You guys have been so patient with me while I’ve been under a tremendous work load! There comes a time when you just have to put some things on hold – even things that involve people you love – to get as focused as possible to wrap up a project. Since New Year’s Day, I’ve been finishing Children of the Day, teaching a new series on Tuesday nights in Houston, serving at Passion, and at a Women of Faith event called Unwrap the Bible and simultaneously being a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a coworker at LPM. Even recounting it nearly gives me an anxiety attack. I have absolutely no doubt that most of your lives have been just that full. God has been so gracious to us, hasn’t He? He carries us even when we’ve loaded ourselves down in ways He wouldn’t have ordained.
I had originally planned to be finished with COTD before the Christmas holidays. I never would have scheduled all that craziness at the same time. God knew what the 18 months surrounding that project would entail and He sustained my family and faithfully carried us through a very rough season. I did the last editorials for COTD on a conference call with LifeWay a week ago Friday, got on a plane with Amanda and Melissa to Sydney on Monday, then got an email two days later from my editor saying that COTD was on its way to the printing press. Thank you, God. Many of you prayed me through and I am so grateful. A writing project going to press brings a very vulnerable feeling. Some of you know what I’m talking about. You’ve been so close to it for so long that you often have no idea if it’s decent writing or makes a whit of sense. All you can know is that you gave it everything you had.
And the beautiful side of writing Bible study curriculum is that you have the promise of God that His Word will not return void. At the end of the project, I only allowed myself one question: will the readers be able to say at the turn of the last page that they’d diligently studied 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, whether or not they’d always agreed or embraced each lesson? Because of God’s great faithfulness to bless His Word, I pray so. That is my peace. May God bring a 100-fold harvest to those who end up investing their time and energy in the series.
SO, ladies, I am writing you this morning from a hotel room overlooking the gorgeous Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is Sunday evening to you but Monday mid-morning for me and the sun is shimmering on the face of those waters so brilliantly that it’s nearly blinding. I had the privilege to serve at the Hillsong Colour Conference for women that lasted from Thursday evening to Saturday evening then at their main campus last night. I will serve again this coming Thursday through Saturday.
Their women’s conference is so well attended each year that they do it over 2 weekends to accommodate the numbers. The weekends are identical in schedule and content but Colour 1 takes place in a large arena then Colour 2 (the very next weekend and a whole new group of women) takes place at their largest church campus here in Sydney. It only takes the first hour of the conference to figure out why 17,000 women flood the venues. The Spirit of God falls so powerfully during worship that you can hardly sing for wanting to cry.
You would just love Colour. Women of every age and all sorts. Scads of really young women whose faces are just beginning to come alive with the radiance of Christ. The older women are gorgeously fervent in the Spirit. To say that the atmosphere of worship is lively and spirited is understating it. The name of Jesus is outrageously declared and praised. We sing, we get into the Scriptures, we laugh our heads off, and we get mobilized to meet needs and to fight injustice. It’s a full package and that’s one of the beautiful things about it being 3 days long rather than how we normally schedule events in the States.
In between conferences, we get 3 whole play days! Starting today! YAHOO!!!!! I have not had a couple of days off in a row in many months. I’m about to take them and run like there’s no tomorrow. We will start off today being shamelessly predictable: petting kangaroos and koalas. I know, I know. But we just can’t resist it. All we’ll need to top the day off is an Olivia Newton John sighting.
I’m still in my pajamas and we’re leaving the hotel in an hour so I better get with it. It feels so good to have touched base with you, Sisters! I have missed you so much! Thank you for your patience with me. We’ve got some busy months ahead on the blog so I hope, to some reasonable degree, we will make up for lost time.
I love you!
I love you to Beth! Have a blast!!!!
Welcome back Beth! Surely have missed you. So glad to hear that COTD is completed! Can’t wait to work through it. I am so happy that you, Amanda, and Melissa are having a sweet time together. I am praying for your girls…I know that Amanda has been hurting and I just feel led to pray for Melissa as well. I met them both back in 2010 at the first memory celebration and they both touched me by their sweet spirits.
Have a wonderful time petting kangaroos and koalas 🙂
Pictures sweet Beth of down under! Blessings!
Thank you for your Bible studies and all the work you put into them. Right now I’m doing Jesus 90 days with the one and only. Will be praying for you and your girls. Connie
Thanks so much for your post, Beth! I hope you have a wonderful time with your girls this week. I know how much fun it is when my mom and sisters and I have a bit of time together–it is so precious and FUN! 🙂 Thanks for taking the time to update us here on the blog. You’re in my prayers! 🙂
You deserve this glorious time of praise, family and relaxation, Beth. Thank you for thinking of us in the midst of it all. We love you.
