriage doesn't just happen.
A good marriage requires time and devotion; it's often filled with compromise and sacrifice, as two people learn to live together in harmony.
In marriage, little things become big.
It's important to never take one another for granted and to always be able to hold each other.
Marriage is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
Being married means having a lifetime best friend, someone to laugh with, dream with, and cry with.
The true foundation of marriage is giving love continuously and unconditionally from one's heart.
~ Sherry Jill Shaw-Levine "Marriage Is a Promise of Love"