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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Sandra Heska King

Go Forth and Mark Up Your Bible {My Faith Heroine series}

January 23, 2015 By Michelle

Sandra Heska King has the biggest heart of just about anyone I know – how blessed I am to have spent time with her in person! But even if your path never crosses with Sandy’s face-to-face, you can see and experience the light she shines in the words she pens so beautifully on her blog (my favorite is her Still Saturday series – don’t we all need a little more stillness in our lives?). Just last week Sandy returned from the Dominican Republic, where she traveled on behalf of Compassion International, an organization that sponsors children in need world-wide. Please take a few minutes today to read about her experiences and the beautiful people she met there. And perhaps consider sponsoring a Compassion child too? I am delighted to welcome Sandy to the blog today!

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Story and Photo by Sandra Heska King

I’m sitting in the balcony of the church in Marietta, Georgia, and I’m unrolling my “homework,” my butcher paper art–the entire book of Revelation, colored pictures on a scroll. And we stretch it out and down the row, and she looks up and nods and applauds. Nine months we live in that book, and she carries me from “In the beginning” to the last “Amen.”

That’s the last year she drives weekly from Chattanooga. So we gather friends and organize a Romans study in our church. And I can’t get enough.

We’re called to move to a new home in Tampa, and I fight it. But I find DeeDee, and she’s got me leading a Precept group there. Then I’m sitting in the airport hugging Kay.

I’m in Chattanooga at the “ranch” taking notes on Philippians and memorizing the humility verses. She’s describing the crucifixion, and a storm is blowing, and it seems like the lights go out for a moment, but I can’t remember for sure. Maybe everything goes dark just before the light blazes.

The air presses in on me, and I can’t breathe.

She teaches me how to uncover treasure for myself, to test what others tell me.

Once she shook her fist in God’s face and hissed, “To hell with you God.” Now she crams colored pencils in my fist and says (basically), “Go forth, and mark up your Bible. Get to know the God who went to hell for you.”

Kay 11

The words become life to me. My home and my hope are here in these pages.

She teaches me about lists and comparisons and contrasts and color-coding and verb tenses and moods and voices and how to make my own chain references and how to study from a Bible without notes–because the Holy Spirit alone can teach me.

And my Bible falls apart.

She teaches me about God’s character and His sovereignty and oh, how that’s held me through so many questions and regrets.

She teaches me how to live, how to be silver refined, how to make the bitter sweet, how to battle disappointment, about tetelestai and tiqvah.

She’s a nurse, too, so I feel an extra special bond. She calls me a co-laborer, and she assures me that nothing I do in the Lord is in vain.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord. ~2 Corinthians 15:58

I dream of walking with her in the Holy Land, hearing her teach from the places Jesus walked and talked and prayed and rested–and died. And I pray for the miraculous provision of finances that will let me do this while she and I both can.

Kay Arthur, co-founder of Precept Ministries International, is my faith heroine, and I thank God for her and for the love of the Word she birthed in me, for how she’s helped me learn how to know God.

And one more thing. She’s 81 years old now and looks at least 20 years younger. I want to keep drinking the same water.

 

SandraHeskaKing2Sandra Heska King (AKA Snady AKA SHK) lives in Michigan and writes from a 150-plus-year-old family farmhouse set on 60-plus acres surrounded by corn or soybeans or sometimes wheat. She’s a camera-toting, recovering doer who’s learning to just. be. still.

Sandra blogs at sandraheskaking.com and sometimes spills words in other places across the Internet. She’s a “poetry barista” (AKA social media associate) at Tweetspeak Poetry and has been a featured writer at The High Calling. You can catch up with her on Facebook and Twitter.

This post is part of the My Faith Heroine Series in conjunction with the release of 50 Women Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Heroines of the Faith. Click here to read other posts in the #MyFaithHeroine series. 

