Sandra Heska King

Scripture Sunday: Light of Life

Sandra — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 04:52:35 +0000

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said,
“I am the light of the world.
Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness,
but will have the light of life.” ~John 8:12 (NIV)

Still Saturday

Sandra — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:00:53 +0000

Be.

Just.

Be.

Taking some quiet moments to breathe and see and sense His presence. Join me? Get the details at the Still Saturday tab above. Link up a photo, and let’s be still together.

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Five Minute Friday: The Reality of Grief

Sandra — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:23:57 +0000

I flip through the pages of Time Magazine until she breezes into the waiting room to invite me back.

“How are you today?” Her eyes sparkle, and the corners crinkle.

I flash a big smile. “Fine. Just fine!”

I climb up into the chair, and she pins the bib around my neck.

She flips on the reflector light, dons a spotlight.

“Did you have a good holiday?” She’s very chipper.

She reaches for a silver pick.

I know she expects me to say, “Great” and “How was yours?”

But I’m in the light, and so I say, “Well, not really.”

And I tell her about my mom and that’s why I’m late seeing her this time.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

And there is silence except for the sound of metal on enamel.

I study the posters on the ceiling.

Joni picks and scrapes, and I shudder with the sound.

And my mind travels to her body shaking and holding her hand and telling her it was okay.

And wondering if she even heard me.

It was “rally day,” and I wonder if the bumping and jostling of the recliner in getting her outside or the whirlpool bath afterwards had somehow shaken things up.

If this seizure would have come anyway.

At least that day.

I know better.

She squirts. I swish. Mr. Straw sucks.

I try to shake off the reality of grief.

And the anger I sometimes feel at the inability to be real about it.

I try not to think about it.

How life goes on, and how being real sometimes causes discomfort for others.

How they expect me to be strong.

I’m grateful for those with whom I can feel safe to be real.

For those who comfort with the comfort they’ve received.

For those who understand I don’t need therapy.

Who are therapy.

And I’m grateful for the reality of Him, the One acquainted with grief.

Well, wasn’t that depressing.
Never know what will come out when you let the words spill.

Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy;
share tears when they’re down. ~Romans 12:15 (Message)

Joining Lisa Jo and community for five minutes on the word prompt REAL.

Linking, too, with Emily for her last Imperfect Prose gathering
as she steps out in faith to care for two more boys who desperately need her.

Love and Stillness

Sandra — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 18:20:19 +0000

Be still

and know

I AM.

Know

I AM

and

be still.

Reposting this from the archives because my words have been stilled this week.

**********

But now thoughts travel.

I remember silence across miles.

A bench seat center.

Knee to knee.

Left hand encircles wheel.

Right hand encircles my left.

World passes.

No words.

Just love.

And in the silence, I am stilled.

Because I know this.

That because of I Am,

We are.

Still.

After 40 years.

And sometimes love has no words.

Joining Ann today.

Scripture Sunday: Friends

Sandra — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 04:20:44 +0000

And these God-chosen lives all around—
what splendid friends they make!

~Psalm 16:3 (Message)

Still Saturday

Sandra — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 14:44:28 +0000

Be.

Still.

Know.

I Am.

God.

~Psalm 46:10

Taking a break from words on Saturdays.

Just to be still and know.

I’d love for you to join me. Just link to a photo in a comment below that caused to you breathe deeply or gasp in wonder. A slice of time when you saw Him. I’ll try to–I mean, I will–figure out Mr. Linky for next week. And maybe a graphic thingie.

Time Out to Celebrate Megan

Sandra — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:43:15 +0000

(Reposting this from October because it just seems fitting today.)

Lyla Lindquist is celebrating, too.

Be sure to join the party at her place.

And we’re celebrating with Jennifer over at Getting Down with Jesus.

SUNRISE

by Megan Willome

It’s disgraceful

All this color

Splattered

Pink flung

Purple creeping

Then orange

Why orange?

The clouds grey as the sun puts on bright clothes

Who wastes color like this?

Flinging beauty willy-nilly

As if everyone would see this sunrise.

I got an email from Megan last October. She wrote,

“I thought I’d share with you this poem that I started at Laity.

When I came back to it, I decided to arrange it Sandy-style.”

I never thought of myself as having a style.

What a precious, beautiful gift.

But this should not surprise me.

Because you are a beautiful gift, and I’m so very glad

that you’re my friend and January birthday pal.

Thank you for the way you reflect the colors of His beauty.

Happy Birthday, Megan!

with love.

Psst . . . I’m also posting over at The Barn Door today: Are We Preserving Our Stories?

A Trying Adventure

Sandra — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 04:01:26 +0000

A fool says, “I can’t;” a wise man says, “I’ll try.” ~Charles Spurgeon

Dave Vander Laan posted this as a Facebook status yesterday.

I know it’s true.

But it made me laugh.

Because my mother would have so disagreed.

In fact, saying “I’ll try” was not a wise thing to say to her.

At. All.

It stemmed from an adventure she and my sister had several years ago. They were in a car wreck hundreds of miles from home. They were okay, but the car was totaled.

“The car” meaning it was the only one she and Dad owned.

(My sister could tell this story so much better.)

Mom called my dad and told him he needed to come get them.

His response?

“I’ll try.”

That did not fly.

At. All.

“You’ll try? You’ll TRY?”

She and my sister rented a hotel room. Then they went out to eat. “I have a credit card,” she told my sister. “Order whatever you want. As much as you want.”

