Sandra Heska King

daring to open doors

  • Home
  • About
  • DISCLOSURES
    • Amazon Affiliate
    • Book Reviews
  • Published
  • Contact
  • Blog
    • Commit Poetry
    • Dared

Spinning and Walking

September 15, 2010 By Sandra Heska King

I dreamed the other night that I was lost in a concrete maze. Every path led to a dead end until I came to a slide. So down I went, twisting and turning, and I landed in a cafeteria where there were only a couple people. I had a sense that I was in a prison, but I woke up.

Later I dreamed that I was driving in some city with my daughter, and I couldn’t see out the windshield, either because of outside or inside fog. But I kept inching forward, not knowing where I was going or if I would hit or be hit.

“Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: ‘What’s going on here?'” Acts 2:12 (Message)

Can you imagine? There you are just hanging out, and suddenly a tornado spins through the place and flames flicker over heads and you begin to speak in sounds you don’t understand. But people come running in amazement because they do understand and 3,000 baby believers are birthed.

I can’t say that anything I’ve ever said has birthed even one new Christian. Presenting the gospel or leading someone in the “sinner’s prayer” is not something I feel very comfortable about. Some do it so easily. It makes me feel guilty.

I don’t like talking on the phone. I’m not good about sending cards and notes. I don’t plan ahead to give gifts or make meals. (Well, I do sometimes.)

Areas of ministry like music and speaking and teaching seem to have run or are running into dead ends. I bought a harp with grand plans for playing therapeutically, but have not followed through.

We do sponsor a child with Compassion, and I mean to write more often than I do. I’d love to travel as a blogger, but I don’t think my blog has enough traffic yet.

And I serve my family and love on my grandgirls and teach of Jesus.

But I’m not often a good example.

Sometimes my walk seems to get all tangled up and filled with dead ends, and I can’t see where I’m going. But I’m learning to be and to see, if even dimly.

And I remember that I can’t do everything. I can’t touch the least of everyone. But I can touch one here and one there.

And I write. I walk my fingers across the keyboard and spin words–to somehow touch, inspire, encourage. To bring clarity out of the complicated. To bring healing to the hurting.

But is it enough?

“God doesn’t look at how much we do,but with how much love we do it.”

~Mother Teresa

“I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time–just one, one, one.”

~Mother Teresa

Walking today with Ann Voskamp

holy experience

and spinning with Claire and Kelly and Sarah.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

Filed Under: stories and reflections

Comments

  1. Susan J. Reinhardt says

    September 15, 2010 at 11:09 pm

    Hi Sandy –

    Thanks for your transparency. We’re not all called to be evangelists, but we’re all called to be witnesses. We share our lives with others, rejoicing in what He’s done for us and how He’s helped us through our struggles.

    Blessings,
    Susan 🙂

    • Sandra says

      September 16, 2010 at 9:25 am

      One thing about writing (if it’s good writing) is that we can touch so many people, yes?

  2. Michael says

    September 16, 2010 at 7:35 am

    I really enjoyed the transparency as well. Living testimonies. Our lives speak louder than our words.

    • Sandra says

      September 16, 2010 at 9:26 am

      Thanks, Michael. And I still think you should get up at 4:58. 😉

  3. Louise says

    September 16, 2010 at 8:34 am

    Hello lovely Sandra,

    In a life-development program I coach in, Choices, there is a saying…

    “I do enough. I give enough. I am enough.”

    When we accept our ‘enough’, that the ‘more’ is just a game we play to keep ourselves feeling small, we shine — and in my world, you shine!

    thanks for the light every day.

    • Sandra says

      September 16, 2010 at 9:24 am

      ” . . .the ‘more’ is just a game we play to keep ourselves feeling small . . .”

      Light bulb moment! That changes the whole focus. XOXO

  4. Harriett says

    September 18, 2010 at 10:40 am

    Writing just might be enough — 🙂

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Meet Sandra

I’m Sandra, a camera-toting, recovering doer who’s learning to be. still. Read more…

Get updates from the stillness by email

Your personal information is safe and will never be shared.

Archives

Categories

Instagram Inspiration

sandraheskaking

Cutting tonight’s walk short. Stupid blue jay. N Cutting tonight’s walk short. Stupid blue jay. Not this one. A different one. But still. (My niece believes blue jays are a visitation from Grandma—my mom.) 
My shirt says “Walk in love. But I’m not feeling very loving. And if it WAS my Mom AKA Mother Mary Esther of the Order of Perpetual Birdwatchers, I’ll bet she’s having a good laugh. A passerby said she heard it was good luck and I should buy a lottery ticket tonight. In other news, I also banged my hip bone against our bed’s footboard and gave myself a mighty bruise. Then I burned my arm on the top of the grill. I did manage to wash all the knives without cutting myself and didn’t start any fires. So how was your day?
And now… “From the rising of the sun to the pl And now… “From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord is to be praised.”
The world’s a mess, but His mercies are new. The world’s a mess, but His mercies are new.
When we were in Israel last month, we visited @yad When we were in Israel last month, we visited @yadvashem - the World Holocaust Center in Jerusalem. There wasn't enough time to spend nearly enough time. 

