At times like these, I wish so much I hadn’t already overused words like “amazed” or “awed” to describe what I’m feeling about God. Or “blown away” or “astonished” or “stunned.” For instance, I think I recall using a few of those very words about a red bird I saw in my yard yesterday. Not that God’s handiwork displayed on the delicate wings of a bird of such brilliant color that it has its own name (cardinal red) isn’t amazing. It’s just that I feel something on a slightly larger and more personal scale right now. I wish I’d reserved a few of the synonyms for “awed” for those rarer moments when I feel it to such full measure that my skin almost feels too tight for my soul. When I’m half tempted to do nothing but sit, stare out a window, and shake my head for hours on end. Times I want to say something like, “Who is this God who pursues us so personally?” Or in the psalmist’s words, “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?” I wouldn’t bother sharing this sense I have in my heart with you if I thought moments like these weren’t smattered on the canvases of all followers of Christ. But they are. You’ve had them, too. I’m hoping you’ll remember some of them today. And perhaps you’ve had these moment of inexpressible awe for the very same reason:
The flabbergasting (I’ve overused that word, too) timing of God.
Timing that illustrates to you once again that the God of the universe who called the heavens and earth into existence really does know you are alive and what you are presently experiencing…and even thinking.
You’ve had times like the one I’m currently experiencing. Times when God made sure you were studying a particular thing at the exact time when it spoke most profoundly into that stretch of your journey. For instance, think of a time when you didn’t get to go through a particular Bible study journey during the same set of weeks as your regular discipleship group and maybe you didn’t get around to it for several years…but, when you did, you realized that God had distinctly held it for you until then. I mean, how on earth does He know??
You and I know the answer to that question Biblically. God is omniscient. A meticulous planner is He. But psychologically, don’t we still find it shocking? I mean, how on earth does He have the energy to keep up with millions of His followers and exactly what we need and at exactly which time?
Yes, we know the answer to that question Biblically, too. But, humanly, aren’t we still sometimes taken aback by it?
While Melissa and I were studying James together, she got wrapped up in the Book of Deuteronomy (they have flagrant ties) and talked about it enough that I also got drawn in. Enough, in fact, that by early Fall I knew God was preparing me to teach portions of it in our Tuesday night series that would begin in late January. (She would also co-teach by writing coinciding articles for our Bible study group. It’s the one we are currently serving.)
In preparation for the January series, I decided to start reading the Book of Deuteronomy as part of my quiet time every morning starting in November (of 2011). I did not in any way have preconceived notions about the theme in the life of the Israelites matching up to a major move in my personal life. I chose it strictly because it would prepare me daily toward teaching parts of it several months later. Of course, I anticipated that God would speak to me through it because His Word is alive and active but I had no thought of the concept being perfectly timed for me personally.
As God would have it, the whole book was/is about moving to new ground. (To us this side of Christ’s ascension, this shift to a land of promise would serve powerfully as a metaphor for new ground in our fruit-bearing as obvious disciples of Jesus Christ but, for me, it happened at a time when the applications were multilayered and so much so that, to ignore it would have been a fool’s choice.) And here’s the part that left me slack-jawed. One of the most powerful messages in the Deuteronomy is the warning never to forget where you’ve been with Him, what He has done for you, and that He alone is your God and that to forget Him is total destruction to you. From Chapter 8 alone…
V.2 “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you.”
V.11 “Take care lest you forget the Lord your God.”
V.14 “lest, when you have eaten and are full and built good houses and live in them …then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…”
V.18 “You shall remember the Lord your God.”
V.19 “And if you forget the Lord your God, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish.”
Let me tell you something, Sweet Thing. There is nothing quite like emptying out a house you’ve been thoroughly entrenched in for nearly thirty years to cause you to remember. Keith sat across from me a few days ago, leaned back in the chair, placed his large palms on his knees – almost as if to brace himself – and said as soberly as anything I’ve ever heard him utter, “I have relived 25 years of our lives as I have cleared out that attic.” It wasn’t the time for me to correct him on exactly how many years it had been. “Well, 27 to be exact” was not about to come out of my mouth. In fact, I hardly said anything at all. I just nodded my head and sat in silence for a few minutes with him. It was a sacred selah because I knew that some of the things he’d remembered had brought joy. And some of the things he’d remembered had brought pain. I knew because the same thing had happened to me. The next day we were in his truck together going to Dairy Queen for a chocolate malt when I brought it back up.
