**UPDATE**
Congratulations to the winners of the birthday drawing! Your names are posted below. Watch your inbox for an email from Living Proof later today so that we can get you your gift!
BONUS: The wonderful people at AMG Publishers have extended a 50% discount to any of you who would like to order a Key Word Study Bible! Click here to get more information, or to order your Bible. AMG Publishers
Winners:
#523 – Carole Germain #4348 – Karen Quinn
#2282 – Merissa G. #4399 – Anna Bunch
#2321 – Marilyn Riley #4430 – Nancy Beeey
#2756 – Merissa Ury #4813 – Myrlene Darnell
#2876 – Beth Longar #5648 – Nan Smith
#3937 – Dani Turner #5798 – Rachel C.
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A few nights ago I walked my buck wild new puppy around my neighborhood, watched the sun sink deep down into the horizon, and then settled in back at home. I flipped on my favorite season of the West Wing and I ate an entire bag of tortilla chips and ¾ a jar of my favorite salsa for dinner. What is it they say again? The apple does not fall far from the tree. Or something like that?
You see when we were growing up Mom would throw us kids in the back of Brontosaurus the station wagon and haul us halfway across the city to her old favorite Tex-Mex joint. She ordered a pint of salsa and a gigantic grease-stained brown paper bag of tortilla chips for take-out and she would eat all of this and only this for her dinner. Her own dinner. I can’t remember what we kids even ate, or if she fed us at all. I’m only kidding about that last part.
My mom was born at high noon in a fierce thunderstorm, my grandfather said. Her presence still shifts the atmosphere. A few weeks ago Mom left for a week in the hill country for a time of writing and solitude. The second she got back home, I loaded up my stuff and headed out to spend a night with she and my Dad. You see, for me, going to hang out with my parents isn’t really like going to hang out with the parents. Far from duty, it’s one of my favorite things to do. We caught up on all the life stuff that night. And then in the morning we drank our coffee in our pajamas and by 8:30 a.m. at the latest we had already covered topics such as the theology in Ephesians, the New Testament canon, the Holy Spirit’s role in the interpretation of Scripture, and the Festal Letter of Athanasius.
I have to say, this woman utterly dazzles me. She is the sweetest in the land. She is gracious and sanguine and loving and kind, no doubt, but she is serious and intense and focused and courageous. She has opinions and perspective and boldness and wisdom from the ground like no other. For all her awesomeness she is not self-righteous or squeamish, and God knows I have pushed her limits.
Mom is deeply committed to our family and I’ve always known that full well but I’ve also seen that she’s preoccupied with something a whole lot bigger than us. Probably the most important thing I have learned from her is that being caught up in Jesus and what He is doing in the world is everything. It is the ultimate priority and a family committed to His work in the world will get the privilege of making sacrifices together.
Over the past few years in my own journey I found myself in an unknown place, a place where a heart could break deeper and wider and in more directions than I could have imagined possible. Mom has walked alongside me on this road further than any human could be expected to walk with another. She would have had good reasons to just sit out a while and catch her breath. But she never left my side. The road has been bumpy but also tedious and repetitive. When the landscape didn’t seem to change for a long, long time, she kept plodding along with me, carrying my burdens and helping me shoulder the grief that felt too much to bear.
Mom is tender and she is strong and she is not afraid to look pain and grief and loss dead in the eye. Even more, she is daring enough to hope against hope. To see in others, even me, the beginnings of life and growth and health and wholeness where others might only see brokenness and death. She has shined the light of Jesus on me more times than I can count.
She can fry a chicken and whip up mashed potatoes and gravy with the best of the Southern cooks. Her pleasures are simple: the reading of books, sitting on the front porch, walking her dogs in the woods, eating dinner with my Dad, playing games on the floor with her grandkids, and drinking tea with Amanda and me. But make no mistake she is wicked smart and complex and multifaceted. She is so much more than even the best caricature of her could ever hope to be.
I love her.
Yes, I love her. If one photo could capture the light and color she brings to my world, this is it:
It is my joy and honor to be her daughter and also to work for her at Living Proof. This blog giveaway is just one of many ways I celebrate her beautiful life today. The first three gifts are from Living Proof and the last two gifts are personal gifts from me.
First and foremost, we are giving away eight Key Word Study Bibles. My mom gave me one of these Bibles many years ago. It was one of the first Bibles I ever really remember being excited about. It helped me become familiar with various Greek and Hebrew words before I ever took a Greek or Hebrew reading class. Every time I read it I was reminded that the Scriptures we hold in our hands in English are a translation. Remembering this often is a good thing and will take a person a long way in the study of the Bible, I think.
![IMG_2993[4]](https://blog.lproof.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_29934.jpg)
Second, we are giving away an assortment of several pounds of favorite Houston coffee beans. My mom is a serious coffee drinker, so this is just an obvious addition. This package will include but not be limited to one of my current favorites:
Third, we are giving away an arrangement of fresh flowers Mom loves. And, really, who wouldn’t like these?
