Hey, Darling Siestas! I hope you are well and sensing the Presence of Christ in your every day tasks. I have two quick and very different things to share with you:
First, I want to make sure you know that the last day to register for the Siesta Fiesta gathering is July 22nd, so it’s coming up really quickly. Mind you, this is not the last day to register for the Living Proof Live event in San Antonio. I’m only referring to our Siesta get-together.
*If you want to come but haven’t registered, please do! You can get more info and register by following this link.
*If you’re already registered but have realized you’re not going to be able to come after all, please let us know to cancel you for the Siesta gathering. We really need an accurate head-count to make the proper arrangements. Please email us at [email protected].
*My last request concerning the Siesta Fiesta is hard for me to say but it really needs to be said. Please help us keep the Siesta gathering strictly for the blog community. Please don’t sign up groups of women to come with you that don’t participate in our blog. Those are the people we want so much to come to the actual Living Proof Live event and can hardly wait to have them! Bring them on! Unbelievers and believers alike! Anybody and everybody! The Siesta Fiesta get-together, however, is meant to give you bloggers a chance to get to know one another face-to-face. It is being sponsored only for this blog community. Our purest intention is community and not exclusivity. We just want to have a little family reunion of sorts for the women that have gotten to know each other here. Thank you so much for understanding! Let’s keep our hearts pure about this from every side.
The second thing I want to share with you is pounding in my heart. I don’t have time to write it with my deadline coming up (by the way, your prayers are working! keep them up!) but it’s going to consume me if I don’t. I’m just going to take a very general, short stab at it and hope to feel the relief of getting it out there. My prompting for this word is not coming from the blog community. It’s coming from requests that have swamped our ministry office recently and that we have gladly and compassionately received. The common denominator has been the same: women just totally out of control and doing some really foolish things. I’ve been one of them so I recognize some of the symptoms. And the cries for help. And the misguided desires for the kind of empathy that pats them on the head and says, “Who could blame you? Go right ahead.” Because I love you so much, I want to share what the Holy Spirit is impressing on me in case it resonates. Listen here, Girls. If this shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it! Shake it off and know that it’s not for you. But, if it does, be courageous and respond in obedience to God. Let me remind you before I dive into this that God pulled me from the deepest possible pit of sin and no one has been more tightly clutched by strongholds than me. Not one bit of this comes to you from a proud or condemning heart. It comes strictly from love and concern and as one who could have used this word along the way. So here it goes.
Sometimes we just need to STOP IT. Just plain stop it. We don’t need to keep praying over it. We don’t need to keep deliberating it. We don’t need one last shot at it. We don’t need five more years of counseling over it. We flat need to stop it. Like, for instance,
*If we’re married and we’re flirting with somebody at work (calling it harmless), we need to stop it.
*And, Lord have mercy, if any of us are having affairs, we need to stop it NOW. With every second that goes by, the consequences are mounting. Please do not let the enemy trick you into thinking you’re getting away with it. You’re not. Don’t rationalize it. Don’t tell me what a jerk your husband is and how you’re finally in love for the first time. Get some fear of God and stop it.
*If we’re being a brat about something, we need to stop it.
*If we’re still punishing somebody for what they did to us, we need to stop it. Enough is enough. Let God deal with them.
*If we’re trying to do God’s job with somebody, we need to stop it.
No Scripture says it more succinctly and exactly than Isaiah 1:16b: “Stop doing wrong.” Hear the voice of God say, “I’ve warned you and warned you and warned you. STOP IT.”
I say this as a woman to whom sometimes a brief, “STOP IT NOW!” works better than anything. I love you so much and I want all of us to live in the full blessing of God that only obedience can invite. His will is for us, Siestas. Go with God on this or things are going to get really ugly. Take the warning and stop.
