A move always unearths interesting things. Curtis and I have spent the last month getting settled in our new house and unpacking everything from junk to earthly treasures. I found numerous unopened bottles of baby shampoo and lotion I didn’t realize we had. I also found photo albums that I thought had been eaten up by a black hole. One of the albums is from my trip to Israel with my mom in 1997. I was very relieved to find that. I happily unpacked this beautiful Lladro’ figurine that my dear Mrs. Mary Helen gave me when Curt and I got engaged. I’ve never had the proper place to display it (fearing destruction by a naughty cat or by a curious toddler), so I have been saving it for the right time. I finally have the perfect spot for it in my new house. One thing I was hoping to find but that hasn’t turned up yet is my Aggie Ring – a prized possession for any graduate of Texas A&M University. It went missing two moves ago when I was great with child and wasn’t wearing it on a regular basis. Only the Lord knows where that thing is.
Your Living Proof sisters are still in an unpacking frenzy. I went to work in the new office for the first time yesterday and things were in high gear. There was a large team of volunteers helping get the resource area in order. LPM has about thirteen paid staff members, but we have many, many more people than that who are critical to the operation of this ministry. That includes each and every one of you who prays for us, even though we don’t have the honor of seeing your sweet faces each week!
While I was at the office, I found some garments of praise (outfits for praise dancing) that someone had sent to us. Someone else found a box filled with hundreds of blue yarn Believing God bracelets. We did Believing God in the fall of 2002, so those babies are more than five years old. We wore the bracelets during the Bible study to remind us to believe God. My mom got the idea from Numbers 15:37-41. (The blue yarn frays at the ends and makes tassels.) The original bracelets we wore have long since fallen off, but when we need to focus intensely in prayer on a particular matter, we don’t hesitate to tie new ones on our wrists.
Curtis must have uncovered some bracelets during the packing phase because I noticed he had one on his wrist one day after work. “Yes,” I thought, “he is one of us now!” Over the weekend we both noticed that the bracelet had fallen off. Sometimes the yarn stretches out. You really have to tie it on tight if you want it to make the distance.
Last weekend the weather was incredibly beautiful and we felt inspired to go to the Texas Bluebonnet Festival in a tiny country town called Chappell Hill. The bluebonnet is state flower of Texas, in case anyone wanted to know. I bought a really neat, rather large wooden cross at the festival and Curtis and I took turns carrying it around.
Fast forward a couple of days. I hadn’t hung the cross on a wall yet and I picked it up to move it to a different spot. Something dark and stringy fell from it and imagine my surprise to find that it was Curtis’ Believing God bracelet! It was attached to the cross the entire time…just where it should have been. If our faith isn’t attached to the Cross of Christ, we’re hanging on by a thread.
What a neat story! I love that you found the Believing God bracelet stuck to the cross – beautiful imagery! Makes me wonder if your aggie ring is stuck to some old text books…:-)
Amen!
Ah… the blue string! I love when I come across mine in my older Bible. I remember running up the stairs in a mad dash to find blue string for my husband to tie onto me before he left for work that day! I couldn’t see the color very well, so God told me to hold it up to the sunlight! Like with everything else I was having trouble discerning… “Hold it up to the Son Light, baby girl!”
And I remember the day it finally fell off while walking and talking with Him, and the precious words God gave me of deep encouragement and profound love. The time I sat aside during those 40 (plus many) days, was so special! And I’m still reaping the benefits. It was the first time in my life that I knew I was never going to be the same again.
How really cool Curtis has one too. *smile* I love when things of God attatch me all the more to the man He chose for me!
Blessings to you and Curtis!
I remember my bracelet. It is good to be reminded that…
1. God is who He says He is
2. God can do what He says He can do
3. I am who God says I am
4.I can do all things through Christ
5.God’s Word is alive and active in me
I’m still believing God!
I love that the ribbon was on your cross. What a great reminder of Christ’s awesome gift for us.
Thanks for the story it was wonderful!
I know a lady who has “I’m believe God” tatooed in blue on the inside of her wrist. Cool, huh!
