The Miracle of the Moment: When Faith Flexes

Late one night in March my son Ethan was born. It was an incredible day. The culmination of months of prayer, joy, nervousness, faith, and preparation. Jamie and I didn’t know how to be parents. Four kids and nine years later I often wonder if we still don’t. But it didn’t really matter at Saint Mary’s hospital in the infant delivery ward the day our Ethan arrived.

Like many first-time parents we were waiting expectantly for the day to come when we would be able to hold our little prince in our arms. Our friends and family celebrated the onset of our parenthood with gifts and parties. It was a season of incredible joy as everyone in our lives gathered around us. A heightened sense of anticipation descended on our circle of friends, close loved ones, and faith family. Ethan’s due date came and went with no small amount of nervousness on our part.

Jamie’s doctor departed for a family cruise and we were introduced to some new guy. He was not the kind lady we had spent the last nine months learning to trust. He seemed capable, sure, and kind, and all the kinds of things you hope for if the situation arises when you need another doctor to perform the baby-delivering equivalent of pinch-hitting.

A week passed. Jamie and Baby Ethan were perfectly fine according to all tests, but I was getting super nervous. Still, this was nothing compared to my dad. Finally, the substitute baby doctor guy announced early the next week he would need to step in and help the process along. Allowing nature to delay much longer would begin to cause opportunities for major complications. We trusted this guy because we trusted who invited him into our lives.

So, on a Monday morning we showed up at the hospital with all our bags packed to begin the process. Boy was it a process. All day tests were running, conversations were had, and doctors seen. It was a day of waiting, praying, and trusting. Like never before, and rarely since, Jamie and I both felt the muscles of our faith flex as if to say, “don’t be afraid.”

We shared the news of what was happening, first with our loved ones, and then the world at large across social media. The love poured in. It was as if dozens and maybe even hundreds of people were lending us their faith because each one knew this was new territory for us. With every passing moment we drew closer to the miracle we had prayed and waited for. As all those moments crept by, we could feel the reassurance of love.

It was like this incredible substance was propping us up. It was a palpable gathering of the unseen activated on our behalf. What one writer in the Bible described as faith via the evidence of things not seen. We couldn’t see it, but we could feel it. The ramifications were evident as our souls were encouraged.

The long day stretched longer. Someone, I think my mother, brought my favorite hamburger and a chocolate shake. I wasn’t hungry. How could I be hungry awaiting such a monumental miracle? But I ate the entire thing and remained not hungry as I drank down all forty liquid ounces of the superb chocolate shakey goodness.

The long day stretched, and yawned, and winked into night as a sliver of the moon rose above our small town as if to say it was almost time. Just like another man in the Bible described the arrival of a baby in a barn—it was the fullness of time, our time, and my son took his first beautiful breath on this earth.

I cried. My wife cried. It was faith made manifest. It was trust personified. It was the full range of the miraculous in motion and thrust upon our family with all the majesty of the moment. Faith was flexing big right before my eyes with the full force of the love God has for all of us.

Ethan was a promise given. A promise born. It wasn’t just a baby born that day, but it was a mother and father, a grandmother and grandfather, an uncle and cousins. A ripple of life echoed across everyone meaning anything to us and we were all changed. We were all made to mean a little more. We were all together in this and it was lovely beyond imagination.

Faith is a muscle we flex across a myriad of moments, but it is also a miracle that resounds with the finality of lightning. It is both ethereal and ever present. It is surmounting and inescapable in its subjugation of the right now and its dance across our unknown.

We can know, and we can hope, and we can see, and we can trust. Even when we don’t feel it, especially when we don’t feel it. Even when it seems elusive and illusive. When our faith seems deeply inadequate, we can borrow some from a friend.

There have been plenty of times when my faith was not enough. I had to look beyond my own hiccups and draw deeply from the reservoirs of a friend. My mentor, pastor, and close friend Mark is a continuing source of this for me.

