Heart of a Warrior: Faith for His Boots on the Ground

By Kim Rice Smith

The Heart of a Warrior: Faith for His Boots on the Ground is a fifty-two-week devotional for the warrior heart in each of us! We are all warriors for the things we value in this life! We fight for our families, our communities, and our faith. His Boots on the Ground is the second devotional by the award-winning author of Heart of the Warrior, Kim Rice Smith. Both include relatable and faith-based reflections on life with space for personal journaling. Faith for His Boots on the Ground includes delightful photos from award-winning military combat photographer Kowshon Ye. Each devotion includes a beautiful image from his collection of photographs taken at many locations around the world. The stunning images will help to make this time spent weekly even more powerful. These relatable devotions will have warriors reflecting on moments in their own lives as they move through the year. Readers are encouraged to explore during each week how they can grow in their own personal faith journey. Along with space for journaling, each weekly entry includes a connecting scriptural reference and a suggestion for an activity to help strengthen the faith of each warrior. Warriors need to be equipped to serve as His Boots on the Ground! Warriors also need each other! Readers are encouraged to use this book along with the free daily blog at https://m.facebook.com/TheHeartOfAWarrior65 to connect with each other as we all work to strengthen our faith and our warrior hearts. Working together, our Boots on the Ground are better able to serve as his hands and feet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098052393

Book preview

Boots on the Ground

If you have been following this blog for long, you will remember one of my sons in love is a combat photographer. While at Basics Training in Quantico, he snapped the photo I am using for this blog. I call it Boots on the Ground.

The image of a warrior is different for each person. Many of us see our military as warriors for our freedom. Others may see public school teachers as warriors for the future of our nation. Some of you might see first responders and medical personnel in your image of a warrior.

I want you to walk to the closest mirror and look at it for sixty seconds. Look at every wrinkle. Notice every freckle. Touch every scar. Go ahead…we will wait.

What I want each one of us to own is that we are all warriors. Whether in a fight for your own health or that of a loved one, you are a warrior. Whether you are battling for the souls of your teenagers against the magnetic worldly things distracting them, you are a warrior.

Whether you are battling for a sincere smile through depression or fighting not to sob through grief, you are a warrior.

Together we are warriors. Most importantly we are the boots on the ground for our Heavenly Father. Just as marines will not leave a fellow marine behind, we need to work together in this temporary home with the same promise to each other.

We are the hands and feet of Christ. We are his boots on the ground. Every single day get up, look in the mirror, and remind yourself whose you are, then put your boots on! You are important. You are loved. You have important work to do for the kingdom.

(Boots on the Ground)

We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world.

—Ephesians 6:12 (CEV)

Prayer: Dear Lord, help me to be your boots on the ground in all that I do this week!

This Week: Pay attention this week to those subtle moments when you allowed people to see Christ in you. What opportunities did you miss?

Turning Fifty-Five

January 11, 2020. At the age of five, I figured old age would have taken me by any year that began with the number two. I hoped quickly and without pain. Age was simply not understood by my Romper Room -loving self. Who lives that long, right?

By sixteen, I had figured out people lived longer than the age of ten, but the idea of another century just seemed like a foreign concept. Women in their thirties at the beach seemed like they must be knocking on the doors of death to me. I am convinced something nearly catastrophic happens to our wiring at age sixteen.

Twenty-one…let’s be honest. Most of us are simply spiraling between childhood and adulthood at this age. Seeing beyond the next life decision of any kind was a struggle. Most of us were either overly confident or crippled by insecurity at this age.

Thirty years rolled around and I didn’t really focus on my life in the future at all. I was praying over two little girls and the world we would be leaving them. Trying so hard not to screw up the most important job of my life—motherhood.

Forty…ugh…can we just skip the forties? Not really…but they were rough! My girls were teenagers…(everyone knowingly nods in unison). My mother developed Alzheimer’s. I was on autopilot. There were many wonderful bright spots, but my forties were a special kind of challenge.

As weird as it sounds, moving into the fifth decade really has been golden! There is something wonderful about being able to look back at every mess and every struggle, knowing now how much I have grown from each one. Seeing what is possible, even after phenomenal lapses of judgment, is empowering!

So now I am fifty-five. January 11 in the year 2020 and the girl who, by all logic, should have died from one of the million stupid chances she took in her youth is still here and kicking!

Life is a gift! Every age has a new set of challenges, but also a whole lot of new and exciting adventures! Surround yourself with women of all ages and learn from each other. Life is better together.

To my five-year-old self I would say, Don’t be scared of clowns! Advice for my ten-year young heart, Keep playing even if you don’t play well! To my sixteen-year-old self I’d say, Do not fall for the first blue-eyed surfer you meet.

To that thirty-something mother…I would hold her tight and whisper, Stop comparing yourself to other mothers! You are doing okay. Just keep loving them. To the woman in her forties, I would take her hand, look her in the eyes, and say, Don’t lose yourself in the chaos of life.

To this now fifty-five years and one-day-old creation of God I say, "Girl, you are enough. Take one day…one moment at a time! You’ve got this because God has got you! Always has, always will.

Fifty-five sounds like a good strong number to me!

(Turning Fifty-Five)

I will still be the same when you are old and gray, and I will take care of you. I created you. I will carry you and always keep you safe.

—Isaiah 46:4 (CEV)

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, now that fifty-five is no longer just a number on the speed limit sign, help us to embrace every second of every day as a beautiful chance to be stronger today than we were yesterday.

This Week: Revisit your younger self. Pull out a photo and write a letter to the person you were then.

Thunder

The sounds of a long-overdue afternoon rain shower through the screen door had lulled me off to a really glorious nap. Rain dancing on a tin roof sends me to dreamland every time.

A crazed dog clawing at my arm woke me as I realized the thunder was rolling in. No thunder jacket helped. No herbal dog treat remedy calmed the fear. The dog scratched me, clawed the wall, and even tried to climb in a bucket of blankets.

Lord, help me! Taking care of this dog during a thunderstorm was worse than trying to soothe ten teething babies at one time. I know she just doesn’t understand what is happening, but my injured arms may not survive the summer with her.

My heart goes out to the poor dog. She loves me, but I am not her person. She has a great place to live here, but it is not her home. Her heart is stressed trying to balance all of the adjustments life has thrown her way…and still behave like a good girl.

When I say it that way to myself, I can totally relate! I can’t even count the times I have walked into a meeting from what feels like a tornado in my personal life…trying to hide it all and be a good girl, aka professional and focused. Trying to pull it together.

I don’t think I could count the times I have left one meeting or another wound as tight as a top, only to try and stop spinning before I got home. I signed up for this, not my family. Be a strong girl, aka plastic face…shut it off. Also could be inner voice warnings to not lose my marbles.

Actually, the more I think about how much this sweet dog has to keep it together on any given day, the losing her mind during the occasional thunderstorm doesn’t seem that bad at all.

How often do we walk around holding it together by a thread for the world? We don’t want them to see us cry because that makes us appear weak. We don’t want to lose our tempers because not everyone has grace. But then like a thunderstorm, something cracks the veneer surface of our existence and it all comes pouring out on everyone who happens to be in our path.

After the storm passed, she felt horrible. She came and kissed my arms and cheek over and over again