Friday's Letters

I'm adopting a new tradition on the blog from my dear friend Chelsea (who got it from someone else) of "Friday's Letters." Little letters to whatever and whoever I see fit on Fridays. Here goes nothin':

Dear iPod Touch: Updating your operating system proved to be a bit more of a chore than I thought since all of your music got wiped out. It did, however, give me a chance to go through and weed out some of the "WHY do we have this on the iPod?!" songs and artists. Dear Grandma Barb: I hope the new medication you got will help with your memory. I'm not ready to let you go to Jesus yet, especially by your own hand due to the deterioration of your memory and progression of your dementia. You have been so integral in my faith journey and my upbringing that words will never express the love I have for you. Seeing your decline breaks my heart, and the idea that you might not be around to see me have a baby had never entered my mind until this morning. I love you. Dear husband: Two years together, one year married, and it feels like you have always been a part of my life. You are amazing and every day I thank God for the blessing that is you who was perfectly made for me. You know me better than anyone else on this planet and know exactly what to say to me in every situation. You make me laugh continually and I am so excited for the rest of our lives together. Dear Heavenly Father: Thank you for holding us and guiding us through the situations in our life. Thank you for placing us in such a wonderful community of church family, blessing us with loving families and the counsel of Christ-following friends. You are worthy to be praised at all times and in all places!

❤,
Mer

It's Friday!

What an amazing week this has been!

By day, I've been filling in for the amazing and sweet Sue in the YFC office. It's been really nice to decompress, be surrounded by people I love and have SO much fun with and feel like I'm contributing financially to our family. I have been dubbed "Our new defender of the faith" by Pastor Dave after passing his little prank phone call test ("No, we're not snake handlers...") and given the nickname "Mountain of the Valleys" through the Bible Dictionary method.

I've also come to the realization that, even though I'm really good at it, it wasn't just the corporate world admin gigs that I had fallen out of love with, it was that I would much rather be doing focused work in my specialty/ministry area than being support staff.  I have a deep admiration and respect for support staff, especially after being in that field for 10+ years, so I mean no disrespect with my "vocalization" of my realization.

By night, I've been hanging out at Grandma Jane's casa with the Kingman clan. Cousin Karen and her mom Aunt Iva have been here from Texas and Amber and Cayden have been in town since last Thursday night. Lots of cards, southern comfort food, snacks, candy, cookies, pies and lots of laughter. I'm going to miss that next week, but thankfully, we'll start the week with our special little beach treat for our anniversary.

Corey is super twitterpated. He's on the West Side right now picking up his new patrol car. His text to me a bit ago was, "Oh, she's dead sexy. Might have to name this one." I can't wait to see it in person and go on a ride-along!

It's been two years since I've put in a 40-hour work week outside of my house and adding the late nights of family fun on top, I'm bushed! I'm really thankful for the quiet time in the office this morning - just me and Dobby. Happy weekend, all!

The effects of dangerous prayer

When your pastor stands up in front of the congregation and asks in earnest prayer who in the room (and watching online) is brave enough to dangerously pray with him that God crush you and show you where you have conformed to this world, take the words “brave” and “dangerously” seriously.

The past week has been a very tough, eye-opening, painful, renewing, cleansing and prayerful one in our house. Without going into any details, let me say that we have been crushed in several spiritual ways but that our marriage is not in jeopardy and there are no health issues. I just need to publicly proclaim a few things.

• Being transparent in our lives is crucial. We are all real people, we are all sinners and we have all made mistakes. The blessing in all of that is that we can all relate to the tough times, the broken times and can encourage others and use those times as testimony to build others up.
• Hindsight is 20/20 and there is no such thing as a “pink flag.” Women, especially have been given intuition, a special radar from God that is so important to be tuned into. That comes from being in the Word and having a healthy prayer life. When either one of those things isn’t strong, the intuition is easy to ignore, dismiss or just plain not be able to hear.
• We have an enemy. That enemy is real, ugly, deceitful and seeks to destroy us. We can measure how important something is to the life of a Christian by the amount of time and energy the enemy attempts to pervert it. We have the authority, through Christ Jesus, to smack that down, and when the feeling rises up to do that, and you are equipped with the knowledge to do it – WOW! What an incredible feeling. “For we do not fight against flesh and bone, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12
• Through times of brokenness, we emerge victorious not through our own doing, but with the knowledge and assurance that any battle has already been won by Christ, and in Him, we have victory as well. With that victory, we rise with a renewed vigor and fire for the Father’s timing and will in our lives, which is PERFECT. We know this because His word says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” Jeremiah 29:11

