King's Christmas Letter 2011

{This is the King family newsletter for 2010-11, since we skipped last year. Mom wrote it beautifully, and she writes about little Isaac for those who depend more on yearly letters to catch up with us. She points them to my blog here for the full story. I will link to Isaac's story in the letter, so you don't have to wade through my entire blog to find it. We are so blessed gloriously above all that we could ask or think, and the Lord's mercy and goodness have followed us all year as He has graciously lead us in His footsteps. I hope you too have been drawn ever nearer to our loving Savior this past year. Merry Christmas! - Audrey}

Christmas Blessings from our home to yours!

From prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

“Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent. One waits, hopes, does this, that or the other-- things that are really of no consequence--the door is shut, and can only be opened from the outside.”

On Saturday, our family headed to the mountains to cut a Christmas tree and celebrate Jed’s birthday, but first stopped by the little cemetery to see Isaac’s new gravestone (it took awhile to get because I could not agree on just one scripture-- I wanted to put Genesis through Revelation!). Dusting the snow off of the small, shiny slab, we smiled to see the name and tiny footprints of our little boy along with Rev. 21:4 etched in the granite. We thanked God again for His goodness to us, and this reminder of how much we need Him. This is why He came, and we have much to celebrate. We serve a risen Savior! God is with us! I am reminded of when I was very pregnant with Isaac, and Wyatt (with his limited capacities) seeing my tears, patted my belly and said “No worry baby,” -- he understood. There is no worry or fear that Jesus hasn‘t covered so we might have joy. In the words of Bonhoeffer:

“We call on the name of the One who alone conquered fear, captured it and led it away in a victory parade, nailed it to the cross and banished it to nothingness; the name of the One who is the victory cry of the humanity that is redeemed from the fear of death-- Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified and lives. He alone is the Lord of fear; it knows him as its Lord and yields to him alone.”

Jeff and I just celebrated our 25th anniversary-- he surprised me with a trip to Victoria, BC. We had such a fun, sweet time together. We really shouldn’t wait another 25 years! At least Jed figured out we are married-- when I was due with Isaac, he (then 5) asked me when Jeff and I were going to get married! (Maybe with the 8th on they way, we should think about it? J) Jeff is a wonderful, Godly, tender-hearted husband and daddy, and I remember seeing him with Isaac, and what a picture of Christ it was to me. Jeff and I are so thankful to see our oldest children able to work together on projects, their God-given talents complimenting each other so beautifully, and their passion for truth binding them together. We will also never forget the strength they were to us during our time in the hospital with Isaac, and their strong witness as they joyfully took over in the NICU, bringing the light of Christ in a tough place to be. Nor will we forget grown sons on their knees saying “I love you” and “I’m here, little buddy” over and over to a helpless little baby bearing God’s image...the girls cherishing every moment tho’ their mother-hearts were breaking... tears, but JOY.

Right now, we are busy filling backorders of J.D.’s documentary (after two years of filmmaking, he finally “wrapped” it up in September). Someday he should do a story on making it as it is such a testimony of God’s faithfulness. Since the release, he and Cody have been on the road quite a bit for speaking engagements, radio shows (interviewed by a presidential candidate on one), magazine articles, etc. Visit his website at: www.cryingwolfmovie.com, and read the review by Jim Beers who worked under both the Reagan and Clinton administrations. Please keep J.D. in your prayers; he has taken a bold stand for truth and as the accolades swell, the opposition may as well.

For those of you who may not know about our time with Isaac, God is good, there is much to tell. For now, please do us the honor of visiting Audrey’s blog where she beautifully shares a bit of our journey (many of her thoughts are also mine). www.audreykk.blogspot.com

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift-- the one that can never be taken away-- all that really matters! Each of our lives is but a nano-second in light of eternity, so let’s keep making it count!

In His hands, and with all our love,

Laura for the King family

God was in the Manger

Recently we read these quotes (below) from "God is in the Manger", a compilation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Advent Christmas writings. But thanks be to God! Jesus Christ did not stay in the manger. He has been from the manger to the cross, and has risen victorious to the right hand of the Father, and the knowledge of His Lordship will fill the earth far as the curse is found, and His unshakable Kingdom shall have no end. Christmas is a promise fulfilled, and we can be sure that all His other exceedingly great promises will be faithfully kept as well.

While we live in between the Already and the Not Yet, pain is real. But we find comfort that His pain was real too. In all our trials, He was born to be our Friend. Behold our King in a lowly manger! In His name all things will be set right one day, the path to misery will be closed for good, and tears will be wiped away. In our lives, we will be troubled, but fear not, for He has overcome the world. So we can sing, even in a minor key, "Rejoice."


This letter from an imprisoned Bonhoeffer to his fiancee is achingly beautiful, and something to ponder often during Advent and beyond.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Be brave, my dearest Maria, even if this letter is your only token of my love this Christmas-tide. We shall both experience a few dark hours -- why should we disguise that from each other? We shall ponder the incomprehensibility of our lot and be assailed by the question of why, over and above the darkness already enshrouding humanity. We are being subjected to the bitter anguish of a separation whose purpose we fail to understand. And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives."

-ak

I don't know about you, but I need to be reminded of this more often than not. From the compilation of Puritan devotionals, Voices of the Past.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do,
do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31

This life is not to be valued but as it yields opportunities to glorify
God. We were not sent into the world to live for ourselves, but
for God. If we could make ourselves, then we could live for ourselves.
If we could be our own first cause, then we might be our own end.
But God made us for himself, and sent us into the world for himself.
It is not our duty to glorify God in heaven only, but also here on
earth in the midst of difficulties and temptations. No one is sent into
the world to be idle, or to bring forth fruit to themselves, but God’s
glory must be our chief work and aim while we are here upon earth.
We must not promote merely our own interests. Every man, besides
his general calling, has his own work and course of service where he
might glorify and honour God; ‘I glorified you on earth, having accomplished
the work that you gave me to do’ (John 17:4). In a great
house one has one employment, one another: so God has designed
for every man the work he has to do; some in one calling, and some
in another; but all have their service and work given them for God’s
glory. Every morning we should revive the sense of this upon our
hearts. This day I am going to live with God. When a Christian leaves
home in the morning, he must remember he is at Christ’s disposal;
he is not to do as he pleases, but to be guided by rule, and for God’s
glory. Not only in our duties or immediate conversation with God,
but in our sports, business, and recreation. What is it to do things in
the name of Christ?—But to do it according to Christ’s will and command!
In discharge of this work, we must do it all for God’s glory. We
can do nothing without him. If we have anything to do for God, we
must do it in his own strength, in every word and every deed.

10 January
Thomas Manton, Works, i:81-82