Kathy Weckwerth

Everyday Encouragement

By: Kathy A. Weckwerth

God’s Got You

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I had thrown everything into my suitcase, grabbed my talk, and headed for the car.  It would be another day of racing and running to get to where I needed to be and to begin a long journey to Iowa to see my 84-year-old mother.

The drive was not peaceful, but in actuality, gave me an uneasy feeling of panic, wondering how in the world I would ever get everything accomplished.

My mind began whirling over the details.  I had just helped youngest daughter, Jenessa, with babysitting my granddaughter, was the guest speaker for a women’s event, delivered special music for a church service, and was spearheading a new magazine issue.  Not only that, but I was getting ready for a speaking engagement in the morning, and I started going over the talk in my mind.

It seems when you least expect it, the Holy Spirit gently pricks your conscience, and I immediately knew that the talk I was giving in a few short hours, was a talk that was no longer soaking into my soul.  Instead, I was mouthing the words, believing them for sure, but not practicing what I was preaching.

The topic for the women’s kickoff event at the large church in the cities that had hired me, was about filling up on the good things of God … filling up the gas tank of our hearts and minds so that we can be effective in all we do.  But the most important thing is being aware of what you’re doing and having balance in your life to know when your gas tank is running on empty or even stalled by the side of the road.

I hadn’t been doing that.  I began to quiet my spirit and pray, however, the cities’ traffic distracted me and the panic settled in again.

I don’t know about you, but there are times in life when I experience weeks where I feel like things are in check and balance, and then there are days and even weeks where I can’t seem to stop long enough to fill up with spiritual gasoline ….

God’s Word,

God’s Attributes and

God’s Spirit.

I began to feel very alone.  I felt almost as if I was walking a fine wire on a tight rope at the nearby carnival, only I couldn’t see where I was falling.

That night, I spent time in the Word, and prayed.  The sense of busyness was still there, but I felt a bit more calm and yet I still very much alone.  I slept fitfully on my oldest daughter’s couch.

The alarm went off with a sharp beep at 6:30 a.m. the next morning and I awakened to the busyness of my daughter, as she prepared for work.  Her husband was traveling with his job, so I knew to be a good mom; I would pitch in and help get my grandsons dressed and ready for the day.

I walked into Jonah’s room and looked down.  I caught my breath.  Curled up with his blanket, his blonde hair thick and curly, I could see the reflection of middle daughter, Chandra, in his sweet body, and for a moment I let myself remember the days that I would go in and just watch her sleep.

Time was ticking by and I gently said, “Jonah, time to wake up.”  He kept his eyes closed and sat up scooting close to the edge of his bed.  With eyes closed and legs dangled over the side, Jonah threw his arms around me and said, “I gotcha Nanny….I gotcha.” 

And in that moment, everything whirled around me as this little boy hugged me tightly. I can’t explain why I would feel safe for that moment, but I can tell you this … as odd as it sounds … I heard those words and I felt that hug, and I was immediately reminded that God is so much bigger than my issues.  He is there in the cities’ traffic, He is there in talks and plannings, and he’s here in my fretting and worrying.    He is there in the love of family and in the nature I see that is whirring by in my car’s windows.  He reveals Himself in the loveliest moments and the most fascinating ways, like this morning in the hug of a child and the words, “I gotcha.”

[callout]It was in those moments I found God.  I knew I was not alone.  I have a great big God who knows my every thought, my every need.  He is there for me.  He is there for you. [/callout]

And the best thing of all  is the realization that He’s got us.  Imagine that hug around the neck and get going … you’ve got a big life to live.

“I love you, God— you make me strong.  God is bedrock under my feet, the castle in which I live, my rescuing knight.  My God—the high crag where I run for dear life, hiding behind the boulders, safe in the granite hideout.”

Psalm 18:1-2

Words Matter

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Words Matter

By Kathy A. Weckwerth

P1030330Psalm 141:3 (ESV)  Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;  keep watch over the door of my lips!

