Hey, my dear sisters!
Although I won’t post this until Tuesday, I’m writing to you on the afternoon of Sunday the 10th. This is about the thousandth time I’ve corresponded with you from somewhere around an altitude of 27,000 feet. I’m on my second Delta flight of the day, heading home to Houston with so many memories of the last 8 months swimming around in this blond head. As many of you know because you so faithfully prayed us through, we wrapped up our final Living Proof Live event for 2013 this weekend. God just flat-out could not have given us a louder, more wonderful congregation at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida for a finale. They wanted Jesus and, in His unfathomable grace, He showed Himself faithful.
As any of you in a travel-oriented ministry know, life is all the while taking place while you live out a schedule that was set in stone way before you got a whiff of what the year would hold. We’re better off that way, aren’t we? If we could see what was coming, we’d insult the grace of God by our faithlessness that He’d not come through when the time came to meet the need. The greater Moore family – and, by that, I mean Amanda’s 4 Jones, Keith’s parents who live next door, Melissa, my man and me – have had a year with as much upheaval and pain as we have met in a decade.
Jesus graciously allowed Keith and me to have, hands-down, the most peaceful year of our marriage. You know the kind of people who are carefree and smooth sailing? Well, that would not be us. We both tend to be on the feisty side. And I write that with a smile. I’ve been so thankful for this, our closest-ever kiss of bliss. I don’t know what we would have done otherwise. Our children and our parents needed us badly. Needed Jesus badly. We just tried to be constant and present reminders that He was there and that we were right beside them. And we ate a lot. Sometimes that’s the best way to show a little extra love around here. We are a close family and close families laugh together and cry together and, in our clan, when an unforeseen collision happens, all of us are in the car. Some are in the front seat. Some in the back. But, make no mistake, we’re all in the car. And that’s how we want to be. I know many of you can relate.
So, through many ups and downs, twists and turns, needs and bleeds, we’ve lived these last many months on drips, streams, and gushes of God’s grace. I’ve flown north, south, east, and west this year earning Platinum status on United and turning on my cell phone at the first touch of the wheels on the tarmac to see if everybody at home was okay. I could cry typing and not just over memories that make my heart ache but because Jesus has been so faithful to us. He has gotten us through. He’s still getting us through. And He will get us through again in 2014 when we, then, live out a schedule etched on the calendar before we had any idea what was coming.
Jesus is coming. That’s what I know. And that’s why we Moores and Jones will stay at it, come what may.
With the finish of our last Living Proof Live event for the year and with your patience, I thought I might introduce you to some of the people I have the privilege to serve alongside. Some are more familiar to you because you’ve seen them on the platform but all are huge, vital contributors to the ministry that takes place. Most of them come from Nashville, Ron (security) comes from Louisville, Shela-Lyn, our beautiful and gifted sign language interpreter, comes from Phoenix, and I am the lone but happy traveler from Houston. Some come by 18 wheelers to the events with all the big equipment. The rest of us fly but the end result is the same: we arrive and get to work. There is not a single slouch. We couldn’t make it with a lazy team. We’ve never found a formula or a system that works every time. We have to be ready for almost anything and I do mean spiritually, physically, emotionally, and technically. Everybody multitasks and nobody quips, “That’s not my job.”
All of our job descriptions have morphed through the years. If something needs doing, somebody just gets up and does it. For instance, Ron doesn’t just run security. He sets out the elements for my team and me to take communion before the opening on Friday night. Rich used to just be in charge of picking me up at the airport and driving me to the event and keeping a general eye out for me. While he still does the driving (because we will not let him go), he also developed into a spectacular, in-demand professional photographer and, because of him, we have the whole LPL lifetime archived in pictures. He is also our resident foody, although you wouldn’t know by looking at him, and he does the restaurant planning.
Well, if I don’t stop this, you’ll get bored and I’ll never get done so let me get to the fun part: some pictures that I just happen to have on my cell phone.
Here’s all of us, the Living Proof Live team:
I love them so much I could bawl. Here is the praise team and a few of our other hardworking buddies like Stephen Proctor who runs and masterminds our visual worship (in the very back) right after the simulcast this year.