Mark likes to joke that he is Iron Man because he has a mechanical heart valve. I’ve never done it, because I don’t make a habit of putting my ear to grown men’s chests, but his wife says she can hear it ticking away at home in the silence of the night. Every flicker of Mark’s heart is a faith moment as he trusts in what he can’t see. He’s lived a full life of putting Jesus at the center, loving people well, and leading and serving with great integrity. He is without a doubt one of the greatest men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

Mark had been my family’s pastor for a while. He loved us through some big changes in our life. He led us through even more changes. And he helped launch us into our dream of becoming pastors of our own new, growing, and healthy church family. All of it came with a lot of bumps, talks, prayers, conversations, and confidence. His faith muscle is even bigger than his biceps (which are gigantic). I know when my faith is flickering I can borrow some from him.

There was a guy like this in the Bible who met Jesus one day. He needed help. He needed a miracle. Jesus asked him if he believed and he said, “Yes! But help me with my unbelief.”

This guy’s story demonstrates what way too many people are being silent about in their own faith journey. We’ve spent years communicating (intentionally or otherwise) you can’t experience both faith and doubt at the same time. I’m not buying it. The faith in our life flexes so much more when there’s uncertainty to face down first.

Ethan’s first breaths weren’t the normal baby breaths doctors expect to be greeted by. There was something much different about them. Something alarming to the people who know what to look for.

So, after a moment of celebration and wonder the well-meaning doctor pulled our son from my wife’s arms and whisked him away to another room. Suddenly, here at the end of an already long and emotional day we found the depth of raw emotions butting up against our years of working faith. We prayed. People we love prayed. Friends, family, and our church prayed. Heaven was on the receiving end of a barrage of people flexing together. The culminating trust of so many echoed big along those hallowed corridors.

Part of me wonders if those who went home before us jumped in to lend their faith as they heard the echoes pass them by. It might sound like wonky theology, but I can just imagine Grandma and Grandpa King picking up the clarion call as they mustered their faith from their remarkable perspective. Jamie said it best from the midst of her confused and longing heart, “I want my Ethan.” Love wants what love wants. It wasn’t just a cry of desperation. It was a statement of faith echoing across eternity as it was repeated in the mouths of praying loved ones.

Ethan’s birth was the culmination of something hard to articulate in a few paragraphs. The sudden alarm for his well-being was something altogether different. As the combined prayers of the many continued in petition of our Heavenly Father the strange breathing normalized. Ethan was returned to mommy’s embrace.

Just like that God showed me how good the experience of our faith at work can be. He didn’t show it to me once. He didn’t even show it to me twice. He showed me twice in the same day.

Faith flexed the moment Ethan was born. It was the bright miracle of a new life entering this world for all to see. It was the holy awe of what it feels like to love a living creation of your own soul. Faith also made itself known as the alarming moments of misunderstanding fell away before complete trust in our amazing Father.

Faith is practiced. It is work. It is art. It is a muscle we hone, and it is also a miracle. The miracle of faith isn’t only a progression of movement between moments, it is also a sublime experience of the miraculous in the moment.

There will be plenty of moments throughout our lives when we must lean deeply into faith in the private spaces of our day-to-day decisions. There will also be those penultimate circumstances when a loved one, friend, neighbor, or son needs us and our faith.

Our faith is a beautiful thing when it stands on its own—trusting Jesus like the guy in the story I mentioned. Our faith is a glorious thing when it stands together as it did for us the night Ethan was born. Those are amazing moments of holding, helping, and hoping within a community of people all believing and trusting for the same thing. Such a myriad of personalities coming together and bombarding heaven with a joining of faith catches the attention of heaven in an entirely different way.

Faith is the substance of our hope. It is the evidence of what we don’t see. It is the everyday stuff, the working it out stuff, and it is the miracle happening just when we need it most.

Why We Decided to Homeschool This Year

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EDIT: So many of you have texted or messaged us about this. Thank you for the encouragement. I hope our words have been helpful. We have so much more to say about how we are going to approach homeschool. We will share what we’re learning as we learn it. This includes resources and application. If you’re curious and need help leave a comment with your email address. We’ll follow up with you or you can wait for the next post. God bless all of you.

