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
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:12-13 (NIV)
Melissa, Trujillo, PERU
Jeremiah 33:2-3 (HCSB) “The LORD who made the earth, the LORD who forms it to establish it, Yahweh is his name, says this: Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and incomprehensible things you do not know.”
Adrienne
Jasper, TN
“Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over Your work.”
Psalm 19:13 The Message
Michelle W
Boynton Beach, FL
For assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. Matt 17:20 NKJV
Lynn, Lake Villa, IL
Jude 20 MSG
But you, dear friends, carefully build yourselves up in this most holy faith by praying in the Holy Spirit…
Terri from Winchester, VA
“The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me.” Psalm 138:8a HCSB
“Let your speech always be with grace,seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.”
Colossians 4:6 NKJV
De Anna – Grenville SC
Taking a break from 1 Peter and believing God for a BIG DREAM he has placed in my heart. Unless God does it, it won’t happen!!!
Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. (Isaiah 26:8 NIV)
Jeannie from Atlanta, IN –
Psalm 40:1 , NIV – “I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.”
Ps. 139:23 NIV
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Maria Cristina Bruschi
Orlando, Florida
Beth, oh, how your chosen verse speaks to me today!!!!
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, NET
Kelly Collett, Buckhannon, WV
Exodus 14:14 (NIV)
The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.
Ronnie, Ostrander, Ohio
Psalm 143:8 Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. ESV
Staci
Corona
[ESV]
Jeremiah 15.16
Your words were found and I ate them and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart for I am called by your name O Lord, God of hosts.
Lyn Steriti
Littleton NH
But thanks be to God, Who always leads us in His triumph in Christ, and manifests through us
the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place.
II Cor. 2;14 NASB
Terri Frasure from South Lebanon, Ohio
“And let the peace of the Messiah, to which you were also called in one body, control your hearts. Be thankful.”
Colossians 3:15
(HCSB)
Joanne Bremerton, WA
Romans 12:16 ESV
Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.
“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained; What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, And You crown him with glory and majesty!” Psalm 8:3-5 NAS
Sue
Carmel, IN
But now, this is what the Lord says — He Who created you, O Jacob, He Who formed you, O Isreal; ‘Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
Isaiah 43:1 NIV 84
Brenda A. from Byhalia, MS
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses,but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Psalm 20:7 (NIV)
Peggy, Queen Creek, “We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.” 1 Thess 5:14 NASB
2 Corinthians 4:7-8 (NIV)
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8-We are hard pressed on every side but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
pamela t., Fairmont, NC Hebrews 12:11 (AMP)
For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness—in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God].
Jordin, Albuquerque
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Ephesians 2:8-10, NIV
Gena Gilbert, Rowlett, Texas
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17 NIV
Ganise, Ottawa, Canada : 2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV) ”… where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
Julie, Texarkana -“Wait for the Lord and keep His way, and He will exalt you to inherit the land. You will watch when the wicked are destroyed.” (Psalms 37:34 HCSB)
Margaret Ann, Pacific Junction, IA:
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs–heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
Romans 8:14-17 ESV
from Scottsdale, AZ
Philippians 2:14-15
New International Version (NIV)
14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”[a] Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.
Stephanie, Lititz, PA “This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad.
Greetings! Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” James 1:1-4 NLT
Ashley from Durban, South Africa, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV
Rachel H., Alabama,
“When I discovered your words, I devoured them. They are my joy and my heart’s delight, for I bear Your name, O LORD God of Heaven’s Armies.” Jeremiah 15:16 NLT
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
Phil. 1:9-10 NIV
Susan, Tallahassee, Fla.
I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness. Jeremiah 31:3 NIV
LOVE.
Dee, Zeeland, MI from NIV84 Numbers 23:19
“God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?”
Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you will everything good for doing his will and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen Heb 13: 20-21
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28 NIV
Annette, Tomball, “She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue.” Proverbs 21:36 NIV
Maryjo, Chandler, AZ
But 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 NIV
Sandra, Rock Hill, SC
Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
James 1:12 NIV
Alison from Southport, NC. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9. NKJV.
Lisa, Houston “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
Kim Rushville, OH
I appeal to you therefore, brothers by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual act of worship. Rom 12:1 ESV
Lori, Owasso, OK
Proverbs 31:25
New Living Translation (NLT)
25 She is clothed with strength and dignity,
and she laughs without fear of the future.
Joyce Davidson, Big River, Saskatchewan, Canada
“See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me!
Psalm 25:19 NIV84
Donna Huneycutt, Mt. Pleasant NC
The LORD appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued to extend faithful love to you. Jeremiah 31:3
Maureen, Pascoag, RI
May grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord
2 Peter 1:2 NRSV
San Ramon, CA
“What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?” ~ 1 Cor. 4:7 (NIV)
Jill, Williamsburg
You are my hiding place; You will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
Selah
Psalm 32:7 NIV
So good!
Tess
Cartersville, GA
John 7:38 NASB
He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water'”