Fourth, we are giving away a crossbody saddlebag. Mom and I both carry versions of this crossbody bag over and over again until one breaks and we have to buy another one.
Fifth and finally, we are giving away a small bottle of Flowerbomb. Mom wears lots of different perfumes, but she most often travels with this one.
So, if you’re interested in our giveaway please do pop on and say “Happy Birthday” and show Mom some love. Your comment becomes your entry into our random drawing. Comments will officially close 24 hours after the post is published, and please only one comment per person. The names of our winners will be posted at the top of this post at some point on Thursday.
I hope you all are happy and well.
And, Mom, I love you!
The best is yet to come,
Melissa
Happy Birthday Miss Beth Thank you for speaking God’s truth in love. May your day be filled with joy, family, hugs, & kisses!
Happy Birthday, Beth Moore! You have built such a lasting legacy in your girls! It give me hope. Enjoy your day!!
Happy Birthday Beth! I absolutely love how the Lord has used to you reach the lives of so many. Talk about going into the world and making disciples of all. You have done so beautifully. I know that each day God gives you here on earth, you see it as another day to point others towards Christ. May the Lord give you so many more minutes, days and years to continue doing what only He could call you to do. Well done my sister! Well done! Here’s to many more. Hugs from Pflugerville, Texas! <3
happy birthday! I just realized your birthday is shared by one of my best friends. leah sequeira, whom I believe knows you! May Gods richest blessings be yours! karen gorski
Happy Birthday, to someone who so faithfully serves the Lord and has impacted my walk with Christ in many ways. Birthday blessings to you!
Happy Birthday Beth! I am forever thankful to our Lord Jesus for you, your ministry to women, your bible studies, amazing strength, guidance, courage, diligence, hard work, and most of all your faith in the One true God, His son Jesus & the Holy Spirit! Thank you!!! May you have a truly blessed day filled with laughter & much love.
Birthday Blessings!
21 Alan Lane
HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!
Happy Happy Birthday Beth! I hope you have a wonderful day and an amazing year. Your Bible studies and encouragement have meant so much to me over the years and I am so thankful for you, your honesty, sharing your wisdom and ALWAYS pointing to Jesus.
Thank you and Happy Birthday!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY FRIEND! Thank you for your commitment to GOD, women every where and for the beautiful way you make words come to life! Your daughter also has this gift:) HUGS
Happy Birthday Beth, may God bless you and keep your hunger for the Word steadfast and strong, because I have been blessed by God for a hunger for the Word through doing the bible studies you have written. So thank you.
HaPpY BiRtHdAy Siesta BeTh! Enjoy this day in which the Lord has made. Allow His peace to overwhelm you, His grace to reEstablish you, his love to reNew you, and his sovereignty to reLease you. And may this day reMind you that your life has been reMade, His promises reTold, and you have been reNamed MIRACLE GIRL! This chocolate girl LOVES the Lord and for His work through you to help make her NEW! Love you with my whole heart.
(p.s. AND Thank you for laying hands on my sweet 16 year old daughter Jaya during the Tampa Siesta photo. It was truly a miracle that she was there and you confirmed her very prayer!)
……happy birthday, and many more! 🙂
Happy birthday, Beth Moore! I pray to be the kind of woman that my daughters can love just as much as yours does!
Happy birthday Beth. I feel like I have gone thousands of miles with you in all of your studies. In the valleys and on the mountain tops.You have blessed me with kind and encouraging words in times of deep grieve and sorrow and I will never forget them in Oklahoma City a few years back. And oh the many laughs and joy have been amazing. Keep writing and pressing through sweet sister. Happy 40th.Love Nita from Lubbock.
Happy Birthday Dear Beth. You have blessed my life in so many ways and have been such an inspiration and I have learned so much from you! I can not wait until you are close by again so that I can come to one of your conferences!
Happy Birthday Beth. You are such a blessing and I love you dearly. Thank you for all you do.
Love,
Janice
Dear Beth, I am so happy to celebrate with you your birthday. God has graced you with a gift that very few of us could imagine. I love your studies and look forward to my church’s next study of your in 2016. Happy Birthday, friend and have a blessed day. gm
a wish for a beautiful day and a God filled year. Happy birthday. Your daughter’s birthday tribute is beautiful. What a special relationship. God bless.
Happy Birthday!!
A very blessed birthday to such a beautiful woman. Thank you so much for your writing and faithfulness! Much love to you and your family on your very special day!
♪♫ Happy Birthday to you! ♪♫
May God bless you on your birthday like you bless many women every day! You and my sister share a birthday today, my sister is celebrating hers in Heaven.
Thank you so much for being such an inspiration!
