Hey, You Darling Things! I’ve thought about you a billion times!

I have finally had enough of a break to tackle pulling my thoughts together and telling you a little of the story that led up to surgery. Because, you know your Siesta Mama. There is ALWAYS a story. I don’t do a danged thing without drama.

I was all ready to write you this post several days ago and we got some hard news about the diagnosis of a young, tremendously loved pastor in the DFW area that sent a whole lot of us for a loop. I never could pull it together that day. I would have traded my outcome for his in a heartbeat but that’s not the way it works. I also well know that God has every intention of showing Himself mighty and all glorious in this family’s life and in the lives of all who love them and have committed to sit like watchmen of the wall in their behalf.

There is no way I can emphasize strongly enough that the outcome of the story I am about to share with you has nothing to do with God’s extravagant love for me, the right kind of praying, or the fact that “He’s not finished with me yet.” He loves us all extravagantly, whatever the outcome of medical tests. He does not play favorites. He hears each desperate cry and esteems the groanings of our souls. He doesn’t let our lives be touched or even ravaged by disease because we didn’t get our words exactly right or because we yelped, “Help my unbelief!” He’s not a mean, distant God playing Monopoly with human lives. And He’s not finished with a single one of us or we wouldn’t be drawing terrestrial air into our lungs and coursing our eyes over words on a computer screen. The fact is, He has a sovereign plan that is for good and not evil and He is writing a story of on-going redemption with each of our lives. Our lives are woven together through seasons. It’s one person’s season to experience this. And another person’s season to experience that. Neither is loved more. Neither is more dispensible.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (KJV)
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 sums up the segment in a few simple, powerful words:
11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time.

His time. His time. His time. HIS TIME.

It was not my season or His time for me to walk the road of cancer treatment. But, make no mistake. God went WAY out of His way to increase my awakenness to that road from a very personal vantage point. Cancer is so widespread that it has not been a stranger to any of us. Many of us are well acquainted with it through the journey of very close loved ones. I never missed one of my mom’s rounds of chemo-therapy and, like each of my brothers and sisters, was right by her side when that journey ended and gave way to eternity. Like you, I’ve also stood alongside good friends in treatment, many of whom God raised back to their feet with a fresh anointing. Countless times I’ve received letters from those I’ve never seen face-to-face who chose to walk faithfully with God through His Word amid an ordeal they could neither understand…nor perhaps survive. In all my years in women’s ministry, these have been the pieces of correspondence I’ve most highly esteemed: women who have studied and sought God faithfully, as much as that day’s condition would allow, all the way Home. OR, unimaginably, to their child’s final Home. Even long before my recent ordeal, I respected no one more than these.

Here is how I happened to brush coattails with a few of them:

Three years ago, amid blood tests for other much less threatening maladies, I had a result come back that raised my regular doctor’s eyebrows. Since that test is notorious for false-positives, he told me not to be alarmed but, nonetheless, to let a specialist check it out. I did and was told, after testing, that I had no coinciding malignancy that they could find and to just have my regular doctor keep an eye on it.

He did. The count remained elevated and then began creeping up. I’d been having my annual women’s exam with his physician’s assistant, a gentle spirited, smart woman I find less unnerving. In August, the doctor overseeing the exams said, “Beth, I still don’t like what those test results are doing. I just want you to be in the hands of a really good OB-GYN.” He sent me to a well-respected woman doctor that I was crazy about. She is my most recent hero. She is a fellow lover of Scripture and seeker of Christ. She determined to approach my situation entirely from scratch, repeating every single test, to see what turned up. Suddenly, in October the blood test indicator they’d been watching more than doubled in number and she called my cell. She was completely calm but I had well-remembered what the specialist had told me three years earlier, “Now, when it starts doubling, we start getting worried.”

Over the next week, I had biopsies, MRI’s, ultrasounds, etc. The end result was abnormalities in the ovaries with relatively small growths on each. One side hosted a simple cyst and they were unalarmed by it. The other side was more suspect. In my new GYN’s wise determination, she sent me straightaway to a highly esteemed gynecological oncologist in Houston’s world famous medical center. She contacted the doctor herself and was kind enough to make my appointment for me, saying, “Beth, this is who I would go to if I were in exactly your same situation.”

Before Keith and I knew it, we were walking through the glass doors of M.D. Anderson’s department of gynecological oncology. (The name of the facility might mean little to you but it speaks scary volumes to anyone familiar with our great medical center.) To say it was sobering for this couple of 31 years is an understatement. You know I’m drawn like a magnet to women, though. In no time at all, I got distracted by the others. I stared at every woman in that waiting room, wondering about her story and wishing I could say something to minister to her. I texted my staff to pray for them. Of course, right about then, I was in their same exact shoes and I don’t doubt some of them were having similar thoughts toward Keith and me.

Finally, my name was called and I got my vitals taken and they needed to make sure I wasn’t pregnant. Lord have mercy. Talk about a scary diagnosis! For just a few seconds it wildly amused me then I got taken to the examining room and left all alone with my thoughts for a while. There I was, on the examining table under a paper sheet and my Scripture spiral. I was shocked by the sight of my new doctor. She was, or at least she looked, slightly under 40, had long brown hair, sparkling blue eyes, and darling. Keith quipped later, “Your surgeon is ten.” We both laughed. “Our surgeon is one of the best in the entire medical center,” I said. “Even if she’s ten.”

While on that examining table, I said, “I feel like all of this is going to be perfectly fine. I think God’s just forcing me to have a much needed ______________________(I still can’t say the word in mixed company. It starts with an “H” and rhymes a tad with tonsillectomy). I’m not looking for trouble here. I’ve got enough drama in my life without this. I’m sure this will be fine. Don’t you think?”

She very graciously replied, “I’ll tell you what I think. I think I’d like for you to get dressed and meet me in my office and let’s talk.”

WHOA.

That was really the first moment I thought something really might be up. I did as she said and sat right at that table in her office with the plastic model of women’s organs on it and a box of Kleenex.

WOW.

And I thought of all of you. Of so many women who have taken those exact steps. Who have also waited at a doctor’s table with a box of Kleenex on it.

A nurse stuck her head in and asked if I wanted her to call in my husband. I am so embarrassed to tell you that I didn’t. From the look of the plastic model on the table, clearly we were about to talk about unmentionables and I am really modest…and, yes, in front of my husband. What if they ended up asking me if I was having anything that felt like gas pain? I’d be forced to say, “NO! NEVER! NEVER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! NOT ONCE.”

