OK, everybody! As of today we get to start implementing the directions God placed on my heart for our 2014 Living Proof Live ticket giveaways. For a number of years now, we’ve given away 15-20 tickets (dependent upon the availability of seats) per Living Proof Live event for our blog community. They were first come, first serve and the only qualification was the recipient’s inability to attend without a free ticket. We have had a blast with these “Siesta Scholarships” and felt very led of the Spirit to do them and rarely had a leftover giveaway ticket.

If you perchance read my January 1st post for this year, I shared how God strongly and repeatedly called me to start sowing into different fields in 2014. One huge reason for the shift in focus-group is to your tremendous credit. So many of you are staunch women of God who have been in His Word many years and love Jesus passionately and serve others sacrificially. I have never respected a large community of believers more. Our time on this planet is limited and our resources of energy, ability, and outreach are (at times disturbingly) finite. We are stewards here, entrusted by the Lord of the Harvest to make the most useful investments possible in this terrestrial soil. How will we spend the breath of time entrusted to us? How will God get the most glory out of our brief stay here? These have become my questions, particularly as I consider that, in all probability, I have fewer years of ministry ahead of me than I have behind me. This realization does not make me sad. It makes me bold.

 

Our new emphasis isn’t rocket science. In fact, it really shouldn’t have taken the lengths God has had to go for me to shake out of it but I’m a relational person who doesn’t like change. I like long histories with people. Blah, blah, blah. I won’t bore you with excuses. The shift of our primary focus at Living Proof Ministries is now officially toward women or girls…

 

Who don’t know Christ as Savior.

 

Who have accepted Christ as Savior but have not been discipled at all.

 

Who don’t know the hope and freedom of Christ.

 

Who don’t know much about His Word.

 

Who don’t study Scripture in-depth.

 

That’s who our ministry is primarily looking to serve right now, not out of convenience to us (because it’s, frankly, not as convenient as we’d hoped) but out of obedience to Jesus. And the fields are white for harvest and so immense that there is ample room and need for every single of one of us! Read that profile again. Those women outnumber the well-discipled by how many hundreds? If you’ve been a regular in this blog community and wonder if I’m saying that serving you is no longer a priority, please don’t misunderstand. The only shift is that I am begging to serve with you. You are giants to me. Try to fathom the fields we could cover if we locked arms. I could give you no greater compliment than to say that most of you already have what women are desperate to receive out there. Let’s go find them!

 

This is all preaching to the choir, of course. You know all of this and most of you are already doing all of this. You know me. I have to go back to the sundial just to tell you what time it is.

 

All said, as of today, we are increasing our number of giveaway tickets with great joy and designating them ONLY for guests that meet one of the qualifications listed above in bold print. In other words, anybody can claim a free ticket for someone new to Christ or His Word and willing to come to a Living Proof Live. This one will take sacrifice because, even if you don’t have the money to go, the ticket is not meant for you if you already have a growing relationship with Christ. That’s hard for me to say because I love and value you so much but I need to give our new initiative clarity to keep my staff from having to say it over and over on the phone. They are such servants and I want to take any heat myself for people who might get a bit disgruntled. With this new target group for scholarships, it may mean that you don’t even go to the event or live in the area but you know someone who would chance it if she had a free ticket. Could that be you? Then you qualify to get one for her. Are you beginning to see how it works?

 

In past years we’ve always posted the giveaways on the day before the event but we will now post them earlier to give you, our bloggers, time to make invitations and see who would go. If you find takers, here’s what you’ll need to do:

 

Call Living Proof Ministries toll free at 1-888-700-1999 (not 800! It’s 888!) and ask for (or leave a voice mail for) Kimberly Meyer or Susan Kirby. They will ask the name of your guest and arrange for her to have a ticket under her name at the “Will Call” window/desk at the event that Friday evening. You can claim more than one ticket as long as tickets are available, and if you know for certain that your guests are going to use them. Help us make sure the tickets go to good use.

 

I give you my word on this, my beloved sisters. The gospel of Jesus Christ will be proclaimed and a clear invitation to receive Him as Savior will be issued.