Here’s me and my old dead man of sin at the simulcast. Laughing. (If you weren’t there, this was a way of illustrating Romans 6.)
Here’s the whole LifeWay women’s event team (that puts on LPL) all living out their dream of being the praise team. Makes me so dang happy. That’s Flat Travis with them in case he looks a bit…well…flat. They are stellar women and hilarious. I’ve had the joy of serving with a publisher full of people who pursue Jesus Christ at fever-pitch. I do not take it lightly.
This picture was taken when we all first got to Daytona Beach and met up for team supper on Thursday night. Betsy oversees all our LPL events and we’re nuts about her. Susan provides something for us beyond all price. She welcomes those who receive Christ as Savior, prays with anyone who needs it, and often counsels women at the event who are really hurting. Paige Green, right next to me, oversees all LifeWay women’s events (like dot.mom, Priscilla Shirer Live, etc.) If Paige and I lived in the same city, we might be BFF. I love working with her so much but she is also a personal friend. I even love her mother. It’s that kind of thing. That’s our buddy, Stephen Proctor, on the other side.
Saturday night after the event, a small handful of us braved the amusement park there on the boardwalk in Daytona Beach and, honestly, we laughed like 10 year-olds. I’m scared of rides, by the way, but my fears meant nothing to this team but grounds for mockery and scorn. Once a gauntlet is thrown down, my pride usually exceeds my fear which is why I’m on this ridiculous roller coaster. And why we rode it over and over and over. Trav took this picture of Angela (his wife, dear as blood-kin to me), Paige, Bradford (who works at Travis’s church in Jackson, TN and is often a part of our team on the road) and me.
This action shot of Ang and me absolutely kills me. Please try to wrap your head around our Texas and Tennessee hair. It looks as though we are battling the very flames of hell but, clearly from our expressions, God is giving us the victory.
Ang is one of the most powerful women of prayer I know and, Girlfriend, I know some. I work with a whole staff of them. We’ve been doing something different in the 3rd session of Living Proof Live this year, spending a good bit of it in intercessory prayer for whatever segment of women the Holy Spirit lays on our hearts. Here I asked Angela to pray over all the moms in the room who are still actively raising children. The whole picture moves me so much. Look at the men on the front row (Travis and the guys on our praise team) pressing in. You’ll also see our friend Christine Caine on the edge of the shot (standing). We were amazed with her busy schedule that she’d come and attend this LPL. (She was speaking at a large church in the area the next day.) She has two of the cutest daughters you’ve ever seen so, in this picture, she is very actively engaging in prayer as a recipient. I asked Christine to pray over the young women in the room just minutes before Ang prayed because she has a divine gift for mobilization like few people I have ever met. I’ve heard from a number of those young women on Twitter saying what a powerful time it was.
I suppose I’ve just about worn you out by now, haven’t I? So I’ll go ahead and wrap up our 2013 LPL wrap-up. This is Travis, my dear and true son in the faith, Bradford and me on that silly roller coaster. 
That picture sums up the entire 16 year journey of Living Proof Live. Jesus has been outrageously faithful on this ride and allowed us to worship Him and seek Him with congregations of the most fabulous and diverse women we could ever have imagined serving. We want so much to lift Jesus higher and higher next year, to say His Name louder and louder, and to proclaim His Word clearer and clearer. If God chooses to increase His glory through these events in the coming years and make this group of Jesus freaks the least bit useful through His magnanimous grace, then we’ll have cause to keep doing this.
The team and I won’t go back on the road together until next April because I (ecstatically!) start Tuesday night Bible study in Houston in January then head back to Australia right after it concludes in mid-March. When I land back in the States, it will be time to pack the LPL suitcase again. By that time, if I don’t have the manuscript for Children of the Day complete and turned in, I may be fried like a chicken.
Thank you for humoring me today with my sappy sentimentality over my beloved team. I am nuts about them. As wild as we are about one another, we have one thing on our minds the moment the event is over: getting back home to our people. My darling and me. There is no place like home.
Bethy, always praying for you.