About 20 minutes later, she and her resident sat down at the table where I’d just been sitting quietly before the Lord and reading every single thing in eyeshot in her office. (I have a terrible habit of doing that. If it’s out in plain sight, it’s game. I can’t even help myself. I’m a rabid reader. And let’s not talk about nosey.) She went through four possible outcomes for me, drawing diagrams with a blue ink pen as she went.

At one point, she put her elbow on the table, leaned across at me, and said, “Mrs. Moore, I think we’re going to come away from this with a good outcome but I will also tell you that you need to be here and you are in the right place.” She told me I’d have to have a complete you-know-what then explained, “While you are under anesthesia, I will literally send each piece of tissue off to pathology and wait on results then proceed accordingly.”

And that’s what we did. On December 7th Keith and Amanda checked me into the world renown M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital for surgery with an oncology team toward a “Possible Staging for Ovarian Cancer.” While I was on the table, they ran into a few complications and had to call another surgeon in on it to check another part of the body (and if you think I’m going to name it, you are out of your ever-loving mind.) Over the course of the next several hours, one by one, the pathology reports came back benign. There is no possible way I can express my gratitude to God for His purposed will for this time, although He would have been (LISTEN TO THIS CAREFULLY!) just as faithful and just as loving and good if I would have turned out with Stage 4. That could as easily happen the next go-round as it happened to some of you dear Siestas the last go-round. I’m not saying that to make you feel better. It is what I believe to the core of my soul.

I’m 52 years old and called to a life of women’s ministry. God has gone to many lengths to allow and appoint me to experiences common to women. I endured the same kind of troubled childhoods as many of you. I’ve been abused, oppressed, and scared to death. I attended three different high schools and battled the same kinds of adolescent ups and downs as most of you. I’ve been a help and a hypocrite. Smart and almost too stupid to live. I got news just weeks away from marriage that I would not be able to conceive children without medical intervention. I had to tell my Catholic husband-to-be that I might not be able to have children. Then, I experienced what it was like to have a big surprise pregnancy one month into marriage. Then crawl aboard the roller coaster of a lifetime.

I know what it’s like to have severe marital problems and to sink into defeat and despair. I know what it’s like to be told after a terrible ordeal years ago that I was suffering from depression and to be under a doctor’s care for it for a year. (No, I will not get into matters of medication versus no-medication here on the blog. After serious prayer, those conversations should be had with the experts and the course each should take is based on her own unique conditions.) I know what it’s like to have a troubled child and to be on speed dial with the school. I know what it’s like to let a child go. To feel like a total failure. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. God has called me, and so many others in women’s ministry, to experience a broad spectrum of women’s issues so I can grow more equipped to do His will toward those I serve. And it is my privilege.

I had the honor of being in M.D. Anderson Cancer Hospital from Monday to Thursday of that wild week and to meet some of the most honorable people I’ve ever encountered. Those nurses up on that floor feel

called

to be there in every sense of the word. I couldn’t tell how many of them were Christians since they hold their cards pretty tight and take care of all their patients as if each is the most important one, regardless of belief system. I can tell you, however, that whether or not they believed in Christ, they were His hands. Many of us can’t imagine facing people day in and day out suffering from various stages of cancer yet these nurses testified to being “drawn” to it. They were there because they wanted to be there. As far as I know, I was the only one on our entire wing of the floor with a completely benign report. When my veins collapsed, someone was summoned from the “IV team” of the hospital and the first thing she did when she came in my room was look among the bags hanging from the rod for what kind of chemo I was on. “I’m not on one,” I said.

I began to realize at that time just how unusual my situation was, in that particular hospital or, at the very least, on that floor. I knew – and I know – that God caused me to visit that hospital for specific reasons. It may take me months to discover all of them. This I know: I am not the same. We have been scared, sobered, and shaken out of slumber. I have prayed and cried and interceded for the others multiple times and lifted every doctor’s name and every nurse’s name before the Lord over and over. You will grin to know that, right before I left, I took my spiral index cards from our Scripture memory team and prayed my verses silently outside each room on my wing.

When I went back for my first check up yesterday (still can’t drive, have to ask someone to do something for me constantly!), I went down to the chapel to see if I could speak to the chaplain. I didn’t find her but I did kneel at that altar and pray for the others. And for that hospital. To see it, not as a place for cancer but, as a place of healing. And only God can truly heal. Needless to say, it is a secular institution and everyone is treated with dignity and the best of medical care but God went out of His way to show me that Christ was right there, walking up and down those halls. Several really wild things happened to me as reminders. One was at pre-op on Friday when my blood was taken in a tiny little cubicle with a dentist-type chair in it and a thin shower curtain pulled around it. Right before me on the wall was a simple piece of printer paper taped to the wall with the most powerful prayer for healing in Jesus’ Name I’ve about ever seen in my entire life. I was so astonished, I didn’t know what to do. I tried to talk to the technician about it but she remained silent. Maybe she wasn’t the one who posted it. Or maybe she was, but protocol insisted upon nothing more than that. I have no idea but it was huge to me. Gratitude and hope filled my heart. I knew Christ was there and I knew He loved every person in that facility whether they regarded Him or not.

(That was the morning of Deeper Still in OKC. By the way, you guys had NO IDEA what you were really praying healing over me for on Saturday afternoon. It was for much more than my herniated disk! I was stunned at the way God orchestrated that and I assure you that the moment wasn’t wasted on me).

I could go on and on with this – and have for too long already – but I’ll wrap up with one last thing. After such a great report, Amanda and Keith could not wait to come in and see their healthy patient. They waited for hours after surgery to finally come in and see me and, by the time they got there, I’d been out for five hours. Instead of finding Miss Perky, I was as sick as a dog. I cannot remember ever feeling as badly as I did the first forty-eight hours after surgery. I just had a bad reaction to the general, I suppose. I was so nauseated, I could not lift my head but my system was too empty for any kind of relief. Amanda said it looked like I’d been resuscitated from the dead about five minutes earlier. Anyway, by the time I really began to wake up and have clear thoughts, still sick as a dog, a nurse walked into my hospital room and over to the dry erase marker board across from my bed. She grabbed one of the markers and said, “These are your nurses for today.” And, to Amanda’s and my complete astonishment, this is what she wrote on the board:

Nurse: Grace

Nurse’s assistant: Mercy

At that moment, I knew I wasn’t just there to meet with an oncologist. I was there to meet with God.

Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16

He’s too much, isn’t He?