 

I’d like to say one more thing if you’d stick around another minute. I want to convey the depth of my gratitude to LifeWay Christian Resources. I wish all of you knew the people there with whom I get to work and serve. They’re worthy of being named and described and affirmed one by one but I would not even know where to stop. They work hard and weep with desire to see people know Christ. This new initiative resonated with them so deeply that they jumped on board and took all sorts of actions beyond what I asked. For instance, they have not just given away 50 free tickets to Hershey, PA LPL. They’ve given away several hundred and I expect they’ll take similar approaches to LPLs in other cities. I love the LifeWay Women’s event team and discipleship team so much. That they’ve stuck with me through thick and thin, through people talking smack, and through leadership of the Spirit they had to, at times, trust second-hand is profoundly humbling to me. I never take that lightly. We are very human people who don’t always get it right or do it well but this is real to us. Going forth to disciple people in Christ according to the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19 is the single most important goal in our lives.

 

OK, Girls! Hit it! Help me give away free tickets! I love you so much. I want very much to continue to partner with you to reach women who do not yet know our glorious, risen Hope.

 

P.S. If your wondering what cities Living Proof Live will be in over 2014 so you can join in the invitation initiative, here’s the link: LPL 2014 schedule . Please wait to claim free tickets for guests until the blog post for that city pops up here but, by all means, start thinking about who you might ask. I am so grateful, Sisters! May God bless you with a great harvest of souls in all He’s called you to do.

The place God carved out for women in the Bible’s account of Christ’s death and resurrection is astonishing. To be noticed in the scenes at all in the religious climate of their day was revolutionary. To be recorded by name, an immeasurable gift wrapped in the incarnation.

As women of Christ seeking to identify with those first female followers who were eyewitnesses of His life, parts of His ministry (Luke 8:1-3), His passion, His death, and resurrection, we try to place ourselves in the unfolding drama that has made room for our kind. Imagining what it was like to be Mary, the mother of Christ, on the lurching patch of ground near the Cross is soul-wrenching. To see your child, grown though he may be, thrashed into disfigurement, unclothed and exposed and hung by nails through the flesh of your flesh for hours on end, fighting for breath, is too much to wrap our imaginations around.The seconds must have dragged their feet like a suffering man dragging a cross.

 

To try to stare into the eyes of the women at the crucifixion of Christ and imagine the lung-heaving weight of their grief and the crashing of their hope is endurable only because we know the rest of the story. On the third day through the pool of a woman’s tears, the face of the risen Son of God was beheld, the sun piercing the black hole of an empty tomb.

 

Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?

 

Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.

 

And Jesus spoke just one little word to the woman from Magdala.

 

Mary.

 

She turned and said to Him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!”

 

Stunningly beautiful.

 

Haven’t most of us imagined being her?

 

The account of the women over that weekend of earth-altering events doesn’t skip from the Cross to the tomb. Luke 23:56 records a single piece of information that scripts hours of silence. I’ll include the surrounding verses here so that you can see it in a loosely draped timeline:

______
50 Now there was a man named Joseph, from the Jewish town of Arimathea. He was a member of the council, a good and righteous man, 51 who had not consented to their decision and action; and he was looking for the kingdom of God. 52 This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 53 Then he took it down and wrapped it in a linen shroud and laid him in a tomb cut in stone, where no one had ever yet been laid. 54 It was the day of Preparation, and the Sabbath was beginning. 55 The women who had come with him from Galilee followed and saw the tomb and how his body was laid. 56 Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.
On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

24 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2 And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. 5 And as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? 6 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” 8 And they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb they told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, 11 but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. (Luke 23:50-24:11 ESV)

______

Go with me there again: the women saw how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and ointments.

 

Then they had to sit and wait and bide their agonizing time until the Sabbath was over so that they could tend to the deceased body of their beloved.

 

No work. Just wait.

 

Sometimes waiting is the work.

 

Nothing makes us sweat like waiting.

 

Sometimes rest is imposed on us when what we want to do more than anything on earth is work.

 

I’ve got to do something.

 

To women, there is always something to do in a catastrophe.

 

Fix it.

 

If you can’t fix it, fret over it. Flail. Demand. Make yourself heard.

 

But do something.