Over the past month, my women’s Bible study have been working through a book about our words.  Each week I ask the women to join me in paying attention to what we are saying each and every day, not just to others, but to ourselves.   We nod, we smile, we encourage one another, and then we head out the doors of the little church into the real world.  It’s not that easy!

The more that I started paying attention to what I was saying, the more I realized I say a lot of stupid things.  And the more stupid comments I made, the more I got mad at myself.  Where was this coming from?  Why was I continually saying things before I thought them through?  It was a habit … and a bad one at that.

So often in life we are told things about ourselves.  We are told that we are not a good student, or we will never make it on the basketball team, or we will never get that job, or we are just not good enough to work with those people.   We begin to believe what is spoken over us.

Sometimes we speak those kinds of untruths to ourselves.  We ruminate them over and over until we believe the negative lies that we hear in our heads, and then we follow through to the next step … we act on them!

Many times in my life I heard people say to me, “You can’t do that.”  People told me I couldn’t become a worship director, I couldn’t write books, I couldn’t sing or play piano, and I recently had a good friend tell me that Dean and I couldn’t run a business so our ministry wouldn’t flourish.

With each one of those statements made over me (and sometimes they were made more than once by more than one person) I would get shaken.  But something always happened to me.  I began to speak the truths that I knew came from God through scripture.  God made me to have musical talents and gave me the desire to use them and become a worship director.  And I did!  I served for over twenty-five years as one.

God gave me the talents to write and over the past two years, I have written three books.  Dean has been running a business (farm) for over 30 years and I have learned from some of the most distinguished pastors about leading teams, drawing people in to Christ, delivering conferences, and teaching.  God has blessed our ministry and we are continuing to grow.

When we begin to believe the lies, that’s when we cut ourselves (and God) short.  That’s when we’re not living our best life.

It’s time to start watching what we’re saying.  Are we negative?  Are we speaking negativity into our own lives and the lives of others?

[callout]It’s time to start making up a list with scripture that will back up all of the things that we know God wants to do in us, with us, and through us!  Believe in bigger things and better things and watch your words.  They really do matter![/callout]

 

 

 

The Mixing Bowls

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The Mixing Bowls

by:  Kathy A. Weckwerth

P1030379There are days when I long to go back.  Not back to the parts of my life that were painful, but the days where life was easy and innocent, days amongst the laughter of my sister and the teasing of my brother.

Days like today, where the sun is hiding beneath a gray wintry bed of clouds, no birds in sight, no squirrels chasing through the grass, makes me feel subdued and a tad bit lonely … as though I’m longing for the sunny bright days of yesterday.

On afternoons like this, I have the great blessing of working from home and so I set my work aside and pull out the old mixing bowls.  Perhaps you have seen them or maybe you are fortunate to own your own Pyrex mixing bowls from the 1940’s.

They are a nesting set made up of yellow, green, red and blue bowls.  Just one quick look at them thrusts my mind right back to the days of childhood, when life was just a bit … well … simpler.

As I pull the bowls from my cupboard, I am reminded of memories attached with each specific bowl.

The large yellow bowl tapped into my memory and began to shake it a bit as to awaken the sleep from the corner’s of my mind’s eye.  I remember Christmas eve when we’d have icy cold Christmas punch made up of grape juice and gingerale.

Or the yellow bowl would make me think of cinnamon roll dough rising big and puffy out over the edges or cold winter evenings when Mom would pop popcorn and mix up popcorn balls that spill out over the yellow edges.

The green bowl reminded me of mixing up ginger snaps with my sister.  She was always creating some fabulous concoction and I specifically remember her making homemade brownies in the bowl, washing it out, and mixing up fudge frosting.

The blue bowl held frosting.  Fudge frosting, white creamy vanilla frosting, and sometimes brown sugar frosting.  At times, it held leftovers or even a small amount of red cabbage salad made with fresh ingredients from Mom’s garden.

But the red bowl, well, I have no memories of that one.  You see, one of us broke that early on, so we never had a red bowl at my house.  Only recently did I find out there was a red bowl.

