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
Sheri, Morrisville, MO
“…being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience…” Colossians 1:11 NIV
Still working…I’m just so slow.
Matt. 11:28
Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest.
Nancy Coffey
Barboursville, WV
God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
~ Matthew 5:7, NLT
Sonya
Aurora, CO
For out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks. Luke 6:45b (NIV)
Proverbs 16:9 (NKJV)
“A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.
Susan- Berryville, VA
Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14 NIV)
Anne, Simpsonville, SC “Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek His will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6 NLT
Molly from Pierce, NE
Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord ! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! The Sovereign Lord is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as a deer, able to tread upon the heights. (Habakkuk 3:17-19 NLT)
Sarah from Lincoln, NE
James 1:22 (HCSB)
“But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.”
Karen(Oconomowoc,Wi). Taste and see that The Lord is good;Blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him…Psalm 34:8 NIV
Amanda from Platte City, MO
“Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will lift you up.”
James 4:10 (NIV)
Leslie Crawley, Flagstaff, AZ
“For we are His workmanship, created In Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” (NASB)
Moreen, Sydney Australia
you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18, 19 NET)
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)
Susan from Clinton, MS
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
Kathy Bryson
Albuquerque, NM
Hebrews 10:38-39 HCSB
But My righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him. But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and obtain life.
Sara from Garden City, KS
O God, you cause abundant showers to fall on your chosen people. When they are tired, you sustain them, for you live among them. You sustain the oppressed with your good blessings, O God. (Psalms 68:9, 10 NET)
Wisdom12:2Therefore you rebuke offenders little by little,
warn them, and remind them of the sins they are committing,
that they may abandon their wickedness and believe in you, Lord!
Nab
Dawn, West Monroe, LA
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. Colossians 4:6 NIV
Know that the Lord is God.
It is He who made us,
And we are His;
We are His people,
the sheep of His pasture.
Psalm 100:3
Eph 1:3 Praised be the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ who bestowed on us in Christ
every spiritual blessing in heaven.
Natalie from Austin, TX
Rom 8:14 NIV
For all who are led by the spirit of God are children of God.
Natalie from Austin, TX
Isaiah 48:17
I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.
Stacey, Omaha, NE and Emily (age 13)
This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT
Ally (age 11)
Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
1 John 3:18 NIV
Shelley from San Angelo
You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
1 John 4:4 NIV
Carol from Farmers Branch,
Jude 1:2, KJV
Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
Ellen, Moneta VA
And live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. -Ephesians 5:2 (NIV 1984)
Isaiah 41:13(NIV)
For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.
Christina, Waukee, IA
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:15 ESV
Vickie C, Baytown, Texas
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:36 ESV
Glenna, Cumberland House,SK “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.” (Ephesians 6:12 NIV)
Kathleen, Tallahassee, FL:
“You will seek Me
and find Me
when you search for Me
with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13 (NASB)
For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7 NIV
Carrie Jones
Ontario, Canada
Hannah
Lake Charles, LA
“For he has rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom e have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Colossians 1:13-14 NIV
“Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise” James 5:13
NIV
Lonnie G. Omaha, NE:
“If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me”. (Jeremiah 29:13 NLT)
Debbie Summey, Folly Beach: Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” John 5:17 NIV
Karen from Leeds, AL –
“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” James 2:26 NIV
Sue, Wellington.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:13 NIV 84
Zoe L from Oklahoma City:
God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.
Exodus 2:24 NIV
Katherine from The Woodlands, TX
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
1 Corinthians 13:6 (NIV)
Christine, Atlanta, GA – The one who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps his life from troubles. Proverbs 21:23
Patti, Clemmons, NC
The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness-for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. Romans 4:23-24 NIV
“Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written:’It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.”
Romans 12:19 NIV
Stephanie – Tampa, FL
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Romans 12:16 ESV
Shellie P.
Spokane, WA
Treat Others as you want them to treat you.
Luke 6:31 TLB
Sharon, McKinney, TX
Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.
I Chron. 16:11 NIV
Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
I Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV)
Julie from Easley, SC
Dawn, Dubuque, IA
“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13 NIV
Diana, Indpls, Ps.66:5 NIV Come and see what God has done, his awesome deeds for mankind!