Good morning, delightful Siestas! We are revving up around here for our trip to the Great Northwest! We are so excited to see who God is going to gather and hear what He wants to say. Please, please, please pray for me to hear His voice speak through Scripture in preparation. I’m really jazzed about what I think I’m getting from Him so far but I’m also at that crisis point where it needs to all come together. Some information now has to get culled and what’s left has to take the form of an outline and fall into three messages with comprehensive points. That’s a Jesus job.

You will never waste a prayer on me or on Travis and the team or on the LifeWay event staff. We’re never more aware of our poverty of spirit that when we’re in that 24 hour countdown. We practically never have that “up to it” feeling.

Are any of you heading that direction for our Living Proof Live tomorrow and Saturday? I just found out from Michelle that we already have a whopping 5000+ ticketed for this God-event so far. My jaw is down on the floor. I’m hoping to see some of our wonderful Siestas there because I remember so well when we did the blog survey several years ago and were ecstatic to discover many of you from Washington State. We were so shocked we even did a shout out. Too expensive to come? Could any of you attend if you just had a comp ticket?? Yahoo, Siesta Scholarship Fund! That’s what it’s for! Call Living Proof Ministries at 1-888-700-1999 during work hours today or tomorrow and talk to either Kimberly or Susan. Remember, our time zone is two hours later than yours. We’ll fix up the first 15 or so of you who call.

You are all dear to me!

Good morning, Sister Girls! It’s Tuesday and time to talk! I am so happy to have gotten the joy of connecting with you over the weekend. It was an unexpected gift on a rare lazy day. I’ve really been excited over how many sisters have chimed in lately for the first time. A heightened number of you have said in the last several weeks that you’ve been reading the blog for a while but you were commenting “for the first time.” I just want you to know that it’s the comments that turn this place into a community. Not the blog posts but the comments. That means it’s more your part than mine. That’s a pretty cool thing I think. All that to say, I love seeing somebody who’s been watching finally imparting. Welcome! You are freely loved here in the gracious Name of Jesus Christ. We cannot replace counselors or local churches or face-to-face, life-to-life friends but we gleefully do what we can do: encourage you in your walk with Christ.

OK, let’s get to today’s topic: Talk to me about someone Jesus brought into your life who really stretched you but won your respect. Maybe a very unlikely friendship or relationship that you know God brought your way to grow you and to open your eyes to the wide-sweeping work of the Gospel. Put another way, who sort of broke a mold for you? This should be fun. Only share a name where there is nothing that would make your person uncomfortable or embarrassed. This might be a good time to tell you that this community, because of God’s grace alone, gets an average of 10,000 independent hits a day. Only share what you mean to be public but, by all means, have joy in the process! Just don’t tell us a secret. Grin.

I love you dearly. I can’t wait to read these.

Remember? I said that I reserved the right to get on here and write if I wanted to and if what I wanted to write didn’t take away from the James study. I do and it won’t, so there.

It’s a Saturday off after several really hard weeks of work. I relish the Life Today tapings once I get there because the studio audience is always fantastic and the PERFECT size. (150 maybe?) I am close enough to them to hear them groan or chuckle and to see puzzlement on their faces so that I know whether or not to clarify. I am close enough to see if any one of them has tears in her eyes and if something I said hurt too much to leave alone. I am right there to see the work of the Spirit when He moves at His own discretion and I’m on occasion left with chills standing straight up on my arms, all because I’m standing close enough to feel it. And because He let’s me. I love all these things about the Life Today tapings BUT they are just about as much work over a 20 hour period of time as I ever do. Even the skin feels too heavy on my bones to take back home with me. It’s so worth it but 5 one-hour teaching sessions is a hard task.

All that to say, having the next Saturday off is a beautiful thing. I took Thursday, too, but I had a lot to do out and about that day. I had fun but not exactly rest. I’ll often opt for the former over the latter but not today. Keith left early this morning for a sporting clays tournament and just shut the bedroom door and let me sleep in. I opened my eyes about 8:45 and said good morning to the Lord. I then smiled really wide at the thought of a first cup of coffee. It never tastes better than that first sip. Then I had my quiet time and reflected back on the evening before. CJ took Jackson “camping” at a friend’s land where a handful of dads around the same age brought their young sons and did all but sleep outside. That is my kind of camping, too. As my grandmother would say, “I’m right outdoorsy till I’m sleepy.”

