(Drum Roll Please!)

According to our random drawing, the lucky winner is…Gail Denlinger! (Comment posted on March 15, 2012 at 6:40 am.)

Gail, if you would please email me at [email protected] with your mailing address, we will get this Bible in your hands as soon as possible. Congratulations, Sister! Y’all check back next week for another fun giveaway. Have a wonderful weekend!

Update: Comments are now closed. Ladies, y’all are SO incredibly fun. And might I add serious about your Bibles and Bible translations. Praise the Lord! Check back tomorrow morning for the fun announcement of our lucky winner! And while I have your attention, our Siesta Mama actually gets up to speak at the conference for the first time in about 2 1/2 hours (It’s already Friday there). Your prayers would be so appreciated! See you in the morning!

Good Wednesday afternoon, Siestas!

By now you may have seen on twitter (if you’re a twitter user) that Beth and Amanda made it safely to Sydney! Jet lag is no joke there because in case you were wondering, Australia is 16 hours ahead of us. I kept joking that they were flying into the future. Whoa! You honestly would not waste a prayer on them as Beth and the team prepares to minister to the folks attending the Colour Conference. They are so pumped, but it doesn’t come without sacrifice and a lot of work. If you’ve not already been praying, start praying now because since they’re almost a day ahead of us, the conference begins sooner than later!

Anyway, we didn’t want the blog to suffer while our Siesta Mama was gone, so I’m here to do our first fun giveaway! (Yes, we’re doing another one next week. I know you’re pumped!)

I don’t know about you, but I love getting a new Bible.

In fact, just this past Sunday at church I was thinking it was time to put my old one aside and start searching for a new one. True story. I don’t know how much longer it will actually survive as it is literally falling apart (I don’t say that because I’m so spiritual, but more so to prove to you how old it is) and I don’t feel like digging out the duct tape to repair this one. (You know you’ve done it before, too!) Since I’m a creature of habit, I tend to stick with the same study Bible time after time, but I’m feeling kind of rogue and might venture out this time into the land of the unknown.

As much as I love getting a new Bible, there is a certain degree of separation that is hard to part from my old Bible. We’ve been through a lot. And I love looking back at all I’ve underlined and marked up. But I suppose a new season calls for a new Bible.

Anyway, I know you’re probably wondering why I’m going on and on about my Bible, and maybe I’ve convinced you that you need a new one to, to which I’ll say you’ve landed in the right place!

We have a really fun giveaway that I think you’ll like.

Recently our sweet Beth received a Life Essentials Study Bible (“The First Multi-Media Study Bible”) with her name engraved on the front. For those who are curious, the translation is the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). Here’s the deal, if our Siesta Mama hadn’t just purchased a new Bible for herself just prior to receiving this one, she would have kept it for herself. It was such a kind gesture from the publisher, but she really wanted to gift it to one our Siestas!

Besides this being a study Bible, it has some other really neat tools that I’ve personally been playing with to make myself familiar with it the past few days.

With our technology changing and updating as quickly as newborn babies change outfits everyday, it’s no shock to me that this Bible has a new addition to it that can be used with your smart phone.

If you look at the front cover (pictured above), and inside the Bible (there’s a little peek below), you’ll see a bar code looking symbol. That nifty little symbol we refer to as a QR code. If you own a smart phone, you can download a free QR Reader app, and then all you do is use that application to scan the bar code to find out more information about that particular item. All throughout this Bible are hundreds of QR codes that take you to a website to find out more information about that particular scripture. How fun is that? You certainly don’t need a smart phone to win this Bible, but that’s just a little bonus for those of you that do own one.

So, who is interested? Listen, if it weren’t for you, Siestas, I would have already claimed it for myself.

Here’s how it will work:

1) Leave a comment with your first and last name. If you don’t leave both, you won’t be eligible for the drawing!

2) For fun, if you’re into this kind of thing, go ahead and tell us in brief your favorite Bible. Shout out to all the Precious Moment’s Bible owners out there! I’m pretty sure I still have that one stowed away somewhere safe. What joy!

