Calling all Scripture-Memory Siestas: It’s time for Verse 9! Get those spirals out and ready!
We purposely reserved the blog all week for Melissa to share her India trip with us but, needless to say, we have to push pause long enough for our Scripture memory team to sign in with our verses. I’m so anxious to hear Melissa’s report about the Compassion blogger team meeting the children they sponsored that I told her to go ahead and post even on the same day if she has it ready. SO, you may end up with two posts today. Keep an eye out!
I have relived so much of my own time in India through Lis’s vivid descriptions. As I looked at the pictures she posted for us, I had the same thought that occurred to me over and over while I was there: the stark contrast between all the brilliant, rich colors and the darkness of poverty and oppression. They are honestly the most beautiful people you have ever seen in your life. The children are breathtaking but the shocking life they are forced to live is so haunting that a pang goes through your heart every time you picture one in your head.
That’s the real price of a mission trip. You can no longer act like those kinds of conditions don’t exist. So many stories stick out in my mind from the time I spent in India but one in particular recurs in my thoughts almost weekly. I’d been in southern India the first week where there is a large population of Christians and where our women’s groups were comprised of hundreds. I spent the second week in northern India. A completely different story. We went places where you could get arrested if you crossed certain verbal perimeters in public. We served in areas where people who put their faith in Christ signed up instantly for a life of persecution. Stunning. Here’s what I will never forget: one evening I addressed a small group of women in a very modest meeting room. I prepared a Bible lesson that I prayed would reach across our cultural barriers. The twenty-or-so women sat on the floor and listened carefully and respectfully as I shared through an interpreter but I could tell we were not connecting. I mean, why should we? What on earth did I really have to say to them? We had almost nothing in common. I was nearly shamed. I kept delivering the lesson but, in my spirit, I was imploring God for a breakthrough. Then the oddest thing happened to me.
It was like God reached all the way down into the recesses of my memory and emotions and pulled up to the surface the part of me that had experienced abuse and oppression and helplessness. He touched off a whole part of myself I do everything possible to avoid. It was as if all of it had happened the day before. I went straight to my knees and began crawling from woman to woman, laying hands on them and praying things over them only God could have told me to pray. I bawled and they bawled. I wish you could picture the interpreter crawling right behind me. The Holy Spirit fell on us that day and I knew right then one of the reasons God allowed me to have those horrible experiences. How could we even begin to know what others are enduring if no suffering has come to us? We can say the words but nothing is quite like feeling the feelings. No, I still couldn’t enter into their world or their insurmountable challenges and, yes, I’d been free of that oppression for years and they probably never would be this side of Heaven. Still, it was the closest I could come to sharing some small measure of their pain. That evening in northern India was one of the first times it occurred to me that other people could become worth what you’ve been through if Christ could touch them through you. I’ve thought it many times since then. God alone is worthy.
Thanks for letting me share that with you. I’m so proud of you for jumping on board with sponsorships and copious prayers for the Compassion children that I hardly know what to say. Never EVER feel pressured on here about any kind of participation. I mean that concerning everything from Scripture memory to summer Bible study to Siesta Scholarships and to Compassion children. Only do what the Holy Spirit Himself prompts you to do. Otherwise, you’ll miss the ecstatic joy that so often follows obedience. We’re just sharing our ministry lives with you as we live them.
OK, I haven’t forgotten what we’re doing on here today. It’s time for Verse #9! Please, please, PLEASE don’t quit! Our minds are being renewed. Can’t you feel it??
Here’s mine. I just love it! You’re welcome to share it if you’d like:
Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. 1 Peter 1:8 NIV
Let’s hear it, Siestas! Name, City, Verse and Translation!
I love you so dearly and I am honored to serve this generation beside you. Keep the faith, Darling Things.
Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.
Psalm 126:5-6
Karey Piper,
Justin, Texas
Romans 8:38-39 (RSV)
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Judy
Plaquemine, LA
“You will seek me and find Me when you search for Me with all of your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13 HCS
~mich
Knox, IN
Scripture Art Journal
Christa
Bryan TX
St. Joseph’s
John 19:17 – and carrying the cross himself 7 he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha.
“Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”
1 Peter 1:8 NIV
Rachel Lacy
Davenport, WA
P.S. LOVE this verse, sorry it’s late!
Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established.
Prov 16:3 ESV
Rachel B – blaine, WA
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Cor 1:25, ESV)
Monica
Dallas, GA
Anna Marie Hopewell
Fontana, CA
Psalm 25: 8-9
“Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way.”
NIV (UK) Version
“The spirit of the sovreign Lord is upon me, because the Lord has annointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to announce that captives will be released and prisoners freed.”
