Life seems to be racing forward despite it being the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer in Kansas. We’ve had unprecedented rain causing a prolonged harvest and muggy temperatures clinging doggedly to the 100 degree mark for weeks. The only thing that sounds enticing is laying in an airconditioned room under a ceiling fan sipping a frosty iced tea and reading a good book! And there are some great Christian fiction selections out there. So many books…..so little time for someone who loves to read  yet knows there are other more important things to do in life. It’s just all so serious, you know.

So how are you spending your summer? Are you someone who has a summer “to do” list of keeping up the house and summer projects or do you hit vacation mode as soon as the thermometor creeps up and you flip the calendar page to June?

I’m a little of both and this summer I’m struggling to find the balance between all I want to do and all I need to do. As usual, I struggle with the “should’s”–all the things that a woman like me should do. I should schedule date nights with my husband. I should have a spotless house. I should set aside a time to connect with friends. I should lose 10 or 20 or 30 lbs and eat right and exercise every day. I should read my Bible at least 30 minutes a day and pray 30 minutes a day and ……you get the picture.

The common denominator in those things is them being all about the doing and less about the being.

Have you asked yourself about that lately? What is it that Christ asks of us? Is it running around doing, doing, doing? Or is He calling us to come away to just be with Him?

Don’t get me wrong. I know we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We are to go and do likewise.  So what was it that Jesus did?

He healed the sick. Gave to the poor. Touched the lepers. Hugged the children. Spent time with His father so He knew what the father would have Him do at every moment. And He rested. His life was filled with love and laughter. He didn’t strive. He lived in the moment. He loved the Father and He loved people. He calls us to do likewise.

Quite different than my “to do” list where it is all about a religious life check list instead of time with the Father. God may want me to do some of the things on my list, but I’ll never know that if I don’t spend time with Him.

In my quiet time, He brought me back to Matthew 6:25: This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?”

I realized that I spend a lot of time thinking about those things….”What should I fix for supper? What should we eat? Is it good for me? Is it fattening? Do these pants make me look fat?”

Wow. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Jesus goes on to say that idolaters seek those things even though the Father knows we need them. Instead He calls us to seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness and then all these things will be provided for us.

It’s an upside down Kingdom. He wants us to be His followers. He wants us to be holy. He wants us to be in His Kingdom. But we don’t get that through the doing of good works.  We get it through being adopted into the family of God through Jesus.

And then comes the doing. Out of the overflow of His love, we love others. Out of our gratitude for all He has done, we do for those He loves.

It is the perfect counterpoint for feeling as if I’m not doing enough during these lazy days of summer. So I’ve decided not to be a good Do-Be as Miss Fran asked us to be on Romper Room. Instead, I’m going to look for ways to love God and love people. I’ll be a Be-Do instead! Being His Beloved. Being His Child. And out of the overflow of that love where He first loved me, I’ll do some things that are good for me and my hubby and those He has given me to love in my world.

How about it? Want to Be-Do with me?

Blessings,

Kim

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Seventeen years ago yesterday I began a new life.

When I was young and impetuous, I drove away from the frozen wasteland of Western Kansas watching it fade in my rear view mirror driving hard toward the glittering Land of Oz. Or at least a place warmer than the -15 windchill of a Kansas winter.

For the most part, I found it.

I lived in Texas for many years. Then Alabama, Georgia, back to Texas and finally to Southern Illinois which sounds warmer, but really isn’t. In the ensuing 14 years, I moved so many times in Pursuit of Happiness that my Mom finally just penciled my latest address into her book.

I had big dreams. Not so much dreams of fame and fortune, but dreams of “being somebody.”

During that period of time I met Dr. Phil. (Yes, the Dr. Phil)

And when he asked what I was afraid of, I blurted, “That I will die and my life will not have mattered.”

At the time, I was amazed at the answer.

And yet, I wasn’t.