Great reminder–so happy for your family to be in Houston and at LPM and praise God for the new facilities! How’s Jackson doing with the move?
Believing God was my first Beth Moore study (I did it online then met with a friend to discuss our answers) and it changed my life–I have recommended it to many women!
May God’s blessings be upon you in your new ‘homes’.
I have my “Believing God” bracelet on too!!! It’s been through 6 weeks of wear & tear – but if anyone ever asks – I RAVE about this study. I’ve never felt closer to God & each week is a blessing for me to get together w/ my friends (sisters in Christ) to dig deeper into the word of God.
Thank you for your gift of teaching & understanding of what God wants.
Love,
Julie
Thanks for the reminder. Having been so very busy lately, jumping from one event to the next I have to confess that my faith walk has been well more by sight than faith. No nothing bad has happened, it is just a busy life.
Anyway thanks for the reminder. Kim B.in AZ
Fellow Aggie commenting here…Fightin’ Texas Aggie Class of 2001 (and 2002) WHOOP!!!
I’m so sad about your Aggie ring having gone missing. I heard a rumor once that the association will pay for half of it’s replacement value but that may be TOTAL rumor. My college roommate lost hers and her sister got all of our college friends to pitch in a little here and there to buy her a new one…that’s what Aggies do, right?
Here’s praying it turns up somewhere! I always say never underestimate the tracks of your power seats in the car…I find all sorts of missing things there!
Blessings from the Texas Panhandle!
Amanda I just loved how you tied that all together and really got me thinking so here it is,……”At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light”
“I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown”
How is it that He was beaten and bruised and took my stripes upon his back instead of me and then was nailed to an old rugged cross, so that ALL of my sins would forever be forgiven and I would be made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and if that isn’t enough, to top it all off HE gives ME a CROWN!!! But I love Jesus all the more for what he freely gives.
It is so true Amanda….EVERYTHING we have, every ounce of my belief system must lie in being connected to that Old Rugged Cross.
“Jesus paid it all, all to Him we owe!!!!!”
My pastor once said that “Jesus will be whatever you need Him to be whenever you need Him to be it, He will be!” Cry out to Jesus with all the needs of your heart, He will meet you in the midst of them.
Thank you sweet Jesus because without the cross I would be hanging on by a thread probably a blue thread but for WHAT??? There’d be nobody there to catch me when I fell!!!
(For Readers who have never received Jesus before- Are U ready?)
If you are not already clinging to the old rugged cross, my I suggest
you turn to Him now and experience the life that Jesus died to give you!! You will never regret it I promise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love you AJ, congrats on the new house!!!
Angela in Redmond, WA
Great job Amanda! I needed to hear that – He is so good to me!
YEAH!!! – the blue bracelet… I’m wearing mine since my study ended in October… for my dear friend’s husband who has a brain tumor. They had just found out while I was in the midst of that study… They’re just the sweetest young family with twin 12 yr olds and a 6 year old … all girls… so I’m believing God for His healing of their husband and daddy. We know what He has planned is best!
Please pray with me for them too!!!
Thats a wonderful sentiment Amanda. You thinking of following moms footsteps (and then creating your own path) and speaking to the masses? Sounds like your heart is ready…
God bless-
Amanda
Amen sister. Life is not really life if we are unattached to the cross. I’m going out to buy blue yarn today!
Oh, Amanda, you have the gift of storytelling and writing just like your momma! Thanks so much for reminding me to get back and review that study. I need to be raising my shield of faith more often and I WILL. God is so faithful! May He grant you all peace as you move. Even good transitions can be tricky. Love from Kim in wildfire country (SoCal)
I really grew through the Believing God study. It made me realize He was always there even before I was saved, molding and shaping everything around me! Just bought Denise Jackson’s book “Its All About Him”. She mentions Breaking Free. excerpt, pg 113 “We’d met in Jane’s cozy family room, sitting in a circle, some of us dressed for the day, and some in sweats and no make-up. The casualness and security came from the long-standing bond that we had with each other. We went through a study called Breaking Free, authored by the wonderful Bible teacher Beth Moore. Each week our group would dig into sections of the Bible that focused on freedom. We’d talk about our struggles and the things that held us to earth and bound us tight. Then we’d sit in that chircle, hold hands and pray”….”But I’d always been an eager student, and the academic part of me loved studying the Bible and answering questions in the study guide. I had been spiritually dry for so long that I was dying for truth”….She was separated from Alan at the time and the study helped her. Their story is awesome and God just continues to amaze me!
