Congratulations!! You did it!!
As we wrap a bow on our SSMT year and prepare for the upcoming Celebration, we want to send along our encouragement to you to continue in this great work. Some of you have already told us you are continuing to memorize on your own, or have even formed your own local teams. We couldn’t be happier to hear it!
Beth and LPM will plan to see you right back here next Jan 2017 to link arms together to hide God’s Word in our hearts. He is worthy!
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” NIV
Isaiah 9:6
Kati B. Central Arkansas
Annette Green, Roach, MO
2 Corinthians 4:16-18
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. “
Will you be doing the SSMT for 2016?
Hi Katherine, We typically host the SSMT challenge every other year, so look for it to (officially) pick up again next January! Stay in His Word!
Gay Beck, Plain City, Ohio
Romans 15:13 (NIV)
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Beth I missed the 2015 memorization, but have been doing it privately and am wondering if you will be posting a new one for 2016, I have my first verse for 1/1/2016, but not sure where to post it.
Hi Vickie, We typically host SSMT every other year, so look for us to (officially) start back up next January. But don’t let us stop you! You stay at your own memorization, or maybe even have a few friends join in with you!
Janet, Holmes Beach, FL
In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait in expectation.
Psalm 5:3 NIV
I’ve just completted my first year of memory work with you Siesta Sisters and I’m looking forward to year 2. However, I haven’t seen anything about it starting again. Will you be providing encouraging posts again this year?
Praying to live deeper in His love, Carrie
Hi Carrie! Way to go! So glad to have had you join us this year! Typically we host SSMT every other year, so we will look forward to (officially) picking it back up next January. Carry on!
Renate (Hap) in Heath OH
“Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord.” Luke 2:11 NIV
Lisa Curtis
Jackson, MO
And remember I am with you always to the end of the age. Matthew 28:20
HSCB
DeQuincy, LA
The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen
Rev. 22:21
Melinda ODell, Rowlett, Texas
“Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God,God abides in him, and he in God.” 1John 4:15 ESV
A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Proverbs 15:1 (ESV)
Lisa, Orange, TX
A perfect finish in verse 8 for a year of memory verses. Praise His Holy Name!
“But You, O LORD, are exalted forever.” Ps. 92:8
Dear Beth,
Long story – somewhat shortened here: It’s wonderful being a woman! An Esther testimony
Between Christmas and new years, in 2008, I sat at my desk, lingering over my ex-daughter-in-law’s name. I prayed for God to give me His thoughts and mind for how to pray for her. She had stopped chemo just before thanksgiving that year after a 2+ battle with malignant melanoma that had taken half of the skin (and hair) on her head, where it had appeared. It had taken a patch of skin from her abdomen where they had harvested skin to graft onto her head, and it had taken every bit of her vitality and health over the grueling 2 years. Her little boy was 8 at the time, and had spent those 2 years trying to grasp what was happening to his mommy. I had prayed early on in my relationship with her that God would use me – I did say that she was and ex-daughter-in-law, and I had confessed many times how angry and hurt I was at the way things had been dealt to my son, but she was my grandson’s mother so I prayed to be used.
That winter day at my desk, I heard God’s answer to my pleading for healing and for the right words to give hope, help her to seek God and yet to bring her peace with what seemed inevitable. I repented that I was fearful of over-promising God’s power (as though I could) and having her and her new husband’s family grow bitter if her life was not spared. I prayed for someone to share the Gospel with her in a powerful and appropriate way. As I have never heard audibly before, God said, “If not you, then who?” I can’t explain why, but I looked up, stood up and jumped in my car. I drove 25 miles to the Christian bookstore that I knew carried Beth Moore studies. I bought her a copy of the Esther workbook that I was getting ready to start in January. It was the “new Beth Moore” study. Once I had that in my hand, I called her on the way home and told her about it and asked her if she might like to do the study with me and that I happened to have an extra copy of the workbook. (I happened to pick up and extra NIV study bible that day, too, just in case.)
She said she REALLY would like to do that!! I stopped by her house to drop off the book, in that casual conversation, she said she had never heard of Esther. So, I told her that I had an extra Bible I’d be glad for her to have to use… over the next 3 months, her healthy color and weight blossomed, her appetite returned, thanks to some steroids she was given to help control pain an nausea, and her spirit was ignited. She would call me during the week and ask me to explain things she was reading — devouring, she never missed a bible study, and she even invited her grand-mother-in-law to attend. In April she phoned one evening and asked if I could help her arrange to have my little grandson baptized, before she “passed”. These conversations were just as unreal as you might imagine, but she knew that the cancer was in every part of her body and that the reprieve she had been experiencing was going to end – probably suddenly.
That question and topic presented the opening needed to layout the Gospel and the full plan of Salvation to her. I can’t say that I heard God’s voice again, but His Spirit was sure saying to me: “here IT IS!”. I still remember the twilight on the country road on which I was driving when I laid out what baptism is and represents to we, who are Christians for us. I told her that the act was an outward symbol of our acceptance of what Jesus had already done. I told her that I thought my grandson was old enough to decide to accept Jesus as his savior and I told her that there was nothing magic about baptism, but rather the miracle of salvation was in the decision of the heart. And then I asked her if she thought she would like to take that step, too.
