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December 19, 2012 by Karin 8 Comments

When our opinions don’t matter, but our voices do

It’s been a while.

I intended to stop for a moment and rest.  Then, life happened.  Life happened all around me just as it usually does, but this time so many things so close to the heart.

I chased promises for 31 days.  I found them.

The testing.  Faith, belief, trust.  Trust.  Over and over He asked me…

do you trust me?

I wish I could say that I did.  Every moment.

I wish I could say I didn’t question.  Or wonder.  Or doubt.

I wish I could say that I stayed buried in His life-giving words.  Every.  Day.

One thing I did do.  I kept talking to Him.  Talking and talking and talking.

The one area I missed.

The listening.

I didn’t listen quite a much as I should have.

I wandered, foolishly, away from His own words.  He graciously followed me and provided me with signs, right where I was.  Through friends, and strangers, He showed me again that He is in all the details.

The day I was wheeled into an operating room for a stubborn kidney stone, my dear friend called to share the diagnosis of her dear daddy.  Cancer.  It had been hiding everywhere.  No one knew.  Until that day.  Two weeks later he passed.  Two weeks from diagnosis to the end… the new beginning.  He believed, you see.  He was not afraid.

My friend, her children, her mom… they remain here.  Seeking the joy in this Christmas.  Though the tears blur their earthly eyes ~ hands reach out, unseeing.  Reach out in the faith that cannot been seen, grasping onto a God who holds them firmly in His hand.

The day I was wheeled into this surgery, another dear girlfriend was wheeled into her own surgery.  Again and again she allowed doctors to cut into her eye, attempting to restore sight.  Attempting to save her sight.  The surgeries at first seemed successful, but time and again they failed.  Then, with a final attempt, the cut appears to have healed the wound. She waits.  Grateful for what she can see… timidly reaching for what she does not.  Is He really there?  Is He really here?

A car accident.  Yet another friend and her precious little ones.  She told me that she has never felt His presence like she did the moment the cars collided.  In the blur of events, prying her little girls from the crushed steel cage, collapsing from pain of her own, being placed on a board into an ambulance ~ His presence was so great… she thought she would look up and see Him.  A glimpse of the unseen.  The blind faith… just knowing He is here.

All this and so much more, in a matter of weeks, began the day I stopped counting His promises.  I intended to write so many times, but words felt inadequate in a time of searching… a time of searching for understanding.

Then, and I hardly feel equipped or that I have the right to comment on the precious souls lost to this world just days ago, unspeakable tragedy.  Only my mama heart can speak to what happened that day.  I just don’t understand.  There are absolutely no words.  So many opinions swirl around, but our opinions are rather empty.  Our hearts heavy.  I just don’t understand.  I can only pray… and even here, in this place of wordless pleading to God, I have nothing.  No words.  Then His words…

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  

Romans 8:26

The spirit…

He knows there are no words.  He requires no words. 

I read the most beautiful words from dear Ann… words of this broken place.  The story of a snake… it slithered its way long and forcefully into a warm kitchen of a missionary and his wife.  Answering a distressed call, a local man wielding a machete swiftly decapitated the serpent.  The profound insight from the missionary during this unusual occurrence has left me with one more scale peeled from my spiritual eyes.  The snake did not know he was dead.  Thrashing and destroying, his tail flailed through the house.  Then, his end.

We know his end… this end of evil.  We know he is finished.  This pure evil that continues to thrash through our world.  The final outcome, he has missed in all his destructive desire.  He wants us to miss it, too.  It is finished.  In the end… love wins.

Love wins.

Our opinions… so many of them like a swirling kaleidoscope.  Do they really matter?  Does it really matter what we think?  I stopped writing for a while.  Wondering… does it really matter what I say?  What my opinion is?  Not really.  Opinions are based on feelings, half-truths, partial knowledge, passionate desire for justice.  Opinions, in all their adamant fist pounding, desperately seek truth… understanding.  We want to understand.  

What does matter, what matters more than anything else is…

what He says.

His truth.

The truth about writing… it’s not an answer-giver.  It’s an answer-seeker.

A desperate quest for understanding.  To understand the mystery in the suffering.

My opinions do not really matter.  My voice in all this noise only matters for one reason.  It is just one more voice trying to muffle, to quiet, to drown out the doubting, the hating, the darkness that begs to swallow us whole.  Just one more voice desperate to seek light, shed light, see light… through all this… at the end of all this.