 

To us the answer is never do nothing.

 

I’m not sure womanhood had ever been put to trial more thoroughly in the Gospels than in the still shot of Luke 23:56.

 

I don’t want to wait and see. Let me see to it myself. Nothing mauls a sober woman’s sensibilities like staying put in a crisis.

 

We want to wrap things, even if they’re dead.

 

At our bravest and most selfless, we want desperately to bring fragrance to the pall of death and give it, if not beauty, dignity. If we cannot, we feel useless.We do not realize that our presence right there before God in the trust of our worklessness can be fragrance. It’s not in the spices and ointments. It’s in us.

 

It is Saturday. Not only a day in a week of seven but maybe a season in your own pain and bewilderment. Maybe something terrible has happened; that which could make many you love lose hope. Maybe it looks like God did not come through. You keep taking up for Him but He doesn’t seem to be taking up for Himself.

 

But you believe…because you’ve seen so much. You know God can work things for good and you volunteer almost violently for Him to use you to do it but, still, resurrection waits. Nothing you’re doing is working. Your hands are tied. You feel useless. After all, what good is a woman who’s forced to rest?

 

Go with me to one more scene of women. Rewind the sacred clock to the week before Christ’s death and resurrection. The place is John 11.

 

17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life.

 

Moments later, that dead man came walking out of the tomb, grave clothes dangling.

 

Rest.

 

You cannot fix it.

 

All your panting will not resuscitate it.

 

Resurrection is divine. We can’t help God with it. He alone can do it.

 

And He will. He is life. He cannot leave death well enough alone.

 

Rest.

 

Tomorrow is Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you speak as much as I do, you end up saying some stupid things, particularly if you’re tongue-prone to shoot off from your notes like a bike into a briar patch. Nothing can run amok like a mouth. Sometimes you catch errant words as fast as you say them and you snatch them back before they land. No harm, no foul.

Other times, if you’re like me, on more than a rare occasion you start the second day of a conference apologizing for something you said on the first day. I am happy to report that in 3 decades of speaking and teaching, I’ve found groups to be refreshingly forgiving and gracious and lighthearted when you own up to something misspoken, particularly if it happened to have been funny. You get a fair amount of leash with funny, I’ve found, as long as you don’t cross a line. Of course, sometimes you don’t know you’ve crossed a line until you do it. Thankfully, most people give you the benefit of the doubt and, frankly, feel sorry for you for frying your own self up like a chicken.

In the words of Solomon, when there are many words, sin is unavoidable. (Proverbs 10:19 HCSB) Translation: talk less, sin less.

A few years ago I said something to a group that haunts me. I’m writing this article because I want to take it back. I’d like to blame the group because they were vocal and hilarious and egged me on. But I won’t. It was my own big mouth. As usual, it wasn’t in my notes. I’d do better with my messages if I wouldn’t look up from the podium but that’s no fun. I love faces; round ones, square ones, white ones, brown ones. I love faces. Anyway, spontaneity can be a lovely thing and sometimes the Spirit of God speaks most clearly through a word that comes to the speaker completely unscripted. This wasn’t one of those times.

I was talking about how territorial women can be. The group was all riled up in the subject matter with me, amening and nodding so I just kept prodding. “Not all territorialism is inappropriate, mind you,” I said, the bike now wobbling to the left. “For instance, if a woman lays a flirtatious hand on my husband, I’m liable to take her arm off at the neck.”

That’s a near-enough truth or I might die trying.

And that’s when my mind suddenly leapt from the sacred page of Scripture to the 1966 lyrics of that legendary queen of country music, Loretta Lynn. So, I just went with it and said…

Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man.

Since some of your parents were still in diapers when this feisty ballad blew up the AM radio dial, I’ll bless you with the rest of the song. Come on, now. Pat your foot. A country song doesn’t get better than this.

