Kathy Weckwerth

Everyday Encouragement

life's journey

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.

The Big Red Etch a Sketch

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My youngest daughter, Jenessa, is an artist.  Ever since she was a little girl, she would sit down in the middle of the floor, her crayons, scissors, glitter and glue sprawled out beside her, and would begin the adventurous task of creating some new work of art.

But on her 7th birthday, Jenessa received an all-time favorite gift … an Etch-a- Sketch.  Life had propelled from the everyday mundane, to the extra-ordinary, in my little girl’s mind.

I loved to watch Jenessa’s creations come to life on that old red Etch-a-Sketch. etchasktetch

Many years later, one of my worship team members, who was also an artist, brought in a bright green Etch-a-Sketch, with the fabulous face of Scooby Doo etched into the toy.  I was elated!

About three weeks later, a small child came into the office with his mother, and when I wasn’t watching, he took that Etch-a-Sketch, and shook it hard.  Utter dismay!  Away went the face of my favorite cartoon character, and replaced it with complete blank shades of grey.  My heart sunk.  Although I didn’t say anything to the mother, I felt sure that my Etch-a-sketch would never hold the same picture again.

Do you ever feel that way about life?  I know I have so often.  It seems to me a bit like this … Our very being is the Etch-a-Sketch of our lives.  We draw and create our hopes and dreams, the very desires of our hearts, all the way from the inner-workings and core of who we are, sketching them into our minds, only to have the world and circumstances come along and shake things up.  We are left with a blank screen.  Everything seems lost.  Everything looks erased.

This past week I experienced deep troubles that shook up the very soul of my being.  I had spent hours and hours diligently reading scripture, praying and fasting, while seeking the next route for our ministry.

Along came a situation and some circumstances that made me remember that old Etch-a-Sketch, as I curled up in my big green chair with my hot cup of tea, holding back the tears.  My dreams seemed erased.  Life had come in for a big, huge shake down, and my picture was gone.

And just as surely as I thought the plans were changed, I remembered something.  The God of the Universe, the very God who sent His Son for us, is the Ultimate Creator … the Artist of our lives.  He is the One who turns those knobs on the board of our lives, and designs the picture on our screen.  He is the One, who has created who we are, and knows the inner workings of every place and inner corner of our hearts and souls.  If that same God is the Artist, why would I not relax into allowing Him to redo that picture?  Perhaps it will just look even sharper, clearer, and crisper to me now.

I remember now,  from the days of long ago, that my dear artist friend came in to visit me, plopped down on the couch and said, “Oh, here, let me re-do that for you.”  A few moments later, out came a better rendition of Scooby Doo than I remembered.  It was even more suited to my taste and who I was.  It was sharper, clearer, crisper and more defined now, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I displayed it on my top shelf!

God is doing that for us as we allow Him to use us and have control over us. [callout]The world and circumstances may shake us to the core, until we can’t see straight, can’t see the road, can’t see the picture, but God is the Artist of who we are, and He will come in and re-create.  We must remain in faith. [/callout]

Be comforted with me from His Words today:

Psalm 139:13-16(MSG)

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.

 

Facing Things Alone

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Facing things alone .. by Kathy A. Weckwerth

photo by (pure heart) photography

photo by (pure heart) photography

This week was one filled with angst and trepidation and looking back, I thank God for the signs that He comforted me with as He reminded me … we are never alone.

I think about it often … the days where no one can face what we’re up against but us.  Can you relate?

There are days when you have to go in for an MRI, or you’re delivering your child, or you lost your daddy.  Those are the moments when you’d like to say to your friend or neighbor, you go through this because I don’t want to.

You walk in the hospital doors, you feel the fear that everyone is moving on with their lives but yours has stopped due to the trouble that’s engulfing you.

The woman standing next to you looks as though she is in a trance as the old man next to her gets up coughing and walks down the hall looking up and glancing at you, but you can see he’s as frightened as you are in this moment in time and space.

The nurse is chatty as she talks incessantly about her upcoming vacation to Montana, while needles are pushed in your arm to send pretentious dye into your veins, preparing you for the tests.

As you enter the MRI testing area, the technician rushes you, barks orders and lacks any kind of sympathy or bedside manner.  Your head is encompassed in a small mask while you’re pushed into a long tube and pray that you’ll never have to do this again.

