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It’s That Time of Year

May 29th, 2007 Amanda
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Posted in Amanda, family, Marriage

When I married a student minister and speaker, my wedding vows included, “I promise to love you, cherish you, be faithful to you, and follow you to as many camps as I can humanly take as long as we both shall live.” I think the second summer of our marriage we were only home for three weeks. This summer, our sixth married summer, will be a little less hectic. I’m thankful for that since I have no idea what I’m getting into by taking a toddler to camp. Tomorrow is the big day when we’ll load everything but the kitchen sink into our car and head off to our first one of the summer. We’re so excited!

Since your one and only comment moderator is going to be off in the piney woods of East Texas, presumably without Internet access, the blog is going to be a little quiet this week. My mom might post, but you won’t see any of your comments until I get back into town. My parents will be at a Life Today taping at the end of the week, so Bethie might be a little out of touch too.

For our Boone girls who are eager to get their commissioning, keep an eye on the LifeWay event recap page. They should post it soon. I’ve provided a new link to it on the left side of the page for future reference. They have recaps for a ton of events, so if you’ve attended one in the last two years you might see yours listed.

Yesterday, Memorial Day, I thought a lot about my grandpa. If he had still been alive I would have written him a little email or left him a message thanking him for serving our country so bravely. Last month I took a picture of the shadow box we have that contains his medals.

If you look very closely at his picture within it, you can see the hole in his cheek where he had been shot. Part of the bullet traveled down to his heart and remained there for the rest of his life. He had that picture taken to mail to my grandma so that she would know what he was going to look like from then on. Fortunately, the doctors were later able to patch it up better so that you couldn’t see the hole.

And this is a picture I forgot to post of my grandpa with that bunny I told you about in this post. One of the bunnies is a decoy and the other is the famous Thumper.

See you next week!

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Older Sisters and Milestones

May 8th, 2007 Beth
Tags: Posted in Beth, family, Melissa

Hey, My Darlin’ Sistas! Thank you so much for celebrating Melissa’s graduation with us! You are such a blast to do this God-life with! We want you to know that we celebrate God’s glorious work in your family, too. When Amanda and I read your comments, we react over your news just like you react over ours. We wish we could write back personally to every single one. Before I get to what I want to share with you (next paragraph), I need you to humor me for a second while I say something about Melissa’s big sister. Something that Melissa’s big sister is going to want to snap me in half about but I’ll take that chance. Melissa is all of those things Amanda said she is and in addition, she honestly is one of the funniest people on earth. But she will tell you what I will tell you. She has the most incredible big sister on earth. (Amanda, just don’t read the next few sentences.) Amanda Jones is one of the most caring, loving people I’ve ever known. One of the best friends to people I have ever seen. So tender hearted that she would cry with you in an instant. So witty that Melissa and I have to order an extra shot in our Starbucks just to keep up with her quick mind. With your loving patience, I will only take this moment to boast in Christ’s gift to me in these two young women but, in light of what Amanda wrote about her sister, I cannot let the gap go unfilled. Each of my daughters has become indispensable to me in ministry, just as God in His great mercy planned it. (Melissa will soon join Amanda and me at LPM. It is their heritage.) Melissa’s education and experience in the academic world has already (even in the last two Bible studies) had a huge impact on my research and the resources I can access for study. She also has well-surpassed me in formal language studies so I now have a resident assistant who can aid me tremendously in Hebrew and Greek. Melissa will undoubtedly be my greatest help on the research side of what God has called me to do. Amanda, on the other hand, is my greatest help on the other side of any project. I never write anything she does not proofread for me and reflect upon with me. Just as I trust Melissa’s help on the front side of a project, I trust Amanda like no one on earth on the back side. She is my number one editor and my absolutely uncontested number one encourager. They are equally amazing young women – just as I can tell so many of you blog sistas are.

Now, here’s what I want to say: God has been so lavish – so scandalous, for crying out loud – in His outpourings of grace and mercy upon our family. None of us Moores or Jones are the least bit confused about how on earth we arrived at this or any other milestone in one celebratory piece. Jesus. J-E-S-U-S. And He will be the only way we make it to any other. At staff prayer time yesterday, my beloved coworkers were about to burst with enthusiasm to hear every detail about our weekend and Melissa’s graduation. They were so proud for us. I told them something I want to tell you. The beauty of finding yourself at a milestone of any meaningful kind in life is not that the journey there was so pretty. Or so successful. In many ways, the mysterious beauty of the whole thing is that the “getting there” was so awkward, wobbly, inconsistent, and even down-right messy that most of the time, you thought you’d never make it. What makes life on this frightful sod so exquisite is God’s merciful propensity to perform divine tasks amid deeply flawed people. To paint intricate colors on a torn-up canvass. We can recognize a miracle when we see one because we know that, for God to use us, redeem us, or complete one stinkin’ thing of value in us, it would have taken nothing less. That’s what He calls getting the glory.