“Keith, don’t you think it is so incredibly odd that God made sure you were out of town while I (and the movers) packed the house up for our move then you did the whole attic by yourself because I was back at work? Do you think it could be any coincidence that God had each of us by ourselves to remember so much of our lives there?”
Same house. Same children. Many of the same exact occurrences. But two completely different people with distinct DNA who processed the same events very differently. Just as Amanda would have. Just as Melissa would have. Just as even Michael would have after his seven short years in our home. You and I share many corporate events with the people in our familial circles: births, deaths, disappointments, celebrations, routines, great surprises, sudden crises. But, if we’ll let Him, God tends to us all uniquely and intimately and means each of us to glean something distinct in the process. Maybe something altogether opposite from the person sitting right beside us at the time.
The kinds of things we unearthed in the move seemed strategically planted by God, set right there for us to find one at a time as if we were following closely to a dog-eared treasure map.
Several of them came to me in a box Keith found in the attic. I’d forgotten it existed.
I took the lid off and saw this:
Very uncharacteristically, Keith had looked through the whole thing before giving it to me. Don’t think that won’t make a woman nervous. In it, he’d found the first card he ever gave me. We laughed until our sides split over how beautifully it depicted us. It was like we’d had a word of knowledge about what was coming. Our whole 33 year old marriage has been the steady recycling of this exact same card given back and forth to one another:
Inside the box was the very first prayer journal I suppose I ever owned. I think that I recall a revival pastor coming to my church at the time and telling us about these little notebooks and I purchased one. I smile as I try to estimate how many I’ve purchased since. I used one this very morning.
It’s so moving to find keepsakes that you actually dated and penned with your own (young!) hand. I would have sensed the call of God on my life and walked the aisle at my church to make it public one summer before.
I read many things in that first journal that made me smile and others that pooled the tears in my eyes. Others out right mystified me. To say that I was in denial over my past childhood abuse is a mind-boggling understatement but that’s another subject for another time. Let me just say for now that I watched my own pen flat-out lie to me over and over again. I even thanked God for the relationship I had with someone who’d abused me. Nuts. That very malfunction would put me in counseling in my early thirties. I woke up alright. That subject aside, I want to show you a specific page out of the journal because it held significant tenderness for me.
See the very top entry? That was intercession for the young people I got to serve at my home church. I was sponsoring that very group at a church camp when I first sensed a vocational call. See that second entry? I did hurt that person. A very wonderful person who deserved far better. I didn’t want to hurt him. But I surely did. I was on a terrible rebound and couldn’t be trusted emotionally. See that third entry? It was about a possible internship at a church in the Houston area. (The town is Humble, Texas. Not the name of the church. I wonder now if I meant First Baptist Humble but I’m not sure. Back then, I might not have known the difference. Grin.) They didn’t hire me and, at the time, I almost talked myself into believing that I’d made up the whole calling. I find it interesting and pathetic how quickly we (I) tend to give up and think God has passed us (me) by. I’d have made a terrible Abraham.
Now, look back up at that last entry from the page in my first journal. I fell head-over-heels in love with a young man in college who I dated for the better part of two years. He never even pretended to feel the same way about me (not his fault, God’s will) and my beaten-up heart finally shattered into a thousand pieces as I accepted it as a lost cause and bowed out. Fast forward 35 years. What makes this discovery in the journal so tender is that I received a call several weeks ago from my college roommate telling me in tears that this young man – who was now in his mid-fifties – had died that very morning of a heart attack. No warning. No prior heart problem. I had not seen him in many years. I grieved immediately and deeply for his lovely wife who he adored and who would miss him terribly. Only God could have had the tenderness to let me see this page only a short time later and have a moment’s personal mourning and remembrance over someone I’d felt much for many years earlier. God did not owe me that. It was tender mercy. Who but Christ does something like that??
There were other treasures found elsewhere. Like this picture of Keith and me boarding a cruise liner the morning after we married. (Our honeymoon was our wedding gift from his parents. We wouldn’t have two extra nickles to rub together for many years.)
That was the man I was meant to marry. And we have continued to ride many waves. It was deeply significant to me that God not only planned for me to find treasures from my spiritual journey. He also had similar intentions for Keith. I had never seen these certificates and Keith had no memory of them being placed in his possession by his parents.
We found a whole bag of cassette-taped messages from Buddy Walters, the mentor that God used to strike a flaming desire in my heart to study Scripture. He was my first Bible doctrine teacher. These messages were preached years later at the church in North Carolina where he served as associate pastor.