Isaiah 61:1 (NLT)
Lindsey
Picayune, MS
“They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.”
-Isaiah 61:3B
Lauren
New York, NY
Just a little late… 😉
The LORD watches over you—
the LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.
The LORD will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life;
the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.
Psalm 121:5-8 (continued from last time)
Meghan S.
Round Rock, TX
Psalm 90:17 NIV
May the favor of the Lord rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us-yes, establish the work of our hands
“God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left.”
Lamentations 22-24 (The Message)
Miquela– Knoxville, TN
Micah 7:7 (New International Version)
7 But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,
I wait for God my Savior;
my God will hear me.
Allison, Houston TX
Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. 1 Peter 1:8 NIV
lori
wildwood florida
Getting started a little late. . .my verse 9 is this one.
“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.”
Psalm 62:1 NIV
Amy
Mobridge, SD
I Peters 1:8 NIV
“Though you have not seen Him you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”
Judy Peterson
East Chain, MN
Psalm 63:7-8 (NIV)Because you are my help,I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you;your right hand upholds me.
Faith
Columbia, SC
Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.
1 Peter 1:8 NIV
If you make the Most High your dwelling even the LORD, who is my refuge, then no harm will befall you no disaster will come near your tent
Ps 91: 9-10 NIV
Marilyn
Attalla,Alabama
“Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
Psalm 16:5-6 NIV
Liz
Huntsville, AL
Shannon
Houston, TX
Psalm 27:14
Wait on the Lord; be of good courage and He shall strenthen your heart. Wait, I say on the Lord.
Psalm 91:1 (NIV)
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”
Pat
Flint, TX
“When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear your name, O LORD God Almighty.”
Jeremiah 15:16 NIV
Joanne
Fremont, CA
(Ugh! I’m so late in posting!)
rebecca from littleton colorado phil 4 13
May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us – yes, establish the work of our hands.
Psalm 90:17 NIV
~Marlene from Harleysville, PA
I decided to memorize a different scripture:
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
1 Peter 1:9, NIV
Leelee in Baton Rouge
I may be late but I’m all up in this!
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Eph. 6:12
I didn’t forget. I never saw this on May 1. Sorry.
“You’ve had a taste of God. Now, like infants at the breast, drink deep of God’s pure kindness. Then you’ll grow up mature and whole in God.”
1 Peter 2:2
MSG
Elaine Johnson
Mansfield, TX
Deuteronomy 31:8 (NIV)
“The LORD Himself goes before you and will be with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
Kelly McReynolds-Eitzen
Tigard, OR
Malachi 3:10 b (NIV)
Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty and see if I will not throw open the flood gates of heaven and pour out so much blessing thatyou will not have room enough for it.
Leanne S
Jacksonville, FL
Bou hast made the Lord, Which is my refuge, even the most high, thy habitation.
Psalms 91:9 KJV
Kendall
Jacksonville, FL
Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint.


Isaiah 40:31
“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”
Hebrews 1:3 (NIV)
Pam
Greensboro,NC
I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from whence shall my help come? My help come from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 121:1-2 (NAS)
Lucy – Hallsville, TX
“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Matthew 6:34 NASB
Liz Gershon
Scott AFB, IL
Psalm 31:9 NIV
Be merciful to me O Lord, for I am in distress; My eyes grow weak with sorrow and my soul and body with grief.
Eleanor
Memphis, TN
My soul will be satsified as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
Psalm 63:5 NIV
Nancy
Harrisburg, IL
Matthew 4:4
Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Lori
San Antonio
“I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.”
Isaiah 42:16 (NIV)
Meredith Barr
Foothill Ranch, CA
Psalm 27:13-14 NASB
I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
Be strong and let your heart take courage;
Yes, wait for the LORD.
Dee Dee
Collierville, TN
2 Corinthians 3:5
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to thin os anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.
NKJV
Tiffany Morse Dallas TX
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.”
Proverbs 12:15
Diana – Arcadia, WI
Lisa Waikele Hawaii
NKJV John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have ever lasting life.
KJV-Psa 139:9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Celie- Louisiana
Yikes! I missed this post somehow. Here’s my verse:
“The wise in heart are called discerning, and pleasant words promote instruction.”
Proverbs 16:21, NIV
Stacy
Bellingham WA
Psalm 1 NIV
Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,but the way of the wicked will perish.
Sarah
S. Hamilton, MA
Philippians 3:10-11 (NIV)
I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Michele
Lubbock, TX
I am a child of God!
John 1:12 – May 1
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name
NKJV
Sherrie
San Antonio, TX
Jeremiah 29:12 (NIV)
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you
Kathy
Chattanooga TN