I don’t know if you happen to be under heaps of discouragement right now over how messy your trip to any place good – even any place “God” – tends to be but I’d like to clear something up. No one does this life-thing perfectly. NO ONE. Not your biggest hero. Your favorite pastor. And certainly not your Bible teacher. At least not this one. No one’s kids grow up perfectly. No one’s marriage is one hundred per cent healthy. No one’s character is beyond wrecking. I don’t care how people around you seem, they do not have it together. At least no one I have met, been around, or known anything about. I know plenty of God-seeking, authentic followers of Jesus Christ with humble hearts and sacrificial service…but not even they are perfect. And if they were, I probably wouldn’t want to have coffee with them. (They wouldn’t drink caffeine anyway.) Don’t misunderstand me. Everyone of us is called to live in victory and authenticity. You’ll never get permission from me to be hypocritical and I never want that permission from you. We must be what we seem. I’m just suggesting we quit trying to “seem” perfect. Because we’re not…and sooner or later people are going to find out. I’d just as soon tell them in advance.

The four Moores have a TON to be thankful for. But not because we’ve done it so well. Because Jesus has. And because He has graced us when we didn’t deserve another chance and held us when we squirmed to get loose.

“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love,
Here’s my heart. O take and seal it; Seal it for thy courts above.

Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wand’ring from the fold of God,
He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed his precious blood,
/Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love./
O to grace how great a debtor Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let they goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to thee”

(Lyrics to the hymn “Come Thou Fount”)

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Please Hang With Us For One More, Single Sistas!

April 11th, 2007 Beth
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Posted in Beth, family, Marriage

If you darlin’ single sistas will hang in here with us for one more blatantly family-oriented entry, I promise we won’t make a habit of doing so many in a row. You mean so much to me and I make a point of keeping you on my mind when I get to serve the Word. It’s just that I’ve been speaking on marriage and parenting here at the end of my Tuesday night series out of Proverbs. So, that’s what’s been on my mind. You may be relieved to know that last night was my final session on family with one general session left for the series. (Disclaimer: We’ll always have stuff about Jackson on the ministry blog because he’s the official little prince of LPM!)

Last night at Bible study I taught on being a mom and my mind has been swimming with memories of my girls when they were little bitty. As God would have it, a few weeks ago I happened on an old prayer journal from 1982 when Amanda was barely three and Melissa was a newborn. Those of you in the throes will not be surprised to hear that it was filled with unsophisticated requests for things like more sleep, for Melissa to adjust better to the church nursery, for financial help as I got to stay home with the girls, for Amanda not to catch Melissa’s cold, for Keith and I to get along better, for him to want to go to church, for him to stop cussing (I hope you’re smiling because I am), for him to…and for him to…and for him to…and for him to…and for us to get to go to a marriage conference, for me to apply what I was learning in my first Dr. Dobson book, for me to have a better disposition (I must have used the word ten times that I could find), and for me to make minutes for my quiet time because “my day goes so much better when I do.” Sound familiar?

(My personal favorite was when I asked God for forgiveness for trying to steal some of His glory for being so prideful about the way I played handbells in the handbell choir. I laughed until I cried. Then again, it has nothing to do with children but you surely would not have wanted to miss that, would you?)

Even before I found the journal, I’d begun reliving so many of those experiences as I watched Amanda with her young family. One of the things I enjoy so much as I relive those priceless and challenging days in my memory is Amanda telling me all about her fellow mom-friends and the babies they share. Second only to seeing pictures of Jackson in his Easter outfit, I died to see pictures of Ella and Ava, his best girl buddies who were born within days of him. The pictures did not disappoint. I hang on every word Amanda says as she tells me about this mom and this baby, that mom and that baby.

I can’t overemphasize how rich my fellow moms made my parenting experience. Particularly one: my best friend, Johnnie. She had two boys and I had two girls and we dragged those four kids to every McDonalds in Houston just so we could finish a sentence. We taught Mother’s Day Out together because we were both broke. We home-made family Christmas gifts because we didn’t have the money to buy them. (We spent what money we had on our babies.) I hate arts and crafts to this day and still have burns from glue guns. That’s not all. I’d decide I’d had it with Keith and I’d leave him in the morning sometimes, go to her house with my unsuspecting girls, drink a cup of coffee, get in a better mood, and be back home by the time he got off work. He’d walk in the door, ask about my day, and I’d say under my breath, “I left you today. That’s how my day was.” Hee hee. Somehow I’d feel some satisfaction with that, repent, then fall in love with him all over again. It was his looks.