One day during a steamy hot summer’s day my oldest daughter called me and asked, “Mom, I’m at the thrift store.  They have your pyrext bowls for $18.00.  Should I get them for you for Christmas?”

“WHAT!  Of course.  Buy them quick before someone else gets them!” I exclaimed.

The day they arrived, I felt like a kid in a candy shop, or at Christmas when you finally got the bike you always wanted.   I lovingly washed them and placed them on the bottom shelf of my upper cupboards so I would see them, even when I didn’t need to use them.

The kitchen was always a happy place at Mom’s.  It was a place where life happened, wounds were healed with the lick of a fudge covered spoon, hearts were mended with the spoon that held homemade caramel sauce, and words came easily over bites of hot rolls with melted butter oozing out onto our aprons.

My mother made life happen in the kitchen.  She was most at home there and made it a place of refuge.  When other children were sad at our schools, or church group, we’d find ourselves inviting them over to bake brownies or make snicker doodles, while Mom poured big frothy glasses of milk and listened sympathetically.

[callout]The bowls became a feeling of contentment and love.[/callout]  The green bowl represented cookies and the taste of warm sugar and spices.  The yellow bowl became a representation of the happiness that you’d feel when biting into cinnamon and brown sugar and knowing that  life was safe at your parents home.  And the blue bowl … well that represented family get- togethers where salads or gravy was passed from person to person.

Pulling the nesting bowls down from the cupboard meant today that something was making me uneasy.  Something just wasn’t right.  The day felt like it was closing in and winter was settling into my soul.  Time for a little baking … time for the colors of the bowls to permeate my spirit and set my senses free, lifting them to a higher plain.

I choose yellow.  I choose cinnamon rolls.  I choose life in the kitchen.  I choose to remember the happiness that came with the 1940’s Pyrex bowls.

Somehow their comfort never ceases.

When Life is Out of Control

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By:  Kathy A. Weckwerth

I’ll never forget that afternoon I was driving home.  The road was slippery, the snow had been coming down steadily, and I was on my way home from running errands.  A few miles from a neighboring town, I answered my phone to hear my mother’s voice asking if I was home yet.  “Not yet, Mom,” I answered.  And then it happened!

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The next thing I knew, my radio shut off and my dash board lights went dim.  I told my mother I needed to go and quickly called Farmer Dean.  “What’s happening to me?” I asked.

Farmer Dean asked for a description of everything that had just occurred and said, “Mam, it’s your battery.  It’s shutting down and pretty soon you will have no power at all!  You need to pull over.”

I was getting closer to the small town that was 15 miles from home, and prayed to get there so I wouldn’t be stranded on the side of the road.  Where I live in the middle of nowhere, it’s a normal day when there are huge farm rigs blocking the roads and I didn’t want to hit anyone or create any extra trouble for myself or others.

By the time I got to the small town, all power was out on my car and I was coasting.  My heart racing, I begged God, “Please dear Lord, help me!  I have no control.”  I could feel the steering wheel fighting my every effort to control it, and I pressed hard on the brakes to turn the wheel and come to a full stop on the side road next to the bank.

I took a deep breath and felt my heart pounding deep inside my chest.  I could barely breathe.  I was sure I was going to hit someone or not be able to stop!  That was so scary, I thought!

After another quick call to Farmer Dean for a much-needed rescue, I realized what had just happened … my car was completely and utterly out of my control … there was nothing I could do but pray, trust God, and try to get my car to the side of the road.  I had no power.

Life is like this, isn’t it?  [callout] So often we are traveling along with a battery that is drained and suddenly we are stranded on the side of the road.  We think we can go on, but we’ve run ourselves to the end of our energy supply, and we are completely dead.[/callout] I know what this is like, do you?

Most recently, I experienced this feeling after babysitting my granddaughter every day for weeks, traveling 18 hours away to take care of my elderly mother, writing books, blogs, speaking at events, and orchestrating details for conferences.  I remember waking up and thinking I can’t even muster one ounce of energy.  And then I remembered my car and how scary it felt to lose control that day.  I knew it was time to plug in the old battery of my soul.