 

You’ve come to tell me something you say I ought to know
That he don’t love me anymore and I’ll have to let him go
You say you’re gonna take him oh but I don’t think you can
Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man
Women like you they’re a dime a dozen you can buy ’em anywhere
For you to get to him I’d have to move over and I’m gonna stand right here
It’ll be over my dead body so get out while you can
Cause you ain’t woman enough to take my man 

Sometimes a man start lookin’ at things that he don’t need
He took a second look at you but he’s in love with me
Well I don’t know where they leave you oh but I know where I’ll stand
And you ain’t woman enough to take my man
Women like you they’re a dime…
No you ain’t woman enough to take my man

 

The first time I sang that chorus word-for-word, I wasn’t even woman enough to shave my legs. But, here I am full-grown and I can still spit those words out with sparks coming off my tongue.

Which is precisely what got me into this mess.

And that’s when I pedaled that bike in a blur of feet straight through the bushes:

And if she IS woman enough to take your man, you better woman-up! 

The crowd went wild. We hooted and hollered and howled. We came dang near to throwing our shoes. We nearly drowned in our own estrogen.

Say to somebody beside you, “You better woman-up!”

And they did. Nice and loud.

We were women copping an attitude. Shaking our index fingers and wagging our heads. Women back-talking other women who’d had the gall to swish their petticoats into our territory. Girlfriend better step back because she doesn’t know who she’s messing with. It was hilarious.

And stupid.

Listen. You’re woman enough even if some other girl did take your man.

You’re woman enough even if you’ve been ditched by a man for nobody but himself.

You’re woman enough even if you’ve been thrown out and rejected.

Overlooked.

Unloved.

Unnoticed.

You’re woman enough even if you’ve never had a man.

You’re woman enough even if you’ve never put on a stitch of make-up or darkened the door of a nail salon.

You’re woman enough even if you couldn’t care less about what purse you pick up.

If you’ve lost both breasts to cancer and don’t have a hair on your head, you’re still 100% woman enough.

None of those things make you a woman. Your Creator makes you a woman.

It’s not just men who can make us feel like we don’t measure up. It’s other women. We’ve got enough voices in this world telling us that we’re not enough. God forbid that we who are called to serve women echo the charge. Let’s watch our mouths out there. I’m talking to myself first.

Hopscotch through the Scriptures and you’ll watch God get a hold of one woman after another who didn’t seem to be woman-enough in her world.

As it turned out…

Hagar was woman enough. (Genesis 16)

 

Sarai was woman enough. (Genesis 17:15-19)

 

Rahab was woman enough. (Joshua 2)

 

Ruth was woman enough. (Ruth 1-4)

 

Naomi was woman enough. (Ruth 1-4)

 

Hannah was woman enough. (1 Samuel 1)

 

Elizabeth was woman enough. (Luke 1:5-25)

 

Anna was woman enough. (Luke 2:36-38)

 

The Samaritan woman was woman enough. (John 4)

For crying out loud, Jesus even saw to it that the sinful woman in Luke 7 was woman enough.  We’d assume Mary was woman enough from the start because she was handpicked by God but I’m asking you whether or not you think you’re woman enough. God handpicked you, too.

This is what makes a woman enough. And a man enough.

 

So God created man in His own image,

in the image of God He created him;

male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27 ESV)

We are worthy of mutual honor and esteem because God granted such graces to humankind when He fashioned us in the palm of His hands.

 

When I look up at the heavens, which Your fingers made,

and see the moon and the stars, which You set in place,

Of what importance is the human race, that You should notice them?

Of what importance is mankind, that You should pay attention to them,

and make them a little less than the heavenly beings?

You grant mankind honor and majesty.  (Psalm 8:3-5 The NET Bible)

 

Several months ago a very dear brother in Christ asked me if I might know a young woman he could set up on a date with a Christian young man he loved and esteemed. Nothing wrong with that but I have lived long enough to break out in hives at the prospect of matchmaking.

Me: Well, what kind of taste does he have? What’s he looking for?

Him: A Christian.

Me: Yep, I get that. Of course.

My friend told me a few other things like high hopes for good looks then slipped this one in as an endnote: And he’d like her to be a virgin.

Dead silence.

Don’t get me wrong. I teach abstinence outside of marriage. I beg girls to wait. I wouldn’t have a woman deal with all the issues of my past for anything. Barreling off the plan of God can bruise a person up. I have a tremendously high regard for both men and women who hang onto their virginity until marriage. Still, something hit me sideways even though I wouldn’t argue for a second about the young man’s right to choose. Each person must know what he or she is capable of handling in the past relationships of a prospective mate.