Update: We wrote up how we chose our curriculum and what it is. You can now find that here.
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This was hard to write. This was also a hard decision to make. Jamie and I almost didn’t make it.  After finally reaching the decision we talked about not writing this. Then I wrote it anyway.

It was hard because we are teachers too. We don’t want to sound like we think we‘re better than those specifically trained to teach our kids. It‘s hard because we grew up with teachers, administrators, and coaches. We have so much admiration, respect, and, yes—love—for them. Educators are the most hardworking and underpaid people in America. If you disagree with that last sentence you’re just flat wrong.

Yet, we still decided to homeschool this year.

To be completely honest, I have never liked the idea of homeschool. Maybe it’s because my dad is a retired teacher. I've been getting up and going to school since 1985. Maybe I haven’t liked it because I’ve known some pretty weird homeschool people. Sure, I’ve known some awesome ones too. But I almost always judged homeschoolers. It’s sad but true.

I know you’re going to think I’m an absolute jerk here, but in the past I thought homeschool was equal parts being bad at algebra and making your own butter. I thought it was what scared ultra-conservatives did to protect their children from the scary indoctrination of woke left wing common core zombies. I had this mental picture of homeschool as a place where everyone had homemade haircuts, shirts, and learning impediments. I thought homeschool was a social and academic bubble for those who can’t handle reality. I know. I know. I’m a jerk.

So, why did we decide to homeschool this year? The reasons are as simple as they are complicated, but I’ll try to explain.

Photo by Agatha Tailor

This is not going to be a typical school year. Before you spout your favorite version of the momentary national bias, stop. I’ve read it. I’ve heard the arguments. I’m not here to argue. I’m presenting our decision making process for how to educate our children. That’s it. 

Jamie and I believe the upcoming school year is going to be a mess. Like an actual train wreck. You remember how you felt halfway through April when you were ready to pull the last hair out of your head. AMI had you so stressed out you developed an involuntary twitch. No? Just me huh.

As parents it’s our sacred obligation to spare our children from situations when we deem it appropriate. Our two school-aged boys will be spared the mess this trip around the sun.

I know our local school district is going to work extremely hard to do their absolute best. They are amazing people. Every one of them. We adore the faculty at our elementary school. The principal is an educational rockstar of the highest order. The mess I think is coming won’t be their fault. I know they would work themselves to the bone to do right by the kids. They love them.

Still, I don’t believe the nature of our educational support systems will be enough. Financially they’ll be stretched like never before. Emotionally and psychologically the load will be more than many, or maybe any, of them have ever endured. And that’s before a kid even gets Covid-19.  

We didn’t make this choice out of fear. We aren’t homeschooling because we don’t trust the teachers. In fact, we are worried about them more than ever before. 

It’s hard to explain to someone who has never been blessed with the burden of a classroom, but we’ve been demanding the impossible from teachers for years. This year is already going off the rails. We are asking educators to now deal with the increased emotional and psychological stress of trying to keep kids safe and healthy. They will be forced to adhere to new guidelines every 72 hours. They may be required to teach full time in the classroom, full time online, and take care of students who are in and out of the classroom. Teachers, we are praying for you. I hope this isn’t the year you walk away from the profession.

We don’t trust the system is capable of carrying out the primary function for which it exists under the present conditions. The education of our children in an emotionally, psychologically and physiologically consistent manner is its primary function.

I don’t see it happening this year. But, man, I hope I’m wrong. I hope it for your kids. Mine will be learning in their PJs around the kitchen table. The morning is for math. Afternoons are for writing, PE, and making butter.

I know homeschool isn’t an option for many people. I’m not here to cast a bad light on anyone sending their kids back in a few weeks. In fact, I’m a giant hypocrite because I’ll be right back in my own classroom teaching university students how not to suck at giving speeches. 

I wish I felt differently about the whole thing. I want my third grader to play basketball with his buddies on the playground and make jokes with his pal Charlie about Dog Man. I also want my kindergartener to get the absolute best start possible in an emotionally stable and consistently healthy environment. 