Could you use a little comic relief? See all those numbers below the nurses’ names? Those are calculations of my “output.” This is a tad uncomfortable for someone so modest to capitalize on but, in my family, we’re willing to throw ourselves and each other under the bus any old day if it gets a laugh. Leave it to my man to get totally into the numbers. NO, I did NOT let him ever empty the measuring bowl in the tiny bathroom but, much to my embarrassment, had to report it each time so it could be recorded. Keith loved it. You can obvious see that I really had to go the first time and he was so proud of me. What you can’t see on the marker board is his running commentary from then on. He wrote stuff like, “Two measly ounces,” and “Way to go!” and…well, I better stop there. I’ve told you before that he’s the colorful type. Amid throwing up, Amanda, Keith and I had some really funny moments when I nearly laughed my stitches out. Maybe another post. Or MAYBE you’ve just about had it with this one!

OK, I’m finishing up! I’ll shut up after this summation. In the aftermath of our ordeal, people have asked me over and over again how I felt it would come out and I told them what I’ll tell you: I just did not know. One day I’d think my daily Bible reading indicated that I would be spared from a malignancy. The next day I’d think I only had two weeks to live. I quit trying to read Scripture like a crystal ball and, instead, just entrusted myself to God for His perfect will and felt peace either way. I have said to Him over and over in matters concerning my loved ones, “Deliver us from everything but Your glory, Lord.” That’s what I asked this time, too. “Deliver us from evil, Lord, and from temptation but do not deliver us from Your prized glory.”

I have walked with God long enough to know that it may have been as much His will for me to enter into a road of common suffering as to come out of that surgery without cancer. He would choose whatever brought Him the most glory and me and those around me the most good. My family went through so much during the several months leading up to surgery. No matter how you slice it, it was scary. You don’t get handed over to an oncologist and take it lightly even if the doctor tells you that she really does think it will turn out okay. These are sobering matters.

We are the better for this. Easy for us to say, you might be thinking. I won’t be going to chemo next week. But I promise you this: I would if I’d had to and, Lord help me, with my Bible in tow. I won’t just lapse into business as usual. I will not let this experience be wasted on me. And, if, on some future date, my news is very different, so many of you will have been my inspiration.

I love you dearly and thank you for caring.

My dearest Siestas, how are you? I have missed you! Before you go and get too overprotective, yes, I am resting and, no, I am not overdoing it. I don’t have any choice. Except to come home from the hospital, I have not been out of a gown in 6 days nor even so much as walked to the mailbox. Our family has been through quite a journey over the last couple of months, intensifying greatly toward the time of surgery and its results. I have so much to tell you – and so many funny things to tell you – when I am a little stronger. For now, please know that I have been so grateful for your prayers and have felt them! I am doing as well as I possibly could be, thank You, my gracious Abba. Sore. Still dealing with significant nausea, which you might pray about since I need to get back to my normal weight. But don’t go praying twenty five extra pounds on me. I know the power of Siesta prayer! My prognosis is great and I am told I will feel like a new person in several months.

More than anything, for me, this season is about getting in some solitary confinement with my faithful, determined God. I have longed to be out of the whirlwind to hear Him in the softest silence again and will relish every single second of this quietness. When I was too nauseated to write or read after surgery, I just whispered to Him from my bed and let the tears of tenderness wash the pillowcase. I am now able to read again, which is not only my work. It is also my hobby. I have a brand new novel and a brand new Bible study by an author I deeply esteem and I am slowly breaking into both. I will have much of this week to myself with Him and I will savor every second of it. As God alone could have it, my man had a tremendously important work project away from home this coming week and I insisted on him fulfilling it. He’d worked too hard if I didn’t absolutely have to have him here. I was recovering well and in great hands with both my dear (and blood) sisters for the weekend and now I am now back in the hands of my beloved firstborn.

Amanda has been Melissa’s and my hero through this whole ordeal. I don’t have to tell you that we three girls are thick as thieves. We carefully weighed out what Melissa should do regarding my surgery and recovery and, despite her sobs and uncertainties, I was adamant she stay in Atlanta unless we got some kind of bad news. At that point, she – and my sweet Colin – would have boarded a plane immediately. She is in the final week of her Fall semester for her seminary degree and it would have thrown a grenade smack in the middle of months of hard work. She’d paid too high a price for it to go up in smoke and those are my sentiments rather than hers.

Amanda has been incredible. I have no words for her. Her strength and tenacity have left us slack jawed. Amanda’s always been able to hold her own in a strong-willed family but she’s done more than hold her own these last 7 days. She’s hardly left my side and, because I had a bad reaction to the general anesthesia (never have before!), she had her hands full. Try not to think too much about that. How she has balanced all this with her young family is a testimony of God’s grace and the love Curtis Wayne Jones has for his mother-in-law. I am so grateful to them all.

But those are really not the reasons I’m writing you today. We are a very open family and share our feelings freely with one another so I don’t need a blog to tell Keith, Amanda, Curtis, Melissa and Colin how much I love and appreciate them. I do that face to face. I’m writing to you because of a very simple thing God has done for me for Christmas. When Keith pulled out of the driveway with a heavy heart several days ago, he summoned our two fine college-age nephews, Ben and Joe Meadows, to drive to Houston from College Station and go pick out their Aunt Beth the best Christmas tree possible and set it up in my den. The boys love Keith so much, despite the interminably hard time he gives them, that they simply call him by the endearment, “Uncle.” Well, let me be more honest here. “Skunkle” is what they really call him. They and my father-in-law (my dad, in every sense of the word) set out for the most terrific tree an old home with low ceilings can sport.

The plan was to also get down the Christmas decorations from the attic and hang them for me but I was still too weak at that time to even tell them what kind of containers to look for. “Are you sure, Aunt Beth? We can do it! He’ll have our heads if we don’t!”

“I’m sure. You let your Aunt Beth handle your Uncle Keith.”

After they left, I walked in the kitchen to fix myself some hot peppermint tea and saw a gift wrapped in Christmas tissue sitting on the end of the counter. I remembered, then, that Amanda mentioned having brought something home from church for me the previous Sunday. It was “To Beth, Merry Christmas! Love, Sherry.” That’s one of my best buddies, Sherry Webster. She and her husband Greg are two of our closest friends. They also have young adult children and grandchildren and share our love for God and rough Texas terrain. (Yes, we have normal best friends and relationships. Couldn’t live without them.) I took off the tissue and it was one of the most beautiful Christmas ornaments I’d ever seen. A crimson and pearl Cross hanging from a ribbon. I walked straight to the tree and hung the single ornament.

No lights on it.

No tinsel.

No angel perched at the top.

Just one crimson Cross right in the middle of the tree.