Curtis converted them into CD’s for me last week. I’ve been listening to them and hearing the echo of that strong voice of authority and affection for the Lord Jesus Christ that took my breath away in my mid-twenties. Buddy died in his mid-forties and has been with the Lord for many years now but his ministry is poured into every message we have at Living Proof. God’s ways are so strange and beautiful. God knew that I could not fully “remember” my journey with Him without remembering the sound of this mouthpiece. My deepest love affair with Jesus through His Word began under that man’s teaching.
You can quite imagine that we unearthed artifact after artifact from our children’s lives. Stuffed animals. Artwork. Report cards. Clothes. You name it. I hadn’t seen this picture in so long. We were at Keith’s baby sister’s wedding. Oh, mercy, I love these two little girls so much. In this mother’s heart, they are about this same age.
I shared with you in a post soon after we moved (Dec. 2011) that I’d declared to Keith that I’d never leave that house. I also told you that one (irrational, unexplainable) reason was the fear that our time with Michael (who lived with us for seven years) would seem less real, further removed, and the door permanently closed. It was real alright. In this move, we’ve discovered him all over our house. Stacks and stacks of pictures, albums, artwork, report cards, etc, etc, etc. I found this letter that we received some months after he left.
Spud was our nickname for him. I also found this particular school picture. It was the year he departed our home. Wasn’t he beautiful?
As it turned out, the move did not distance us further nor close the door permanently. I have seen him as recently as two weeks ago and get to stay in regular communication with him. God is so gracious. Michael looks fairly different now but he is still so darling. He is a tattoo artist and has practiced a good deal on himself. I am smiling. I love him. And I am so, so proud of him.
The 8th chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy says to remember “the whole way” (V.2) the Lord has led you. The “terrible” (NASB) and “terrifying” (ESV) wilderness (V.15) and the miracles of manna and water from the flinty rock. (Vv.15-16) Translation? Remember the awful times. Remember the awesome times. I not only dug up sweet memories. I’ve stumbled upon some terrifying ones. Some that I wish to heaven I could have forgotten. Some that make my skin crawl. I found journal entries from a time of such utter darkness in my life that only God could have brought me through in one piece. Reading my pleas from that time stirred up such strong emotions that I could have thrown up. I kept having to remind myself to keep my memories in the light of God and not let them descend into the darkness of the enemy. When I remember them before God who delivered me, I am helped. When I remember them before the enemy who full-well meant to destroy me, I am haunted. Oh, the grace and mercy God has had upon my life. He is the only good in me. I’m sure Keith found reminders of some dark days of his own. And those are between God and him. I’ll leave you with one last picture. Keith sent me this one from his phone two days ago to let me know that the house was completely empty. Don’t think it wasn’t significant to me.
Oh, yes, Lord. I definitely remember the heaps of trash. Thank You for assuring us that, through Your mercy, all of it – EVERY SINGLE BIT OF IT – has been thrown into the depths of the sea, swallowed up in a fountain of blood.YOU ALONE are our God. YOU ALONE delivered Keith and I from such miry clay. YOU ALONE have kept my family in tact. YOU ALONE have spared us so much shame and lifelong defeat. You alone persistently dogged us with Your Holy Spirit and Your Word until we could no longer cover our ears. You alone saw people worth fixing in our brokenness. And You still do. I never want to forget, Lord. Never.
“Take care lest you forget the Lord your God…who brought you out of the house of slavery.”
Deuteronomy 8:16 says something so riveting that I can hardly read it without having a visceral reaction. It says that God TESTS us and HUMBLES us “to do you good in the end.”
In the end. Seems like we’ve heard that somewhere before. Somewhere this side of the Cross.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 ESV
This is such powerful truth!! Loved & needed this post – thanks for sharing so personally!
Beth, I think one reason I love you so much is that you put into words the exact way that I feel. After reading your post I spent hours looking up scripture and writing in my journal about things I need to Remember and never forget. My testimony is how God turned my life from trash to treasure. Most of all I need to remember how God was with me every step of the way and has blessed My immediate family in so many ways. I can only imagine what my life would have been like if He had not become Lord of my life instead of Alcohol, which was the Lord of my parents life. My journal if full of pages of what he has taught me through you! Thank you so much for your Ministry. At our church we have done all of your Bible Studies (some several times) and we will start James on Sunday. I look forward to this treasure of time we spend together. Your BFF!