So this year the King Casa Academy is open for business. In fact, we started about three weeks ago and have the haircuts to prove it. We might be crazy but we aren’t crazy. Yet.

Parent Stuff: The Weight of Grace

 In 2011 I had the incredible opportunity to travel to the Arkansas State Capitol at the invitation of then Lieutenant Governor Mark Darr. My responsibility that day was to open the afternoon session of the 88th Assembly of the Arkansas State Senate in prayer. I had thought long and hard about the words I would pray over those important lawmakers. Here is an excerpt from the prayer I prayed that day.

"God, my fervent hope today is that you would help them to continue to hear—not just the voice of their constituents, but your voice as well. God grant them the wisdom to make sound decisions and the discernment to understand the far-reaching implications of those decisions."

I don't remember what was on the docket for the day. But I know that each man and woman in that chamber was responsible for representing a body of people they had chosen to serve. Their actions—no matter how small, or even seemingly insignificant, carried weight. What they discussed, conclusions reached, votes cast. It all mattered. It all made a difference. The molding of the law was akin to working the clay of civilized society.

What about you? In your world you may be the lawmaker. You may be making the rules of the house. You might be passing down mandates and dictating decisions that shape the days, months, or years to come. If you're a parent or guardian of a child you better believe this is true.

Your every decision, reaction, omission, and word have weight. The things you do will echo in the future of your child. The things you don't do will echo just as loudly! The point I'm trying to make is that you have a responsibility. It is holy. It is God-given. It is authority. It is blessed. It is vital.

The implications of your every action are so important. I wish I could say I always get it right. I love my boys so much. But not an hour ago I was sending my three-year-old off to bed with a much harsher tone than was probably necessary. 

Parents, do you feel the weight of the life you hold in your hands? I hope so. Does it keep you up at night sometimes? I hope so. I think it should.

Now. Stop holding your breath. Unclench a little bit. Relax. Breathe deep. After all, you're not perfect. Yes, your every action and inaction as a parent matters. But you're never going to get it all right. But guess what? It's alright. After all, who better to guide you through your imperfectness as a parent than the perfect parent?

Ask God to help. Go ahead. Ask him right now, I'll wait.

Now, doesn't that feel a little bit better. Ok,maybe it doesn't yet. But long before you became responsible for guiding this little human being through the obstacle course of life God set your memories into motion. The first steps, the first fight, the crying, joy, gladness, serenity, and taxing anxiety of parenthood...God has already experienced all of it, for everyone, ever. Whoa!

He's right there in the middle of your mess waiting for you to ask him to make it better. I love my boys "to the moon and back again" as one of our favorite bedtime stories goes, but I'm so far short of the perfect parent.

Thank God I've got God. He's in the mix. He's helping in the moments when I want to duct tape my son to his bed and scream at the wall. He's there rejoicing when I get it right! He's there when my heart hurts over a poor decision I have made. After all, there's grace for that.

Yes, there are far reaching implications for your every action but God's actions can reach farther than yours. There is a weight to grace.

Welcome: A Letter to My Son on His First Day in This World

  

Welcome to the world son. It's a lot different out here, huh?

It's big. And cold. And wonderful.

Sometimes it can be scary. Sometimes it can be miserable. But it is also beautiful.

Everything is new. Not as new as you. And not as cool as you, but it's all new to you. And you're new to everything.

There are quite a few people who have been waiting to meet you. Some of them are pretty awesome. They have already been in love with you for a while.

Your mom, brother, and I are crazy about you. We've been talking about you and getting ready for you for months. We've prayed for you every day together.

You're a little brother now. And big brother has been really excited about you!

You're a grandson, nephew, and cousin too—and those are all names that come attached with more awesome people who love you a whole lot.

The one mommy and I are most excited about though is the name son. We welcome you into this world because you're our's. We both get to love you, teach you, and help you.

