**Siesta Celebration is January 20-21, 2012**
Hey, Sweet Things!
Finally, August 1st! I’m always so glad to see it come so that it can GO. But it’s not just the end of a long, hot summer for everybody. It’s also the last couple of weeks of summer vacation. Those of you with school-age children will soon find yourself back in carpool lines and going over spelling words. In just a couple of weeks, Jackson will start kindergarten and will catch our whole family by surprise even though we’ve known it was coming for five and a half years. We just cannot fathom it. We have a picture framed in our bedroom that I see everyday with Keith and I cuddling him between us when he was just a few hours old, and we brand-spanking-new grandparents are kissing over his head. Something was reborn in that couple of 25+ years that day. Our interests have always tended to be different and were getting increasingly so, but, that cold February afternoon in Dallas, Texas, we somersaulted right back into one another and tumbled into a well of love with a seven pound man-child.
Keith and I got to have Jackson and Annabeth Friday night while Curtis and Amanda went to dinner and a movie. They’d been gone for 10 days to Wyoming and, even though we’d seen them at a Mexican food restaurant the day they got home, we’d not had them to ourselves yet. We made a date right away. They delight us to no end and cause us to laugh until our sides split. Don’t get the idea there’s no work involved but investments don’t get better than this one. We have real, live conversation over dinner these days and, when you’re grandparents, not a single word gets wasted on you. All of it’s solid gold. Jackson told us at the dinner table Friday night while stuffing a piece of warm French bread into his mouth that butter is his “temptutation.” And, sure enough, it was dripping off of his chin and looked so good that we all shared that same temptutation and gave right on in to it.
We have an empty room in our house right now because we wanted Melissa and Colin to have her bedroom furniture and it’s turned into the perfect playroom. Nothing like an empty room to fire up the imagination. Jackson and I built an obstacle course Friday night that ended with a dizzying spin in my swiveling desk chair. It was so much fun. Amanda and Curtis walked through the door at 10:15 and we were all four still up in the kitchen, Paw Paw popping popcorn on the stove. It’s so good to have the Jones’s home. Melissa and Colin have been out of town for a week, too, and I can hardly wait to get my hands on them. They’re flying home from California this very moment. Most of the time they were out of cell phone range so we’ll have plenty to catch up on.
On to the business at hand! Our year is flying by! It’s time to check in with our fifteenth verses for our Siesta Scripture Memory Team. For some reason I’ve seen the word “gentleness” turn up a number of times in my Scripture reading lately so I’ve decided to choose a memory verse that makes especially important use of it. Here goes:
Beth, Houston. “Brothers and sisters, if a person is discovered in some sin, you who are spiritual restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness. Pay close attention to yourselves, so that you are not tempted too.” Galatians 6:1 The NET Bible
Restoration is one of the most powerful, intentional works of the Cross of Christ. Let’s never refuse anyone his or her right to be restored. Here’s to a little gentleness in a harsh world. Everyone could use some.
Stay in the Word, Siestas! You are so loved here!
Most help articles on the web are incarcaute or incoherent. Not this!
Annalee in Houston
Romans 12:1
Therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.
Ps. 119:2Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart
Kasey Ewing, Bossier City, LA
SHERRY, TULSA; “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:5, NIV
Ola Mae, Cedar Park TX Titus 2:4 NIV so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,
Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
1 James 1:27
Stephanie, Houston.
but he hurled Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea.
His faithful love endures forever. Psalm 136:15 NLT
Mary Alice
Dallas, TX
And that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
2 Timothy 2:26 NIV
Carole, Austin: Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. Hebrews 2:14-15, NIV
James 1:8
Such a person is double minded and unstable in all they do.
Linda, Austin, TX
Matthew 11:28 NIV
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
Lisa, Brazoria, TX
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;”
Proverbs 3:5 (NIV)
Nikki, Franklin, TN
I laid me down and slept; I awaked for the Lord sustained me. Psalm 3:5
Rosebud Atlanta Texas
Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time casting all your care on Him for He cares for you.
1 Peter 5:6-7 nkjv
Anita
Austin, TX
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.
Luke 6:45 NIV
Psalms 27:14 Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord
“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Hebrews 10:25 (NIV)
Emily
Platte City, MO
Luke 11:9. NIV
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Verse #15
“Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” Phil. 4:5 (NIV)