Hey, Darling Siestas! I hope you are well and sensing the Presence of Christ in your every day tasks. I have two quick and very different things to share with you:
First, I want to make sure you know that the last day to register for the Siesta Fiesta gathering is July 22nd, so it’s coming up really quickly. Mind you, this is not the last day to register for the Living Proof Live event in San Antonio. I’m only referring to our Siesta get-together.
*If you want to come but haven’t registered, please do! You can get more info and register by following this link.
*If you’re already registered but have realized you’re not going to be able to come after all, please let us know to cancel you for the Siesta gathering. We really need an accurate head-count to make the proper arrangements. Please email us at [email protected].
*My last request concerning the Siesta Fiesta is hard for me to say but it really needs to be said. Please help us keep the Siesta gathering strictly for the blog community. Please don’t sign up groups of women to come with you that don’t participate in our blog. Those are the people we want so much to come to the actual Living Proof Live event and can hardly wait to have them! Bring them on! Unbelievers and believers alike! Anybody and everybody! The Siesta Fiesta get-together, however, is meant to give you bloggers a chance to get to know one another face-to-face. It is being sponsored only for this blog community. Our purest intention is community and not exclusivity. We just want to have a little family reunion of sorts for the women that have gotten to know each other here. Thank you so much for understanding! Let’s keep our hearts pure about this from every side.
The second thing I want to share with you is pounding in my heart. I don’t have time to write it with my deadline coming up (by the way, your prayers are working! keep them up!) but it’s going to consume me if I don’t. I’m just going to take a very general, short stab at it and hope to feel the relief of getting it out there. My prompting for this word is not coming from the blog community. It’s coming from requests that have swamped our ministry office recently and that we have gladly and compassionately received. The common denominator has been the same: women just totally out of control and doing some really foolish things. I’ve been one of them so I recognize some of the symptoms. And the cries for help. And the misguided desires for the kind of empathy that pats them on the head and says, “Who could blame you? Go right ahead.” Because I love you so much, I want to share what the Holy Spirit is impressing on me in case it resonates. Listen here, Girls. If this shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it! Shake it off and know that it’s not for you. But, if it does, be courageous and respond in obedience to God. Let me remind you before I dive into this that God pulled me from the deepest possible pit of sin and no one has been more tightly clutched by strongholds than me. Not one bit of this comes to you from a proud or condemning heart. It comes strictly from love and concern and as one who could have used this word along the way. So here it goes.
Sometimes we just need to STOP IT. Just plain stop it. We don’t need to keep praying over it. We don’t need to keep deliberating it. We don’t need one last shot at it. We don’t need five more years of counseling over it. We flat need to stop it. Like, for instance,
*If we’re married and we’re flirting with somebody at work (calling it harmless), we need to stop it.
*And, Lord have mercy, if any of us are having affairs, we need to stop it NOW. With every second that goes by, the consequences are mounting. Please do not let the enemy trick you into thinking you’re getting away with it. You’re not. Don’t rationalize it. Don’t tell me what a jerk your husband is and how you’re finally in love for the first time. Get some fear of God and stop it.
*If we’re being a brat about something, we need to stop it.
*If we’re still punishing somebody for what they did to us, we need to stop it. Enough is enough. Let God deal with them.
*If we’re trying to do God’s job with somebody, we need to stop it.
No Scripture says it more succinctly and exactly than Isaiah 1:16b: “Stop doing wrong.” Hear the voice of God say, “I’ve warned you and warned you and warned you. STOP IT.”
I say this as a woman to whom sometimes a brief, “STOP IT NOW!” works better than anything. I love you so much and I want all of us to live in the full blessing of God that only obedience can invite. His will is for us, Siestas. Go with God on this or things are going to get really ugly. Take the warning and stop.
The Journey Continues ~
Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness!!!
Your words were exactly what was needed for someone precious in my family.
I had just finished having a long conversation with this precious soul.