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Filed Under: #50Women, #MyFaithHeroine Tagged With: 50 Women Every Christian Should Know, Kay Arthur, My Faith Heroine, Sandra Heska King

Fitting in Just Fine {I am a Spiritual Misfit Series}

July 11, 2014 By Michelle

I’ve known Sandra Heska King for a good long while now, first online out here in the blogosphere, and then in person at the Jumping Tandem Retreat and at Laity Lodge. But even if you’ve only just met her, Sandy is the kind of person who puts you at ease right away. She’s warm, she’s genuine and she loves to laugh. She’s also a beautiful writer, and her Still Saturday community has taught this frenetic doer a lot about the spiritual practice of sitting still. Friends, meet Sandy…you are going to love her as much as I do.

 


I don’t remember what sparked the argument. But we stood outside the cloakroom inside the second-floor classroom in the old brick school that’s long since crumbled. The classroom where the fire escape tunnel slide exited. The tunnel we loved to play in after school while we waited for the two buses to return for their second loads.

“Well, I have a different Bible,” I declared.

My friend laughed at me. “There’s only one Bible.”

She might as well have ended it with, “You dummy.”

I don’t remember if she did, but her tone implied the same thing.

And she would have been right. I was a dummy when it came to things like God and the Bible.

But I really, really wanted to be a church girl.

Instead, most Sunday mornings I stretched out on my tummy with the funnies while other girls slipped into frilly dresses and Mary Janes.

I did get to go to church a handful of times when I spent the night with a friend. I’d see other people writing in their Bibles, so when I’d get home, I’d look for and underline some sound-good verses in my grandmother’s KJV. But just in the New Testament.

misfit Bible

At some point, though, I called my parents heathens, and thus ended any church girl aspirations.

My mom told me if I followed the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, I’d be “just fine.”

But I failed badly at those.

So I knew I wouldn’t be just fine.

I went to church alone a few times while I was in nursing school. One day after the service, with sweaty palms and heart thumping, I asked the pastor if we could talk after everyone left. We sat down in the back pew.

“I want to be baptized,” I told him.

He sprinkled me a few weeks later—between services. I wasn’t really sure what it all meant yet, but I wanted to do all the right things.

Because I wanted to be just fine.

When my husband and I settled into our first church, I decided the best way to fit in was to say yes to every call for service.

I’d be just fine by doing.

Even if it meant leading the junior high youth group and teaching Sunday School to eighth grade students who knew more about the Bible than I did.

Then a friend invited me to hear Kay Arthur teach, and I signed up for Precept classes. I learned how to dig into the Word and let the Word dig into me. I was in my 30’s, finally living my longing—and even leading groups on how to study the Bible.

For lots of years I was like a many-tabbed jigsaw piece trying to find the perfect pockets. Sometimes the fit was a little loose, sometimes pretty tight. And aren’t we all like that? Just trying to find our place in this big puzzle of life?

These days, I can usually flip to any book of the Bible with ease.

Over the years, I’ve collected a lot of different Bible versions that tell the same story with their own flavor of sweetness. I’ve marked them up with different colors.

Even the Old Testament.

I’ve learned it can take a lifetime to find the perfect fit—that I can’t force myself into the wrong slots—but it’s okay to try different ones out.

I’ve learned I can be just fine without doing, and it’s okay to just be sometimes.

I may still feel like a dummy in many ways, but I’m just fine, thank you, even as a misfit.

Because I know I’m beloved, and God’s fitting me out now for my place in eternity.

SandraHeskaKingSandra Heska King (AKA SHK) lives in Michigan and writes from a 150-plus-year-old family farmhouse set on 60-something acres surrounded by corn or soybeans or sometimes wheat. She’s a camera-toting, recovering doer who’s learning that just being still is just fine.

Sandra blogs at sandraheskaking.com and sometimes spills words in other places across the Internet. You can catch up with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Click here to purchase Spiritual Misfit: A Memoir of Uneasy Faith.

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Filed Under: guest posts, Spiritual Misfit Tagged With: I am a Spiritual Misfit Series, Sandra Heska King

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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