These are things I take comfort in. precious gifts I thank God for along with the amazing church family we have been blessed with who pray fervently for us and who don’t hesitate to speak wisdom into our lives. How grateful we are that they can do that with no judgment or criticism, but with the heart of the Father, everything done in and with love.

Is it November yet?!

I am sick of the election. I know who I am voting for, can I just turn in my ballot and have all of the ick go away on TV and social media? I think the kicker for me to actually sit down and write this post is the whole Nicki Minaj/Mitt Romney thing. If our country has devolved into a culture where something as important as picking a PRESIDENT is able to be turned into a profane publicity stunt, we are doomed.

Something I would like to remind Republicans, Independents and Democrats alike, at least until January, and perhaps for another four years, Barack Obama is OUR President. Every single American reading this, he is YOUR President, whether you voted for him or not. He is serving our country in a way most of us could never imagine. I pray for him often, just as I did President George W. Bush and President Clinton before him. I'd like to share with you Romans 13:1-2, "Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgement on themselves."

I realize I have an opposite view of MANY of my friends on many things. I am an Independent who has voted both Republican and Democrat on past Presidential elections. I am a wife of a public servant who has to trust in God that my husband will return home after every shift. I am a feminist, who feels very fortunate to live in an era where I am allowed to vote and choose exactly what goes on with my body. Most importantly, I am a follower of Christ who believes it is my job to love on people, no matter what they believe, where they live, how much money they make, where they have been, or who they love.

If you have a question about any of those things, please ask me, I will be glad to tell you exactly why I feel the way I do about my reproductive rights (along with the reproductive rights of my 10-month-old niece and any daughters we may have in the future), basic rights and access to help for all Americans. This doesn't mean your views are wrong and mine are right, just different. That's just the beauty of our great nation, and I pray that God blesses it richly.

I'm Merrick Kingman, and I approve this message.

So much to pray about...

"Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God want you who belong to Christ Jesus to live." 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 MSG

Pray without ceasing. Something that I have been taught since childhood, and something that has always come very easily to me. I talk to God all the time, it's an open-ended conversation. It's something that Corey and I bonded over very early in our relationship. Recently, however, we have had two huge upcoming decisions impressed upon us that we have been praying about pretty fervently.

One: Children. Corey has the baby itch. And now that he has it, I'm a little apprehensive. I've wanted to be a mother my entire life. I know that's one of the reasons I'm on this earth - why else would I be known as "the baby whisperer"? Now it's real. It's possible, probable and wanted. There is a very good chance that within the year I will not be the only person in my body. Let me say that again so that you understand what I'm wrapping my noodle around: A WHOLE. DIFFERENT. NEW. PERSON... LIVING AND GROWING IN MY BODY! Ok, freakout aside, holy hannah, what a blessing to be in a place where we can even think about this.

So, yeah, we're praying about it. We want it in God's timing, knowing He will provide for us what we needs and that He wants to give us our hearts' desire.

Two: For quite a while, Corey has felt that he has the call on his life to be a pastor. It's not something he talks about all of the time, nor something he talks about with a lot of people, but something I've known for a long time. He and I were talking about him going back to school after I'm done and thinking of doing some research on which school he should attend online, and a few days later, a teacher at our church who has a definite prophetic gifting said very plainly, "You're going to be a pastor." Needless to say, sounds like that was a bit of a nudge from the Heavenly Father.

We met with a very trusted and wise man yesterday about what the process of becoming a pastor looks like to our church. Now we are praying about God's timing, scholarships, tuition reimbursement, majors, our current ministries, areas of pastoral care, chaplaincy and if the call is really on us to be a pastor and a pastor's wife. Of course, our plan is for Corey to finish out his career with the Patrol (hence the chaplaincy option), but it's nice to think and pray about what our lives will look like afer that.