This voice seeking to thin it’s shell of skin… to allow one more flicker of His light to shine through.  Here, with all the others whose flames flicker faith, hope, peace, joy… love.

And, so, I write.

 

Proverbs 18:2

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.

 

 

Filed Under: Faith, Friendship, God's Promises, Hope, Love, Trust Tagged With: trust, when our words matter, when we want to understand

November 15, 2012 by Karin 2 Comments

So, Do You?

I went looking for answers.

I wanted to know.

My sixpack of kids have asked me, and I just didn’t know enough to satisfy – myself, or them.

I wanted to know.

What are God’s Promises?

Well, don’t you know… when you go asking God some questions…

He answers

He answers with brilliant clarity… with subtle signs… with barely breathed whispers…

But, He answers.

And, then.

Then, He tests to see if you were paying attention.  He nudges to see if you took notes etched on the heart. 

He asks a question right back.

Do you believe Me?

Oh, a beautiful journey to be certain… this sleuthing for divine truth.  A thrill to discover just one more nugget.

Eye-opening, reassuring, even in the places of discomfort.

But.

Do I believe Him?

Every time?

In every situation?

He is asking me this.  He is putting my newfound knowledge to the test.  A grace-filled gift.  This unnerving place of a pop-quiz in the flesh.  The question is one.  One question.  Aimed at the harvest of this one heart.

Have these seeds taken root?  Are the roots searching without end for the water of life?  Will this seed yield a good crop?

I wrote for 31 days straight.  Aiming directly at His truth… every day. 

Then, I stopped.  

Seized in a moment of awe.  Watching life unfold around me.  The unexpected.  The fear gripping.  The worry.  The questions.

Through all this… He asks me right now.

Do you trust Me?

I whisper small, awestruck, to the voice of Ages.

Yes

This unraveling of presumed control.  Unravelling into His arms of grace.  Mercy.  Faithfulness.

I have a story.  I am watching it unravel.  I am waiting.

Waiting to see where He is taking me.

And now.

I trust.

Are you in the middle of a story?  Are you waiting on Him?  Do you find yourself in this place of trust?

 

Isaiah 40:30-31

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

 

Filed Under: Faith, God's Promises, Grace, Mercy, Trust Tagged With: faith, trusting God, when God tests

October 31, 2012 by Karin Leave a Comment

Sketch of a Child (#31)

PROMISE #31 ~ ETERNAL LIFE

She wanders over to me, this 9-year-old sweetheart, and shows me…

Look, Mom, I want to draw something for you.

Hm, I whisper softly, distracted by some other something else.

I’m going to draw something that I know.

She goes to work, penning carefully… the design flowing from her young mind.

Studiously she creates the image, and begins to explain.

Look, Mom, here is where we are.

On this side.  We are standing on a cliff.

See, here is a big gap.  There, there is the other side,  the other cliff.

The gap is just too big for us to jump.

There, on the other side… that’s God.

We can’t get to Him…

because He is perfect…

and we are not.

My preoccupied mind, now rapt with attention.  This young girl, heart wide open… continues.

We were separated from Him.

But, look.

There in the middle.  There is Jesus.

It’s because of Him… because of Him, that we can go to God.

See.

She sketches the child drawing… and etches her mama’s mind.

It’s that simple.  See.

So simple a child sees it… sees it so clearly, that she can take pen to paper… and draw it.

Drawn out for the world to see.

Her sparkling chocolate eyes, lit with fiery love… look into mine.

There.  That’s how we get to God.

Another voice breaks my thoughts, my gaze, my wonder at the faith of a child.

Well, it’s a good thing I know exactly where I’m going.

I’m going to heaven.

A gleeful younger sister chirps from the side.  Flinging smooth locks over her shoulder… and skipping away.

That’s it.  So simple a child can draw it, see it, know it.

Just because He says so.

This faith drawing me lower… to go higher.

Right to the face of the Father.

Just by believing.

This journey of promises.  31 days of seeking His word.  It culminates here.  

Between two cliffs.  Standing in the gap.  On His grace.  Mercy.  Promise.

 

PROMISE #31 ~ God promises us eternal life, with Him.  Eternal Life.  Just for believing Him in His promise.

 

John 6:46-48

No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.  I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.  I am the bread of life.

 

Filed Under: Brothers and Sisters, Faith, God's Promises, Grace, Hope, Mercy, Trust Tagged With: eternal life, faith, faith of a child, God's promises

October 28, 2012 by Karin Leave a Comment

The Wait (#28)

PROMISE #28 ~ WAIT

Can you sometimes sense a change coming?