Ready? Set? Sound off in the comments! We’ll leave the comments open until 3:30 on Thursday afternoon (CST) and then we’ll do a random drawing and post the winner at the top of this post later that day. That means you will have a little over 24 hours to enter, so be on the lookout to see if your name appears!

Although I don’t want to assume everyone is on spring break, I would imagine most of you are, so if that’s the case, we so hope you’re enjoying every minute of it. And if you don’t get that luxury, I’m praying the Lord delights you where you’re at and gives you an extra dose of rest.

We love y’all!

Hey, Darling Things!

I am packing up an overseas suitcase to board a long flight to Sydney tomorrow evening and I just want you to know where your blog mama will be all this time. I’ll be in Australia for two weeks and that is substantially longer than I’m ordinarily away so I thought you might need a heads up. I have the privilege of serving alongside my beloved Priscilla Shirer at the Hillsong Colour Conference for two weekends in a row. (The conference repeats a second weekend for another group of women.) It feels so good to put my head together and plan messages and themes with Priscilla again. We got in that habit with the Deeper Still events and I’ve missed it! Not only does she inspire me. She also gets me tickled. We will also serve with a panel of other speakers that I’ve not had the privilege to meet yet. Priscilla has been several times so she’s a veteran and will teach me the ropes. I am looking so forward to Colour and to gazing upon all those gorgeous faces, alight with the Spirit of Christ. I can hardly believe the trip is finally upon us. Amanda is going with me and we ferociously wanted Melissa to go, too, but she was unable to swing a week of it and was afraid the one week she had would be almost wasted amid the long flights and jet lag. We will miss her like nobody’s business.

Here’s a picture of the brochure and also the Queen who is staring at me 24/7 because she’s caught onto the fact that I’m about to skip town. I would give anything to take her. We have never been apart this long. Don’t you think they’d be blessed by my darling little Dingo?

I still hope to check in with you here and there in a couple of brief posts over the next two weeks but the best way I can probably keep up with you is on Twitter. For those of you who haven’t joined us there yet, our Twitter address is @Siestaville and we have tons of fun on there at times like these when a blog post is harder to make happen. You’ll hear from our Lindsee a number of times in the next two weeks (watch for some fun giveaways!) and Gay’s final supplement will also appear on the blog while I’m gone. I know you’ll be rocked by that. Her contributions over these last couple of months have been priceless.

I will miss you so much but will try to keep up. I am serious when I say that I think of you every single day and you are always on my heart. Hold tight to Jesus and stay in the Word. Please pray us there and pray us home and pray safety and joy and lack of negative drama (I love positive drama) on our family members as we all scatter for two weeks. Curtis will head to Missouri with the children to see his family for Spring Break while we’re gone. He’s a brave man indeed! And please, please pray for the Lord Jesus Christ to fall with enormous power and fiery affection on us at the Colour conferences. We want Him so badly.

When I get back, we’ll start planning Siesta Summer Bible Study. Oh, yes, ma’am, we are having it. We have active blog days ahead! You are so loved here, ladies. So very loved here.

Keep walking the thing out. Jesus is worthy of it.