Pls dont scare me to death(i have enough haa) and
ever ride another roller coaster!!! hahah
take care
love you
SC
Matt 6:34
Of all the pics I have seen of the Daytona LPL, my favorite is the one above where you are all praying, and you are kneeling on the floor (not the stage). That picture gives me shivers. Thanks so much for sharing these pics, and the roller coaster too. I am glad you had time to enjoy the beach.
Beth,
My heart is so heavy for your family right now. I’ve been praying for y’all since you requested it several months ago. I admire and appreciate how you’re respecting the privacy of all involved but, reading between the lines, I have some idea about some of your struggles and am so sad. Love, hugs, and prayers to you all!
Thank you for continuing to praise, serve, and pray in the midst of this difficult year. My family is also under heavy attack from Satan(I think in some similar ways to yours), and I’m trying to do the same. I have also been given a reprieve in certain areas of my life during this time-love how God does that and am glad He’s doing it for you as well! Cute pic of you and Keith!
Dearest Beth, Thanks for sharing. I though about going to Daytona….but the flood in CO took my time:) I just bought Christmas gifts for my girls….tickets for Denver in July! I am so thankful that God uses you like He does! Do know you and your family are being prayed for. Love, Carol
1. I miss you. Bad.
2. I can’t relate to the whole “family in the car thing” because, until I got married recently, I had to drive as the sole passenger.
3. But you better believe my coming family — you know, the children I’m desperately praying to have — will know what it feels like to have their mama and daddy in the car with them when life gets hard.
4. Latest idea of mine: you know how Julie, from the movie “Julie and Julia”, went through Julia’s Childs cookbook and learned from it? I’m getting ready to pull a “Beth and Amy Beth” and going through Breaking Free, stat. You can be my Julia Childs.
Thank you for sharing the year with us. We were at the Springfield, IL event. Even though I could tell from your telling us about your daughters, The Lord anointed you powerfully. I have been grieving for well over a year about losses in my life. A week before the conference I went up for prayer as I did that weekend. I am finally free!
I pray you have some good ole jammies days and let the Lord refresh you and your family.
We will see you next year in Ft. Wayne in September.Love you ever so much:)
Dear Miss Beth,
Praying for you all!!! So thankful for God’s faithfulness! I will continue to pray for you and yours that God would pour out blessings on you. Meeting needs, healing hearts and bringing health and restoration. You are loved! Thank you for sharing the cool pics!
Blessings
Sharon
Thank you for being a willing servant of God. Sorry for the troubles your family has been having this year. I am so glad for the good year you and your hubby have had concerning your marriage. thank you for sharing with us.
Beth,
Sometimes we hold those of ‘you’ in higher esteem and forget you are also human…I pray God’s Blessings on the Jones Family, the Moore family including Melissa.
May you witness Jesus as never before during this upcoming season. Keep teaching, Beth….Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year……
Nancy
Thank you for sharing and showing what LIFE abundant looks like! 1 Corinthans 4:16 could be said of you to us…you like Paul lead us to JESUS and HIS CROSS and boast on JESUS and so we are safe in following you! “Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me” is what Paul said. Many feel safe in following you because you, like Paul, live the TRUE GOSPEL and not allow Galatians mentality to come into the ministry. Thank you. Thank you for showing such unity and cooperation and beauty and encouragement in your team! Your leadership is obviously of the ways which be IN CHRIST (1 Co 4:17) as you teach everywhere…! May the LORD continue to BLESS AND KEEP YOU and all yours! Thank you!
I’m praying for you and your family, Beth. Thanks for the pictures and for introducing us to the LPL staff!
Beth,
You are in my prayers.
Thank you for not only “living by the Spirit, but also walking by the Spirit.” (Gal. 5:25)
You reflect God.
Beth,
Many heartfelt thanks to you and your team for the Daytona Beach weekend. I asked God in the weeks leading up to it to meet me there because I so needed to hear from Him and He was faithful to do just that.