I turned on my computer in California and reading your revealing words was like watching the movie
The Ten Commandments
God is leading the Israelites out of Egypt and directs them to the Red Sea and Moses points his staff over the sea and the water is divided in the the middle leaving a dry path for them to walk. What a remarkable deliverance they joyfully celebrated over their victory with singing and dancing before continuing on their journey.
WE SHOULD ALL BE CROSSING OUR SEA WITH INCREASING CONFIDENCE!
I thank you with all my SIESTA heart for this ministry!
I am so thankful that I stepped out and started blogging on this site.
I had such a bad taste in my mouth for the computer and the sites that I had checked out in the past.
This blog has given me a SIESTAhood of women that I have come to call my cyberSiesta’s. Iam so appreciative of those who have left me adorable and heartfelt messages on my blogspot. thanks to you dear Beth for giving me a positive “Disneyland” feeling each time I click on LPM ~ I love your words, Amanda’s precious spirit, Melissa’s recipes and the love of my Siestas!
My journey contines with cybersiestas and prayers sent out from all over the world!
WITH “HEAVEN BOUND” BLESSINGS,
KIM SAFINA ~ CALIFORNIA
http://www.kimsafinathejourneycontinues.blogspot.com
I SO hate to confess this, but my STOP IT is about reading wonderful blogs like this while AT WORK instead of giving my employer a full day’s work. The Lord has been very clear about this issue. I’ve found my struggle to be akin to overcoming overeating, since we need food to live and can’t forego it altogether. Ninety-five percent of my workday is spent on the computer. Please pray for me. I will do okay for a day or two and then fall right back into the same pattern, always justifying my disobedience somehow.
Thank you Beth, for speaking the truth! For not being a people pleaser,but a God pleaser.
Oh my goodness! I needed this in more ways than one. I thought I had moved on from a hurt in my past. I realized that I have not stopped punishing these people that inflicted the hurt. Lord, give me the strength to stop it NOW!
Thanks for loving us enough to say the hard things — sternly, but with love. We love you all the more for it. I’m humbled and encouraged by your example today.
What do you do if it’s too late and you didn’t stop it? I’ve been living in pain for five years because I didn’t stop it. I tried, but each time I tried to stop, I’d get lured back in. I know it’s my fault. I should have been stronger. My marriage has been over for five years now. I actually married the person I was having an affair with. He treats me like gold, but I live with the guilt and pain everyday of my life.
From “I didn’t stop it”, continued: Let me continue. My kids like my new husband. My in-laws treat me great. My parents love my new husband. They hated my ex and say how lucky I am to have my new husband and to have gotten away from my ex. But, I’m miserable and I deserve to be. I didn’t stop it and I should have. I tore my family apart because I was selfish. How do I forgive myself? How do I stop it now? How do I stop the pain and guilt and suffering? Or do I just let it keep coming because I deserve it?
Thanks Beth. I’m going to stop harboring bitterness towards those who I believe have hurt me. As in our summer siesta study- I don’t want to be a weak-willed woman- I know I can’t forgive on my own so I’m relying on the Lord to help me through.
Congrats on Star!
ps. Tami in la- loved your recent post regarding the NOGS study- the beautiful story of the loss of your baby and the woman who visited you in the hospital. I can’t get it out of my mind- the Lord is awesome and so mindful of his children!
Rosie
My first thought was the things I need to just “stop it” and I am, and the thankfulness for people who will say it. Thanks Beth, and thanks to my friends who aren’t afraid to call me out. We all need that.
Dear Miss Beth,
I am out of control with anger toward my children. Truthfully toward my oldest child. I know it’s wrong. People are always trying to help me feel justified and “better”. God keeps telling me to stop…I’m crying so hard right now I can harldy type. I am often like the man the bible talks about who looks in the mirror and then goes away and forgets what he looks like. I know the word. Please pray for this siesta to obey it.
yes Jesus, help us all STOP IT.
thank you mam. your words and Jesus’s heart gave me the courage to say this very word to a dear friend. and to myself on a thing or two.