First Installment: Meet My Sister

Second Installment: The Functioning Years

Third Installment: The Maelstrom

Fourth Installment: Like Sunlight Burning at Midnight

Fifth Installment: Stepping Out On the Water

First, from Beth…

Last week in our staff prayer and devotional time at Living Proof, we talked about restoration. I told them that it had occurred to me afresh that, for the word “restoration” to technically (or perhaps literally) apply, something had to have been lost that was re-found. I, then, asked if any of them wanted to share examples. For the next fifteen minutes we got tears in our eyes over one story after another and also erupted into raucous applause. It was such a powerful time. I know my coworkers well but, with the theme of restoration re-framed in its most technical sense, so much sounded brand new. I have no bigger personal testimony of restoration from the last five years of my life than that of my own beloved big sister. Someone asked me a few days ago how often I talk to her. I shrugged my shoulders, looked at the person a little blankly and said, “All the time!” We are in touch in one form or another – text, email, or phone – all the time. Or without such generalizations: most weeks, multiple times a week. Just like we used to be. (Not just when we were growing up, but when we were young wives and young mothers.) It is a miracle. And not one I have taken for granted for a single second yet. Gay and I tried hard to hold onto one another through the years she described. Never think for a moment that we gave up easily. Life’s just really hard at times and circumstances complicated. I had my own trash. My own issues. And even in the midst of them, I missed her terribly and with much turmoil. Anyway, humans prove inadequate saviors and demons prove relentless. On every side. But they did not win. Praise You, merciful L0rd. I love you wildly, Gay. And, because I do, I will now shut up and hand you the microphone.

Hi Sisters!!

Praise God, Jesus in Heaven, that in this particular story, my story, we are finally on the road to recovery, right?  Whew!!  As I reread my own words in the last installment about my having to “do something different,” I was reminded of Autobiography in Five Short Chapters by Portia Nelson.

Chapter 1:
I walk down the street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I fall in.  I am lost.  I am helpless.  It isn’t my fault.  It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2:
I walk down the same street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I pretend I don’t see it.  I fall in again.  I can’t believe I am in this same place.  But it isn’t my fault.  It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3:
I walk down the same street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I see it is there.  I fall in … it’s a habit … but my eyes are open.  I know where I am. It is my fault.  I get out immediately.

Chapter 4:
I walk down the same street.  There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.  I walk around it.

Chapter 5:
I walk down a different street.

I love the growth in ALL of the chapters and I am encouraged that each fall I took, although unbeknownst to me at the time, brought me closer to a different street and ultimately closer to God and His perfect will and purpose for my life.  It has been that way stumbling forward as well …

At New Hope I sat with Great Hope in literally hundreds of meetings and as I applied everything to my life and situation, there were two things that I heard loud and clear.  I heard that if I wanted to stay sober I must be willing to go to any length and I heard that I must enlarge my spiritual life, heavy on the must.  Without those two ingredients, I would surely fail and I was not about failing, not THIS TIME.  To fail was to die or wish I was dead.  At this point, neither was acceptable!  I had committed my life to God and although my freedom from the bondage of addiction had come divinely from AA and the 12 Steps, I had a yearning within my heart to return to the Jesus of my childhood.  I had an unquenchable thirst to know more of this God who had saved me from underneath the bridge.  I had MET Him there and had grown closer to him as the chains of addiction fell but, like a good addict, I wanted MORE!!  When I had gotten to New Hope just weeks before, I could barely form a thought much less a sentence.  I was so sick and tired and broken in all ways, not just physically.  Through the fog though, wafted a scripture that Beth had given me during my first stay in treatment years before.  I couldn’t even begin to quote it but I remembered that it was a promise of hope and a future.  As soon as I could get a Bible, I flew across the pages of Jeremiah and rested on what became my signature verse, my mantra.  I ate, lived and breathed these words.  Man shall not live on bread alone …

Jeremiah 29:11-14
New International Version (NIV)

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

At 5-1/2 months of sobriety (wow!), I moved to a beautiful, well-established, highly-respected transitional living facility called The Women’s Home.  Ladies, I was 54 years old when I walked off the street on that sunlit night in April 2009 and I had lost everything.  I not only needed sobriety and a whole lot of God in my life, I needed to recreate my life and I could not do it alone.  The Women’s Home is an 18-month, whole life (emotional/mental, physical, fiscal, social, vocational and spiritual), 3-phase residential (dormitory, transitional housing, independent living) program and it gave me a new life.  As I dealt emotionally with leaving New Hope where so many miracles had happened that I don’t have enough space to list them all, I knew that God was leading me elsewhere.  I could feel His warm favor at what I had done in response to His call at New Hope and I could feel it as I continued to step outside my comfort zone onto the living water of faith.  I was not afraid.  Not one bit.  I was able to work through such issues as divorce, loss of family unit, childhood trauma, grief, guilt and immense shame through group and individual therapy and lots more step work!  Although sobriety remained my number one priority, I was able to delve deeper into what had made me what I became — what the “father of lies” (John 8:44) had pampered and watered and nurtured for a half a century, trying his level best to bring me down.