I'm trying not to think too hard about either decision/blessing. Partly because I don't want my head to metaphorically explode, but mostly because I know God already has both of these handled, we just need to be patient (*heavy sigh*) and trust Him.

Bloggie Buddies!

YAY for Bloggie Buddies! I know it always motivated me to post when I knew people were reading and when I was reading things on blogs written by like-minded people.

That, my dear reader(s?), is what brings me to this evening's post. My friend Chelsea and I realized at Church at the Park this morning that we both have blogs! She updates much more frequently than I do, but maybe why I've been so lax about posting is because I didn't have a "team" anymore. Back in the LiveJournal and early MoaRR & HLOG days, it was almost all I could do to not post at every moment of the day (I can't even imagine if I would've had an iPhone back then...eesh).

Some might say that blogging is a bit passé, but (here comes another reason why I know this bloggie buddy relationship thing is important) one day, while Chelsea and I were hanging out in Sue's office at the church, a woman came in and was talking about the journals she keeps and how important it was for us to be journaling, not only for ourselves, but for our relationship with God and for future generations. Hard to argue with that, hey?

I’ll wrap this post up with a couple of “God things” that happened today. The first was being a part of the baptism team at Church at the Park. I can’t even begin to express how much God was in that lake at the end of the service. My favorite moment was right after I spotted our friend Shawn waiting to get into the water. He couldn’t hear me over everything that was going on, but he did hear Corey. We got to baptize him. I bawled like I had SPF 70 in my eyes (OK, so I did, but I was real-crying, too!). Like his wife said afterward, “It couldn’t have been scripted any better!”

The second time I got the “God-bumps” was tonight after the Discipleship Focus Classes. I have come on board as the check-in/administrator lady, so I was running around the church doing little bits of this and that while Corey was finishing his last class in the series (Serve 301 – Spiritual gifting). I should preface what I’m about to tell you with the tidbit that on Friday, Corey said something about needing to check out Colorado Christian University, Life Pacific College and a few other colleges about online degree programs. We got into the car and my husband turns to me and says, “You know how Mark says that sometimes it’s hard to be around people with the prophetic gift?” I acknowledged remembering that conversation and he went on to tell me about a moment in the class where the other student asked a question, Corey felt compelled to answer and made a comparison to himself when the teacher (a prophetic leader in our church) stopped him and said, “While intercession is one of your giftings, that’s not the calling on your life. You are going to be a pastor.”
“And that’s when I decided not to talk anymore in that class.”

Now, I’ve known for quite a while that eventually, my big, bad State Trooper wanted to become a pastor, but that was (well, until now) far from public knowledge. Nothing like a little nudge from the Lord that He has placed the desires in your heart for a reason!

AND with that, I must away to my night chamber – filling in for the sweet Sue tomorrow a.m.

How time flies...

Two years ago tonight, I recieved my first bit of communication from the man who would become my husband. For those who don't know, we met on Match.com via the Holy Spirit (that's a whole post in itself), so with him at work tonight, I went back into the archives of my inbox and read our exchanges. Then, I busted out my old iPhone 3Gs (which is now used as a trusty iPod) and read the first few weeks of our first text message exchanges.

I can't believe what a whirlwind that was! Everything felt so right and so ordained that neither of us knew how fast it was going. We were merely along for the ride, trusting in God's plans, praying, seeking to hear His voice and fasting when we couldn't hear it loud enough. Our third date was to my friend Holly's wedding, for which the theme was "Crazy Love". We started our own that night - the first time we held hands, our first slow dance and our first kiss - not to mention the start of our official courtship. It was about a week after that where we exchanged our first "I Love You"s and after many deep and prayerful conversations about commitment and marriage, two months later I had moved almost 1/2 way across the state to start making 'his house' into 'our house'.

Something both of us said in the first few days of knowing each other was that it felt like we had known one another for our entire lives. It's hard for me to think of my life before Corey was in it and I'm blessed to be building the rest of my life with him.

For as fast as these two years have gone, I'm really excited to see where the next two lead us.