For after all, what else is there when push comes to shove, when you are alone in your bed…..or not so alone, at least physically, but your wounded heart and soul cry out, “Is this all there is?”

I did all the things that the world says makes for ”the good life.”

I had money. A fulfilling career. I traveled. Ate at fine restaurants and shopped till I dropped. I had friends….sort of. Like the night a broken pipe flooded my new apartment soaking all the boxes.  I’d hit a low point in life and this was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. I called a friend from work to ask her to  help me. She refused…..even though she’d said, “If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call. I can be right there in a minute.” My river of bitter tears almost matched the flood of water from the broken pipe. 

All the things I ran toward were nothing more than a band-aid for my broken heart. Later, after finding real community, I realized that her refusal to help was really a symptom of my life at the time. I held everything and everyone at arm’s length to avoid getting hurt and all my relationships were surface. Especially my relationship with God.

It seemed schizophrenic. A push/pull of desires. Holding myself back to protect from hurt while looking for love in all the wrong places.

Seventeen years ago that changed.

A professional recruiter called to find out if I knew anyone that would be interested in moving to central Kansas. A voice that sounded like my own said,  “I would.” My mind whirled with an incredulous, “I would?”

I had once vowed never to return to my roots. I had become used to “Bright lights/Big City” and yet, when I heard my voice say yes, to his, “Are you serious?” I knew I was.

I also was scared to death.

You see, Kansas is the wide open spaces. Not a lot of people with a whole lot of breathing room. You can’t hide and I had become an expert at hiding. Especially from God. Not to mention my proclivity of running from the hard things. A “fresh start” in a new place had become my answer for any bump in the road.

I prayed like crazy to know if it was the right thing for me and my little girl. We flew to Kansas for the job interview and it was great! I liked them. They liked me.

I made plans based on negotiating a larger salary than his first offer. And they hired someone else willing to take what their first offer.

But I’d learned a thing or two in those broken years. If it wasn’t God, I didn’t want it and obviously, I’d heard wrong that moving to Kansas was in my future.

The next day my phone rang. The recruiter asked, “What do you know about Atwood, Kansas.”

I answered, succinctly, “I didn’t lose anything in northwest Kansas. That’s the wrong end of the state.”

He was persuasive and he’d soon talked me into taking a look. I liked what I saw, but it was a much, much smaller town than where I’d been living and where I’d interviewed before. I decided to ask for the moon as a way out.

They said, “Yes” to the moon and the rest is history.

In June 1993, we drove past golden fields of waving grain to begin this grand adventure. Harvest was days away. Those first days tears stung my eyes many times as my heart overflowed with thankfulness that God had known I was homesick even when I didn’t and had brought me back to Kansas.

In the words of fellow Kansan, Dorothy Gale, “There’s no place like home.”

Later I met a dear friend and prayer partner who told me she had been praying for the hospital and as she enthused, “We prayed you here!”  tears came as I remembered the prayer of my heart after having my daughter, “Lord, I’d like to raise her like I was raised.” I didn’t think it was possible, but He is the God of the impossible, especially when it comes to knowing the desires of our hearts.

My friends thought I’d lost my sanitymoving to the middle of nowhere as a single parent. “I know it will be good for Lauren, Kim, but what about you? How will you live in such a small place? What will you do? Don’t you want to re-marry someday?”

Little did we know, God had all of that in hand. Kary, my husband and the maker of my dreams come true, had been praying for five years to find the girl of his dreams. And crazy as it seems to me, I’m it! God has richly blessed us above all we could have asked or imagined.

If I died tomorrow, my life has mattered…..to my husband, to my children, to my friends and neighbors and co-workers here, to those who have been touched with healing in my job as a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist. He has given me great pastors  and a wonderful church family. I have the depth of friendships I once longed for because we hold Him in common. God has given me a drama and writing ministry and used it to change lives. He has inspired me to make beautiful art glass as a hobby and a business. And I even live in a century old house with a white picket fence, just like I dreamed of.  