Charis, I am in WI. It’s one of my dreams to attend a Living Proof Live or Deeper Still event. My kids are just a little too young yet to make overnight get aways easy. Maybe next year!!
I’ve been a brat to my husband lately – thank you Beth for posting. Ridiculing isn’t love!
Praise God for revealing it to me.
best –
Stef
Beth,
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am doing the Psalm of Ascent study this summer. It is so good and I can feel myself stepping up, and I need so bad to keep headed in that direction.
I love your heart to speak Truth in Love and I Love HIM so.
God bless and keep you as you approach your deadline.
You my friend are finishing well.
So grateful for this community and the siesta’s that love HIM.
Celeste
Gosh I needed to hear that!!!!!
ya know, when I first skimmed the note I thought, “oh, now THAT doesn’t apply to me … I am so walking with Him right now!” But then as I read back over it, I realized that this really does apply to all of us. None are perfect (no kidding!), and we all need to be taken firmly by the collar once in a while, and told to just stop it – even if it is just in the “little” things. Really.
Thank you Beth. Thank you for writing what the Spirit was saying and not holding back.
Love you for it.
Beth,
I just have to share this story!!I hate to fly but this morning, due to my mother’s emergency illness I found myself on a flight from Atlanta to Tampa. I asked God to give me a supernatural abundance of peace, because, well, I hate to fly–did I mention that? Anyway, God is so good. The flight took off, I put on my earphones and started playing with the TV in the headrest in front of me. I pressed the Discovery Channel and James Robison’s program was on. It was Wednesday with Beth Moore. There on the flight I heard you speak on what do you do when you don’t know what to do–a message I needed to hear on my way to make hard decisions about my mom’s care. I just smiled all the way through. You just never know where Beth Moore is going to pop up.!! The flight was delightful and went by faster than it ever has. Thanks for being part of God’s answer to my prayer this morning!
Beth, you have spoke to my heart many times. I need a good talkin’ to at time and even though I haven’t needed the ‘stop it’ in most areas, it really has spoken loudly to me in the area of indulging too much because I want to eat, even when i don’t need it. Living in freedom can be hard but so rewarding. Thanks for your words.
Beth,
Your Live Simulcast is coming to our church Aug 1-2 (Ocala, FL) and I was wondering if anyone knew if this would be an ok thing to bring my husband to? He is a strong Christian and I have done sooo many of your studies and I always come home trying to tell him all that you taught me, but its not the same.
I was hoping this might be something that I could bring him to????? Or is it VERY girl oriented?
Beth, That was a wonderful Word from the LORD. How true-How true!! Thank you for listening to the the Holy Spirit and sharing this with all of us. The LORD knows I need to hear this, so I won’t ever go back where I’ve been. Oh, how I love my LORD and Savior!!
Amen! I love the honesty of this post.
I just sat down with the TIVO remote and watched todays show from Life Today. Beth reminded us that “We are going to most believe what we most rehearse.” She then tells us what we can START doing once we “STOP IT.”
http://www.lifetoday.org
Webcasts
“What to do when you don’t
know what to do” Part #1
July 9, 2008
P.S. When might Esther be in bookstores?
Beth, Amanda, Melissa,
I’m a little confused and maybe others are too. I stumbled (well, God showed me) your blog a couple weeks ago, but I’m not sure….are those that are reading and commenting on your blog “siestas” or do we have to somehow register to be one? I missed the whole summer Bible study thing, so I’m just enjoying your posts and comments and my little group is doing Stepping Up this summer (we’ve been doing a ‘Beth Moore’ study for the last four summers – we’re teachers so we use the school break to dive deeply into the Word)
My point and maybe you could add something on the page – am I a Siesta or what? I feel like I’m intruding on an existing community and a couple other’s that I showed the blog to asked the same thing……Thanks.
P S – I’ll be seeing you in Minneapolis this month and thanks to God’s nudging, I’ll be In New Orleans – that was the first day I found the blog! I signed up – travel arrangement are still pending, but I’m trusting Him to make a way.
Oh, Beth … thanks so much. I love you dearly.