Is he a virgin? I inquired. Women my age can ask that kind of thing in a context like this and get away with it. I tapped my fingers and waited for an answer.

Him: Well, I think so but, if not, he’s a reconstituted one.

…

And I went off like a bottle rocket.

What he meant was this: if the young man wasn’t a virgin, he’d repented since then and been forgiven and restored by God.

Amen to that.

Me: But the girl couldn’t be reconstituted??

Him: “Yes. Of course. That’s not what I meant.”

And, to be fair, it wasn’t. He’s a great guy. But the persisting double standard that still lurks out there like smog in the smug nearly threw me into a coughing fit. Needless to say, it’s not just male-imposed. We women do it to ourselves. Somewhere way down deep in our souls, we honestly believe that a sinful woman is worse than a sinful man. We so wanted to live up to the woman we planned.

Jesus lived up to the plan. That’s what we need to know.

The righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Romans 3:22-24

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:27-28

My grandmother might have said it like this: what’s grace for the goose is grace for the gander.

Jesus has done more than reconstitute us regardless of our gender anyway. He’s forgiven us, completely purified us, and made us new creations. Men and women alike stood at the foot of the Cross that dark afternoon. Men and women alike stand at the foot of it today.

Incidentally, I still believe in womaning-up when we need to, as long as it’s the kind we find in the folds of Mark 1:29-33.

And immediately [Jesus] left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told Him about her. And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them. That evening at sundown they brought to Him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. And the whole city was gathered together at the door.

No matter what has you down, your back to the ground, reach out your hand and put it in the palm of Jesus.

Woman, up.

 

 

 

PS. Because you’ve gotta love her and you might need to grin.

Thinking About Thinking from LPV on Vimeo.

Ok, Sisters, your replies to the previous post have inspired me to pen this one. As I read through your comments to our walk through the woods, I was stricken with a fresh sense of awe over the lovely grace of God to tie our lives together in Christ from so many different locations. We are a clickstream from a spider web in thousands of ways but this screen can also become a coloring book of connect-the-dots for people who love Jesus. Last night when I did Bibby’s Secret Closet with Annabeth and Jackson, I gave Annabeth one of those CraZArt Spiral Art sets. You know what I’m talking about:

 

Since I talked in the previous post about where I live, lots of your comments referenced your own surroundings. By the time I’d noted the locations of the first six, I practically had a lump in my throat. The gift I gave Annabeth last night popped right back into my mind. Your comments swirled the page like geographical Spiral Art, and of the sacred kind, bright and multicolored. Just take a look at a smattering of them and behold a glimpse of you. Each of these sentences are copied and pasted from comments to the last post that took us on a walk through the country.

 

I live in Guelph, Ontario, Canada and we are just waiting for Spring.

 

I’m here in the Mid Atlantic on the shores of the Delmarva Peninsula where the winter won’t loosen its grip and we still have snow on the ground when we should be about ready to cut grass for the first time this season.

Next time, let’s do a walk in New Zealand!!

I have been out enjoying our Spring weather too because before we know it we will be trapped indoors with the air conditioning here in Az. (Arizona)

We are still waiting for it here in Ohio—it snowed yesterday!

My family has the privilege of owning a cabin in the NC mountains and it’s a little slice of heaven on earth. (North Carolina)

Wave surges are shockingly high – my fair Island will be swallowed up in the storm surges. So thank you for the glimpse of Hope in Spring.. -6 C wind chill feels like -29 just in case we thought we might like to put our face outside tonight…  (I loved this one because I don’t have a clue where it is but it’s a “fair island” and COLD. Thank you, Iris! You took me there through your words without my even knowing where I’d gone!)

I love long walks in the country, but being from Illinois, I don’t quite have the same scenery you have (and might I say in a whining voice…I also don’t have your TexMex), especially those slithering things (except the black snakes).

l appreciated, being a California girl, all the references to various snakes, and remember the “rattlers” we used to see all the time…now living in Costa Rica, snakes have taken on a whole new meaning: we have some deadly AND aggressive snakes here, not shy, like the rattlers, but snakes that will actually “hunt you down.”