I really needed this. The Lord has used Deut. 8 to speak to me many times in the past and I definitely will get it back out and meditate on it. Also, the part you put in this post about the guy you were in love with and had your heart broken, but how you knew it was God who allowed you to marry Keith, the man you were meant to marry. Well, I REALLY needed to read those words…. I am very amazed by Holy Spirit and his ways!!!! Thank you for being such a transparent vessel!
God is so good and HIs timing is absolutely amazing. Turning 40 this year has brought along with it some challenges. My oldest son turned 20 and for this Mom it’s been hard to watch him go through a lot of growing pains. Hard for me to learn to let God take care of him and not myself. Along with this change, my own mind seems to be constantly turning, faster and faster. Always thinking of the past. Your message is so timely because I just said to the Lord this morning “I don’t want to think about the past any more. Why do I keep going back there.”. But you have reminded me that there are reasons we go through the things we do – good and bad – and that we shouldn’t forget what God has done. Putting these “memories in the light of God” and what He has done, is doing and will do gives me hope. I needed to hear that. Thanks Beth.
Oh Beth,
I have never been so moved by anything. I am sitting here sobbing and had to stop to cry and thank God and wipe away the tears many times until I finished it. Your words stirred up so much in me, my past, and how God has redeemed it, and how much hurt there still remains over it. But I HAVE NOT forgotten what God has brought me through. This remembrance is what makes the love and pursuit of God so overwhelming. I am in awe of Him. He is so good! I can’t even begin to explain how I feel. There are no words. I can’t wait to meet you in heaven, sweet sister. You are precious to me. And our Jesus is beyond description. Thank you so much. I will never forget this…
I needed this! Thank you so much for sharing! I love you!
God bless you!
I seriously needed to read that post. That was beautiful and so personal. Thank you so much!! I feel like you have helped me so so much in my life!
Thank you so much for sharing this. Your timing couldn’t be better as God is preparing me for just such a transition. Please pray for me!
I don’t often comment, but after reading this post again I just want to thank you for sharing once again from the tenderness of your heart.
Terri
What a touching post. I was reliving some of my own life right beside you. As you shared your memory of Buddy Walter, I remembered a younger me clinging to my bible in a church that read John Wesley weekly and the Bible rarely. I cried out to God for His Word. Oh how I wanted it opened up to me. Not long after that I happened upon wednesdays with Beth and watched with tears streeming down my face. Six months after that I did A Woman’s Heart bible study. Talk about an answer to prayer! I have done a few more of your studies as well as a few under other authors since and have such a passion to share the beauty of His word with others. One day I hope to thank you in person for the influence you have been in my life and walk.
“I kept having to remind myself to keep my memories in the light of God and not let them descend into the darkness of the enemy. When I remember them before God who delivered me, I am helped. When I remember them before the enemy who full-well meant to destroy me, I am haunted.” – This was such an encouragement to me. Thx.
I hate to/but I have to at least ask… are Buddy Walter’s tapes anywhere online where we can get our hands on them? I would so love to listen.
Beth,
I feel as though I know you so personally, yet never met you face to face. I just read your post and am crying. I pretty much did your bible studies as you released them. I was trying to calculate and it has been about sixteen to seventeen years ago. Thank you for sharing your life with us over all these years. I wanted to come to the Siesta event and couldn’t get there. I missed y’all so much. I just grieved over it. I know you are going through a lot of changes, it is hard and good!! God reminds us what He did so we can boast of Him. Love you and your staff and all you work you put into just sharing with us. I am overwhelmed!!
Thank you! God bless you all.
What a wonderful gift your post is today – tender, poignant, God-centered, praising God for His tender hand on you and your family. God has used you mightily because of your humble submission to Him. Thank you for your servant attitude. God has used you in very significant ways in my life to begin to free me from significant strongholds in my life, which I still must battle though I have been His child for most of my life.
You should write Bible Studies & Books or something. You’ve really been given a gift by the Lord worth sharing with others! 🙂
Soooo much love and thankfulness for your real, raw, revealing & relevant ministry, Beth. Was in tears (ugly kind) this morning over Day 4 Week 4 of James, 2nd part about the sweet & bitter water & specifically pg.117. “Then I realized my heart was bitter, and I was all torn up inside.” Psalm 73:21 It was that amazing moment of conviction (that I’d prayed for just an hour before) that brings “Holy Spirit Cleansing Tears.” I wanted to call you and tell you all about it! But since we don’t do that, I poured it out on my sweet husband instead. 🙂
Mahalo Nui Loa…
Love,
Amy in Hawaii
Sweet Beth, thank you again. Aside from reading posts that come to my inbox, I haven’t been very active in this Siesta community the last year or so because my prayers (and Siesta prayers!) were answered and I got a job after being unemployed for a long while. (It’s been a very busy, exhausting, whirlwind of a BLESSING of a job. Many astounding God moments in and through it!)