Oh, Happy Day!
I couldn’t begin to express things as well as Melissa does time and again.
But I can just say with a quivering upper lip and heart overflowing with emotion “Thank you for persevering and doing the hard thing.” I can’t imagine the times it’s been heart-wrenching to be in the trenches in the unique way you are. But I’m so thankful for it because Jesus used that to radically grab me, heal things people usually don’t come back from, and invade my life until I’m so in love with Him I can’t get over it. Your blood, sweat, and tears has been the main earthly factor to who I am. And I couldn’t thank you enough. I’m only a voice in about a million. But we all mean every word. We are forever thankful and incredibly changed because of your life.
We are crazy over you, Siesta Mama.
Happy Birthday Beth! Love the sweet tribute from your daughter.
Birthday blessings to you, Beth! What incredible tributes to you from your precious daughters…You are blessed indeed!
Happy Birthday Beth!
Woodburn, IN
l am so honored to wish you, Beth Moore, a blessed and wonderful, as well as wild and crazy Happy Birthday!! I gave grown and learned so much from your Bible studies. I am in a small support group that aee doing SSMT, and I am so thrilled that the Lord has helped me to retain these verses! Thank you for all you do to enrich women’s lives!
Happy Birthday sweet Beth. I pray your day is as special as you!!
Dear Beth,
First of all, happy, happy birthday! I wish for God’s blessings to just open up and pour all over your sweet self. What a lovely tribute your daughter wrote. I want to forward it to our daughters and say, “Me, me!” They know, as do our other children and my dear husband, that much of you, your teaching, your passion and your fervor have nurtured me for the past 10 years, at least.
My testimony is strong, as are most women whose lives have been turned around by Jesus Christ. My husband and I were revived by the Lord shortly after our marriage. Shortly thereafter we journeyed to a four year seminary where the joy of the Lord was all but squashed out. His first “call” took us to a church where we learned, truly, the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit and we haven’t been the same since, praise God! His strength made the raising of our 6 fine children into adults a wonder and our lives a roller coaster. But today is about you. After arriving at (yet another) dry, stale church, a friend introduced me to your videos and I’ve shared them ever since. Thank you so much. You’ve kept me company and encouraged me through bleak and good times. You echo the words my “denominational” husband speaks in a language that is clear to women and true. When you tell “us over there on the other side of the screen” that you’re talking to us, too – I talk back! I love you, too! My daughter and I will be “visiting” with you in Toronto (among a zillion other women) and will weep and rejoice and tremble as I did last year at a Living Proof event, shortly after my mother died and my friend’s husband just up and divorced her after 41 years. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This life is hard. We need girlfriends. Thank you for being one of mine. I love you and happy birthday, Janet
Happy Birthday blessings Beth!i am thankful to God that he created you just as you are and that you allow a him to work mightily through you!
Happy Birthday Beth!! I just want to say you have inspire me and bless me through your studies and ministry. You have helped me to have a closer relationship with our savior Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for everything you do! You are one amazing woman!!
Danielle
Happy birthday to my favorite Bible study teacher! If only I could find a Beth Moore study being done in Tallahassee….
As this page is laced
with love and grace
a thousand words to describe
A woman, one woman
who braved all costs
to see others encounter His Word Alive.
Who would have known, the life faith journey she had sown
would grow into a garden of delight
each person their own story
how her teaching helped others see His Light.
They are young and they are old
there are some whose age would rather not be told!
But never the less, each one of us stirred within
The beauty, the wonder, of Jesus
and the Letter He sent to each one of us
crept between the lines of script and text
We borrowed deep into the Homework
and lived it like life was the test!
Miss Beth, this day of celebration
should be more than just mere tradition
for every day, in someone or someway
There is a moment rejoicing
for that person that one
whose prayers are now voicing
their spirits revived
their hope set and secured
to Love Jesus like there is no greater thing
How you have committed to serve like the vow of a wedding ring.
No matter the season , and for every reason
you have lived this life so others may truly know
what it means to break free,
from the patriarchs, God’s Dwelling place, Esther ,
to Believing God to stepping up to even when Godly people do ungodly things, the sacred secrets and the Law of Love it brings.
all these and others too – like a palette of colours set
the painting dances upon the canvas and the image it creates
stirs others within to TRULY CELEBRATE
How awesome wonderful Magnificent Jesus , Our Saviour and Friend.
Really beth you may wonder if this poem has no end?
Blessed you are among women, spanning decades and age
But bless you sweet BEth, this is not the last page.
The painting is vibrant with each life stroke
a picture painted in each hug and hand you shook
another life changed.
All because you made the call
surrendered yourself entirely once and for all
and now here we are celebrating a brief glimpse of time
that God had sown His wonder into
Call her beautiful, call her blessed,
one who loves coffee and pink, no less!