I suffered a miscarriage this weekend … very sad. I had been ten weeks and two days along, and looking forward to another baby to hold. God revealed her to me in a dream … He’s sweet to have let me see her that way.
Just wanted to say that throughout this terrible storm, I received so much comfort in just praising Him throughout. It felt strangely pleasing to find peace and rest in His arms despite His ‘no’ to seeing my child this side of heaven.
Later when I arrived home this verse stood out to me in Job 6:10 “Then I would still have this consolation—
my joy in unrelenting pain—
that I had not denied the words of the Holy One.”
I feel a little like the odd one out after reading all these posts, but I don’t really feel like any StopIt activities are lurking in my life. I’m just chasing Him with all I have and am glad to be able to praise Him throughout.
Thanks for you. You are a precious gem.
Beth, I was able to stop it by admitting my helpless before God and following the instructions in your book Get Out of That Pit. Thank you so much. I am free. (The CD that goes with the book is awesome).
Debbie
Mary Watkins- praying for you, your fellow missionaries and the children of Kiev and their families. May the Lord make the way ahead of you straight!
Lots of Love
Rosie
Okay. I got it:)
Amazing grace….nough said:)
So glad that you are trying to really make it a blog siesta thing…wish I could go to this one, but have to pay for school. You better believe I’ll be at the next one:)
Be Blessed:)
ang
P.S- Sending something your way soon:)
Beth, I am so sorry you must deal with such issues along with your busy schedule. You are in my prayers, along with those amidst these struggles.
In Him,
Nancy
Thank you…
“I say this as a woman to whom sometimes a brief, “STOP IT NOW!” works better than anything.” — you couldn’t be more dead on.
Bethy, Howdy from Suey..YOu have been so heavy on my heart for 3 happy days..thanks for what you said on the blog today 7/9/08 SC
Thank you for that!
Right…but what if you feel like you can’t stop? Or you don’t know how? Or you feel like your prayers bounce of the ceiling and hit you square in the chest?
I know this was a hard thing to write. Years ago I was in a situation where God said to stop it. I truly thank God for his mercy and forgiveness. I pray for all of us to love Jesus with our whole heart and to have no one or anything above Him.
Kim and I are having a blast with the Siestas. God has blessed us with so many creative ideas and to Him be the glory. Also, you need to know that we have the sweetest most generous siestas that bring Kim and I to tears. They have donated tickets, plane tickets, lunch and hotel rooms for those who needed it. This has blown us away. What an honor to serve them. We can’t wait to meet each other and spend some time with you!! You are a blast.
Lastly, I have been praying for you as you finish Esther.
Much Love,
Patty
You are so right! We have to quit putting pretty bright bandaids on our wounds and just expose them to the SON LIGHT and let them heal. I’ve hated a lady for 15 years because of things done and said. I just won’t let it go. It’s become a part of who I am. God has pressed His finger on that issue for a long time. I selfishly believe that that warning is for me right now.
Looking back on my life- many things I should have “stopped”, but I enjoyed the attention that I was getting by “holding on” and “keeping” those things in my life. Those things were fulfilling me and making me happy. Things had to get “ugly” and I had to get “tired” before I let those things go and stopped. The words of Philippians 4:7 help me daily: And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Thank you,Beth! Sometimes,I believe we just need to hear that! A plain ole’ STOP IT! No excuses! No reasons! Just the truth! I also think that sometimes we need to be bold enough to tell others that same advice! In love! Not judging or condeming, but prayerfully, and loving, and with the intention of God, our Father, being glorified and the person being changed and directed toward Him.
I can not wait till the Siesta Fiesta! I’ve not had a lot of time to blog myself lately, I’ve been busy writing Lessons and leading Bible Studies! But I’ve been coming and checking the blogs and praying. Still trying to get my notes all done and put together from the Deeper Still in Atlanta! That was so good. I’ve been sharing it with my husband in pieces. I had such a good time!
Have a good week!