In his new book, Soul Keeping:  Caring for the Most Important Part of You, John Ortberg states, “For the soul to be well, it needs to be with God.”  What a great reminder!  If we are to remained plugged in and energized, we must stay close to God.  He is the ultimate POWER SOURCE for our souls.

So what did I do exactly, to get out of my weakened condition?  I took the following steps:

  1. I made myself go to bed early and slept for 8 hours.
  2. I ate healthy foods and gave up sugar.
  3. I began to read snippets of my Bible in the morning and at night (additional to devotional time).
  4. I said “No.” And then … I said “No” some more.
  5. I cleaned and organized my office and felt incredible relief (when I found things I had lost!).
  6. I began to say more prayers that began with “Thank you, God,” … instead of “God help me!”
  7. I took a break from speaking/blogging/writing.

It is making a daily difference.  When I begin to feel overwhelmed and out of control, I remind myself that this is not my life … it is the one created by God and I have committed to giving it to him.  He is the Ultimate Life Source and I power up with a renewed energy each and every day.  So now, when I feel the lights of my soul dimming and the sound shutting off, when the steering wheel seems to be pulling its own direction, I pull to the side of the road immediately and pray to that Ultimate Battery of Life … God, I’m Yours … I need a recharge!

Psalm 62:11 “God has spoken plainly, and I have heard it many times: Power, O God, belongs to you …”

 

Embracing God’s Best

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Today is a “Good Things of God” day at the Weckwerth Farm, and I’m celebrating the things in life that I find encouraging, comforting, and uplifting. Let me describe what it’s like here.

Trees and Fields at SunsetThe sun rays are bursting through the windows and warming the carpet where the sweet kitty, Melinda, is now sleeping. The windows are propped wide open, allowing a cool breeze to waft through while forcing the beautiful chimes to ring out a beautiful melody.

I hear the chirp of blue jays and finches at the feeder. I hear the engines of the huge trucks outside the front door, as they’re redoing the highway and making it horrifically intolerable right now, but I know it’s bringing a much needed repair to the old road that will make life easier.

As I pour my freshly brewed ice tea over ice cubes, I hear the tinkle of my clear antique glass that Grandma gave me, and watch the lemon slice settle into the center, while I take a big sip of the wonderful rich flavor. Sitting in my big leather chair, I savor my bites of cold juicy grapes and meaty, salty cashews, while looking out the windows.

I have spent the weekend embracing my grandchildren, listening to my girls, chatting with my mother, and praying with my friend, Kathleen.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve missed loved ones who have gone to Glory, while being grateful for the ones I have in my life right now.

I’ve prepared for upcoming conferences, relished in the faces of my dear friends at Bible study this week, and enjoyed good dinners with my husband.

The fall breeze hits my face and arms now, as I step out on the back porch and peer over at my sweet husband, watching as he paints the last side of our sweet little church in the grove.

I have read the Word of God today. It lifts my spirits. Psalm 63:1 jumps off the page and reads, “God-You’re my God! I can’t get enough of You! I’ve worked up such hunger and thirst for God, traveling across dry and weary deserts.” The weariness, I can relate to, as I jumped out of bed this morning to another day. But the relaxing piano music I’m listening to now, and the Words of scripture, mixed in with comfort of knowing that God listens to me, and I’m striving to listen for Him … not just through His Word, but in everything around me that He has created … music, good food, nature, animals, friends, family and LIFE, spurs me onto a grateful heart.

Someone once asked Joan of Arc why God spoke only to her. I love her response. She said, “Sir, you are wrong, God speaks to everyone. I just listen.”

[callout]Today, I want to encourage you to look for the good in this life. There are so many discouraging, disheartening things around us. But with fresh eyes, ears and a nose today, I’m seeking the good things of God. Won’t you join me?[/callout]

Let’s watch for God. Let’s listen.

“…and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. So it was, when Elijah heard it.”

I Kings 19:12 & 13