You don't know it yet but you're a minority now. Not every sweet little boy or girl has a mommy and a daddy. And while we're not anything that special we are yours. And you are ours. And we promise to do everything we can, the best that we can, as often as we can. It'll have to do because you're stuck with us.

So welcome to this world. It's crazy (I think I already mentioned that but it is worth repeating). I can already tell how awesome you are. My little gift from God.

You're going to grow up to do some pretty amazing things. Just try not to grow up too fast ok?

Vomit, Crying, & Gratitude

Last night was a rough one in the King house. Our 12 month old son Ethan came down with some kind of stomach bug out of the blue. One minute he was happily soaking up Sesame Street with his mommy on the couch and all-of-a-sudden he was vomiting like crazy. Yeah, I know that's gross. Sorry. It was a mess, but that was the least of our concerns. Our little boy was sick. To compound the issue I had to leave for our weekly ministry gathering shortly after the ordeal began. This went on throughout the night. My wife would try to get some fluids in him to prevent dehydration, but his little body would reject them, and up they came. He got splotches on his tummy that indicated the onset of dehydration. It was scary. We prayed a lot. I was largely distracted during our service. My mind kept going back to my little boy. After service was over I made my goodbyes and headed to the pharmacy to get some special juice that is supposed to help with that kind of situation. It did. He drank it, and kept it down. He drank some more, and kept it down.

Jamie and I took turns sitting up with him on the couch throughout the night. We slept sporadically. When morning came it seemed his energy had returned. He laughed, he played a little, and then.... he cried.

It wasn't a cry of pain, or a whimpering wailing of discomfort. It was the kind of short bursting cry that comes from being just a little spoiled, something that I am completely ok with at his age. And while I am usually easily annoyed by prolonged bouts of crying, especially during my more cranky moments, this morning was different. I was grateful. I was just happy he had the energy to cry.

Sometimes something that is annoying, aggravating, or challenging can actually be a reason for rejoicing. Yes, life is sometimes hard, but often our attitude has the power to shape the perception of our experience. Today, I'm grateful for the grace to see with gratitude.

Review: Oz the Great and Powerful (No Spoilers)

I have a seen the 1939 classic The Wizard of Oz more than any other film. I don't think it would be any kind of a stretch to say that I have probably seen it over a hundred and fifty times. Growing up in my house it was a regular affair to watch the annual broadcast, and once we owned a copy of our own it was viewed even more regularly. So it was with great anticipation and the glassy eyes of nostalgia that I took my seat today to see Sam Raimi's interpretation of Frank L. Baum's wonderful world of magic and munchkins. It did not disappoint.

In a way I feel sorry for the creative collaborators for having undertaken a project that carries so much history. In my opinion they did a good job. It's not a perfect movie, but it is a perfectly delightful movie.

From the moment the opening credits dawned in an otherworldly 4:3 screen ratio, complete with black and white color pallet, I was hooked. The story unfolded with charm and pointed story telling that never felt like it was too much for kids, but connected with my adult sensibilities just as well. In a film where every shot is essentially a special effects shot the characters must truly sell the picture. The characters were at the heart of the story, with Oz (the land itself) being inasmuch a character as any of the others. What stole the show for me was the color. I have never seen such a visually pleasing movie. It was vibrant, imaginative, and delightful.

I'll not go on about plot elements or boring details. I enjoyed the movie. I have been traveling to Oz via books, movies, and cartoons all my life. Oz the Great and Powerful was the best trip yet.

10 Things I Can't Wait to Do with My Son

Life usually doesn’t fit into nice neat little lists, but that doesn’t keep me from trying. Welcome to my Tuesday 10, where I try to fit the messiness of life into a list of ten. My son will be born any day now. This is my list of ten things that I'm really looking forward to doing with him. This list could have been soooooooo much longer. Thanks for reading.

1. Shoot a weapon.

2. Write and illustrate a kids book.

3. Watch Toy Story.

4. Talk about God.

5. Shop for mommy's birthday.

6. Play video games.

7. Build a Lego castle, spaceship, and other speculatively creative construct.

8. Sing and play music.

9. Basketball

10. Share the meaning of his name