God has me home for the holidays for healing. For restoration. For a fresh return to the simple things. I’ve spent the entire year balancing the beauty and complexities of women’s insecurities and the Book of Revelation. How’s that for some whiplash? And I have loved every second of it. God is not miffed at me for working hard. He is the One who called me to the harvest field just as He called you. He just wants me to rediscover Sabbath rest amid the work and He’s chosen to begin with a crash course. I am gradually taking the ribbon off the gift of simplicity that God is giving me for Christmas this year. I plan to unwrap it slowly and deliberately. 2010 will start soon enough and I’ll pack a suitcase and be on another plane. But not the same. If I am, I will have missed something huge. Something vital. Something life-changing between Jesus and me. And I do not plan to miss it for this world. It’s why He has me here.

We are not getting lots of presents this year at the Moores. You have no idea how rare that is. Keith Moore believes in a big Christmas and that even a pair of earrings is wrapped separately from the matching necklace and socks are never to be in the same box as shirts. He believes in lots of gifts to open on Christmas morning even if many of them are under five bucks. Not this year. I never had time to shop before I was laid flat on my back. And that’s okay.

Because this is a year to return to the simplest truths like John 3:16. Take it slowly now and in the version from which you first learned it.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.

A Christmas Tree means nothing if not for the Cross. The Joneses were supposed to decorate my tree for me today…but I’m not quite ready. I think I’ll keep it just like this for a while. We’ll eat a little something instead.

I pray simple things over you this season, my dear Siestas. Couldn’t we all use a moment’s Sabbath?

I will look forward to being in touch with you every couple of days that I’m up to it. I won’t go back to work at LPM until 2010 nor will I work here at home but this sweet communication we have here in Siestaville, on days like this, is not really work for me. Words are the way I process things. On the days that it’s too much, I promise I won’t get on line. If I’m on here, it will strictly be because I want to be. Thank you for caring. I care so much for you, too.

I love you, Sweet Things.

Verse 23! WOW! We’re almost there, Siestas! I hope you are doing so well this winter morning. I had a little bit of a restless night like all of us occasionally have, then ended up oversleeping, like all of us occasionally do. I got out of the bed to a delightfully cold house from a northern that blew in overnight. We almost never turn on the heater because both Keith and I love a cold house and lots of heavy covers. This is particularly expensive in the summer but that’s another story entirely. This December morning I got the fire place going and sat down with my Bible to have my quiet time. About thirty minutes into it, my cell phone rang. I saw that it was Amanda and she rarely calls that early so, of course, I answered it. I always do when it’s one of my children.

“Hello?”

It wasn’t Amanda after all. The sweetest little sleepy voice on the other end:

“Bibby, we have a Christmas tree at our house!”

The Joneses had gone to get their tree last night and, when Jackson went to bed, it was still outside tied to the Suburban. Amanda said that she heard him come out of his room early this morning, take a few steps, stop dead in his tracks, and gasp. Then she heard him say, “An inside tree!! An inside tree!!”

I could hear him saying the same thing when he handed the phone back to his mommy this morning. He is utterly astonished that we get to have outside trees inside our houses this time of year. It is pretty cool, isn’t it? Amanda said, “You know, Mom, that’s the wonderful part about the age Jackson is right now. He was so little last year, he really doesn’t remember much about it. This year is a whole new experience.”

I wish it could be a whole new experience for you and me. And if we’re willing to be renewed and revived in our spirits and willing to let go of how old (regardless of how young) and beat up we feel from the poundings of this world, we could recapture that childlike wonder that makes this season unmatched.

Now, onto our 23rd Scriptures! I going to give you two sets because I’m taken with both of them right now but my official memory verse for this round is the first one. I think I told you that Curtis and I are reading through the Bible this year from Eugene Peterson’s translation so that’s why some of the verses jumping off the page to me this year are from The Message. I’m so accustomed to my beloved NIV that I can almost anticipate how certain portions are going to be worded. The beauty of doing some of your reading out of a totally different version is that they come to you with glorious, unanticipated freshness.

Here’s the first one:

The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don’t make anything happen. Every word I’ve spoken to you is a Spirit-word, and so it is life-making. John 6:63, The Message

The reason why this verse speaks so clearly to me right now is because, at this juncture in my journey with Christ, my usual “sheer muscle and willpower” aren’t cutting it. Only a Spirit work and a Spirit word are going to make a hill of beans of difference. That’s how my Nanny would say it.

Here’s the second one. Maybe some of you haven’t chosen your verse yet this round and this one will resonate:

When I walk into the thick of trouble, keep me alive in the angry turmoil. With one hand strike my foes, With your other hand save me. Finish what you started in me, God. Your love is eternal—don’t quit on me now. Psalm 138:7-8, The Message.

I used this verse for my devotional time with my LPM staff yesterday. I’ll tell you what I told them. This segment causes me to picture one of those huge battle scenes in the third movie of Tolkien’s trilogy, “Return of the King.” I see all the same characters and sights. This time, however, in my mind’s eye I see Jesus storming right through the middle of that bloody battlefield crawling with vicious and monstrous demonic creatures. I picture each one of us as a child running beside Him, little legs nearly flying, and He’s got our right hand firmly grasped in His left. With His right hand, He is swinging a mighty sword. Over and over and over again. I can almost hear it slicing the air. As we trudge across that battlefield, unending armies rage against us but He parts them like the Red Sea, slaying one foe after another with His double-edged sword.

It reminds me of another verse I memorized several months ago out of Psalm 112:

His heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is secure. He will have no fear. In the end he will look in triumph on his foes.

Amen and Amen.

You cannot imagine how I rejoiced to see many of you name your Siesta Scripture memory as the biggest surprise on your gratitude list this Thanksgiving. There’s just nothing in this human experience like being a child of God through Jesus Christ, abiding in Him, and having His words abiding in you.

So blessed are we, Siestas!!

Hold on tight to the hand of Jesus. This is a war we’re in.

My Sweet Siestas,

It’s a little after 7:00 PM on Thanksgiving evening and it’s just me and my best little buddy, Star. WHEW! We had a great celebration today that started with a bang. I had an abbreviated quiet time out on the back porch (it’s gorgeous and cool in Houston right now) then hit the kitchen tile running. I baked a ham, pulled it out of the oven and glazed it, put the turkey in the oven, and started setting tables. Everything becomes a table for holiday meals at the Moore house. Melissa and Colin rolled out of bed early and helped me get everything ready. She made the most incredible broccoli rice casserole. You’d think that dish would take the place of a green bean casserole but not in my family. They would be aghast. Amanda also came over early and brought that incredible pumpkin dessert. I made my usual Texas Sheetcake. It’s a family tradition. Curtis lagged behind another hour with Jackson and Annabeth so Amanda would just be free to help before all the company hit the house. My sons-in-law are the best.