Living on the Portage River for nine years in MI, I experienced lovely spiritual moments: our giant blue heron flying low down the river, a white mother swan swimming down stream with a baby swan on her back, a shy deer family eating apples from under our apple tree. precious moments I’ll treasure now that we are living in the desert in AZ. (She goes on to identify Fountain Hills, AZ)

Thanks for the refreshment…still feels like winter in PA…longest winter ever! (Pennsylvania)

Your back woods look alot like mine up here in Central Saskatchewan – except for the fact that we’re still layered in a few feet of snow.

Loved taking this walk with you! I love your wild woods! They remind me of the woods around here in TN. (Tennessee)

AHHH where were those boots last night? We had a black snake on our porch and here in my neck of the woods in Uganda…

 

Come on, somebody! Give the Lord some praise! Is that gorgeous, or what??

So here’s what I want you to do if you feel like participating. Leave a comment telling us where you live and, if you don’t mind, add a description heavy on adjectives so we can picture ourselves there with you. I am looking so forward to this!

I’m so blessed to serve you, Sisters. The beauty of sisterhood in Christ is a work of divine art.  I kept thinking that last week at the Colour Conference in Sydney because my friend, Bobbie Houston, has been so phenomenally used by God to gather a sisterhood of servants around the world to aid the poor, the oppressed, and the abused. We are a part of the same sisterhood because we are also in Christ and called to do some good in this weary world.

What an honor to seek Him with you. Unity is not about lining up on 100 points of doctrine. It’s about faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the holy Son of God, born of a virgin, crucified for our sins, raised from the dead, and returning to take His Throne. If that’s what you believe, you’re blood to me. I think sometimes the stuff of unity is all the sweeter to Christ – not when we already see eye-to-eye on all our doctrine but – when we don’t. Sometimes just agreeing that Jesus Christ is Lord is bond enough. When we only agree to love people and walk with people just like us, that’s tantamount to making our goal to become more like ourselves. Ick. Somebody else can have that. I’m trying to figure out how to forget myself, not make a mirror out of every woman of God I see. I want people to sharpen me, to cheer me onward when I’m discouraged or harassed, to make me think, and to keep me growing. A mirror can only make me more like me.  Give this girl a seat by the window and let her capture the features of Christ gathered from the faces of many.

OK, rescue us all before I get sappier. Let’s hear about your locations!

 

I am back from Australia and have a whole week off. See?

That means I’ll take lots of walks in these country woods that I pined for while I was away. If we could walk these woods together, you and I, this is what we’d do:

We might first take one of these…

 

…since bright yellow flecks of smiling sun are blanketing every surface in sight. Negative people might call it pollen but let’s try to be positive. It makes it easier if you will simply agree to see sneezing as cathartic. Use it to get some stuff out of your system. Go ahead and yell out from the gutter of your soul while you sneeze and make yourself heard. Scare somebody. It will do you some good.

We’d then put on our snake boots. What basic black pumps are in the city, snake boots are in the country.  A must, and you wear them with everything including shorts. Before we put them on, let’s have a quick tutorial on which snakes out here are poisonous:

This is a Coral Snake. A bad mama but she’s a pretty thing, isn’t she? Sometimes we find one curled up on our front porch, a fact that I find somewhat unsettling.

This is a Water Moccasin. That’s a bad dude right there and an ugly one at that. We’ll be most careful to watch for him when we’re near the creek.

While our black snakes are not poisonous, they tend to score high on the creepy meter. You sort of have to talk yourself out of a panic attack when you see one because they tend to be impressively large. They’re often right on the dirt road or up the side of an oak tree.

As a bonus for still agreeing to go on our walk, I’ll let you choose which pair of boots you want to wear and I’ll put on the other ones. The camos are most comfortable but let’s just say that no pair of fangs on earth is getting through that steel mesh on the other pair. Those are my rattlesnake boots for the cactus land in West Texas. You can breathe a sigh of relief that we do not have rattlers here in the country. So, which pair do you want?