My dad found a ride.

He knew better than not to.

But those two words were henceforth taboo.

Right up there with ending a sentence with “okay?” when a negative response was not an option.

“It’s time for physical therapy now, okay?”

“Umm, no.”

I can only imagine the scene if my dad had said, “I’ll try. Okay?”

My mom would say, “A fool says, ‘I’ll try;’ a wise man says, ‘I will.’”

And I would say, “If God wills, I will–with His help.”

But I like Spurgeon’s words, too.

Just a fun little post to link with Bonnie’s word prompt today–adventure.

Because it’s My Birthday: Horseshoe Lake (revisited)

Sandra — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:44:59 +0000

I planned to skip today.

I mean, celebrating my birthday with the one who gave me birth being gone now two days shy of only two months just seemed–well, too hard.

I even stripped my birthdate off my Facebook profile so it could pass quietly.

I tried to share my feelings with one family member–perhaps not very well–who shared with another–perhaps not very well–who texted me that I was being selfish.

Grief is selfish?

That person went on to explain–perhaps not very well, but I got the drift–that celebrating my birthday was the same as celebrating my mother.

I added my birthdate back to my profile.

And my wall has been flooded all day with birthday wishes.

These friends reflect Jesus, and I am overwhelmed.

I was above the river in October, wrapped in a little poet circle led by Julia Kasdorf.

She’d asked us each to bring a poem, our own, to read aloud.

To offer it up for discussion and reflection.

For–gulp–critique.

I took this one, written last summer.

And today I’m reposting it–edited and retitled.

Horseshoe Lake

I am from black-and-white two channels,

antenna perched on a post turned

to fuzzy and not-so-fuzzy

by hand in all weather with

window open.

From always Ford, Appian Way pizza, Campbell’s soup, Evening in Paris,

and Avon lipstick samples in the mail.

From Soupy Sales, Ed Sullivan, Sky King,

Kenny Rogers the Jumping Cowboy,

and Tigers baseball.

I am from the little house,

three rooms for five,

kitchen cupboards chartreuse

and gray formica table,

hemmed by woods

and buttoned with a propane tank.

Four log cabins heated with kerosene

for company and customers,

hunters and National Guard,

and a single-seater outhouse

inhabited by snakes.

I am from the birch tree and the Juneberry,

the blueberry bog, wild strawberries, spore-spotted fern forts,

morels, and green pads with yellow bobbers

floating.

I am from one-at-a-time tinsel on the tree,

playing cards, Paul Bunyan tales, rowboats and bluegills

and Thunder Bay pike.

I am from James the shanty boy and Edwin the dulcimer player,

from William the gardener and fresh-picked rhubarb dipped in sugar.

I am from Grandma Dummer and books of the month,

crochet hooks and limburger cheese,

with old-fashioned candies, hard and cream-filled.

From paper and pencils and pages,

manual typewriters and carbon.

I am from clean-your-plate-or-no-dessert

and do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do.

I am from the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments,

letters to Aunt Emma (Sister Mary Lucinda),

Baptist friends,

a box of scripture verses,

and Sunday funnies.

I am from unleavened pancakes, ambrosia, broiled chicken,

and tiny morsels of liver swimming in catsup

swallowed whole,

soft-boiled eggs and sour cream on everything.

I am from the scent of pipe tobacco and sawdust, coffee and cigarettes,

railroad ties and forest fragrances,

and strains of Oh, What a Beautiful Morning.

I am from the Horizontal Queen of Horseshoe Lake

with the fishhook in her lip,

a bartender with his name on a bullet,

and a wrestling-loving grandmother.

I am from albums black and white and wedding check stubs,

crocheted dresses and a gold-gilded pitcher,

an Alpine costume that no longer fits and a plastic-flowered crown.

I am from wood and earth and water,

feathers and fur and scales

and deep white snow.

When I see where I’m from,

I see where I go.

Window open.

Happy Birthday to me. Thanks, Mom!

Textures of Text: A Different Story

Sandra — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 04:47:32 +0000

Have you met my friend, Lyla?

“I do my thinking in the bleachers and my writing in the living room with balls flying, bats or clubs swinging and ESPN on in the background. When Spongebob comes on, I get nothing done.”

She writes, she says, because there are words. And because she doesn’t know how not to.

Lyla’s a property and casualty insurance adjustor who lives in South Dakota.

She’s not afraid to get down in ditches. (I love when she takes her camera.)

Or to crawl into tight places.

She dresses in layers.

And she writes in layers.

I love how she puts words together.

How she pieces a story from a day’s scraps.

I came down with a burned and bruised backside but wondering, had that vent been on the other slope instead, what I might have burned or bruised in my boy’s tender eyes and heart. For his body might belong to a man. But his insides aren’t ready for all that just yet.

How she puts flesh to a file.

This woman I never knew, whose post mortem details are spread in black and white in front of me, who dressed in comfortable cotton layers as I am known to do, is missing a shoe.

And when she writes about the Word, I love how she sees deep and brings a different perspective.

Like her series on John 9.

And in the moment Jesus tells the man that He is He, the man believes, and worships, and finds that enough can be so much more.

Or this story about Peter.

If Peter’s pockets bulged with his own resources, would the miracle have crossed his mind?

You really need to get to know her.

Check out her blog, A Different Story.

Go rested. She’ll make you think.