When you began speaking about your family and your “second-hand suffering” and becoming aware of an “offense with God,” it was all I could do to keep from bauling right where I sat. I’m tearing up just writing this. You spoke exactly what’s been going on in my heart for the last two months. The details of course, different but the emotion very much the same. I felt all at once comforted yet also, not quite rebuked but maybe warned, in my spirit about the growing offense in my own heart. I actually had the thought, Ok, God I forgive You. What?!!? It should probably be more like Ok, God I trust You. I’m hoping to cross that line soon.
My mom is my absolute best friend on this earth and I am helpless to ease her suffering. My heart is breaking over what she’s going through. Reconciling His ability with His sovereignty would be a lot easier if things would go the way I long for them to go. This has become a crisis of faith for me and it scares me because God has been my everything since I was 15.
Yet I WILL lay it all at His feet and I WILL believe Him even if this trial doesn’t work out the way I want it to, believing that we WILL see the fruit of it all.
I’m sorry this is so long, but Beth, thank you for your openness in sharing your journey. God ministered in a powerful way this past weekend and still is. I’m grateful.
Blessings,
Melanie
Beth,
Btw, the pics are awesome. And much better than most of the ones I took. You are one tough lady to capture on camera. You’re so animated, I nearly had to set my camera to sports mode just to get a decent shot! LOL Love you pieces and am praying for you, your family and everyone on your team!
Blessings,
Melanie
I know you don’t like roller coasters! I remember that because I don’t like them either (and you know it’s all about me, right!?! 🙂 ) So, I was very shocked when I first scrolled down (to find the last SSMT post) and saw there were pictures of you on a coaster! I don’t know. I let my husband laugh at me and call me a wimp and I still stand on the sidelines and watch, with my stomach turning even just watching, so I’m thinking my fear is even stronger than yours! Of course, my fear of failure was so strong for many years, as you know, that I couldn’t even attempt to learn to drive and get a driver’s license. I still haven’t drove even once since we moved to Spokane, I’m so scared of driving in the city. I’m sure I will eventually, if Josh will let me. I think he’s more scared of me driving at this point than I am!
Oh, and say hi to Susan for me. She’s talked to me enough times that she’ll probably remember me! Ugh! Oh, well. I’m in a better place now, so all is well. And you’ll be glad to know I’m back in church again. A different church, a recovery church, but a bible believing recovery church. I’m sure you’re happy to know that. Love you all!
Shellie P.
Thank you for your ministry, Beth. I was at Daytona Beach and in need of a fresh word from God and you provided it. 2013 has been a very difficult year for many of us and somehow in all the chaos, I can see the hand of God covering me.
Bless you.
Thank you for sharing!
Here’s the very surreal part: 5 years ago I grudgingly went to some confrence with some Southern big-haired blonde speaking about something I was sure to be irrelevant to my hopeless issues. And the next thing I know it’s 2013 & I’m weepy looking at your post today because that day began a miracle and those people were there. Serving me. And I’ve attending enough LPL & been a Siesta long enough & recently randomly moved here & am even attending BCF. So when you post pics and stories like this, I get sentimental too. And it amazes me how much my heart swells up over so many people I’ve never even met. Because I feel like I’ve known them ALL for a while now. Only in the Kingdom does something like that even happen. God is just so danged clever and intricate!!! Mind. Blown.
Aww, that is great! I love this recap of the year and all the pictures, they make me smile:)…I was thinking about the Siesta Celebration this week; it was Wednesday, and I had just heard such a powerful testimony from my teacher at the women’s class I was heading home from, and I was thinking that as Christians, we really do have victory in Christ, grace that enables us to joyfully face each day…My teacher lost her oldest daughter in a car wreck a couple of years ago, and on a mission trip on the second anniversary of her daughter’s death, she was used by the Lord to lead a muslim woman to Christ because of her testimony about her daughter’s death…Even though our emotions may try to depress us or discourage us, we don’t have to live by our emotions. For a long time, that is how I have lived. But that is not how I should live…we are more than overcomers, and all that to say that I am sooo looking forward to the Siesta Celebration because it is supposed to be just that-a celebration of how God has given us the victory in Christ, and that His Word is able to comfort, transform, and renew our minds to walk in victory and have lasting joy in the midst of our trials, whatever kind they may be, no matter how they affect our emotions. His grace is there:):) Double smiles to that! Love you much Siesta Mama Beth, I’m praying that next year is so amazing and God glorifying for you and Living Proof Ministries and for your related family:)
My word, I love this ministry and I love you!