My mom would have been super proud of my cornbread dressing again this year. It wasn’t my absolute best but it was really great. Keith’s parents, one of his sisters (the other lives in Japan), her two fine boys, one of my sisters and her two fine boys, the Joneses, Fitzpatricks, Keith and I all crowded in this very familiar abode of 25 years. So many memories here.

It was such a sweet day. We gave thanks to God, ate, all talked at the same time, laughed, and ate some more. The Fitzpatricks left the earliest because Colin’s parents, Joe and Jude Ann, live in our area, too, and they didn’t want to miss that celebration either. The two of them will probably gobble in their sleep. I remember those days really well because, when Keith and I were young, our parents also lived in the same town. We didn’t want to miss out on either family and would have gotten in the biggest fight if the other dared suggest otherwise.

Keith and one of his nephews headed for deer country by mid afternoon. (I told you he would. Has for 25 years. Uh, make that 30 but who’s counting?) His other nephew headed to the Texas A&M/Texas game. One by one all the other company left as well. My sister and I hadn’t seen each other in way too long so we hugged and hugged before she and her boys pulled out of the driveway.

Curtis and Amanda would not leave me here by myself until they’d cleaned the entire kitchen and even vacuumed my floor. I was astonished. I’ve had a dern herniated disk – the MRI said a “large” one – and, boy, has it ever hurt. I have never been a weakling or a person who preferred to be waited on so it’s really been hard for me to sit back and let people do certain things for me. This back thing has been so painful, though, that it has forced some sizable limitations. I’ve been so annoyed with it. That does NOT include putting down Annabeth – she’s within my weight limit, that tiny thing – although I have had to tell Jackson that Bibby can’t carry him for a few weeks. He dearly loves for Bibby to carry him.

After watching CJ and AJ whip my house back into shape, I packed up enough leftovers for them to have for supper when they got home and I walked them to their cars with their sleepy babies. Then, I came back inside, got down on my face and thanked God for my family, fixed me a plate of leftovers and savored every bite in front of the television. Have you ever noticed that you can’t really relax and taste the food as well when you’re the hostess? But afterward, you can relish every single crumb all by yourself and say, “Not bad, woman. Not bad at all.”

Well, Lis just called me and she’s on her way home so I better sign off. She’s dying for some of her mother’s leftovers. Can you believe it? She’ll eat then we’ll have some hot tea, put our aching feet in some hot soapy water, and talk all about today. Tomorrow we’ll do absolutely NOTHING. And I can hardly wait. I’m closing in on the last few chapters of a really great Christian fiction novel. Yep, tomorrow’s the day. Monday will come all too fast.

I am so thankful for each one of you. So grateful to our merciful God for the privilege to serve people like you. So thankful for my family. For my salvation. For JESUS. I thought it would be so rich to ask you to share one thing that you’re thankful for this year THAT YOU NEVER DREAMED YOU’D BE THANKFUL FOR. In other words, what has caught your grateful heart by surprise this year?

I love you. Happy Thanksgiving, my dear, dear fellow sojourners.

Hey, Darling Siestas! I have some really fun news! Remember last year when I began leaking to you that God was pounding a passion in my heart to see Him free women from the epidemic insecurity our culture keeps whipping up? That passion turned into a women’s survey right here on this blog where more than 950 of you lavishly and thoughtfully participated. It then turned into a men’s survey where over 150 guys were willing to offer priceless insight into their own insecurities AND what they perceived to be the most obvious insecurities of women. (That part was especially fascinating, by the way.) That continuing passion went on to become one chapter, then two, then three, then ten, then eighteen that spanned over the course of one of the most interesting years of my life. God went out of His way to trip every single insecurity switch I had and to make the pursuit so personal to me that I’d be willing to do virtually anything for freedom. This became the result:

(If you’re wondering why it has to have my big ole face on the cover, those kinds of things aren’t my idea. In messages like this one – and Get Out of That Pit – publishers often feel like a friendly face gives some familiarity to an unfamiliar message and takes some of the intimidation out of a hard subject.)

The book will hit the shelves on February 2, 2010. The reason I’m so happy to share it with you on the blog is because, Siestas, YOU HELPED ME WRITE THIS ONE! You are all over it. You made such a profound contribution that you are the very first ones mentioned on a lengthy gratitude page. Your reaction to the subject matter was so decisive that God used it to stir up the courage in me to do the research and go to the hard work a project like this demands. If I would have concluded that insecurity was just an issue to a handful of women like me, I wouldn’t have bothered with a book. I would have settled for a small group or dealt with it by myself with God as I have a few other less public and pervasive things. Instead, I knew from you that the problem was tremendously widespread and carried titanic repercussions. I knew from you that I wasn’t just imagining it to be the number one issue I saw among women across our country and across professions and ethnic backgrounds, and despite marital status or age. The research that followed the surveys only proved the point first made by you.

Since you were such a huge part of this process, I want to do something special and, God willing and ever-present, something healing here in our community. The vision on my heart is for us to go through the book together when it comes out. We will give everyone seven to ten days to acquire a copy then we will launch with a sign-up (first name and city, just to see who’s participating) and begin weekly reading assignments. We’ll read two to three chapters a week, then I’ll pitch out a couple of discussion questions per week that you’ll actually answer here through a comment on the blog. I’ll explain all of this in greater detail in January but I hope this will whet your appetite like the thought has mine. Even if you prefer to read the book in one week’s time, you can still review it as we go through it together and participate in our discussions.

Of course, just like the Siesta Scripture Memory Team and Siesta Summer Bible Study, this won’t be exclusive. There will still be other things on the blog so there’s no pressure to participate nor will it hog every bit of blog space for months. It will strictly be offered to anyone here in Siestaville who wants to take part.

We will wrap up our reading and discussion a week or so before the scheduled So Long Insecurity CCN Simulcast on Saturday, April 24, 2010. I’ll make sure we have proper closure here on the blog for our journey through the book but, for those who are able to find a location and participate in the simulcast, we’ll be able to end with an extra bang. I’ll also be able to use some of the insight I gained from you at that event. You are priceless to me. If you’re interested in finding out if there’s a simulcast location in your area or if you think your church might be interested in becoming a host site, jump on www.ccn.tv/bethlive for information. (Keep in mind that there’s plenty of time for new host locations to pop up in the coming weeks so, if you don’t see something in your area right now, give it a month or so before you conclude you have no place to attend.)