My life is everything I have dreamed of and more, but most of all it is beautiful because of the changes He has made in me. Instead of going my own way and asking Him to bless my best efforts, I have learned that He knows my heart and to trust Him to give me what I need instead of what I think I want.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you . Plans to give you hope and a future.” Jer. 29:11

Can you trust Him today that He knows your heart and hears even your smallest prayer? That He has a wonderful plan for your life, too!

God has a great sense of humor. I often feel His smile and sometimes I am sure I hear the echo of heavenly laughter as He looks down on me from the throne room of heaven. He says that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, but He also made the platypus so what does that tell you?

But it is not just appearances that can be funny. Sometimes it is my antics that make Him smile (or frown, like when I get mad over something silly). And sometimes, I think He is just sharing a joke with me.

Last week I wrote this as my Facebook status (Are you my friend on Facebook? I’d love it if you were!)……..”Kim Zweygardt is running hard toward the high calling of God. ‘Lord, don’t let me trip on my shoelace or step in a hole.’” I didn’t know at the time, but I was penning prophecy!

I didn’t think about that status update as I lay on the pavement of a 4-lane just outside Rockies Stadium in Denver Saturday night. I was thinking more along the lines of “Dear God, please don’t let the light change and someone run over me in their hurry to get to the game!” not to mention, “I bet I look like an idiot. Who, at my age, falls down just running across the street?” and finally, “OUCH!”

It is funny now, but no chuckle escaped my lips at the time. I’d like to say the same about my 3 kids who stood shocked and laughing on the curb in the rain. Although, I will say they were making sympathetic noises of concern as  Kary stepped into the street, lifting me in his strong arms, snatching me from the jaws of death. 

No wait.

That is a scene from my next book.

My dear husband, as he ran back to help me up was yelling, “The tickets! Pick up the tickets!” Luckily, the wet street kept our game tickets that had fluttered from my pocket on the way down from blowing away and the only thing lost in the fracus was three baseball sized pieces of skin from my knees….and my pride.

I’m still not sure exactly what happened. I’d been up late the night before making salads for our kick-off event to the Mugs N Muffins Book Group with Kim Vogel Sawyer. I’d gotten up early that morning to make sure everything at the church was just right. And in between my mind had whirled with thoughts and prayers for all the things going on, so I know I was physically tired.

Wish that was an excuse, but in reality, I tend to be on the clumsy side. Remember choosing sides to play games in elementary school? I have a confession to make. I was always chosen last. I remember so well standing in the line of excited hopefuls for the games at recess, praying someone would choose me and I wouldn’t be left standing alone, not chosen, but forced on a team that hadn’t wanted me.

When I went to college as my talkative, bubbly self, multiple people said to me, “I bet you were a cheerleader in High School.”

Uh, no. Have you seen me walk?

When I fall, I fall like a stone. It’s not pretty.

We’d parked the car and were walking to the game when we needed to cross a busy street. The traffic slowed for a minute, held back by a stop light (and the crosswalk) half a block away. Kary and the kids hollered to me bringing up the rear, “Let’s run!’ My legs heard it as my mind said, “I don’t think that’s a good thing for me.” Legs in motion, I began my trot across the rain slicked street as they reached the other curb but something happened on the way.

I don’t remember tripping. I didn’t even have shoelaces to trip on. I didn’t see a hole. Everything around me blurred into slow motion just like in the movies right up to the moment I smacked hard pavement. Nothing slow about eating pavement.

Later as I snacked on Ball Park Pizza, I pondered exactly what happened and that is when I heard the holy laughter of heaven. And remembered my FB status. And I could see the humor in the situation along with the life lesson.

It is so like us to fall flat when we hurry, when we are tired, when we have our own plan (jaywalking), when we run toward a high calling that we assume is from God when maybe its not. God in His infinite mercy and grace picks us up from where we have fallen and brushes us off to run again….and I am sure He chuckles at our infantile antics.