On a warm, late-may evening, my sweet husband prayed with that little guy to receive Jesus, with a few family member gathered around the table on our deck, after dinner. Our dear Missions-pastor met with her and then arranged for a private baptism at our church, near the end of May. She had suddenly grown too weak to walk and was baptized in her wheelchair at the foot of the steps leading to the baptismal pool that her little son climbed eagerly down into.
She died 2 months later, a week after her 28th birthday. She wrote a note to me during those last 2 months as she spiraled toward the end of her life. She told me that my invitation to Esther had changed the destiny of her life and her eternal life. She said that she knew it had also changed her little boy’s life, and that she knew I would always be present in his life. She asked me to help lead him, and defend his spiritual life.
Fast forward 7 years. My son remarried, had a little boy with his new wife, and then 2 years later had a second little boy. 2 weeks after we welcomed that little guy, I got a call at 8:15 in the morning that he had stopped breathing. I prayed with my frantic son over the phone for that baby’s life as paramedics tried to start his little heart. I flew out of my house with wet hair, I drove about 100 miles an hour on the 60 mile trip to their house. About 30 minutes into the trip my son called, and through agonizing sobs, he told me that the baby had not made it and that I needed to pick up our now-12-year-old boy from school. Since he had been through this unimaginable circumstance 3 years earlier when his mother died, my son was adamant that he be told before I got him to the hospital. I’ll spare the paper and the tears in recanting the obvious agony that the entire family went through, and what it is like to be the grandmother that has to deliver this news in an elementary school conference room, to your grandson. Or what it was like to meet my staggering son and daughter-in-law in the hospital ER where their baby boy lay lifeless in his mother’s unbelieving arms.
After it was determined that it was an undetected heart defect that had taken the baby, a little sister was born 2 weeks before her brother would have been 1. Sadness and depression has been a battle for my son’s entire little family ever since.
Fast forward 2 years to this Thanksgiving when my prayers for my new daughter-in-law and my son’s family led me to (almost without any awareness that the words were going to come out of my mouth) ask my daughter-in-law if she would be interested in studying the Esther Bible study with me. I told her that I would be happy to drive the hour to their house every week if she thought she might be interested…we were washing Thanksgiving dishes at my parents’ home, about 9 hours from where we both live in Colorado. By the time I got home that weekend, she had invited a few friends, my other daughter-in-law and my youngest son’s fiance were all on board for 6:30 every Thursday night, starting January 7.
So, from my feeble prayers, more than a decade ago, to be used in the life of my grandson’s mother, and with the anointed teaching of providence and beauty that the Esther study delivers, you have ministered to my family in ways that will only be known fully to all of us, in heaven. But, I want you to know how intricate each step, study and word you’ve dedicated to this work has been woven into the lives of the young women (and this 56-year-old woman) in my family.
Today, as I dug out my Esther series and work book, I had forgotten completely about the fact that I had facilitated the study at the church that session in 2009. I found a binder notebook with name tags I’d made for each woman, prayer requests, outlines and notes I’d made up for myself, and there I also found a spiral prayer notebook that I hadn’t seen since April of 2009 – that was when the study ended. Even though I finally gave up and started a new prayer notebook, I have torn my house apart several times looking for that little prayer request book, the one that I lingered over that winter day when God spoke to me and sent me to the bookstore. As I sat today with my study materials out, I read through the prayer requests there, unseen for 7 years. God’s faithfulness brought me to tears, page after page of answered prayers – even those that had been answered differently than the way I’d asked for them to turn out. Destiny, providence, faithfulness on every page.
What I also found is that along the way someone must have borrowed disc # 3 and the leaders guide, and Lifeway doesn’t offer those separately, so this Thursday, I’ll head to Denver and start another journey through “Beth Moore’s Esther studey”, with 8 young women who have no inkling of the powerful exposure to, and presence of God that you, through the inspired teaching given to you, will introduce to them. We’ll have to wing it slightly through the disc #3 week, but God will carry us along.
Yes, it’s tough to be a woman – Steele Magnolia’s tough sometimes—but it is wonderful to be a woman used by God, for His purposes. Whether an enormous task, as you’ve been given, or a tiny one – each woman is mighty when being used by HIM.
Love and continued blessings to you and to the work you’ve been given to do.
Hi Lori, Thank you for sharing this testimony. I read EVERY word through tears and almost sobs. Oh my, what your family has been through! But how wonderful that God has been so ever-present and used you to bring your ex-daughter-in-law and your grandson (and who knows who else) to a saving relationship with HIM!!! Through Beth’s Bible studies, God has changed me, too, and I have also experienced His divine action in my life and circumstances as well over the years. How THRILLING it is!! Even in hard times, when you KNOW HE is there, it is just thrilling. As Beth says, “There ain’t no high like The Most High!!!” Again, thanks for sharing, and keep up the good fight, Sister!
