Hey, my beloved sisters!
Though I won’t publish this post until Tuesday, the first day of October, I am writing to you on Sunday. I have the house all to myself today – not even a dog in sight – and I am sitting on my back porch as a generous rain soaks the ground, polishing the wide leaves of sweet gums on its way down. Our trees this far south are still plump and green and, right this minute, I don’t mind because the leaves have such a sheen on them in the rain that they look like vinyl. The temperatures will drop one slow degree at a time over the next month but we usually don’t have what people call “Autumn” here until as late as November. And it’s almost unrecognizable even then. Suddenly you just look up and the trees don’t have leaves and it hits you that you probably missed Fall on your way to work that morning when you ran into Starbucks for a dry cappuccino.
An Arkansas girl by heritage, I am on the hunt for Red October by mid September but I can’t think of a time since I’ve lived on the Gulf Coast that I’ve ever found it. Well, except when I close my eyes and look. And it is beautiful there. I do love Houston though, despite how season-challenged it is. Good people. Many, many who earnestly love Jesus and crave the sense of His presence and serve Him with both life and heart. Its diversity kicks up a rich climate for faith and a prime place to meet people very different from you who seek Jesus feverishly. It’s not as easy to keep your stereotypes tidy here.
In the early years of speaking, God purposed that I’d accrue copious hours of experience serving at various churches, women’s breakfasts and luncheons right here in our city limits and still get home to greet my children after their school day. I often pulled out of the driveway when they hopped on the school bus and squealed my tires back on the concrete just minutes before they pulled up at 3:15. My kids loved riding the school bus and, as it turns out (I write this with a smile), it was a grace to me. On paper, our lives shouldn’t have worked but somehow it worked (apply the term loosely) in practice. That’s the beautiful oddity of the will of God. What should easily work doesn’t work when He’s not in it and what should never work does work when He is. It’s crazy to think about in retrospect. He has been so faithful, just as He will be to you as you try to balance it all and seek His mercy through the insanity.
I wish I could somehow add the soundtrack of what I’m presently hearing to this post. I wish you could listen to the comfort of the rainfall, especially if you are feeling chaotic or anxious right now or frantic about how something’s going to work out. The water is falling steadily, not a soft shower or a downpour. Constant and consoling, almost like one of those sleep-settings on your iPad. And I wish you could hear 4 male hummingbirds competing over the feeder that is hanging about 8 feet from where I’m sitting. It mesmerizes me to watch them and I think you might like it, too, once you adjusted to the pace out here in these woods.
Sometimes we really do just need everything and everybody else to shut up for a minute and let us listen to the sound of God being God around us. These moments are brief for all of us. Just five days ago I was fit to be tied over something. I do mean fit to be tied and, over the weekend, greatly concerned about a situation even while I served. But I am going to sit here for the next few minutes and pour myself a cup of coffee while God pours these woods a cup of rain.
Well, I guess you can tell that I’m in a musing mood so perhaps I should wrap this post up before I work my way over to subjects like world peace and dark nights of the soul and existential crises and the beauty of aging and the delights of youth. Honestly, I can feel a poem trying to write itself in my head. This post must end with perfect timing before, indeed, my words start rhyming. Run for your life. It’s almost too late.
Here’s my Scripture for this October 1st!
Beth Moore, O God, You cause abundant showers to fall on Your chosen people. When they are tired, You sustain them, for You live among them. Psalm 68:9-10a The NET Bible
Amen, You do, gracious, merciful God.
I love you, Sisters. You are a joy to me. The next post will be registration for our SSMT celebration so we can get an idea how many to prepare for. Wooohoooo! It’s almost time to kick up our heels!
Tags: Scripture Memory 2013
Melody
Myrtle Beach, SC
“The law made nothing perfect, but a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.” Hebrews 7:19 NIV
Psalm 27:14
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. (NIV)
Ann
Mandeville, LA
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
English Standard Version (ESV)
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
Betty, Waveland, IN: “The heavens are telling the glory of God; they are a marvelous display of His craftmanship.” Psalm 19:1 TLB
Cathy, Fridley
“Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen and you will find life. I will make an everlasting covenant with you. I will give you all the unfailing love I promised David.”