I am so glad that even with my innate clumsiness, He has chosen me. No longer do I stand in the line of endless humanity, hoping against hope to be chosen. He has chosen me. Not just for His team of Heavenly Home Run Hitters but to be adopted into His family. That is a much better deal than the one I got in 4th Grade.

I know I’ll fall again. Physically and spiritually. I am sure I’ll make Him smile and hear His laughter at my feeble attempts to run this race. Not the derisive laugh of a harsh disciplinarian, but the gentle laughter of a loving Father encouraging a beloved child who is learning something new.

As I nursed my skinned knees on Sunday morning, I read Galations 5:25, 26. “For since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

“Next time I run, Lord, let me run with Your Spirit. And, thanks for picking me up once more.”

Just like sin, something that appears small on the surface has deep roots

Don’t you love when the Spirit begins speaking something to you in a way that changes your life?

Actually sometimes I don’t love it because instead of saying, “You go, Girl! You’ve arrived at spiritual perfection!” the Spirit is whispering, “Be transformed into the image of Christ. He makes all things new!” and instead I am stuck in old patterns, mired in the muck of daily sin.

Oh, not what we consider the biggies–no murder, no adultery, not even stealing parking places from little old ladies at the grocery store, but instead the sins that entangle most of us–greed, lying, gossip, you know the ones……

Oh, I know that until He takes me home to streets of gold or until He returns, I will never get there to sinless perfection like my Lord, but I long to be further down the pathway than I am.  I just seems like I struggle with the same stuff over and over.

How about you?

As I said, the Spirit has been speaking in my life and I’d like to share that with you.

As I shared a few posts back, I went through a season of discouragement and for a glass-is-half-full kind of girl, it was a dry time. Not only was the glass half empty, there were times I was sure the living water had dried into dust inside the glass!  I was so blinded by the almost constant barrage of difficult circumstances that I couldn’t see His mercy and grace. I knew it was there because we walk by faith not by sight, but I couldn’t feel His presence. And it made me mad!

After all, I was serving Him. I spent each week doing what I believed He’d asked of me to the best of my abilities and gifts and in my place of grief and angst, it seemed I got nothing but more trouble for my effort.

Do you see the problem with that last sentence?

I had become all about me.  Yes, I was serving Him, but out of my own strength and ability.

It is a shifting shadow. The enemy is wily, whispering, “You do so much for him, and no one appreciates it.” I wrapped myself in self righteousness and tried harder with the same results.

Well, you know that story but here is the rest of it…..

After you have cloaked yourself in an almost impenetrable wall to avoid getting hurt, how do you dismantle it so that you can again live and be free?

The last month the Lord has given me several resources and pictures to do that.

1) Bob Sorge who is associated with the International House of Prayer in Kansas City wrote a book called “Dealing with the Rejection and Praise of Man” (ISBN 978-0-9621185-8-6) and I highly reccomend it. On the back cover blurb Sorge writes “Learn how to hold your heart before God in a way that pleases Him in the midst of both rejection and praise from people.”  Wow!  Just what the Great Physician ordered for those in a desert time because of the rejection of men or those riding the high wave of the praise of people! www.oasishouse.net

2) IHOP KC is experiencing revival. You can go on the web and watch live feed from the prayer room as young men and women of God cry out for our nation to turn to God, pray for healings and worship together. It will change you as you join in and pray. www.ihop.org is the main website and you can link to live services or to the prayer rooms. IHOP is celebrating 10 years of 24/7/365 prayer and worship which is an unbelieveable accomplishment if you’ve ever tried to organize a prayer vigil for your own church or organization. Somehow, most churches don’t put corporate prayer as a priority but IHOP does.

3) Rooms, by Jim Rubart, is a new book that is going to change your life if you read it.  I met Jim at a marketing seminar at the American Christian Fiction Writer’s www.acfw.com conference last September. His first novel just came out and it is selling like wildfire because it is the kind of book that you find yourself telling friends, “I just read this book. You need to read it.”