But God …

I arrived at The Women’s Home on Monday, October 5, 2009, and as I was also on a mission to enlarge my spiritual life, I got on the church van the following Saturday night like a first-grader waiting for the bright yellow school bus on the first day of school.  Remember I had been “raised up” in AA and I had a deep love and respect for the steps and the fellowship.  I was not too keen on abandoning what had “brung me,” as my Nanny used to say, and just diving off into Bible study!!  (That would come later.)  I had prayed many times something like this, “Lord, can’t we put the two of those together somehow, You and me?  I need the steps in my life but I need Your Word in my life too.  Please God.”  I stepped off the church van and walked through the doors of a very unique, yet warmly comfortable and inviting “church,” or better yet “community,” so appropriately named Mercy Street.  It was held in a traditional Methodist church yet the hallway was hustling and bustling like no church hallway I had ever been in before.  I can barely describe it!  Maybe it was what was going on inside of me; maybe it was both.  First of all, NO ONE was dressed in their Sunday best; quite the contrary, everyone had on jeans and shorts and flip-flops (it was too hot yet for leather!), some sporting Harley Davidson shirts and some baring the most beautiful tattoo art I’ve ever seen, although modestly dressed.  They, or should I say we, weren’t all like this.  There were the Nancy Wilfongs too — actually there is but one Nancy Wilfong.  Nancy is the epitome of the traditional church lady all the way from her beautifully salon-coiffed do, not a hair out of place, to the tip of her pedicured toes. She has a smile as big as Texas and sits happily on about the 10th row of Mercy Street every Saturday night without fail with all the rest of us ragamuffins.  I think there must be some ragamuffin in Nancy somewhere.  I think there is some ragamuffin in ALL OF US.  We are all in such need of God’s grace, aren’t we?  In need of His mercy.  I was just right comfortable at this place called Mercy Street.

I browsed through the bookstore and spied a daily meditation book entitled Breaking Free Day By Day which was written by my first favorite author whom I had just spoken with for the first time in over a year just a few days prior to that.  The wounds that I had gouged during The Maelstrom were more than my family could bear and they had the same fears that I had, that I would REPEAT yet again.  They had not been on this journey with me this time thus far.  They had not seen me do something different.  God had a very nice surprise in store for all of my siblings but most especially for my littlest sister with whom I had played Barbies, shared secrets long forgotten, raised children beside, adored and admired as an upcoming leader in women’s ministry while I was bursting with pride yet green with envy. One whom I had also lost in my plunge to the bottom of the pit.  Beth and I had finally talked (major milestone) just 5 days before I was standing at the bookstore cash register with her book in my hand. While I was waiting impatiently to check out, I thumbed through some key chains on a display close to the register.  Hanging on that display was a round key chain with “29 eleven” on it.  Twenty-Nine Eleven, 29-11, Mmmm, 29:11!!!!!  I flipped it over and my MANTRA was on the back of it.  My mantra, nobody else’s mantra (haha), MY MANTRA!!  God’s promise to ME.  I was in the right place.  I knew that without a shred of doubt even before I entered back into the buzzing hallway toward the service.