Just this morning I was writing to God and flipped back a few pages only to be reminded of how I had just found a life’s worth of memories in boxes at my parent’s home this Christmas (“Evening – Dec. 27. I have been visiting my past…and somehow today, for the first time ever, I feel content and at peace with it all.”) Somehow experiences I have run scared from reliving for decades became filled with peace as I read letters and journals, and saw pictures and memorabilia. And somehow this morning, in writing in that notebook, I thought of you and had to stop and thank God for the mentor you have been to me for so many years. I even drew a picture on the page of a closet where I tore a hole in the old plaster while having a hissy fit over shelves that wouldn’t fit (shoving harder and more angrily doesn’t work), followed by cringing at myself for what I saw in my heart through that little episode, followed by hearing you say that afternoon in one of your videos that you had kicked the bathroom cabinet when Keith mentioned something to you about something that happened with someone you love, I believe. I thanked God this morning for how He has used you to minister to me so deeply in so many ways — and for how, in being so authentic and transparent, you’ve helped remove the lies of “it’s only me” and “no one else could relate” and “there’s no hope for me” from my heart. What a gift you have been.
To top it all off, reading your sister’s latest blog entry this afternoon led me here to your “remembering” post… today, when my heart has been aching (in an awed sort of a way) with the weight of what He is doing and saying to me about remembering all the way He has led me and giving thanks and trusting. He has led me all these years like the Israelites in that vast desert; and He is showing me the deep necessity of thanking Him for it all, entrusting it still to Him – even the pain and confusion; and He is admonishing me to trust Him, with thanksgiving, as He leads me into the unknown days to come. “Count it all joy.” What an interesting phrase to use to begin a book. (I decided to start your James study this morning after thinking about and being thankful for you, and there was that phrase in James 1.) Count it all joy. Count it all JOY. Count it ALL joy. We really can count it all joy (by His grace) when we consider – see – how God has led us all the way faithfully, lovingly plotting and allowing and forgiving and using everything – for good. Even when the process sears. Amazing.
So thank you again, dear Beth. Love, blessing, grace, and peace to you.
Linda
Oh, Beth. This one almost made me cry and honestly that’s not as easy to do as you might thing. There’s still a huge chunk of my heart that is hard. Having to be tough while my family is around makes it hard to let my heart open up much at all! And I am also moving out of a home. I’ve only lived here for 10 years, but my oldest was 3 when we moved in and my second was 1. The third one I was barely pregnant with and didn’t even know it at the time!!! They are 13, 11, and 9 now! If you could see the difference! Jeremiah barely stood to my knee caps and now he is 5’4″ tall! I’m only 5’2″ if that tells you anything. Bending down to pick him up and now looking up at him! How in the world does that happen so fast?! As you know, I’ve suffered from depression the whole time, only to fall back into drinking for days at a time occasionally. I missed a huge chunk of their childhood and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t regret it! How they’ve turned out to be such great kids I have no idea! Before each of their baptisms they have each said they learned to love Jesus from their mama. I do know I stayed in church and bible study the whole time. Even attempted counseling a time or two. Josh nearly gave up on me, but I think he’s ready to fight again now that I’ve convinced him I am, too! He’s still balking on the whole trying to find a way to pay for counseling thing, though! Pray!!! Cause I need it! I know I do! I’ve hung in there so far, but with no one but Jesus (when I can get a private moment with Him!) to talk to, I don’t know how long I can stand strong. Even having Jesus doesn’t work when you’re constantly feeling exposed to people in your house with your paper thin walls of a trailer house! Somebody’s always home these days it seems, with sicknesses and what-not. My point being my private time isn’t really private and I NEED to be able to deal with stuff before God, private stuff, openly and honestly! I know I’m not going to even have time to read my prayer journals as I pack them. We have to move so quickly and people are moving into our house the same day, so I have some serious cleaning to do! (Something that also didn’t happen much in all those days of depression. It’s hard to face the reality of how badly I let the place go.) Anyway, I hope you can post this. I love you! Thanks for sharing with us.