In Rooms, a young man on top of the world of riches and fame receives a myserious inheritance from a relative he does not know–a beach house that seems to have been built as if he had designed it himself. His first thought is $$$$. Sell the house for millions and move on, but after one visit, he finds himself drawn to the house. The house is an allegory of the man’s life and I don’t want to spoil it but lets just say it is food for thought about our own lives and what we hold dear.

In the house is a room that he has locked away from Christ’s entry because of shame over what it contains. In a dramatic twist, when the room is finally opened, Christ is less concerned with what is in the room and more with why the room exists.

That spoke volumes to me. If not sinning was only a choise of just saying “no” wouldn’t most of us choose to say no to the sin that entangles us? Obviously, it is more than that. If we choose gluttony or addicition to alcohol or drugs or adrenalin or work or praise of men, there is a reason. Rooms is available at all major bookstores (although Amazon.com recently sold out–way to go, Jim!)  Get the book, read it and enjoy it, but more than anything else let God speak to you through it. What is the root at the base of the sin that entangles you?

4) Did you wonder what the picture of rocks and roots has to do with all of this? We got back from a wonderful week in Sedona AZ and I snapped this picture outside the Chapel of the Holy Cross built between two huge red rocks.

Chapel of the Holy Cross

 To get to the chapel, you climb a winding road and along the way, I noticed these two rocks split by a plant small in comparison to the majesty and girth of the rocks. Yes, they are sandstone, but they are stone. Like a game of Rock/Paper/Scissors, there is no doubt that the rock could smash a lowly plant.

But as the Spirit whispered Truth, I could see that the plant had started with a small seed, taking root in the dust and dirt left in a hollow in the boulder. Then watered by splashes of rain falling into the indention, there was just enough of what the seed needed to grow. As it gained ground, the roots began to take hold and push into crevices in the rock searching for water and nutrients. Finally, the roots were too much for the rock and it split allowing the plant to fully grow.

Just like sin.  Just like my life. I had allowed the seeds of sin to take hold and errode away until the result was like this rock. What was was a small thing was now an invasive, strangling mess.  I once had a friend who during prayer felt God telling him he was a “weed-eater Christian.” As he sought the Lord what that meant, he got the picture of sin being wacked off at ground surface just to grow back.

Isn’t that a great picture of the sin that entangles us? We work hard to demolish the sin that we see. But we never remove the root that tangles us in the sin in the first place.

Yes, we are sinners. Yes, our flesh always wants its way and we must die to ourselves. But we also have a wily enemy that whispers the lie of the Garden. “Did God really say….” and so we let the roots of our sin lie below the surface until circumstances cause us to stumble. We rise again to cry, “I thought I was over that! I promised I’d never do that again! O wretched man, am I!” or something to that effect.

The first step is to let Christ in. Instead of locking it away from our Savior, what would happen if we would instead lead Him to the room of our sin and ask His forgiveness……and ask Him to show us why that sin entangles us in the first place? Revolutionary!

I don’t have it all together. I am a woman with feet of clay. I stumble and fall. It is part of the journey. But the Christian life is not about perfection–that has been achieved in Christ. It is about relationship with the one who is Perfect. He desires that instead of just looking good on the outside, we take care of the root issues of our sin that we might be free of the sin that ties us down and destroys us. It is for freedom Christ set us free.

What entangles you and are you willing to open your heart to His mercy and grace?

Sorry I have once again been missing in Blogsville. No excuses except the busyness of life. Thanks to so many of you who contacted me worried that I was down after I posted so honestly about my recent struggles. I am happy to say, weeping lasts for a night but there is joy in the morning and it is a new dawn in my life!

Recently I listened in on a discussion on Facebook (befriend me, if you haven’t!) wondering if blogs put undue pressure on their writers.