So glad to read the latest! we love you, we like you, we miss you! love & prayers xoxo cb p.s. please don’t get so busy again!
Welcome back! May your time this week be restful after your very busy season of work for the kingdom.
Oh Dear Beth,
To say I have really missed you is the grossest understatement BUT I have been diligently praying for you every day. I can empathize with the writing thing becuz every time we put our thoughts down for others to read we are making ourselves vulnerable and we just never know do we??? I do it on such a minute comparrison to you but I get the gist. Yes it does not return void to our great God!!
You know, I have done quite a number of your studies Beth and thought I can not say I have agreed with you doctrinally on every issue (remember I am a Baptist converted to LCMS) I see the depth and quality of your studies and of Lifeways in general and I appreciate them so much. Every time I get into another study that to me does not have that depth and purity I am greatful to Him for providing us with you authors who do such a superb job bless the Lord!!. You and Lifeways do a super job thank the Lord!!
We are swamped here too! Our son is marrying the girl of his dreams come June (her name is Beth!) we are helping to competely redo a small starter house for them I don’t want to go into details here but it is a massive undertaking on something which may only be a temp home turned into a hunting or retreat center some day. It is remotely located in prime hunting and even has a small fishing lake. His fiancee fell in love with the site. Her parents live hundreds of miles away but come periodically to help so it is non stop cooking for me when they all come. Then there is a big reception planned near here in Aug so are finalizing details for that as the wedding is in MN. Sometimes it is so busy I feel dizzy some days!!
We ( a whole bunch of women in the Bismarck area of ND) are hoping and praying for a nod of having a LPL event here possibly in 2015 or 2016. We ND gals have to travel long distances to see you and would love to have you back. I would be so excited not to only get to finally see you in person but just the details in planning and getting to know more sisters in Jesus and make new friendships. Almost as exciting as being at a LPL event!!
Praying you arrive home safely and energized. I am really looking forward to having a livestream time with you sometime soon how is that for pressure???! Looking forward to the new study as well.
Love, love, love ya!!!!
Betty M
your friend from the Dakota country!!!
It’s so good to hear from you Beth! I’m glad you are enjoying your time in Australia and are winding down from a busy season! I pray you and your girls continue to have fun in Australia and that you all have safe trips home! Love you Beth and Amanda And Melissa!
Sacha
We love you, Mama Beth! Enjoy Australia! Your launch team is back here helping speed ahead His Word through COTD 🙂
Have a wonderful time in Sydney, Beth. You and the girls DESERVE this time, both in worship with these new faces and the play time that is your bonus! We love you so much. I reaped so many treasures from COTD when you were developing it at First….will be anxiously waiting for it to be released so I can revisit 1 and 2 Thessalonians. Safe journeys and prayers for His peace and grace to fall over you until you’re swimming in it!
Charlotte
Be Blessed Beth and girls! Have a great mini vacay down under!! You have been greatly missed but we know that it is so we can be so greatly blessed by what the Lord has spoken through you!
Oh Mama Beth,
So glad to know you are getting a few days off. It is well deserved and it was so good to hear from you. I am excited for your new study. I will continue to pray for you and safe travels home soon.
So glad to hear from you down under. My most favorite Aunt is in Australia now too Hope you have a wonderful time.
So wonderful to hear from you Beth and so happy to hear that you, Amanda, and Melissa will have the next few days to relax and have fun. Thank you for all you do for the Siesta community. I love you too!
The Olivia Newton John comment literally made me laugh out loud! Actually, I’m still giggling and I may or may not be singing Grease songs. Enjoy this special time. I’m praying that The Lord blesses this time of rest and relaxation!
Thank you for taking time to write. I hope you have a great time with your girls exploring and relaxing. I am so looking fwd to the COTD study, knowing the timing is going to be perfect and coinciding with what God is doing in me.(Im on the launch team so hopefully get our copy soon:)
I heard your message was extraordinary at Colour and cant wait to get listening to it somehow.
The Lord has been speaking and moving in me and I have audaciously and boldly asked Him for a double portion of your spirit, like Elisha asked of Elijah. I want to know Him to the fulness you know Him, hear Him the way you Hear Him, serve and glorify Him the way you do and more. As I worshiped this morning I layed all that is good about me at His feet and I felt overwhelmed by my inadequeacy to even be in His presence. I felt as though He wanted me to know your great effectiveness is knowing your place in the partnership, the way you speak of your awe of Him. I pray for more of this awareness.
I have no clue why I wrote all that, not planned, but I appreciate your sacrificial obedience to the Lord. All glory to Him, I pray He delights your heart in this down time with lots of laughing!! My favorite.