I found an empty seat close to the back and, although much healed in comparison to what I had been, I still felt a little out-of-place, not quite together, not quite good enough, stained, soiled, UNWORTHY.  The lights soon went down, the band started to play and I heard Richard (but didn’t know his name then) sing to me, “You bring hope to the hopeless and light to those in the darkness and death to life, NOW I’M ALIVE.” And he sang them straight to me and the tears streamed down my face.  Because I was dead and now I’m ALIVE.  I saw people from all walks of life, both rich and poor, more together and broken, black and white, addicted and non-addicted, tattooed and non-blemished, walk up to a microphone and celebrate things that we only whispered about, judged and ridiculed in the church I was raised in.  I saw the pastor’s son celebrate a period of sobriety right there in that room.  I heard people celebrate that they were getting their children back, getting jobs, serving in their communities and STAYING SOBER against all odds.  To this day, Ladies, I still cry during Celebrations because it is Mercy Street at its best.  Because at Mercy Street we have the freedom to be WHO WE ARE, just as we are, past, present and living into our God-given futures.  No frills, just AUTHENTIC.  It’s beautiful.

Gregg Taylor, Mercy Street Pastor (and my sweet, sweet friend) did a sermon that night, or in his words, a Talk entitled “Awake.” It was the first sermon I ever heard Gregg preach and I’ve heard many since but few have impacted me like this one.  God meant for it to be that way.  He meant for it to GET MY ATTENTION, for me to know that I had been delivered by none other than the Deliverer, Jesus Christ, Son of God, and for me to know exactly where He intended for me to enlarge my spiritual life!  Gregg preached that very night on Jeremiah 29:11 and, oddly enough, he preached again on it this last Saturday night just two days ago before I’m writing this installment.  I heard him say that very first night that our wildest imagination cannot fathom the dreams and plans that God has for us.  I heard him say that I am more than they think I am; I am more than I think I am; I am more than I think God thinks I am; I am who God thinks I am, who God says I am!  Since then I heard Gregg say that we humans do not have the capacity to forgive some wounds, that only God has the power to put that forgiveness in our hearts if only we will receive it.  I heard him say that I was created just below the angels and that God loves me with a love that is jealous and furious and shameless.  I heard him say that the greatest display of God’s glory is the human being fully alive. (Quoting Irenaeus) I heard him tell us just a few weeks ago to look around at who was sitting next to us if we wanted to see Jesus.  After all, we are the Body of Christ, this church, this community, are we not?  I kept coming back week after week after week until I believed what I heard and it began to sink in all the way down to my toes.  I heard it and I received it and I saw it in others right there in that very room.  I was home.  I LOVE THIS CHURCH!!!

At Mercy Street we desire to create a safe harbor for the hurt, the lost, and the seeking so that we might experience the radical grace of God.  We believe that our “believing is conditioned by belonging.” We “come to believe” within a relational environment of shared experience.  Our community forms a mosaic of people diverse in our experiences and backgrounds but common in our desire to seek a closer relationship with God and with each other.  Whether you have faith, struggle with your faith or have lost faith, a place like Mercy Street opens its doors to everyone seeking a spiritual roof over their head.  A lot of us are involved in recovery from addictions or bad church experiences, and the stuff of life that has left us bruised, battered or broken.  We believe Jesus is the healer and restorer of our hurt, pain and brokenness and invites us into a safe community where the progress of healing and growth occurs.  Our gatherings are filled with live music, authentic faith journeys and practical messages set in a casual, come as you are environment.  We extend a gift of Christian community to everyone, no matter what faith, religion, addiction, or experience.

I walk down a different street … a street named Mercy.

Thank You, My Jesus.  Amen.
PS from Beth. Many of you unfortunately don’t have access to a church like Mercy Street but any church can learn to extend authentic Biblical love, mercy, and grace even amid our human imperfections and inevitable trials and errors. Churches are not made of bricks and steeples. They are made of people. Any street could become a mercy street if we’re willing to stand on its curb with humble feet, open our arms wide, and welcome wanderers in Jesus’ Name.  There on that “street”, no matter what their background or previous belief, we get to show them the way to the one and only Savior, the living Lord Jesus Christ. May they “taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” Psalm 34:8

A week ago I took a flight from Houston to Nashville along with my friends Kelsey and Megan, both juniors in high school, to the LifeWay Girls Conference. Here are a few reasons I was excited for the trip:

1) It was my first visit to Nashville ever. Not sure why it took me so long to get there but after hearing so much about it, I loved it.