I’m not sure. Obviously there is a bit of pressure to write and to connect, but I am a firm believer in the dog wagging the tail, not the tail wagging the dog. So if my blog makes me feel guilty, I will just beat it back into submission! So there! (See? I am feeling my chipper! :0)

Happy Easter! Happy Ressurection Day!

We once again took a large group of our youth and sponsors to The Thorn, www.thethorn.net, the wonderful production by New Life Church in Colorado Springs that tells the whole story–Creation, The Fall, Why we need a Savior and then the greatest story ever told–Jesus birth, death, and resurrection. Fabulous production with a huge cast, special effects, music, dancers and acrobatics. Phenomenal! Their auditorium is huge, but they utilize the whole thing with dancing in the aisle as well as Roman soldiers marching up and down nearby. So much is going on all around you, you are just immersed in the story. Truly is a fabulous undertaking and what a witness! 

Good Friday night we had our traditional service at the church. It is one of my favorite services during the year. Quiet. Contemplative. Remembering His suffering. The altar draped in black. A single rose and the cross. Communion.

I sang “Were You There” during communion and my voice broke during the song with a verse I hadn’t known before–

“Were you there when the sun refused to shine?

Were you there when the sun refused to shine?

Oh…..sometimes, it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.

Were you there when the sun refused to shine.?’

A powerful word picture to be sure but even more powerful knowing that the Bible tells of darkness covering the earth as Jesus hung on the cross bearing my sin, my shame, suffering pain and humiliation and death for the sin that solely belongs to me.

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Then Saturday we were up early caravanning to Colorado Springs and seeing the story come alive before us. It was a long day and a short night with Easter Sunrise Service at 7:30 am out in the country. A bonfire kept the chill off and our voices echoed across the pastures, “Christ the Lord is Risen today, Alleluia!”

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

We broke bread as a church family with a wonderful brunch followed by our regular service at the church. So wonderful to celebrate Jesus together. Our whole family was together with my kids home from college so just a very special time on many levels….remembering His sacrifice, celebrating New Life!

Last night at youth group, Kary talked to the kids about their experience at the Thorn. What it means that He died for us. How easy it is to forget that He gave His life for mine.

Didn’t have to.

Asked for a different way…..”Let this cup pass from me…..” but for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross.

For me.

We sang,

“Amazing love, how can it be, that my King would die for me?

Amazing love, I know it’s true, It’s my joy to honor You,

In all I do, I honor You.” 

Kary asked the kids if we truly did that…..do we honor Him in all we do?

I love that song and yet, I had to answer “no.”  I don’t.

I want my life to be a prayer and praise and always honoring to Him, but it is easy to slide into the easy way.

Joining the laughter about someone’s misfortune.

Telling the secret we promised not to tell.  Forgetting a promise.

Lying….those little ones that “everybody does.”

When I do them, I pound the nails deeper into His flesh.

My sin. My shame.

His suffering.

So what to do?

Do better! 

That is the grace of His death!

The reason of the resurrection!

New life! Fresh beginnings! Letting my life rise from the ash heap of sin and shame to soar with Him on eagles wings!

He is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

May His resurrection live in your heart all year long!

Blessings,

Kim

There is a great Brandon Heath song that pleads for God to give him His eyes to see the world around him. And that includes seeing where God is at work–Even if that work is in our own lives, not just the world around us.

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Mary DeMuth defines a thin place  as a time when the division between this world and the eternal fades. Have you experienced one?

I experienced a Thin Place on a  mission trip providing anesthesia to those in need.

Our team was summoned to the bedside of a young mother in labor who had been seizing for 3 hours.  With medications from my bag, her seizures stopped. We rushed her to [...]

Dear Ones,
As you know the country of Haiti was devastated by a 7.0 earthquake this week.

And I’m sure you have heard the rhetoric by some Christian commentators about why.

But I am here to say, the why does not matter at this point. Our response with the love of Christ does.

Say you chop your arm [...]