My goal here is ministry. Not book sales. Not simulcast tickets. I have certainly had impure motives in my life and impure actions in my past but God has graciously and mercifully guarded a sincere heart toward ministry for these many years. My life passion is to see people discover the power and freedom of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World, and the life breath of His Word. My particular concern is women and we women have one whopping case of insecurity. It’s time we dealt with it.

Let me throw out one more detail and we’ll have as much information on this subject as you need for a while. When God began to formulate the plan in my mind to go through the book together as a blog community, I began to wrestle with the matter of finances for some of you and whether or not everybody who wanted to participate could afford a hardback book. I talked to Sabrina, my coworker, about it and that’s when the idea for a Christmas gift certificate hit us. This way, when your family members or friends ask for a few hints of what you want for Christmas, if you’d like a book, you might jot a gift certificate for it on your wish list. Just when we got ready to launch our LPM rendition of a gift certificate for SLI, we learned that CCN (the company hosting the simulcast) was totally on top of things and had beat us to the punch. SO, here is the link:

www.bethmoorechristmas.com

(If I see another “bethmoore” anywhere, I may throw up. Sorry about all of that. Not my doing but keep in mind that publishers or hosts are trying to make it easy to find or identify. Thank you for your patience.)

NOW, here’s the deal. If you really want a book so that you can journey through it with your sisters here on the blog but you absolutely cannot afford it and do not have a single person who’d get you a gift certificate for it for Christmas (or after Christmas), Girlfriend, I will personally buy you one. Gulp. That’s how serious I am about making sure everyone in our community gets one that wants one. After all other alternatives have run dry, just write an email to the ministry and let us know. Again, this is specifically and only for those who want to go through the book together as part of our blog community beginning in February 2010. If you’re reading this in 2015, the offer isn’t still good. But I love you.

This is one of only a handful of things God has ever led me to do that has some seeker-friendly possibilities. With this project behind me, I’ll go right back to my first love, in-depth Bible study. I felt as led of the Spirit to write this message as I did the curriculum for Daniel or for Esther or most of the rest of the studies. We have a serious problem and God has serious solutions. A whole lot of women out there in that big lost world struggle with insecurity. There is a very clear invitation to know Him in the book and my prayer – not my manipulation or hidden motive – is that they’ll discover what all of us so desperately need to find:

“The Lord is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap.” Proverbs 3:26 NLT

I love you so dearly, Siestas.

Your Mama.

*A note from Amanda*
Blogger is currently experiencing a comment publishing glitch. We can read most of your comments but we’re having a lot of trouble publishing them. We hope this will be resolved soon. Until then, there will be an unusual delay before you see your comments posted. We’re so sorry, Siestas! We love hearing from you!

Hey, my dear Siestas!

How is my favorite blog community doing this fine holiday season? It’s Monday and LPM is closed all week so we can all have an extended Sabbath and spend a little extra time with our families. The staff works so hard through the Fall semester of Bible study that, by Thanksgiving, everybody could use a rest in the worst – and best (we love what we get to do!) – way.

Melissa’s already here and her darling Colin will join us tomorrow. Our men let us have a special weekend just with the girls so she, Amanda, and I have already had the best time together. We laughed until, honestly, I pulled a muscle in my stomach. I’m not even kidding. I can’t remember ever doing that in my entire life but we got that kind of tickled when you think you’re going to throw up or your face is going to freeze in a contortion. The stupid part of it is that I can’t even remember exactly what originally got us tickled but it was in a restaurant and I doubt anybody was blessed but us.

We will have a big four-generation family Thanksgiving here at my house with several new guests followed by a tad quieter Christmas. Keith, the Joneses and I will all head to Atlanta soon after for the Passion conference. That’s one reason Thanksgiving will be our big holiday blow out this season instead of Christmas. Amanda is going to bring this incredible pumpkin dessert that you serve warm and I’m sure Melissa will fix something really good. She hasn’t committed yet. I’ll do the traditional Thanksgiving meal. As poor a cook as I am, generally speaking, I make a really good meat-and-potatoes meal. I can make cornbread dressing nearly as well as my mom did and Amanda lives for it every year. I have this small window of opportunity to be built up for my cooking so I relish the fleeting moment.

I can’t wait for the big family to see Annabeth. Jackson has always been a huge crowd pleaser and, boy, is his sister trying to hog some of his spotlight. She is at that stage where she is doing something new constantly. Crawling all over the place. Starting to say a few words (we should have “Bibby” mastered by Christmas), waving, clapping her hands, laughing her head off, and giving her big brother a run for his money over his toys. My firstborn is about to have her hands FULL because her baby is going completely mobile. I think God makes toddlers extra cute so their parents can bear the trouble.

OK, I’m anxious to hear what you guys are doing for Thanksgiving, even if it’s just regular stuff. That’s the best kind of holiday if you ask me. So here are three questions so we can see what everybody’s up to this week:

1. Where will you be for Thanksgiving and with whom?

2. Do you guys eat turkey and dressing or do you have a different tradition? If so, what is it?

3. What’s your one favorite dish at Thanksgiving?

Like you, we Moores, Joneses, and Fitzpatricks have so much to be thankful for. God has been unreasonably good to us but, of course, that’s the nature of divine grace. We have had a really challenging 2009 in several respects that we haven’t necessarily been free to share on such a public format but God has been active and powerful in our midst. Several of those situations are ongoing so you won’t waste a prayer on us right now. I will look forward to sharing about some of the things we’re walking through as we get to the other side and have some of the clarity and revelation that retrospect brings. Meanwhile, we need God enough for His Word to be such life and breath to us that we’re not taking a lot of spiritual time off…and that’s the way I like it. Many wonderful things have happened, too. I’m sure our lives are much like yours: a wild concoction of joy, laughter, pain, and bewilderment. Our one true unmovable thing is Jesus. He continues to be the uncontested center of life around here. Even when we waver, wander, or stumble, He remains steadfast and faithful.

Later in the week I’ll give you a chance to let us know what this holiday season finds you most grateful for. I’ll look so forward to that.

Amanda, Melissa and I are honored to serve you. You are loved here. Let me know what you guys are up to!

Good morning, my lovely Scripture-memorizing Siestas! Happy Lord’s Day! Please see the addendum at the bottom of the previous post for why this turned out to be a much brighter morning than I anticipated last night. Yes, if I’m anything at all, I am mature. The very antithesis of superficial.

When our fifths or fifteenths fall on Sunday mornings, I can’t write an epistle to you because I need to hop in the shower and get ready for church. However, I am super excited about the glorious light at the end of our 2009 Scripture memory tunnel and having 22 solid gold verses in our spirals!! Yahooooooooooooo-Jah!!