As if the sky cracks open… just one small sliver.  A thought thrown to the heavens and God answers by allowing the thought to chip the sky just enough to begin the hairline fracture.

This glimmering fracture stretches just enough to allow a glowing ray of light from the other side.  The light of some sort of purpose.  Just enough to feed the thrill of anticipation.

Sitting on the edge of… something… wondering just what it may be.

Peering hard into the horizon… searching for… purpose.

Asking Him for the answer… and He answers…

wait.

When I don’t know what to do… the answer…

do nothing…

wait.

He has much in store.

 

PROMISE #28 ~ God has gifts in store for us… sometimes we must wait.

 

Acts 1:3-5

After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.  On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Filed Under: Faith, God's Promises, Patience, Trust Tagged With: faith, God's promises, Patience, waiting on God

October 15, 2012 by Karin Leave a Comment

Just asking… (#15)

PROMISE #14 ~ BLESSINGS FOR BELIEVING THE UNSEEN

So, am I covered?

We all want to know this… in one way or another.  In one place or another.  In one situation or another.

Am I good to go?  Do I need to do anything else?  Have I fulfilled the requirements?

Am I allowed in?

This question pursued me when I was younger.  No matter the situation, the school, the class, the party, the group, the occasion… I wanted to know.

Am I accepted?

So often we struggle with this acceptance issue.  Sometimes we care, sometimes we do not, sometimes we wish we didn’t, sometimes we pretend we don’t.

Do I have what it takes to be here?

I took this thinking straight to Him at one point on this journey.

Do I belong with You?  Have I made too many mistakes?  Have I blown you off too many times?  Have I doubted you too much?  Disregarded Your instructions?  Your advice?  Even… doubted Your existence one too many times?

Have you ever thought, Mama…

What if He had never been?  

What if He’s not really there?

My blue-eyed boy, the one just at the edge of the age of awareness we parents stiff-arm as long as we can.  The age when they start to think, really think, for themselves.  Delving into thoughts of truth, lie, reality, fantasy…

What if, Mom?

My heart smiles inside… knowing that He has gone steps in front of me… preparing me for the questions.

I’ve thought that, too, kiddo.

As a kid, I lay in bed at night, and wondered…

What if there is nothing else out there?  What if we are it?  The end?

What if He’s there, but I don’t ever get to see Him?  Meet Him?

What if I never get to understand what all of this is about?

My sweetie grins.  A relieved calm in his eyes.

I’m not that different after all.

It’s ok to ask.

I can ask… and still be accepted.  By you, by them… by Him.

I don’t have all the answers.  God gives me glimpses when I need them.  When I need to gently prod the questioner along.  Encourage the fight… the chase… the seeking… the truth.

He drips the wisdom to this soul… on an “as needed” basis… like an IV providing fluid to a weak, parched body.  Strengthening this soul… and the next… one drip at a time.  Knowing the overflow would only bloat to the point of shutdown.  Just enough to absorb into the soul and settle.  Sink in.  Build.

Then, the question…

How do I get there?

With Him?

Will He take me?

Oh, this one I know.  I know this one so well.  I have wrestled with this and in the wrestling He claims victory.  He opens my eyes and provides clarity, reassurance, promise.

It’s one thing.

Believe.

Believe it.  Believe Him.  Tell Him.  He’s got it from there.

Accepted.  Sealed.  Redeemed.  Done.

So, the questioner.  The questioning.  The questions… corner stones and bricks… building the foundation of this life with Him, for Him… growing the faith.

My eyes go to my young one…

The questioning is good… it is normal…

Just remember to go to Him for the answers.

Remember to listen after you ask.

He will answer.

Just listen.

 

PROMISE #15 ~ God promises blessings to those who believe the unseen.

 

John 20:27-29

Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”  Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”  Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

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Filed Under: Faith, God's Promises, Love, Trust Tagged With: blessings for believing, doubt, faith, God's promises, trust

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Meet Karin

Hi! My name is Karin Madden. Writer. Warrior wife. Mom of six pack. Homeschooler. German-blooded southerner. Welcome to the place where I explore what it means to grow stronger - spirit, soul, and body. I write to inspire and encourage - to remind you we are not alone. By being bold with grace and speaking truth in love, we can become who we are meant to be. I'm glad you are here.

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