Just thinking about how I look so forward to a LPL weekend, and how I have received wonderful instruction that has carried me through many hard times from those events. I could probably give a synopsis of every event Ive attended with out using my notes. Thats how it sticks with me….but I couldnt tell you what I did yesterday, lol. Im a little sappy today because the 2014 schedule does not bring yall close to me, but there have been years that I have made as many as 3! Thank you so much for choosing to obey God all these years, and thank you for sharing your life with us.
Praying you all feel better soon 🙂
~Love
I’ve been praying for y’all since you requested it a few months ago. I admire & appreciate how you’re respecting the privacy of all involved but, reading between the lines, I have an idea what some struggles are. God’s grace is sufficient. May this holiday season of no travel, be a time of refreshing for you all. Grace and Peace to you and yours.
Dana, San Angelo, Texas
“Summing it all up friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious-the best, not the worst; the beautiful not the ugly; things to praise not things to curse.” Phillipians 4:8 (The Message)
Roller Coasters – I love them but after spinal fusion surgery earlier this year I am not allowed on a roller coaster. It’s been rough!!
Thank you for serving us so faithfully this year. Enjoy some rest and time with your family.
Beth, I LOVE this post and I LOVE the last photo of you and Keith, what a joy – you two deserve the BEST dearest sister in Christ- May God Bless you over and over and over as you begin your next “season” of study, teaching and sharing what our Lord sends through your talented and gifted heart. Thank you for serving us and may you and yours heal and receive all the joys of the holidays. In Appreciation, Kathy “an old girl” Siesta.
Beth, you have been a huge part of my discipleship. Born and raised in the church, I didn’t “get” Grace til in my late 30’s. Your teachings and events played such an essential part in my steady growth for the past 15 years. You are a blessing to me and to so many of my dear friends. You have shared your life with us and we love you. I am keeping you in my prayers as are so many others who love you. There is nothing that hurts us more than when our family is hurting – and you are like family to us! We will continue to keep you and all of your dear ones in our prayers.
“As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.”
Ecclesiastes 11:5 NIV Nancy Bradshaw
“Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.” Psalm 51:6 NIV Pam in San Diego
Beth, your life has touched many because of your faithfulness to what the Lord has called you to do. It is great to see you have fun and enjoy life like the rest of us crazies. Since most of our lives are roller coaster rides with ups, downs, fears, and screams it is good to know that the wild ride does come to an end. Living for Christ the ride ends in glory. God bless you for your obedience to his call.
Praying for you and your family. For some reason my gut tells me to say a special prayer for Melissa. May the Holiday season bring you many blessings. Ceffie in WV
James 2:1
My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
ESV
The “old man of sin” visual gave me the creeps. 🙂 You were very brave to have “it” on your back. But I loved the visual you gave for standing under either the law or grace. I still bring that to mind since I struggle often with guilt and self-condemnation. I have added Ro. 6:14 to my arsenal of verses. 🙂
I used this as my morning devotional. And oh how it made my day.Hugs!!!
What a fun and encouraging post to read! Thank you for sharing from your heart- both in pictures and words.
Miss Beth,
This recap blessed me SO much! Going to LPL events have been amazing experiences for me. I love seeing the smiles of you and your team having fun together. God can even make work/serving a blast when we are doing it for His glory.
Your bible studies have taught me SO much….set me free and taught me how to live an abundant life. Travis’s music feeds my soul…truly!
I will continue to pray for you and your family…for protection from the enemy and peace always.
In Christ’s love,
Denise
Hi, Beth! I just wanted you to know that one of your sentences in this blog caught my attention, encouraged me, and inspired a post of my own. (http://kaleighward.theworldrace.org/?filename=drips-of-grace)
Thanks for sharing!
Kaleigh
What happen to you on Life Today? Been looking for you, where can we see you preaching? I am in the Atlanta area in Georgia.
Miss you very much on Wednesdays.
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