Oh, the timing thing! This move was amazing timing! Josh technically wasn’t supposed to be up for promotion until August, which he has to drop his second job in favor of working at Camp Grizzly (which was a lifelong dream) in the summers, so by the end of the summer all of our resources are drained with all the extra expenses of summer, so we were trying to figure out how in the world we might manage a move in August! Well, as it worked out, he got offered a promotion that would move us in March, shortly after we were to receive our tax return, which is what we have used for moving expenses including the extra rent we’re having to pay. We own our trailer, and just pay rent on the lot, so we’re going from paying $322 a month to $825 a month! Not to mention, again, having to drop the second job! Who knows when or if one of us will be able to get a second income somewhere after we move. It’s not going to happen for a few months anyway. It’s going to take us that long to get everything situated, so even with the small raise it’s going to be just as tight as before, maybe tighter. But the timing, as you can probably see, was the only way it would’ve been possible!!! We won’t even mention the deposits we had to pay for the house, and to keep our cat there as well. I hope she’s worth it! Oh, I know she is! We love her! She’s become another member of our house. The kids little sister!
Thank you for this preciously intimate glimpse into your life. You surely don’t have to do this but I’m so thankful that you do. I was in tears throughout much of your blog.
The same God who is so faithful to you is proving just as faithful to me. And I’m awed by Him.
The card made me laugh so hard, coffee almost came out of my nose. Awesome trip down memory lane. 😀
I enjoyed this! It’s nice to know that you, Beth, are able to see Michael. I have a son named, Michael. He’s married and has a wife and little boy.
I also want you to know that we’ve launched a citywide Bible study your study of James. Different churches in our community of Fremont, NE (population 25,000), have hosted your studies, but we’ve never done a citywide study before – that I know of. Our first session was Thursday night. It was amazing. The women just kept coming. We had 47 women and I think more will come. I’m facilitating and I have a “Dream Team” of women, whom God has raised up. They’re wonderful!
Thank you so much for giving of yourself to help other women learn more about our Lord and his word. I know you’ve made many sacrifices. I’m sure people like me will never know just how many – but please know that I appreciate it. I’ve been involved in your studies since 2005. My faith and my love of the word has grown tremendously. My prayer is that many other women in our community will be blessed in the same way. Many who attended the other night just seemed blown away. Women today are hungry for the word; they want to grow closer to their Lord and to have relationships with other Christian women. You help provide that. May God bless you – now and always.
Beth thank you for sharing these precious memories with us. Felt like we were sitting in Starbucks together, catching up. You continue to amaze and inspire me, ALWAYS pointing me toward my heavenly Father.
Much love,
Melody
Thank you for sharing. Especially about Michael. My 19yr old. Son has also practiced tattooing on himself too and my heart did flip flops reading this cause I love my son so much.
Thank you,thank you. I needed someone to tell me not to foget Jesus,our God.Please pray for me to want to be closer to Him, I have been at times but I have chosen not to seek Him out like I use to. Just Jesus
Home is definitely where the heart is, so I am confident that you are well-nested in your newest one. Changing homes is always startling, like ripping yourself physically from the familiar and comfortable. I couldn’t help but equate your story of changing homes to our final going home…scary, comforting; sad, happy; unsettling, peaceful…so many contrasting emotions. I think it was you, Beth, that taught me that the reason good-byes are naturally so difficult is that we are made for Eternity, a home where once we move in, we will never again leave. May God bless you in your new home!
Love,
Fran
Beth and others-
Thank you for being real. The Holy Spirit and God’s Word are our ultimate guides, but is is SO nice to see how sisters in the Lord some older and wiser than we move through life in His footsteps.
Beth, thank you for teaching the Word but also for living it. Your transparency and rock solid commitment to always keep pointing to HIM are what sets the whole tone and foundation of this wonderful community. Thank you all for your sincerity and Thanks be to God for this fellowship.
Thank you~thank you!!!! Very timely for me:)
If you need some good reading material…
I happened to visit StudyLight’s website and they are offering a free download of A.W. Tozer’s “The Pursuit of God.” The downside is you have to give your email, but it should be worth it.
http://new.studylight.org/
What a great word Beth. Thank you for being so transparent in the journey.
I’m supposed to be a decent writer. But never have I been able to so clearly or vividly articulate the things that you do in your posts and your teaching. Today is one of so many times that I feel as though you are speaking the words that I so desperately would like to say myself, when all I can manage to utter is something that sounds suspiciously like a one-year-old’s gurgle. It’s exactly like being with two young children where the younger one says something that the parent doesn’t quite catch, and the older child translates what the younger child was trying to say. We don’t have the same backgrounds or current life experiences at all. And yet, when you pour out your heart with such honesty and emotional accessibility, somehow I am the one who feels validated and understood. Keep being stunned, awed and flabbergasted by the Lord – the rest of us are so blessed by it.