The Valley of the Communities was very moving. It's a labyrinth of stone from which there seems no way out. Our guide said It gives an idea of the endlessness of the horror. His parents emigrated from Vilna (the Jerusalem of Lithuania), before the Holocaust. In 1935, thirteen of his family members still remained there. By 1945 only one--an uncle--had survived. He wrote a book about them from a bundle of old letters. "One story out of millions."

"This memorial commemorates the Jewish communities destroyed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and the few which suffered but survived in the shadow of the Holocaust."
#Israel2022 #HolocaustRemembranceDay
“From my favorite spot on the floor, I look up a “From my favorite spot on the floor, I look up at the blue sky and the bare chestnut tree on whose branches little raindrops shine, appearing like silver, ” Anne Frank wrote in the Diary of a Young Girl. Watching the tree change through the seasons her family spent in hiding in an attic gave her hope. The Holocaust Memorial Center is one of only eleven sites in the United States to receive a sapling from that tree. I stand at “her” window and imagine hanging hope on a tree.

"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.” ~ Primo Levi

From a post I wrote for @tspoetry after a visit to the @holocaustcenter.

https://www.tweetspeakpoetry.com/2016/07/27/regional-tour-holocaust-memorial-center-farmington-hills-michigan/
Stunning tree I parked near at Bible study yesterd Stunning tree I parked near at Bible study yesterday. I was in a rush and failed to snap the whole tree. I need to run back before the flowers fall. I think it’s a jacaranda? I want one.
Speaking of birds... bluejay in my backyard this a Speaking of birds... bluejay in my backyard this afternoon. I thought he was hurt, but I think he was just trying to cool off. (Maybe it's a young one.... unless it's the light?)
Someone should do something about that dog. She’ Someone should do something about that dog. She’s yelping and carrying on like she’s in some awful pain.
“Now in the place where he was crucified there w “Now in the place where he was crucified there was a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.” ~ John 19:41

“But the angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay…’”~ Matthew 28:5-6

Many wonder if this tomb, which lies just a few yards west of Golgotha could be the place where Jesus lay and rose. I wish we could have lingered longer here in this garden and in the tomb itself. It was easier for me to imagine the events of that weekend happening here than in the heavily incensed, decorated, dark and crowded Church of the Holy Sepulchre… though my hairdresser said her old boyfriend “got chills”’when he entered that tomb. We did not go inside that one because the line was way too long. 

At any rate, the most important thing is that he tomb is EMPTY and HE IS RISEN!

HAPPY EASTER!
#Israel2022 #GardenTomb #Easter
 “Peter said to him, ‘Lord, I am ready to g 
“Peter said to him, ‘Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death’ Jesus said, ‘I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day until you deny three times that you know me.’” ~ Luke 22:33-34

The Church of St. Peter in Gallicantu (rooster crowing) built over what tradition says was the house of Caiaphas where Jesus was brought after he was arrested. Perhaps he was imprisoned in one of the underground crypts while awaiting trial. 

“On top of the church, higher than the cross—I loved this—stands a golden rooster! I’ll never look at a weathervane the same again. How would you like to have a church commemorate your weakest moment?” ~ Wayne Stiles in Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus

#Israel2022 #GoodFriday
The olive trees here are ancient… some carbon da The olive trees here are ancient… some carbon dates to the 12th century, according to my Eyewitness book on Jerusalem. “DNA tests have shown that eight of the trees grew from cuttings from the same mother tree—perhaps taken by Christians who believed the tree to have witnessed Jesus’s agony.” 

Gethsemane means “olive press.” Jesus was pressed to his very depths that night.  He knew what was ahead. He could have run far away. But he went where he knew Judas would look for him. 

“And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.’ And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” ~ Luke 22:41-44

Garden of Gethsemane and Church of the Nations

#Israel2022
A "blue preacher" right outside my door, nearly as A "blue preacher" right outside my door, nearly as tall as I am. I wonder what he's wondering. Is he finding the answer blowing in the wind?

"Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness." ~ Mary Oliver in "Why I Wake Early"
Food truck night. Food truck night.
Looking east from the Mount of Olives at the Templ Looking east from the Mount of Olives at the Temple Mount and Rock of the Dome. And then the Eastern (Golden) Gate, currently sealed where Jesus might have entered the city after riding down the hill.
Tristram’s starling - named after the Reverend H Tristram’s starling - named after the Reverend Henry Baker Tristram—seen in Masada. #Israel2022
Owl? Owl?
Food truck night and a supper guest. Food truck night and a supper guest.
Been a while since I've posted a gator. This guy ( Been a while since I've posted a gator. This guy (gal?) has been cruising one of our neighborhood lakes the last few days.
Ibex (wild goat) 🐐 “The high mountains belong Ibex (wild goat)
🐐
“The high mountains belong to the wild goats” Psalm 104:18
🐐
David may have hidden from King Saul in this area. If we ever get to go back to Israel, I hope we can explore this this place. On the day we visited, there was concern for flash flooding, so we only got in a few steps.
A crow for @meganwillome #crow #greycrow #israel A crow for @meganwillome  #crow #greycrow #israel #jerusalem
Load More... Follow on Instagram

Get the Mug

Embrace the life you have t s poetry mug

Privacy Policy

Full privacy policy is available HERE.

I Read Light

TSP-Red button

bibledude-net



Sponsor a Child

Join the Compassion Blogger Network

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright © 2022 Sandra Heska King · Site by The Willingham Enterprise, LLC on the Genesis Framework by StudioPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.