The Elisha “double portion” request of Elijah …wow heard a sermon on HOLY SPIRIT today by Beth that she spoke on that and I thought a similar thought to what you wrote. Only God grants these anointing, these cloaks. He says as we delight in HIM He gives us the desire of our hearts…
Thanks for sharing.
Thx for the post. Praying for you!
Oh Beth it’s SO good to “hear” your voice and know that God has given you the stamina to faithfully complete the tasks He’s set before you in this season and now a well deserved rest!
We recently completed Angela Thomas’ “Brave” Study and are equipped to bravely live life out from under the sUn but rather obediently under the SON who will infuse us with His strength in our weakness. Through the example of Gideon, Priscilla is now teaching us how to get our eyes off of our weakness and focused on His strength to live out our callings. Powerful studies in victorious, purposeful living as valiant warriors but many of the ladies have commented, “I miss Beth, when will be studying under her again?” We are SO eager to begin Children of the Day with our group in the Fall! I will join you in praying for a 100-fold harvest!
Meanwhile, praying you will be refreshed with your precious daughters by the beauty and wonders of His creation.
I love you too 🙂
I love you too and have missed you but understand busy. May the spirit of our loving and faithful God refresh, sustain and strengthen you.
Thank you dear Beth! You blessed us incredibly at Colour Conference this past weekend. My mother, aunty, sister and my beautiful 12 year old daughter, together with 6 of our best friends traveled to Sydney for the conference (most from Brisbane in sunny Queensland).
We all have our challenges and busyness, and friends and family we are praying for, and I can tell you, we traveled back to the nitty-gritty of life today with our tambourines packed (or at least at the ready on our iPhones!) We are anticipating praise!
Love you and pray you enjoy your few days of relaxing with your own beautiful daughters.
love Emma
Enjoy your well-deserved break! So wish that I could experience Hillsong Colour… Maybe one day, Lord willing.
Thank you for your faithful service.
Dear Beth, Thank you so much for taking the time to write to us. We all love you sister and cannot wait for COTD! Our Bible study team eagerly looks forward to the fall when we’ll introduce your new study to our faithful gals who attend Tuesday mornings and in the by and by, we’re in the middle of The Inheritance. My sweet man-probably a Keith Moore twin in heart and actions-watched Session 4 with me tonight and loves you too. I think I’m a little jealous but that’s okay! LOL!
Have so much fun petting koalas and kangaroos and oh how I hope you see Olivia!
Your sister in Christ,
Hillary (Hilly) Humberson
Castle Rock, Colorado
Such a neat report. Be blessed as you come and as you go! Praying for much strength, power, peace, and purpose!
Blessings to you always Beth Moore. Your teachings are fabulous and bless me like no other. So glad you are getting some days off. I M doing Made to Crave online simultansously with same study live at my church. Love it so much……Would love to do one of yours next. Wish you could be a speaker at our womens events someday. (Prestonwood Baptist in Plano). You are always loved by us who have taken so many of your studies. God grace to you !!– Cheryl Phillips
Beth,
Love you so much! I have done most of your bible studies and just love your honesty and sense of humor!! I know you have a lot on your plate, but wanted you to know I appreciate all that you do. My nephew, who is a freshman at Baylor, came to stay with me and my family for the weekend and went to the Passion conference in Houston. Loved it and was even nice enough to fill me in on the details of “what did Beth have to say?”
Hugs & prayers,
April
So good to hear from you, Beth. Rejoicing with you over you’re three play days, as well as getting your Bible study to press and your other ministry activities accomplished. You’ve been in my prayers, and I pray your next event this week is just as full of Gods Spirit and presence. Thank you for being so faithful. And I thank The Lord for His faithfulness to you. On a different note, we’re remodeling our house and I haven’t been on here much, but I happened to see your post in my inbox. I’ve thought about the time you remodeled your home and wondered how you ever got anything else done while the work was going on. We’re looking at another week or two; we started January 23!!!! I keep telling myself if you could do it as busy as you are, then I can stand the chaos a little longer! 🙂
Oh- we love YOU- so much
In our Perfect Jesus,
Sue
My family and I spent our summer vacation in NSW. We stayed in a hotel on the harbour for one night, so I’m imagining you there! (I’m so jealous!) 😉 Enjoy your fun days with your girls!
Thrilled to pieces that you and your girls get a few play days! I can’t think of anyone that has earned it more! May you have rest, adventure, laughter, and a pack of good memories to bring home!
Beth,
So good to hear from you again! We all miss you when you’re not on here. But we also know, without a doubt, that you are incredibly busy doing Kingdom work. May our awesome, gracious God bless you and this time with your girls abundantly!
Oh Beth, i felt the excitment in your writing and felt as if I was there in the audience, filled with the spirit. Thank you for sharing and have some wonderful down time with your girls.