But oh what a wonder, and delight she will be
When she walks upon that stage and Teaches for Me
so others may see how i am at work
How i want them to see
My faithfulness through one life
may she know she is celebrated beyond her birthday.
Alas, i’m running out of ink
i’m sure there was so much more i can think
of ways to say happy birthday
To you dear Beth
May the Letter written on our hearts
be of His words, we will never regret.
Thank you – for all the things to be grateful for, and know you are treasure to all of us.
happy birthday
Beth,
Happy Borthday to one of the dearest, most precious people “in” my life! You have helped me to grow and love Jesus in ways you will never know. What would this world be without your life in it!!
Happy Birthday Beth! I hope its your happiest yet! I have enjoyed your bible studies that I was first introduced to a few years ago in my journey back to the church where I grew up, was saved, and baptized. Getting back to church through a Wednesday night ladies bible study, including so many of your’s, has been a life changing experience for myself as well as my husband and children. I can’t wait for the next study; we start your newest one in a few weeks!! Have a blessed day!!
Happy Happy Birthday Sweetest Beth!
Thank you so much for your faithfulness to our God. My relationship is deepened with Jesus because of you. Thank you for being my favorite Bible teacher and always encouraging me. I love you so much and I pray this year will be one of your best!
Big Hugs and Lots of love to you!
Deborah from Nashville;)
Beth,
You are so special to me and a blessing to all of us. Happy Birthday and have a wonderful and blessed day!!
Love,
Patty
Happy Birthday Beth I pray you have a birthday chocked full of our Lords grace I love hearing you and go to a simulcast in Yuma Colorado once a year You are a blessing in my life May the Lord return it back to you 100 fold In Jesus name Amen
Beautiful tribute, Melissa!
Happy Birthday, Beth! You are a gift from God that keeps on giving! Thank you for your ministry, your sense of humor, your love for people, life, family, coffee and your love for Jesus. You are one annointed lady and such an inspiration to so many! I thank God for you!
Hi there Beth! Happy, happy Birthday!!! Thank you SO much for remaining faithful to God’s calling on your life! God has met me, spoke to me, challenged me and I am eternally grateful, thank you, thank you, thank you! You once wrote about wondering why God would call you to write Bible studies as you did not feel equipped or talented as others. But He answered you because I knew you’d say “yes”,that’s why! Beth, that day I read your words it was as if God shone a light on my book and spoke to my heart, Esther, I knew you’d say” yes “, this is for you! I was launching into a recovery ministry that would be life changing with some of the most rewarding and heartbreaking experiences of my life and I felt totally unworthy of the task! But God knew and He used you that day to change my life’s calling. That was in 2001 and I’ve been directing this ministry ever since! May God abundantly bless you today!
Happy birthday Beth!
May God continue to bless you in your ministry!
Happy,Happy Birthday dear Beth! Celebrate the life Jesus has given you.! You inspire me to lean on and cling to and plumb the wonders of His Word, and I thank you.
Much love
Happy Birthday Beth! You truly are an inspiration!
Happy Birthday Beth! You have helped me rebuild the ancient ruins of my life and remade me into royalty of His love, goodness and mercy. May the Lord richly bless you and your beloved family. <3
Happy Birthday, Beth! You are the most godly woman I know. . I feel like I know you through the Bible studies we have shared! Thank you for sharing your passion with me! God bless you! Hope you had a great birthday! Vanessa
Happy Birthday, God Bless you!
My favorite Beth Moore story is the one at the airport in which you comb the mans hair . You are an encouragement in so many ways! Thank you!. Hope that your day is awesome
One of the greatest blessings of my life has been to have found Beth Moore Bible Studies! I could never thank you enough, Beth, or even let you know how much your studies mean to me, or have taught me, or have encouraged me to grow and understand God’s Holy Word. Thank you, Thank You, Thank YOU!! Hope your birthday has been happy and wonderful, and I wish you many, many more.
Mickey, Blue Springs, MO
What an amazing tribute to your mother!!! Happy birthday Beth…
Dear Beth,
I know you don’t know me but I feel like I know you. I’ve spent the past 10 plus years studying the Bible and learning more about my Loving Savior as I’ve heard your teaching and dug into the Scriptures with you. Many years, it’s be just God, me and you. I had little ones at home and no sitter available so I’d borrow my church’s videos and I’d watch them during nap times. Some years, I had the privilege to join a small group to study His Word together but either way, I can’t thank God enough for how He has used you to minister to me countless of times! So though I’m a total stranger, I’d like to give you a huge virtual hug and wish you a very blessed and joyful birthday with much love and appreciation!
Happy Birthday, dear Beth! There are no words in existence that convey the enormous investment you have made in the lives of others for the kingdom … especially mine. Thank you for consistently following hard after the One whose love for us has no end. Praying His richest blessings upon you today and always!
Melissa