Hey My Darling Siestas!
I’ve been so anxious to catch up with you but in too fast a tail spin to do it! I have such a full plate today that I can’t say as much as I’d like but I at least wanted to greet you in Jesus’ great and powerful Name this morning and thank you a gillion for your incredible responses to the “tough being a woman” survey. Your answers were TERRIFIC and have already given me insight for the Esther study. After about four months of research, I’ve only just begun to write it and the process will take at least the next nine months. I am going to put your responses in a notebook and I will look at them MANY, MANY times in my writing journey. You are so precious to me. Sharing this community with you has already been used by God to add so many rich perspectives to this ministry. You were a missing link I needed, especially after having to retire from my beloved Sunday School class a year ago. I love you and I’m honored to serve you.
One more quick thing I hope you’ll enjoy! One of the greatest treats of doing what God has called me to do is getting to be with other sisters who have been called to something similar. It’s such a weird (and challenging) life that it helps tremendously to cross paths, laugh, and share the ups and downs of a public women’s ministry. Between the Women of Faith and Deeper Still events, God is allowing me in this season to be with other speaker friends that I totally dig in the Lord Jesus. This weekend when I returned from D.C., my good buddy Priscilla Shirer (one of THE most gifted Bible teachers I’ve ever heard) was in Houston doing one of her brand new Going Beyond revival events (get one on your calendar). Our other good buddy, Lisa Whelchel, was there lending support and receiving a word so how could I resist? I threw on my jeans and headed to the church with a heart blazing with anticipation. Lisa and I sat on the front row and “Amened” and “Hallelujah’d” while Priscilla tore it up in the power of the Holy Spirit. We, then, got to grab time together after the event and talk a thousand miles an hour. I’m crazy about both of them and they are head over heels in love with the Lord Jesus. I thought you might be relieved to know that, in a world (even a religious world) replete with territorialism and competition and ghastly egotism, there are a whole bunch of us girls (still weak in our natural man and an inch from the next pit, if we’re willing) who want desperately to be dead to the stinking flesh and alive to the Spirit, and able – despite pressure to the contrary – to cheer one another on in this difficult race on Planet Earth. Turf wars originated and persist in the devil himself and can erupt anywhere he is offered – however accidentally – an inch to work: churches, ministries, worship teams, mission fields. You name it. Be onto him when he rears his ugly head and refuse him the right to EVER talk you into a turf war with a brother or sister in Christ. U-N-I-T-Y!