Here is mine for this round. I’ll give it to you and then tell you why it particularly speaks to my heart:

“Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my door.” Proverbs 8:34 NAS

I’ve been thinking here recently how wise our God is. He is far too onto us and our severe cases of Spiritual ADD to often give us a sense of what is going to happen in a particular situation. He knows good and well that, if He’d just tell us how a temporal challenge is going to turn out, we’ll take that answer, thank Him so much, and go on with living and give a rare nod His direction. He wants us to desire His attentiveness more than His answer.

Scripture describes God’s Word like a lamp to our feet. In other words, God normally – and wisely – shines just enough clear light to help us take the very next step when it’s time. Imagine how far you could hold a lamp out in front of you as you walk a dim path in the forest. That’s what you’re promised as the most normal experience in your believing journey. Don’t get me wrong. He tells us volumes about how things will ultimately turn out but, much of the time in our temporal challenges, He simply asks us to trust Him and let Him sustain us and lead us one day at a time. “Give us this day our daily bread.”

I love Proverbs 8:34 because it describes the blessed person who has her ear pressed against the door of Heaven. The blessed person who watches daily at His gates. She is the woman who will hear, not only direction for the next step when the time comes but, priceless treasures, promises and truths of all sorts because she’s not so distracted with her own answer that she misses the marvels of other revelations.

God is so wise.

In my “Through the Bible in a Year” with The Message, I also came upon a well-loved verse, Jeremiah 29:11, that I thought many of you might savor in Eugene Peterson’s translation. Some of you who don’t know what to memorize this time around might see it as the perfect selection. Here it goes:

“I know what I am doing. I have it all planned out – plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” Jeremiah 29:11 The Msg

Isn’t that fantastic?

You are a pleasure to serve, my darling Siestas. Fight the good fight! Keep the faith! Let’s finish this race well.

Your Siesta Mama loves you.

OK, let’s hear yours!

CRITICAL UPDATE: It is 8:45 the next morning and my man has saved the day! Yes, I said “Saved the day!” He said he spent most of the night tossing and turning about how he could out-smart my coffee machine and get it to work…at least a few more days. Up the man popped this morning and flew to the cabinet where he found his oversized toothpicks. (They look like something Gulliver would have used to get the pot roast from last week dislodged from between his teeth.) Keith stuck the toothpick into the steamer in hopes that it would plug it up, make it stop blowing steam, and signal the other part of the machine to work. AND IT DID!!! IT DID!!!!!!!! Even after I’d humbly prepared 8 cups in my new pot! (I’d decided to be more mature and thankful this morning. Usually a night does the trick on my petty attitude especially if I think God is getting annoyed.) Please see brilliant demonstration below. Give special attention to the toothpick in the steamer. It’s leaking a tad so next we will be wrapping a little duct tape around it. Thank you for caring, Siestas! I just knew you would. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I have recorded the drama below the updated picture.

The original post. A night that will live in infamy:

Seven years ago this Christmas, my man surprised me with one of the most extravagant gifts of our entire marriage. This Jura Capresso Coffee Maker from Williams Sonoma:

If he’s having an on year, he tends to splurge at Christmas time because of the inordinate amount of time he spends at the deer lease from early November to late January. These spurgings are his way of saying, “I’m sorry I’ve been gone so long, please don’t divorce me before deer season ends, and can I go one more time for just a few more weeks? I promise I’ll be the happiest husband you’ve ever had when I get home.” The year of this particular gift he stayed in my good graces all the way till the first of February (when I’ve ordinarily ceased speaking to him) because I’d never fallen more in love with an inanimate object in all my life. This, my dear Siestas, has been my best friend for 7 beautiful years. She makes the perfect cup of coffee every single time. Perfect aroma. Perfect weight. Perfect crema. Here she is with my very favorite cup and saucer:

Today she passed. Just like that. She passed. There I was in my jammies on an exquisite Saturday morning at home with Autumn leaves blowing from the trees and birds singing and circling my feeders. I was chomping at the bit to sit on the back porch with that first cup of the morning and take it all in. And for the first time in seven glorious years, she just couldn’t deliver. All she could do was sit there and blow steam. Literally. I nearly went into a state of shock. Keith threw on his jeans as fast as he could, grabbed the keys to his Ford Super Duty, and guided me to the truck still in my jammies. You know where we went. Where else could we possibly go?? Of course, we did the drive thru. My knees were too weak to walk in.

I survived the morning on a grande nonfat dry cappuccino and pulled myself together to spend a great day at the Nutcracker Market with Amanda. Since there was also a Starbucks there on the premises, I had all a soul could stand and didn’t think about my morning mishap until I got home that evening. You know how a mind tries to block out the unthinkable. Keith had also promised me we’d pack up the coffee maker and send it off to be repaired and I’d found considerable comfort in it. A brief separation. That’s all.

When I walked in the door this evening, all the sudden the realization hit me.

“Oh, no!”

Keith: “What, Honey? Oh, no, what?”

“My coffee maker!”

Keith: “You didn’t remember to get us a back up?”

“NO!”

Keith: “Bummer. It could be a rough morning.”

Mind you, it was late by now. I grabbed my keys and ran back to the car and headed to our only nearby store – a Walgreen’s – to find a Black and Decker or Mr. Coffee or SOMETHING to tie us over until we could find something more suitable to tie us over in the long run. Maybe I’d have my best friend back by Christmas. I looked all over the drugstore. My pulse sped up. I scurried to check out and asked in the nicest but fastest way if I could have some assistance.

“My coffee maker passed and I need something for the next few days until we can find a better back up. I can’t find a coffee pot anywhere in the store! Do you guys have one?”

Sales clerk: “Absolutely! Let me help you find it.”

So relieved. But that word “it” bothered me a tad. Surely she didn’t mean “it” as in “one.”

Yep. That’s what she meant, all right. Here it is:

I nearly had to be helped to the car. Sometimes we have to make hard choices. Other times we just don’t have any choice at all. This is what I’ll be drinking my coffee out of in the morning.

Not even a Mr. Danged Coffee!! Who ever heard of this brand? Oh, I know! I know! It has no eternal significance. It’s totally trivial and pitifully temporal but I’ve been waking up to fresh grinding beans for seven solid years and many of those mornings I’ve taken that first hot sip and said out loud, “Thank You, God.” And maybe I’m making something up but I’ve wanted to believe He was up there saying, “You’re welcome.” Do you remember about a month ago when I told you guys I’d given up something for over a month? My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw so many of you suggest that I’d given up coffee. Do you honestly think I would have waited a month before telling you that? Seriously? I would have called for an emergency support group.