And that’s the moment.  There it is.  It’s the same moment that comes when they say, “It’s time to push now,” and you feel the horrific pain  but know there will be an end to it.  Or it’s like the same moment when you walk down the church aisle and realize that the casket in front of you carries the loved one that you will never hear laugh or sing again.

Those moments where you realize that there is no one else on earth who can walk through it for you, are at times … the worst.  And yet, as you lay inside that tube with the horrific pounding of jack hammers in your ears, there is a peaceful place inside your mind, with sweet purple flowers and fields of green that greet you.  And you hear the Voice of your Savior whispering, “I am here.  You are not alone.  I have known about this day since the beginning of time.  I am your God, you are my child.  I will never leave you.  I am here.  I am right here with you.”  Peace begins to rush through the veins, circumventing the dye that has taken over and you feel a comfort that no human can give you.

[callout]Faith is mustered in those moments.  Sometimes it’s fragile and weak.  Sometimes it’s barely traceable.  And sometimes it stands up with strong hope and says, I am not alone for my God is with me.[/callout]

In the moments of your life, when fear and harm, when torment and sorrow meet loneliness, when you are the only one who can face the doctor, face the pain, face the darkness, you remember what God has told us … we are never, ever, ever alone, when we have Jesus as our Lord and Savior.  We walk with Him … and what a great peace we have when we know that He walks before us.

Grace and peace to you on the journey facing the challenges that only you alone can face,

Kathy 

 

“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”  Deut. 31:8

 

 

Are You Really Living Life?

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As my family got situated in our theater seats, I pulled my coat off, set my popcorn to the side, and took my phone out to turn it off before the movie started.  I noticed there were some messages on my facebook account and quickly checked those.  It couldn’t be daughter #3, who was pregnant, since she was sitting next to me.  Shouldn’t be daughter #2, who was busy studying for finals.  Wasn’t daughter #1, because she was out grocery shopping. 

Jumping with balloonsI scanned the notifications and looked at my husband, Farmer Dean.  I said, “Deano, our friend is back in the hospital with more cancer treatments, and a kind worship director who I was friends with, died two hours ago of a heart attack.”  I slumped down in my chair in shock. 

The movie began and I silently reviewed life.  Just life.  Not mine or theirs.  Just living life in general.  Scripture tells us in James 4:14, “What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while, and then vanishes.”   

One morning you are posting your day’s events on facebook, and several hours later, you’re in the morgue.  How is this possible? 

I looked across the rows of seats at the big bump that was sticking out of my child’s coat.  A baby is coming soon … new life.  We will be there at the delivery, we will embrace that child, we will welcome new life into the world, and we will thank God for sending it.  And then what happens? 

We become calloused to the very air we breathe in and breathe out. I don’t think to thank God for the days and nights He blesses me with.   I become expectant that God, in His ever-loving kindness, will give me 78, 88, and 98 years to live on Planet Earth.  Somehow, collectively, we expect that God will grant us good health, great jobs, lovely homes, and perfect worlds.  But we don’t expect to die. 

Sure, sure, it’s in the back of our minds.  Everyone knows that, right?  But somehow, we always believe we will evade it for a very long time. 

One year ago, my Best Life staff showed up in St. Joseph, Missouri, at a lovely little church for one of our conferences.  We prepped and prepared, and our worship leader worked with the church’s worship director, a wonderful man named Dan.  Dan set everything up for us, brought in a band to play (including himself on guitar), was ever-patient with our leader, showed incredible humility, direction, leadership, and authenticity. 

Just shy of his 57th birthday (April 4th), Dan got up on Saturday morning, posted on facebook, and died that same afternoon of a heart attack. 

As I reflected on both him and my girlfriend who has battled cancer for years, I lifted up prayers for the family of Dan and healing for our friend in her hospital bed.  But something struck me and struck me hard.  What am I doing with the hours I have been given?  What am I doing with the days that I fritter by? Do I really embrace and value them?  How will people remember me? 

I pulled out my Bible and read the words that I have etched into my mind … the Bible verse that is our premise for Best Life Ministries.  Jesus says in John 10:10b, “I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.”   

[callout]God wants us to live life to the fullest.  God wants us to get up each morning and live like we have one foot here on earth and one foot in Heaven.  Not scared of dying, but not afraid of living. [/callout] 

One moment we’re here … the next we’re not.  I want to live my life to the fullest.  I want to know that each breath is valuable.  I want to embrace each moment as though I can open up the scrapbook of my life and see that day by day, moment after moment, I lived … really lived.

 Care to join me?