Beth,
I didn’t read your blog until today and I am “awed” once again with God-cannot even put into words the timing of this(just like you said)-there is a move that God has been shouting to me(the whispering didn’t work) – our pastor has been doing a series and preached this morning on having a thankful heart and in remembering what God has done and where we came from – he used the exact same scripture -Deut. 8:7-18 – there are no coincidences with God – I receive the confirmation of His Word!- I am being brought to a good land and will not forget His great works! Thank you!!!
Can u post my post now with correct email address. Or is my post erased
Dianne
I broke my arm January 13 in 3 places. A break that is going to take 3 to6 months to heal. I am a shut in. The church I just started going to St Simons Community Church was offering the study James. I wantd to take it so badly. I did not know how to order just the study from Beth. I found it on Amazon. What a study and Gods timing for this study is perfect. What a trial I am going through right now unable to do anything with just one arm and praying it will heal. We won’t know until three more weeks if it is healing. If it does not then possibly a big surgery with a plate from my shoulder to my elbow. I’m not as young as I used to e so healing is slow and the do for really does. Ot wa t todo surgery. If you read this mail p lease pray for me.
I took Beth’s studies in Atlanta and profited from them so much. Change always happens with Beth’s courses. Bless her! Her studies always brings Me closer to God. God’s timing is perfect with me able to do James. praise Him.
I’m always amazed (there’s that word) at how you are so willing to be an open book to the lot of us. On any other day, I would have been giggling my way through your story, but today my heart is heavy. Someone who is very dear to me was handed divorce papers less than 48 hours ago and a decision was made (by one) that 37 years was enough!! This precious sister is looking through much the same memorabelia with floods of tears and stabbing pains. Your two sweet little girls are her two sweet little boys now grown with little ones of their own. This is a dark season for my beloved sister and the one constant is that she LOVES Jesus with her whole heart and knows her Rock will never serve her with divorce papers.
I would so appreciate any prayer you offer on her behalf!!
Thank you Beth for constantly sharing your heart!!
A beautiful post sharing your heart with us. The pictures remind me of my journey through life with the Lord and my family. Lastly I hope we all leave the garbage behind and don’t try to bring it into the Promised Land.
Today our pastor preached out of Duet. and it was all about Remembering…you are right. God gives us a word right at the exact time we need it. I need to remember where God has been so faithful instead of shrinking at the current challenges! Thank you for your honesty and love for us!
I pray for you and your ministry often!
Beautiful.
There have been so many times that I have started back into a Bible study that I have not worked on for a little or for a while and the lesson has been EXACTLY what I needed right then. Exactly. Who, but God?
I don’t want to ever forget my God and what He has done and is doing for me. There are times when life can overwhelm me, but I DO NOT want to EVER forget!
Thanks, Beth, for always sharing your heart and your life and what He has brought you through.
He brought me out of the mirey clay,
He set my feet on the Rock to stay,
He put a song in my heart today,
A song of praise, Hallelujah!
The chorus from a song I love..
Beth, just as Buddy Walters fed your thirst for the study of Scripture, you have been the one who has given me that very thirst. The first study of yours that this thirsty soul found was “Believing God.” Next was the patriarchs. Then came the fruit of the spirit. And on and on, until this next week when I facilitate “James: Mercy Triumphs.” You are much loved, sister.
I too have packed up a home I thought my family would never leave. I took a short mental inventory at the time and a long look into the back garden which still sticks with me. All my memories of my father are there and there is something both so sad and so sweet about it. Thank you for this look into your move-it reminded me to revisit and celebrate all God has done…to remember my many false starts, growing spurts, and all the laughter of years I shared with my family in the original homestead.