OK, I’ll go get a grip. In no time at all, our old girl will be repaired and we’ll be back in business. Until then, mornings could be tender around the Moore home.

Scripture Memory Team, we only have four more verses and we’ve made it! I am so happy! We’ve come so far that it’s even time to register for our Siesta Scripture Memory Team Celebration in January. I hope so many of you can come! Please see the coinciding post for registration. It’s free of charge but we do need to know how many Siestas to look forward to having. We are beside ourselves with joy.

Now, onto our present purposes: our next verses!

I cannot overestimate how much God has used the verses in my spiral this year to speak strength and faith into my journey. I was laying in bed early this morning reflecting on a present mountain that I would love to see “move from here to there” (Matthew 17:21) and said aloud to God, “I need a verse! Lord, give me a verse to claim over this situation!” My mind immediately began to flip through my spiral and I felt like He was reminding me that He’d given me 20 of them thus far to equip me for this very situation. And, as we walk together and new needs arise, He’ll be faithful to supply me with more. I don’t know about you but sometimes I ask God for a word He’s already given clearly to me. I love the thought that, when we live a life with Christ in His Word, He is constantly equipping us for the future (2 Tim. 3:16,17).

This time around, I’m drawn again to a portion out of Psalm 119, an unparalleled chapter of Scripture for anyone who loves the Word or wants to. I’ve checked several versions and I think it resonates with me most out of the NIV. It’s a portion that asks Him to simply accomplish what He’s already promised. I love that. Based on what I shared with you in the previous paragraph, it couldn’t be more appropriate. Here it is:

Fulfill Your promise to Your servant, so that You may be feared. Take away the disgrace I dread, for Your laws are good. How I long for Your precepts! Preserve my life in your righteousness. Psalm 119:38-40 NIV

And, just for good measure, in case what spoke most clearly to you in this post was the reference to moving a mountain, here’s that portion:

I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. Matthew 17:21 NIV

No, I can’t explain everything that statement means to us living in this era, under this covenant, and in this insane world but I find this most stirring: it’s in the same chapter as the Transfiguration and I don’t doubt for a moment that the mountain Christ pointed to when He made the statement was the very mountain where three disciples had seen Him transfigured. So here’s what I get out of it: Ask Jesus to give you the faith to command your mountain (your huge obstacle) to move then do it with all your might. If it doesn’t budge, climb it and see Him transfigured.

Stay with it, Siestas! We’re getting closer and closer to the finish line!

You are loved and prioritized here at Living Proof.

Well, Siestas, we finally got Melissa to Houston safe and sound after much traveling drama and, to a great extent, have you to thank for that since you prayed her through that storm. If you didn’t catch the previous blog (like you don’t have more to do than stay up on our trivia), this is Lis’s first trip to Houston since the fourth of July and we could not wait to get our hands on her. The morning she departed Atlanta, a terrible thunder storm hit our fair city and, after a long delay, she was diverted to New Orleans. We finally got that child home after substantial travail. We are trying not to complain about the recent bad weather in Houston because it’s nearly November, which, to those of us in the Gulf Coast, means the end of hurricane season and we have been spared even from serious threats this entire year. After Ike left Houston in the dark for days on end exactly a year ago, we have much to be thankful for.

So, our girl is home! We wish we were getting to play the whole five days of her visit but it’s reading week (Fall break with homework) for Columbia students and she has a big paper that must be emailed to a prof on Friday. (THEN, she, AJ and I get to play like nobody’s business for one full day.) I also had to prepare for Bible study last night (which I blew, btw. Needed one more day to have studied so badly but just didn’t have it. Had been in a taping over the weekend. Too much work. That’s another story. The next two months are much better, praise God. I loved last night’s material. Just didn’t present it clearly.)

Melissa needed me to get her up early this morning so she could get back to work at our breakfast room table (which also serves as our dining room table since we have no dining room and I’m the better for it). (As you can tell, I lack a little focus this morning. It was this very personality that tried to teach Revelation 12 last night. God love my class.) She went straight to work in her pajamas. Keith (who loves his girls so much he can’t stand it) came and stood over the table with all her study paraphernalia and stared at her. He said, “How did this happen?” To which she said, “Dad, you never have liked me as well since I gave up interior design for Bible exegesis.” We all nodded and laughed. It’s nearly the truth. Amanda had a very deep spirit from childhood and the handwriting was on the wall early that she’d probably end up in some kind of ministry work. Keith held out that at least it could be two against two. You ask me why it has to be “against.” I’m not sure. You’ll have to ask Keith that. He’s a dyed-in-the-wool…hmmmm…I can’t quite think of the right word for it. Religious bucking bronco. That’s it. He’d just like to occasionally have somebody who’d sit around and use bathroom language with him. (Yes, he knows I’m writing this and he is laughing. I’m sorry. This is our family. It nauseates us to have to act like we’re people we’re not. We are works in progress and every once in a while wonder if we’re making any.)

You also need to know that Keith keeps a big chip on his shoulder about his wife. Do NOT let him ever hear you say a bad word about me. He will never get over it. I have long since forgiven and been forgiven by numerous people who hurt my feelings over the last thirty years but Keith has never forgiven a single one of them. If you want him on your warpath, just go right ahead and be mean to his wife. What does all this have to do with Melissa and her studies? Keith adores her! She and Amanda are his princesses. But make no mistake. I am his queen. He does not want Melissa to know or study one single thing his wife does not know or has not studied. Needless to say, in formal education, she tutors me. In plain living and daily ministry, I tutor her. It works beautifully for us. But not for Keith.

He looked at all her paraphernalia this morning and said, “What is that thing?” (It’s one of those book holders that keeps your book propped up and open.) Lis stared at him a second because it was pretty obvious what it was. Then he blurted out, “I’m getting your mother one of those!” To which she said, “She already has one. At work. Sitting right by her computer. In fact, it’s a fancy one.” He looked over at me and I nodded.

Pause.

By this point he was disgusted with both of us.

Then, he pulled a vintage Keith:

“Do you think they make one of those contraptions that attach to a toilet for other people that like to read?”

(In the last one you can see a Scripture cup from a set of dishes one of you gave me. Ordinarily, I might have thought Scripture dishes were a little over the top but I actually love these. Each of the eight sets has a different phrase and reference on them. The big joke between Melissa and me is that if I don’t think she took time for her quiet time, I give her a cup of coffee in one of these mugs and ask her to take a few moments and meditate. Yes, it’s a freak show.)