 

The dogs have already spied us putting on our boots so they are yelping to high heaven at the iron gate in the back yard, begging to be set free. They will race down the path toward the creek like their tails are on fire but Queen Esther, my Border Collie, will come in a distant second to Geli (short for Angelina), Keith’s bird dog. She soars like a greyhound. They love the unabashed joy of the wild as long as they get to come home to the air conditioner, eat a fine supper peppered with people-food, and sleep on giant pillows. A few weeks ago I had them on a walk and nearly fainted dead-into-the-dirt when Geli ran through the brush back onto the path with a coyote right behind her. I’m not making this up. It’s almost like we live in the African bush surrounded by hyenas.

I yelled and waved my arms like a crazy woman. It might have been a good time for cursing which Keith has tried diligently to teach me to do but, as it was, the coyote sauntered off, probably out of embarrassment for me. I have yet to capture a good picture of Queen Esther and Geli romping the path so you’ll have to confine the image to your imagination. Sometimes, however, we have to wait to go outside until a rabbit finishes its breakfast. Why? Because Geli is also hungry for breakfast.

 

We’ll walk on down the path and talk about all sorts of things. These woods are good for that. Trees don’t tattle. If you tend to be bigger on manners than honesty, you’ll probably try to tell me it’s beautiful out here but that might be a stretch except to us. We chose not to manicure these acres so it’s mostly wild and bushy and viney right at eye level but if you’d lift your chin, you’d see oak and pine and sycamore limbs stretching out like everlasting arms over your head. This time of year, you’d also catch a tease of wild dogwoods peeking out like they don’t want anybody but you to know they’re there.

 

You’d have to come soon to catch this little glimpse of Texas Spring because they’ll disappear with the late April heat. We have a little meadow on our walk that sprouts a tiny patch of wild bluebonnets this time of year. Nobody but God planted these. Keith and I discover a few more every year and it delights us to no end.

If you’ll stay alert and wide-eyed, you might get to see a pileated woodpecker swoop overhead like I did yesterday, then you’ll hear all manner of hammering.

Think Woody.

 

We’d probably pass by Jackson and Annabeth’s swing set on our walk.

They love it so much and, when they’re on it, I’m usually somewhere on it with them. If you haven’t been on a swing set in a long time and swung as high as you could, you don’t know what you’re missing. It makes me laugh really hard which makes Annabeth laugh really hard.

While we’re on our walk, we might stroll past our neighbor’s fence and say hi to the donkey he got to keep company with his steer.  Ever since this mischievous little guy wandered up in my yard a month or so ago, I’ve been in love with him. I’ve asked Keith to buy me one but he’s been as stubborn as a mule about it. He says the next thing we knew, that donkey would be up on the couch watching TV with us. This was taken the first time I met him.

 

Come on, now! Just try to tell me he’s not fabulous! We’d then pass around by Big Pops’ and Memmaw’s house and visit their chickens. Big Pops and Memmaw will be sorry that Annabeth and Jackson aren’t with us but the chickens won’t.

 

We’d circle back around to my house by way of this bridge. It is just over a gully but, when it rains a lot as it often does in Houston, it turns into a respectable creek. Jackson and his friends love to look for frogs and tadpoles under here. This bridge is my favorite man-made thing on our property. My man built it for me long before the house went up. I sit on it often just to think about things.

 

We’d then make our way back to my front porch, pull our boots off, and sit on this bench, just the two of us, and talk.

We’d say that the Lord is good and that His love endures forever.

And we’d be right.

I sure love you.

 

 

 

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!

 

 

Good afternoon, ladies! While I’ve been preparing for tomorrow night’s Bible study, I’ve had my diligent staff watching weather alerts like hawks and checking with HFBC where we have the privilege to meet and with our work-crew. Our Tuesday nights require lots of employees, policemen, volunteers, etc. Due to the persistent Winter Weather Advisory for tomorrow evening, we are so sad to announce that we’re going to need to go ahead and cancel. Too many things are up in the air (well, literally) and tomorrow is too late to get the word out to the number of women who often come. We don’t want you putting yourselves at risk on frozen overpasses or arriving to an empty parking lot. That’s not the way you want to find a parking place on Tuesday nights. Smile.