I too went through the life-changing Believing God Bible Study four years ago. It coincided with the “reassignment” of my husband from his coaching position in a small town in the panhandle of TX.
So, I got him a book and we went through it again together. A couple of weeks into the study, Matthew was praying over a job posibility in Galveston, TX, during his morning run, when he passed by our neighbor’s house at the end of our street. The night before they had erected a life-sized metal PALM TREE in their front yard! Now if that isn’t God talking… 🙂
So, here we are 4 years later reaping the adbundant blessings of God in the Houston/Galveston area.
To Him be the Praise,
Allyson
I’m blessed every time I check into the blog. Thanks, Amanda!
Oh, love that last line! Amen sister!
Love from Nebraska,
Lelia
Amanda,
I just finished Believing God and I still have my bracelet on. As soon as I saw the title, I knew what you were talking about. Last summer I read the book and made a bracelet. 2 days after I finished the book, I joined a local bible study doing Belieiving God and I got another bracelet from them. I used that one to make my bookmark. I just can’t take the first one off. I lost 30 pounds by “Believing God” and I really don’t think I could have done it without all I learned in that study. Thank you for all you do!!!
Much love,
Lisa in RL IL
When I did the Believing God study I loved it so much I purchased a “Believe God” gem bracelet through LIfeway’s website. To this very this day I wear it when I am am in the midst of a time of deep prayer or under intense spiritual warfare. It has come to represent that extra measure of leaning on God during a time of need. How I thank God for that study!
In Him,
Nancy
I did Believing God online way back when…and just found my blue yarn bracelet in my jewelry box when I was cleaning it out the other day. Nope, I didn’t throw it out, either. I can’t even begin to share how Father used Beth and the Believing God study to grow my faith in leaps and bounds like nothing else ever had. So, the frayed, dirty piece of blue yarn STAYS.
Blessings,
Jeannie
I haven’t commented in many months. I wish to be a Siesta so am inviting myself (something I tell my children not to do).
I was looking at the blue yarn bracelet on my arm and smiling as I read this blog today.
I am so pleased with this beautiful accessory and continue to wait for people to ask me why I have it. Alas, people must just assume I am crazy and asking may just confirm it.
On my other wrist I wear a lavendar, pink and white bracelet my 14 year old made me a year or so ago. I wear it just to remind me that she really does love me even when she tells me in not so quiet terms that I am the meanest mom in the world.
Here’s to Believing God!
Aww, I miss my blue bracelet! I did Believing God back in 2002-03 (a little behind the live study :)) with two precious sisters in Asia. It was such a life-changing time for me! My bracelet is now tied to my Believing God bookmark so I see it often. 🙂
Ok, I too, have a blue bracelet… Believing God was the first Beth Moore Bible Study I did…Loved it loved it loved it.However, I must take a moment to say how FABULOUS the Bluebonnet Festival is…or maybe how the Scarecrow Festival in October in Chappel Hill is even more FABULOUS!! I am now finishing up Breaking Free and I guess God thought I needed to break free from my adoration of the beloved Chappell Hill Festivals as I was sick that Saturday and couldn’t go…Glad to know you enjoyed…How about that Kettle corn and lemonade?
Amanda,
Very well written. You are such a gifted writer…thanks for letting us enjoy the fruits of your labors! It is a blessing to us!
Love,
Kristen
Believing God was my first study with you all and I loved it so much, I had to do it twice. I have a sneaking suspicion that I”ll do it several more times before I really get it. My group did a bracelet with 5 blue beads on it and i have it attached to my keys so that I’ll always have it with me.