AJ and Annabeth came and spent the evening with my man and me. I’m just not sure little kids are ever any cuter or funnier than around 21 months. She talks constantly and, of course, had the undivided attention of three adults. Everything she wanted read to her got read to her. She ate spaghetti like she’d been starved for a month and with such enthusiasm that she had to be hastily swept to the tub lest all in her path receive a baptism by marinara. I did not say maranatha. I said marinara. Aunt Melissa then called us all on Face Time  (I-phone 4 – it’s one reason we got it) and she, AJ and I howled our heads off. I like to wear different hats when I talk to Melissa on Face Time because it makes her laugh and, because I can see myself in the little square in the corner of the screen, it makes me laugh, too. First I wore a stylish little straw hat with a thick green ribbon around it that Melissa bought several months ago then I put on one of Keith’s cowboy hats. I just hate to be predictable.

Annabeth was scared of Face Time at first and hid all but one eye in Amanda’s shirt but now she totally participates and loves to talk to Aunt Melissa and to wave to her. It’s almost more than Melissa can stand and she invariably laughs until she gets a lump in her throat and wants to cry because she’s so far from home. She loves Amanda’s babies so much. Annabeth blew numerous kisses to her last night and even told her she loved her. (“LUH- do”) She even said something to her about “Jedus.”And that’s part of what had me reflecting during my quiet time this morning.

Annabeth thinks that the greatest part of getting ready for bed is rocking with Mommy and singing about “Jedus.” I love how her little mouth looks when she says His Name. I want them to love Him so much. That’s the one thing. The one thing I ask over and over and over. I don’t mean it’s the only thing I ever ask but it’s the only thing I ask like a broken record. If they – Keith, Amanda, Curtis, Jackson, Annabeth, Colin, and Melissa and others of our family yet to come – and I love Jesus, and I mean really love Jesus, everything else will be okay. I am convinced of that. We can get through virtually anything on love. I often ask God to spare my dear family of tragedy but not to spare us of His glory. Tragedies do sometimes come but we must never think for a moment that they’ve come lightly. We must steady our reeling selves to the anchor beyond the veil and know, when we know nothing else, that somehow, some way, glory must have been at stake.

I hope your Saturday is, at least in some way, a sabbath to you. I finished yet another Wendell Berry novel this morning and let the time pass without much notice. I finished a book last week that simply said, “Stop hurrying so much.” And I’ve been trying to practice that. Even both dogs are sound asleep right now which is no small wonder, especially as I spy a squirrel at the bird feeder in our back yard. Shoot. I might go back to bed myself.

On second thought, I’m starving here. When on earth will somebody around this house go to the grocery store???

Hey, Siestas! Thank you for such an outpouring of support in my blog break. God has already caused it to bear fruit the way I’d hoped. He’s so faithful. I miss you so much and think of you daily. I hope to see some of you Houston area girls at Bible study tonight. I’m so blessed to serve tonight with my friend, Christy Nockels. OK, here’s today’s TOPIC for Talk To Me Tuesday.

Talk to me about a time in your own life when God called you to an area of obedience that was particularly difficult but ultimately (and surprisingly) led to joy. Limit your story to one meaty paragraph so we can read as many as possible. Let’s hear it! I surely do love you girls.

Greeting From Beth, October 11,2010 from LPV on Vimeo.

My Dearly Loved Siestas, please watch the video greeting when you get a chance so that I can fill you in on what to expect for the next 2 months. This written post does not take the place of the video so please be sure to watch it. This is only to reiterate what I shared with you in the video about what to expect on here while I’m away. You will still find…

*Siesta Scholarship Giveaway Tickets to events that fall within this time period.

*Living Proof Live Recaps of the events that fall within this time period. (And, yes, I will read the comments to those events just like I normally would. I will just discipline myself not to write back.)

*A possible entry here or there on special occasions or when I’m bursting to tell you something that won’t really translate into the James study.

*”Talk To Me Tuesdays” – Every Tuesday I’ll put up a post where you do all the talking. (It will begin next week.) Tell me in a concise paragraph how you are, or what God is doing, or something funny that’s happened, or what you’re learning. Although I will hold myself back from responding to them, I will be anxiously and joyfully reading as many of them as possible. In this way, I get to continue to be inspired by your journeys with God and, when I’m tempted to respond, will, instead, put that energy into writing the Bible study. This format will also help you stay in touch with one another and allow you to directly respond to each other.

We will be very busy in 2011 here in Siestaville with the return of the Siesta Scripture Memory Team! I better take this chance NOW!

I could almost cry telling you how much you mean to me and how I will miss you. STAY IN THE WORD! Pray for your Siesta Mama. And I will pray for you. We’ll all be back together before you know it.

I love you. Really.

PS. Because Twitter doesn’t really consume creative energy (grin), I will probably try to keep up with that unless it gets distracting. So far it hasn’t been. It’s fun but I don’t have the attachment to it that I have here. If you want to join us there, it’s (this is so embarrassing) @bethmooreLPM. I feel like an idiot.