The chance of precipitation is so high tomorrow that icy driving conditions are virtually guaranteed. That’s too big a risk for us to take with your well-being. I was looking so forward to studying what I felt like God was setting aside for us in Session Two of Breath but He knew in advance that we’d have to cancel and He knows why next week is best. We will trust Him with that.

This is such a hard thing for our northern sisters to fathom because you have to operate in this kind of weather all winter long but we’re just not trained for it. Okay, we’re disastrous at it, if you must know. It shuts our entire city down. If we spill a cup of Sonic ice on the road, we end up in a ditch. We know how to sweat around here. Not slip, skate, and slide. Part of me thinks cancelling is so silly. We sure weren’t looking for a holiday from Bible study. We just got started back! But the bigger part of me knows that this is the better part of wisdom.

Serving is a trust. We want to be trustworthy with you. That is a no-brainer. That I know for sure.

If you would help us spread the word to anyone that attends, we would be so grateful.

We will miss studying together so much, but, God-willing, will see you girls next Tuesday, February 4th!

 

Tons of love to you and a little bit of a sad face,

Beth

 

Houston Area Ladies! It’s that time of year when we’re beside ourselves with joy  to invite you to our January-March Tuesday night Bible study! God has blessed us with favor to meet as a very diverse community of women from every background and denomination at the central location of Houston’s First Baptist Church on 7401 Katy Freeway. We love Pastor Gregg and Kelly Matte so much and we do not take this privilege lightly.

We launch our brand new 7-session series on Tuesday January 21st at 6:30 in the main auditorium. We hope to see many familiar faces but we also hope to serve hundreds of women who are new to the study of Scripture and haven’t quite awakened to the love of Jesus Christ. If you’ve been with us before, come again! And this time, bring somebody brand new! Somebody less-discipled! We’re hoping that this series will blow fresh air into the lungs of seasoned believers but also lend itself well to women who have very little background in the Bible. Pray that for us and with us!

The name God placed on my heart for this 7 week series is Breath: The Life of God in Us. Our goal through the series will be to spotlight places in Scripture where the Spirit of God quickens the lives of people like us, empowering and invigorating individuals to do in Jesus’ Name what cannot be done by human flesh and blood alone.

If you’re weary and worn out, we pray God will use this series to put iron in your soul. If you’re weak and defeated, we pray God will use this series to infuse you with a strength wholly beyond you. If you’ve never had the faith to believe, we pray God will pour His Spirit out on you and bring you to new life in Christ: the life you were placed on this planet to live. If you’ve felt for years like God has called you to some kind of purpose but you have no idea what, we’re praying He might use this series to fill you with insight and direction. If you’ve been a believer for decades but it’s been a while since you’ve felt the fire of Christ in your bones, we pray God will use this series to revive you.

We are believing God to reveal Himself powerfully to us and we don’t want to miss anything He desires throughout these 7 weeks. I’m asking Him to pour out His Spirit on me in 2014 in ways that exceed what He’s done in the past. Maybe you’re asking Him the same kind of thing. Let’s go make ourselves available to Him corporately through worship and the study of Scripture for these 7 Tuesday nights and see what He’d invest in us to make our 2014 vastly glorifying to His Name.

All women are welcome, including those with very different beliefs or those who have little interest in spiritual things. If you are willing to come, we are anxious to welcome you and serve you and, because we know God to be faithful to His Word, we believe wholeheartedly that your time will not be wasted.

Needless to say, there’s no cost to attend. I wish we could offer childcare but it is just impossible for us to pull off on Tuesday nights. Carpool if you have several friends coming but, also, don’t hesitate to come alone. We never know how many to anticipate but we certainly hope to anticipate you. You could not be more welcome. Come and see.

For more information and many of your questions answered, click here to visit our Houston Connection page .

If you’re in the Houston area but unable to join us or you’re from other places around the country and globe, please say a prayer for us! We want so much to bring glory to Christ, to be used by Him to extend the outreach of His powerful hand, and to serve women in His merciful Name. If you happen to be in the city on one of these Tuesday nights, go grab some Tex-Mex for supper then come worship and study with us! We’d be thrilled to have you. Dearest love to you and I hope to see you soon!