Lori, Thank you for telling your story!! It has blessed my heart this morning! I am writing your name in my notebook to pray for you and your Bible study group =)
Hi Lori,
I was on here looking for “my Scripture Memory post”, when I saw your more lengthy post. So, I decided to read it. What a blessing you were to a dying woman who had divorced your son! And, yes, “Miss Beth’s” Bible studies do tend to have a special effect on ladies(and some brave men, as well). May God continue to bless you in your ministry to women !
In Christ’s Love,
Jennifer
Mande Brightwell. Longview, Tx. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9 NIV
Brenda Crosby, TX
However, it is written: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him. I Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)
Sandy, Clatskanie OR
2 Corinthians 2:7 (6-8) NIV
Now instead you ought to forgive and comfort him so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
Eph 3: 20 NIV
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power, that is at work within us.
Vicki Bolton, Lubbock, TX
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Gal.6:9 NIV
Vicki Bolton, Lubbock, TX
I had a different Scripture all ready to post, but my fellow Texan Siesta’s above mine seemed to fit perfectly with what I am going through. Tough times in my son and d-i-law’s 18 year marriage, and I need wisdom and clarity and strength for a talk I hope to have with them both soon. I’m praying the Holy Spirit will speak through me and that God’s harvest will come to be in their marriage soon!
Christina, Decatur, TX
But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather Thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure or greedy person – such a man is an idolater – has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.
Ephesians 5:3-5. NIV
Susan Jezek, St. Petersburg, Florida
“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:14 NIV
Tracy, Kountze, Tx.
while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18 NASB
Peggy Hodge, Monroe, LA
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my
Redeemer. Psalm 19:14 (NKJV)
Jennifer Olmstead
Janesville, Wisconsin
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly[a] with your God.
Oops, I left out Micah 6:8; NIV . . .
Stephanie, Queen City, Tx
1) “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV)
Where are the instructions and spiral cover for 2016?
Hi Sharon, We typically host SSMT every other year, so you carry on in 2016, and will likely be back for SSMT 2017!
Lynn from Lucas Ks. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,”
Ephesians 2:8 ESV
http://bible.com/59/eph.2.8.esv
Patty, Shelton, Washington
“So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Hebrews 9:28 ESV
Take delight in the Lord , and he will give you the desires of your heart.Psalm 37:4
Pamma from Abingdon, VA
Romans 14:19 HCSB
So then, we must pursue what promotes peace and what builds up one another.
Kirby from Parsons, KS.
“On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh.” Matthew 2:11 NIV
Palm Harbor, FL
Romans 11:33 (NIV)
Oh the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out.
(The Message)
Have you ever come on anything quite like this extravagant generosity of God, this deep, deep wisdom? It’s way over our heads. We’ll never figure it out!!!!
(Emphasis mine)
Linda in Chester, VA
“You have never seen Jesus & you don’t see Him now. But still you love Him, and no words can tell how glad & happy you are to be saved. That’s why you have faith.”
1 Peter 1:8-9 (CEV)
Michelle, Hart, MI
Galatians 5:25 NASB
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him, If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
John 8:31 NKJV
Gwen M Longview, Tx
Psalm 56:8New Living Translation (NLT)
You keep track of all my sorrows.[a]
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
Erika Powell, celebration FL
Song of Soloman 7:10 ESV
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me.”
Laura Proctor, Madison, MS:
Romans 8:1 NIV
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Tina Crouch
Waxahachie, Texas
Colossians 2:6-7 NIV
So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness
Dianne – Magnolia TX
Psalm 147:5 (NIV)
Great is our Lord and mighty in power; His understanding has no limit.
Romans 15:13 NIV
May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Stephanie and Madison, Louisville, KY
Matthew 5:14 (NIV)
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden.”
I am reading “Audacious”, a Christmas present from my daughter, and I am very much
enjoying it. I wanted to share a thought that just came to me as I read about Jesus asking Peter 3
times, “Do you love me? -Feed my Sheep” I pondered the thought that Jesus did not ask him do you love the sheep because truthfully sometimes we don’t. I am encouraged that I need to keep my focus on the fact that I love Jesus and it is Him who will enable me to help feed the sheep even those who are difficult to love at times. Thank you, Beth, for your continued dedication to ministering to women. Your studies have blessed me for years.
Roxanne, Houghton Lake,MI
Proverbs 31-25 NLT
She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.
Arlene C. Georgetown, TX : Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountains of His holiness. Psalm 48:1
Yes indeed great is the Lord and He is greatly to be praised for answered and unanswered prayers in 2015!!! 🙂
KJV
Monica Pribe, Blacklick OH “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience: Romans 8:24-25 ESV
Tonya Thibodeaux, DeQuincy, Louisiana
James 1:6 “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.”
I love the Lord for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy. Psalm 116:1 NIV