My point is, Moms, you’ve got to have you a support group of other moms. Many who are peers. Others who are just ahead of you. They will be used of God to get you through everything from the mundane to the morose. As I told my class last night, our ancient female ancestors walked to wells and rivers together to get water. Our great grandmothers quilted and canned together. We, instead, are imprisoned in our minivans driving breakneck speed, thinking a few maniacal minutes on a cell phone can replace a regular play-date where believing moms can take some time to laugh and share. I don’t think it’s a luxury. It’s a necessity for mental (and often spiritual!) health! Because, you see,…

*No day full of dirty diapers has overtaken you but such as is common to moms.
*No tantrum has overtaken you but such as is common to moms.
*No “but, Mom, everybody is going!” has overtaken you but such as is common to moms.
*No “You hate me!” has overtaken you but such as is common to moms.
*No child’s first love has overtaken you but such as is common to moms.
*No child’s first broken heart has overtaken you but such as is common to moms.
*No broken curfew has overtaken you but such as is common to moms.
*No goodbye has overtaken you but such as is common to moms.

About five years ago, my buddy Johnnie’s oldest son, Jeremy, was just about to vow his life to the woman of his dreams. The music was already playing in the sanctuary and we were only about three minutes from the service starting. We looked around and suddenly realized that it was just the six of us left in the choir room: Johnnie, her two boys, and me and my two girls. The four kids were all beautiful, God-loving young adults. Johnnie and I had lived through it and they’d lived through us. Wow, Lord. The groomsmen had already gone to their posts and it was just about time for Jeremy to take his place through a sanctuary door down a long hall. Had we tried to manipulate a few moments alone between the six of us, we could never have pulled it off. It was a gift from God. The completely unplanned moment was not lost on a single one of us six and even now I could cry about the tenderness of it. Without anyone saying a word, Jeremy held out his arm for one of my daughters. Jordan held out his arm for the other. And Johnnie held out her arm to me. Arm in arm, three familiar pairs of us walked the long hall, laughing, and nearly crying, making our way toward the finish line of young family-hood just like we began: together. Those kinds of relationships don’t take place in five minutes. They take years. Crises. Prayers. Divine favor. Your fellow moms are some of the most priceless treasures God has bestowed on you to cheer you on your way to the finish line of young parenting. Grab some arms and do it together.

I love you.

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A Look Back

December 27th, 2006 Amanda
Tags: Posted in family

I just had one of the best Christmases of my whole life. Not perfect, mind you. The Moores are thoroughly imperfect people with a lot of feelings we feel free to share but, thankfully, we’re crazy about each other and crazier about Jesus – which helps tremendously when we’re just plain crazy. Did you get all that? I’d anticipated it as a very special – even once in a lifetime – Christmas because it was our first advent season with a grandchild. Jackson Curtis Jones is a ten month-old blue-eyed bundle of cackling energy on the constant move. Keith, Melissa, and I are drunk with love over the little guy. Amanda and Curt alternate Christmases between his parents in Missouri and our home in Houston and this – Jackson’s first – happened to be our year. I don’t make that remark smugly since I love his other grandmother so much. He’ll be even cuter next year under her tree.

In many ways having this darling grandchild has ushered in a whole new life. I have never experienced a more wonderful season of living. In other ways, I’ve reverted back to one I remember well when some of life’s greatest priorities were teething, immunizations, crawling, and pulling up. When God forbid we miss nap time. Having a baby in the family has made me so nostalgic about the baby girls I held in my own young, inexperienced arms years ago. The nostalgia led to the second reason this was one of my favorite all time Christmases.

About a month ago I crawled to the far side of the attic on a secret mission to retrieve my girls’ baby clothes. Keith was at the hunting lease and it was my first chance to throw myself into a task I’d been planning for weeks. My heart beat with anticipation as I carefully descended the ladder with lawn bags full of memories. With every tiny sleeper and smocked dress that tumbled on the kitchen table, I relived my daughters’ infancies. I washed every garment once and some of them twice. While I starched, ironed and folded them, I was suddenly a mom in my early twenties again, very unsure of my marriage and learning to parent one spell of colic at a time. I loved my baby girls so much. They brought out a desire in me to change, to grow, to be better at life. To know God and teach them to know Him. I laughed and cried with every tender memory and pondered how faithful God had been to such a messed up couple. When Amanda and Melissa would misbehave or fight like they hated each other, my mother always told me, “They’ll be the finest ladies.” And they are.

On Christmas morning, as my grandson squealed with glee from his exer-saucer, I presented his mom and his Aunt Lissy with shadow boxes of childhood memorabilia and long plastic containers each of their baby clothes. Life had come full circle. We have no idea what is ahead. Like all families, we will have sorrows and losses amid daily doses of dirty dishes and dog hair. But when a near-perfect family moment comes, I hope we always choose to take it. To stop long enough to feel it. That’s what I did this year.
-Beth

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