Etched In His Heart

I was walking back from my piano lesson, enjoying the summer day. Unlike the walk to the lesson, where I had been speed walking due to not leaving enough time, I was able to dawdle, pick flowers, and smile at passersby. I was halfway home when two boys, around eight years old, came zipping by on their bikes, one with a huge smile. As they passed, the one who was smiling waved and happily said, “Hi! It’s you again!”


For a moment, I was puzzled. I didn’t recognize either of the boys, I certainly didn’t know them from anywhere. In fact, I didn’t think I’d seen them in my life before. And then it hit me; I must have passed by them on the way to my piano lesson. While I had been distracted with not having enough time, I didn’t even remember walking by them. And that’s when a curious thought hit me; how many other people had I passed by? How many other people--each with talents, heartbreaking moments, joy, and struggles--had I only given a quick smile to, not even sketching their faces into my memory?

Mark 5:24b-34 says, “A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak,  because she thought, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.’  Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, ‘Who touched my clothes?’

‘You see the people crowding against you,’ his disciples answered, ‘and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’’ But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’”

In this passage, Jesus is following Jairus, a synagogue leader who has begged Jesus to heal his dying daughter. A huge crowd is following after them, pressing against everyone. You can just imagine the chaos of the moment; people chattering away, some expressing confidence in Jesus’s healing powers and others doubting, children pressed against their mother, town folk itching for a chance to see a miracle performed. And yet, throughout all of it, Jesus stopped. He took time for a single woman, one who was hurting and broken. Even when his disciples told him to move on, thinking he was crazy for wondering who touched his clothes, Jesus stopped. He kept looking around to see who had touched Him. And He didn’t stop until He found her.

Jesus does the same for us. We aren’t random strangers who come and go. He knows our struggles--He’s right along side us through it. He knows our heartbreaks--He’s comforting us through them. He knows we’re sinful and messed up--He died for that. To anybody else, you might be a stranger passing by on the street, a face that will be forgotten in an hour. To the King of the universe, you were worth dying for.

Kayla Joy

The King On His Throne

Being a young girl, probably around five years of age, I was delighted to finally be entrusted with the duty of placing groceries on the check out lane at the grocery store. It took, to my small mind, many hours of ‘training’ before I finally learned the important skill of stacking groceries--heavy, strong items on the bottom, squish-able items such as bread on the top. For one of the first times ever, my mom had allowed me to put all of the groceries on the lane, by myself.

At the end of putting the groceries on, I proudly declared, “And now for the king on his throne!” My mom, who had been distracted with paying for the groceries a moment ago, glanced nervously my way, only to discover a loaf of bread balanced precariously on a wobbly tower of groceries. My unsteady “throne” consisted of dozens of groceries piled high in one spot with a loaf of bread swaying on the top. She quickly dismantled the “king on his throne” and I learned from that day on that king’s don’t belong on thrones at grocery stores.

In the midst of tragedies--the Sandy Hook shooting, the Boston Marathon bombing--it’s easy to lose hope. It’s easy to get caught up with the worries of this world. Throughout all of it, we can’t forget that God is still on His throne. He hasn’t left. He’s seeing everything that’s happening, and He knew it would happen way before it ever did. Psalms 47:8 says, “God reigns over the nations; God is seated on His holy throne.” Thankfully, God’s throne isn’t wobbly like the one I created. His throne is never-ending.

Kayla Joy

Stories Untold

I walked up to the desk, grabbed a pencil, and quickly printed my name on the list, not happy that the week of OGT testing had come. Scanning the row of seats, I felt compelled to take a seat in the middle row, next to a girl who looked less than delighted to be up early on a Monday morning. I took a seat next to her, giving her a quick smile. She didn’t look like someone I would typically hang out with--her short hair was dyed bright purple and pink, piercings covered her lips, and her jeans contained dozens of purposeful rips. Still, I was determined to at least get a smile out of her before the end of the week.

As the days of the week passed slowly on, bit by bit, she started talking more to me. It started out just as small talk, chatting about siblings and pets, but by the end of the week, she was telling me all about her struggles and sorrows. When I thought all I would get out of her was a smile if I was lucky, she was pouring out some of her biggest sorrows, just needing someone to listen to her.

She’s not the only one who needs someone to listen. She’s not the only one with a story to tell. Will we walk through our daily lives in a hurried rush, or will we make time to show God’s love through listening?