I am awestruck at the timing for me of this post…. I have been searching for hours on the blogs to find “something” anything….that fed my heart tonite….something in art usually is what I find and somehow thru an art blog I found LPM….which sounded vaguely familiar….so I read the first entry. God’s timing is to the minute!!! My husband just went to bed after coming home from church and we had been sharing about our downsizing and our move 20 miles away to another house ….. a new home for our new season in life. Evidently a bit of a scarey one…as I just shared with him in tears that I was afraid….and he said of what?….and I said of being abandoned, of feeling left alone, not by him, but by what my life was before….all that I had been or done or accomplished, by the children I loved who are growing up, of being forgotten somehow and being in a dark place of “forgotteness”. And then I asked God to help me…. knowing it is silly (I am a Believer) but feeling it never the less and as I was searching thru the blogs….I saw this entry….the only reason I stayed to read more was also your name….Beth Green….as I have a cousin by that name and it is my maiden name….just a coincidence …?….but it kept me reading and then after reading of your experience with the keepsake box….and reading Deut….I KNEW why I was here…..for God to minister to me….as we(I) have been experiencing the same in going thru the things that are gut wrenching and the wonderful things too….wanting to vomit and throw the bad memories away but hang on to the good ones…. I am blown away by reading this entry of yours!!! It is what I needed to read and realize I must not forget….as you say even the awful, and the awesome….but not to forget to see HIS hand in it especially so I don’t get drawn into the pit of darkness and fear of loneliness. I am “wowed” and I praise HIM for this happenstance…of His LOVE….Blessings to you….and now at the end I realize who you are….we have mutual friends even and maybe I need to actually do some of your studies!! I have several of your books! Blessings to you in your move, we are downsizing at ages 65 and 72 and leaving a beautiful house in Round Top to move to a small house in LaGrange….excited but also afraid ….I am usually a braver person….but TRUSTING JESUS for the change.
oh this just so lines up with what god has been speaking to me today. remember where i’ve brought you from dear daughter. remember that i have claimed you. remember. thank you.
Just dropping by to say we are absolutely excited as that you will get to share with us in out great southern land in march! Than you thank you so much!….not that it matters at all but I will get to show my girlfriends for real that your dress sense is infinitely better than that at the taping of the first breaking free,!!, god has brought us so much joy we are fairly bursting with anticipation at the wonderful excuse to travel together as friends/sisters/tied at the soul, across the nullabour and take in all the loving that I just know God is constantly waiting to give us. See you there
I am reminded of Gay’s story every time I hear any details of Whitney Houston’s tragic death. Gay’s story has produced more sensitivity in me as I listen to Whitney’s story and think of what she might have been going through physically and psychologically. I am thankful for the outcome of Gay’s story and very saddened by the outcome of Whitney’s story.
WOw! Who knew how fitting this post was gona be when first posted. In the past few days of remembering and not forgetting we witnessed a tragic young star gone again. I continue to remember cuz my darling little schnauzer Tiffy is dying and every day I have to wonder when these tumors are gona shut her down. Seems so silly to talk about a silly puppy when so many other tragidies are happening but when something no matter how small has shared so much and are gona be soon gone the loss can be monumental. Anyone els who has lost a pet lately I would love to hear. What was helpful? I feel these pets do go to a place of great peace when they die I am not sure it is our heaven but I know our Lord God did not forget them in His plan of creation. Tearful bu grateful, Betty M
O Beth thanks for sharing that with us. I love Deuteronomy 8 as it has encouraged me and feel like it is my “Life’s Chapter”. I usually cry or my heart swells every time I read it. Wish I could hear your teaching on it. Anyway, thanks again for sharing it is always so encouraging to me.
I pray He doesn’t let me forget the awfulness of the things that formerly entangled me, but that I dare not look back in longing.
That my face would be bent forward, seeking freedom and the Deliverer.
thank you.
Thanks for sharing. I love how God speaks to me through your posts.
I am not sure why, but when I finished reading this words from a Jeremy Camp song entered my mind. “Yes Lord Yes Lord Yes Yes Lord, Yes Lord Yes Lord Yes Yes Lord, Amen!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYRc0JeQuC0
Beth,
thank you so much for sharing these sweet(and bitter) memories with us. As I read your blog, my own memories came flooding back. How awesomely wonderful God is!!!! So full of mercy and patience; he has carried me through many years of pain and suffering only to move me to a new life full of love and joy. Yes, I continue to have both pain and joy in my life, but as I remember where I have been with my God, I am renewed with hope and strength!! I needed to remember where he has brought me from, to be reminded of how faithful and trustworthy he is. As my husband and I wait patiently on God, I am reminded to stand firm on the knowledge of who God is, and remember what he has already done!!! Praise his gracious, wonderful, and Mighty Name!!
In a present that is full of tiredness and grief, I still stand amazed at how blessed we are. I am so thankful for all I have to remember of God’s faithfulness in our past, and I look ahead with anticipation to His future for us.