Looking forward to your new study!
I love you!
Hi Beth, so good to hear from you. Congratulations on finishing study! ! !
Enjoy the time with your girls! Continued prayers for the new study. Breath!
so good to hear from you, Beth! as hard as you work, i hope you will play just as hard ~ it’s good for the soul. 🙂 praying God’s deep rest in your heart. love~
Dear Beth, I hope you had a really fun day. You certainly deserve some time off. I am sure God will use your new study, COTD, as powerfully as He has used your others. Our group will be starting it in July and I am really looking forward to it – I have already placed my order with my local supplier. I’m praying that the ship will sail super fast! Blessings for the rest of the Colour conference then a safe flight home. Much love, Colleen xx
So fun to hear from our Siesta Momma! Praising God alongside of you for a completed work and your service in Australia! Have a BLAST on your three days off with your girls!
BETHY thx much for blogging. So glad you went to Austie land. Thx much
for updating us too. Prayin 4 you as always. Have fun. It’s been raining and windy
In Htown. Give thanks in all things. Sue C
Great to hear from you! Praying you all have a wonderful and restorative time! Enjoy your girls and be safe.
April
I’m not going to lie — I was really hoping this post was going towards “I’m going to pet a kangaroo.” It reminds me of what my husband wanted to do when he first got to America — imagine hearing “Let’s go see this lovely Wal-Mart” in the best British accent you’ve ever heard. To say he was horrified with the reality of a southern Wal-Mart (down here, people shop in their pajamas) is an understatement.
Since we’re discussing kangaroos, I just wanted to mention that there has been a zebra loose here in my Tennessee town for five months. Apparently, it jumped a fence at a farm here and has been sighted multiple times but never corralled until this past week. Needless to say, I am so upset that I didn’t see it “in the wild” before it was captured (it was sighted many times around stores here). Can you imagine going to work on Monday morning and saying “Oh, this weekend? No, we didn’t do much except see a zebra galloping past Target.”
So many things Beth!!
Praying always for you!
Thank you for the message. No one has a way with words like you.
It isn’t possible to tell you how much you mean to me.
Studying the Word with you has forever changed me and so it changes my family, friends, co-workers and all I come in contact with.
Truly “Go ye thereforth…” It is His command and our destiny.
What a delight to be solid in His will.
Play hard! You surely earned it!
Have been praying for you dear sister knowing you are going through an extremely busy season and wondering how you do it!
Only in the strength and power of our Lord, I know. Whenever my Bible study buddies and I gather the talk eventually gets around to the new field you will be “sowing” into on Tuesday nights next year. (We’re hoping it’s further south.) Praying for rest when you can get it, joy in your journeys, and an unending flow of the Holy Spirit. Love you and SO grateful for your sacrifices as you honor God by serving us. We are indeed blessed.
have fun! ur my bestest teacher 🙂 can’t wait for your new Bible study to come out…I’m sure we will all be “fed” and inspired to live for and love more our awesome God!
Hi Beth!
It is so good to hear from you! Lindsee has done a marvelous job with this blog while you have been busy. We love her dearly.
My family was driving this weekend and my husband mentioned something he had heard on the radio regarding a passage from 2 Thessalonians, and he asked if I had read it. I said no, and then mentioned that this was your new study, and how I excited I was to start it. And then my 17-year old daughter, who has never done a Bible Study with me, said “I want to do it with you Mom!” Totally blessed me and filled my heart with joy.
Enjoy your days off and hug a loala! They are so cute….
Much love and blessings to you,
Adrienne
GREAT to hear from you~ good news from a far land for sure!…Have missed you my friend!
Have a glorious few days of play!!! What a blessing to be so “UP” when you are “Down under!” :o)
LOL. haha…good.
HAVE FUN!!!!!! RELAX AND ENJOY!!! 🙂
Such a blessing to hear from YOU! So very eager to study Children of the Day!May God bless you richly as you follow HIM!
Beth, hope you gals have a wonderful day sight seeing and being together in such a special part of the world. Yes, we have prayed for your engagement there and know all are blessed with the love of Christ speaking through your gifted teachings.
I’m sitting here in Greenville, Texas attempting to assist my mother who is suffering from dementia. She is difficult to say the least and not always a pleasant personality. So glad to hear from you as a nice break. Blessings, blessings, blessings and you girls have a fun filled trip!
Hi Kathy!
I used to travel to Greenville, TX often (way too often) for work in the 90’s. I worked for ICI Fiberite and went to the plant in Greenville many times. Small world….
Blessings to you!
Adrienne
wow, not many people know of Greenville, Adrienne. Thx for noticing. Blessings back to you also.