Kayla Joy

God's Constancy in our Ever Changing World

As I watched my dog play in the backyard in mid-fifty degree weather today, I couldn’t help but reflect on the crazy weather changes we’ve been having. Just yesterday I had been watching snowflakes steadily race each other to the ground, and today I was nudging my bare feet against the soft ground. It’s crazy how fast weather can change, but that’s definitely not all that changes.

Changes are constantly happening. In weather, jobs, economy, health, politics, money, relationships, school, safety--you name it, it’s changing. We live in an ever-changing world whether we like it or not.

As human beings, most of us don’t like change. There’s something unsettling about having to learn a new way of doing something, no matter how small the change is. It seems like by the time we finally get used to the change, it changes all over again.

In this ever-changing world, I love that fact that God never changes. Malachi 3:6 says, “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.” No matter what we’re going through in life, no matter how many things are changing at once, we can rely on Him to remain a constant. He remains the same. Always.

Kayla Joy

Waiting

“Check him--give him a half halt if you need to,” my instructor reminded me. I quickly pulled back on my reins, then released to complete the half halt. Ringlets of dust were left imprinted in the dirt with each step he made as he slowed his trot down. The horse I was riding, Harry, is commonly referred to as “Harry--the horse in a hurry” in my family. He lives up to this nickname as he would love to take his riders for a gallop every second of horseback riding lessons. He’s a little pony with a never-ending tank of energy. With a lot of dedicated work and patience, I can get him to slow down. Eventually, his head will lower, his shoulders will relax, and his trot will slow into a comfortable gait. When he slows down, he seems to be enjoying himself more. Slowing down and waiting isn’t something that comes naturally to my little Harry, but it’s certainly something he’s capable of doing.

Aren’t we often like this little pony? We rush through our day, checking items off our list, only to write more items on the ever-growing list. Somehow, through it all, we miss spending time to slow down. We miss spending time waiting on God and being willing to listen to Him. I know I’m certainly guilty of this. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." As you rush around trying to find the ‘perfect‘ valentine’s gift for your loved one this year, remember to be still and wait for the Lord in the midst of busyness.


Kayla Joy

Giving God Glory

A blast of cold air came whistling through the car as my dad opened the door. As he stepped out to fill our car with gas, I couldn’t help but notice a woman. Her blonde hair was tightly wound into a bun and she was dressed in a bright orange outfit, her shirt marked with the gas station’s logo. She was braving the bitter cold to do her job--pick up litter scattered around the gas station. She bent over to pick up a crushed coca cola can, carefully grasping it by the tips of her fingers, and disposed of it in the trashcan next to my dad. Cheerfully, she said hello, then proceeded to lift the heavy trash bag and carry it off. Though this might seem like a rather ordinary thing to see, something about her stuck out to me. She wasn’t grumbling about being given this rather gross job--she cheerfully went about it with a smile on her face. 

 

Dealing with trash definitely isn’t a fun job--no matter how you look at it. Yet, she wasn’t about to let that get in her way. She made a choice to be cheerful despite of the circumstances. As Christians, don’t we have a similar choice to make? We can do a job as unlikable as picking up trash moping the entire time, or we can choose to glorify God while doing it. One of my favorite Bible verses is 1 Corinthians 10:31, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” 

No matter if we’re feeding orphans in Africa or simply doing our everyday job--how we do it matters. Are we doing all of it for the glory of God? 


Kayla Joy


Worth Every Stumble

The month of January is, to me, the gloomiest month of the year. Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is a long way off, and any sort of holiday seems too far off to even think about. The days seem to drag on and bitter coldness freezes any hope of flowers peaking through. Sickness reigns in households and seems as if it will never leave.

During this month, I often have to remind myself of the race we’re in. This race isn’t a race to finish first, or second, or even third--our race is to finish and finish strong. Hebrews 12:1 sums up how we’re supposed to run this race, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” As the passage says, we need to ‘throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles‘ and run with perseverance and endurance. This isn’t a sprint, this is a marathon.

During a marathon, it gets discouraging. The mile markers progress steadily, but the miles seem to repeat themselves. Tired feet trip over themselves and every muscle aches. You know you’re farther along with each step, yet you still feel so far away from the goal, from the prize at the end. The prize at the end slowly fades from the mind until you can’t seem to remember why you’re still in the marathon at all. Why are we still running with perseverance the race marked out for us? To see Jesus face to face. In the end, that will be worth every stumble, every wrong turn,  and every single second of discouragement along the way. One day, we’ll see our Savior face, to face.

Kayla Joy