I too like Jina, thought about the study of Daniel that I’m doing right now and how God dealt with “King Neb” (as you called him in our homework) because he didn’t “stop it”.
You know Beth, I am often amazed at how you have come from that miry pit in your life to how God has transformed you into one of His strong witnesses and Bible teachers and how He has so used you as a powerful vessel for Him.
We all need to see through your life that God can turn our lives around just the same. Thanks for listening to Him and being obedient to share with all of us what He has put on your heart.
You are our true sister in Christ and we all love you deeply.
so good and much needed I am passing this on
I love the other part…learn to do right.
I LOVED this post. I am an avid blog reader, even thoug I don’t have my own. I hope this still means that I am part of the “blog community”. I know so many of you, even if you don’t have a picture of me to go along with my comments. 🙂
This post really spoke to my heart, and its simplicity is what makes it so great. I shared it immediately with friends, and we could all recognize areas where we need to STOP IT! Thanks for the loving and wise words.
Can’t wait to meet you all … I love the encouragement that reading this blog brings to my life.
Amy in Dallas
You gals must watch the cardboard testimonies on you tube. Just google it! It is AWESOME! Talk about your idols, God’s work is amazing and is everywhere. It certainly will give you tears, but also strength to get thru whatever you are going thru!
this is to the anonymous blogger who won’t allow herself to get past the guilt of past mistakes even tho she’s in a new marriage now. And for ANYone holding onto past mistakes. There are always consequences to our sin, HOWEVER, there is forgiveness and FULL REDEMPTION in the love of Christ. Psalm 130….(thank you this week Beth) God hears us when we cry out to Him from the depths of our sin, then He is faithful and just to forgive our sin and restore us to full fellowship. Believe Him or not, it is still the truth. If you are a believer in the Savior Jesus Christ and you have repented of your sin, you are forgiven. You are washed clean. Act like it. Stop it (again, thank you Beth) stop giving the enemy the stick to beat you with. God doesn’t count our sins, we do. so STOP IT.
Jesus said to the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. and it was done, he didn’t smack her on the backside as she turned to leave (like I’ve done my kids a time or two)…He sent her away with love and encouragement and forgiveness. Please walk in freedom that is yours in Christ. and embrace the life He has given you now.
Also, Beth have you seen Veggie Tales Jonah movie? probably not, your girls are too old and Jackson is too young. Jonah tells the Ninevites that their message from God is—-“STOP IT!!!” So real and true for them, and for us! I just watched it with my kids yesterday and then read you post! Wow! He was right, God showed his mercy on them as he will us, Praise Jesus! Thanks!
To “anonymous” having the emotional affair:
I could choke for the sorrow I feel for you. I am praying for you tonight, as Beth said, without condemnation from me, but from a desire to snatch one from the devastation you are already experiencing.
Some of us just need a mamma to say no…you can’t do that! Thank you for the reminder to be ever thoughtful of our heart’s condition! Thank You God for your Covenant Keeper’s (see Stepping Up, Psalm 130) love for Your children…I love YOU!
I am scrolling up, finding more “anonymous” heartaches over not stopping affairs. Prayers to you, dear sisters. God’s grace really is bigger than all our sins. I beg you to give it to Him. He is a Healer and a Restorer. Ask Him to grant His repentance to you and teach you how to walk in the freedom He gives.
I needed that today.
Thanks, Beth!
Love you.
And I had begun thinking that maybe I wasn’t enough of an understanding friend when I had a similar conversation with a precious friend of mine! Thank you for not only affirming her stand to just stop it, but also affirming in me that STOP IT is a good response.
Thank you, Beth. Praying with you right now.
This message is for tarah ..
Siesta, I LOVED that link to the Bob Newhart spot ! hahaha !! He was always one of my faves.
But really , in our world of excuses … how refreshing is that to hear ” stop it ” “just stop it “!? We excuse everything , blaming our behaviour on everything and we say it
‘s not possible to stop , because we have this or that syndrome/ aholism / disease.
That was so refreshing , and funny. Thanks.
I love Beth & Bob. ; )