Isaiha 55:3, NLT
Keely from Hermann, MO: 1Corinthians 13:11NIV “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.”
Terri, Pleasant Hope, MO
being strengthened will all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience Colossians 1:11 (NIV84)
Jackie Pope, Covington, IN, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25 NKJV
Kari
Charlottesville, VA
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. (Habakkuk 3:18 NIV)
Kathy Carenza
New Port Richey Florida
Isaiah 53:7 NIV84
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
Kelli, Dover
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, The Lord Jesus Christ.
Philippians 3:20 ESV
Pauline Richardson, Eau Claire Wi
“Oh that You would slay the wicked, O God!
Depart from me therefore, you bloodthirsty men”
Psalm 139:19 NKJV
Jaclyn, Houston. “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting Rock.” Isaiah 26:3-4 ESV
Marie, Franklin, TN
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1 NIV
Judy, Oswego, NY
Psalm 25:10 NIV:
‘All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant’
Amber Moon, Lincolnton, NC
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 (NLT)
Terry, Carbondale, IL
“Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” James 1:19-20
Alesha, Charlotte, NC
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him. 1 John 5:14-15
Mindy – Heb. 10:22-23 Message “So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word.”
Becky, Stromsburg, NE
Romans 4:20-22 NIV
Yet, he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why it was credited to him as righteousness.
“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
Lori, Waxhaw, NC
Fay, Springfield, MO
Hebrews 10:36 NIV
Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.
Sherree from Mansfield, TX
Romans 12:12 NCV
Be joyful because you have hope. Be patient when trouble comes, and pray at all times.
Jude 19 TNIV
These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the spirit.
Marcia, Portland, OR Psalm 68:9-10 NIV
You gave abundant showers, O God;
you refreshed your weary inheritance.
Your people settled in it,
and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.
Karen, Christy, Cheryl A Cord of Three Strands
Jay, OK
O God, You cause abundant showers to fall on Your chosen people. When they are tired, You sustain them, for You live among them. Psalm 68:9-10 NET
Vivian, Birmingham, Alabama
O God, You cause abundant showers to fall on Your chosen people. When they are tired, You sustain them, for You live among them. Psalm 68:9-10a The NET Bible
Maria – Katy, TX
Matthew 24:14 (ESV)
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
Richelle, Kingston, TN
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
Psalm 23:1 (NIV)
Janice Victoria BC
Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him; God is a refuge for us.
Psalm 62:8 NAS
Carolyn, Austin, TX
For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations. Psalm 100:5 NKJV
Karen J from Westminster, MD
Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His.
Psalm 100:3. NIV
Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel,……ephasians 6:19 NIV
Linda from N. Ft. Myers, FL “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23 NIV 1984
Rachel D., Meridian, “But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News.” (Colossians 1:23a NLT)
Pam, Apple Valley, Minnesota
But as for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more.
Psalm 71:14 NIV
Pamela, Mechanicsville, VA.
And we know in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romanns 8:28 NIV
Kristin in Cheney, WA
“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him.” -Psalm 62:1 (NIV)
Amanda
Derby, KS
1 Corinthians 10:21 NIV
You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of the demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.
Bethany, Spring, TX
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; 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 that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers.
Psalm 1:1-3, ESV
Fran, Eden Prairie, MN
You, Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you. Trust in the Lord for ever; he will always protect us. (Isaiah 26:3, 4 GNB)
Jodi, Sundown TX, The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. (Psalm 25:14 NIV)
Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given Him a name which is above every name: That at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in Heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Phil 2:9-11
Numbers 6:24-25
“The Lord bless thee and keep thee;the Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee.” KJV
Monroe,Ga.
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8 NIV)
Ana, Tampa FL
1Peter 2:9-10 (NIV)
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. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but noe you have received mercy.
Create in me a pure heart, o God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10 NIV
Carla, Pierre, SD
. . being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joy. . . Col. 1:11 NIV
So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the good news about Christ. Romans 10:17 NLT
Kathleen, Georgetown,TX
Proverbs 12:18 NIV84
Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.