2) I got to spend the weekend with some super fun high school girls.

3) My job at LPM is two-fold. Although I do media, my other focus, and for sure more important, is young girls. I’ve been learning all things media lately, so the other half has taken a back seat. To be neck deep in girls ministry all weekend was not only good for my heart, but has my mind spinning in all things girls ministry. Which is a very good thing.

LPM and LifeWay have a good relationship already so to hear from their staff and other girl’s ministers was a total bonus. Why re-invent the wheel when we’re all reaching for the same goal?

LifeWay has hosted this conference for three years now and I am so thankful to LPM for sending me. By the way, LifeWay was a wonderful host. Each and every staff member and the way they loved on the guests was so inviting and loving. It came at just the perfect time as I’m praying through and seeking what young girls ministry looks like at LPM. Young girls are a different in respect to the issues they deal with, but we all need the same Jesus.

Girls, just like women, need authentic relationships, vulnerability, honesty and some good, solid Bible teaching. They can smell a fake a mile away. But at the same time, they’re so self-aware it’s hard to sometimes crack the shell, but certainly not impossible.

My favorite aspect about the conference was the breakout sessions. They had separate sessions you were able to choose from for the leaders and the girls. I attended one called “The Secret Addiction”, which dealt with the issues on girls and pornography, which is another post for another day, but it was very powerful. Another one that really spoke to me was about pressing in and pressing on in ministry, which was all about taking care of yourself and your relationships in ministry. Can you say relevant? How often do people in ministry pour themselves out to the point of exhaustion or worse, burn-out, but never attend to their own soul? I walked away very encouraged, built up and much wiser.

Not only did I benefit from the conference, but the girls did as well. I know for a fact they enjoyed the different breakouts they got to choose from.

I’m not saying I have answers, but I have ideas. I’m asking the Lord to press in and reveal what the next step is. Where do we start? I’m so ready. Have I mentioned before that I dearly love me some young girls? Oh, I do.

The conference ended Saturday evening, so before taking off Sunday morning, we had Saturday night to explore Nashville’s hot spots. After eating some authentic Tennessee BBQ, my friend Heather who lives in Nashville chauffeured us to visit the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. It was beautiful and we loved getting to walk around, explore and eat gelato.

It was an excellent weekend. It you’re a girl’s minister, high school girl, or have a high school girl, I’d say it’s worth sending her next year. Let’s get these girls immersed in some Bible study and life-giving, life-saving truths.

One thing I know is true; this generation of girls certainly has my heart and my attention.

Morning worship with Jamie Jamgochian.

My sweet friends Megan and Kelsey. This was Friday night at the main session!

Saturday afternoon during break-time with the girls. I think we were ready to take a nap at this point.

A little Tennessee BBQ. SO good, y’all.

You know you’re spent when you look in your backseat after a long weekend and see this in your backseat driving home from the airport. I love it!

Thank you to both LPM and LifeWay for investing in our weekend. I am so grateful.

It’s been too long, Sweet Things! Let’s hop on line for a livesteam devotional tomorrow at 11:30 AM CST. Want to? I’m hoping to hit many of your lunch hours so it could be a tad more convenient.

This one can be open to anyone so you’re welcome to invite women to join us who aren’t regulars in our community. I’ll look so forward to visiting with you then!

Remember, if you hop on there early: the password is up there while we get set up but it comes down a few minutes before we air.

Here’s the link:   www.livestream.com/livingproofministries

I’m wild about you guys!

Hey, Siestas! Today is a really great day for fighting human trafficking, wouldn’t you say?! Matt Redman’s new single “Twenty Seven Million” is available on iTunes here in the United States this very day. This incredibly powerful song was recorded live at Passion 2012 and I kept singing it for days after I got home. It’s the kind of song that clicks immediately in your soul and keeps hitting repeat. I will be so glad to hear it again in their gifted voices instead of my own. Grin. You will totally love the new recording and downloading it will also make you a part of powerful move of God to educate the world about the atrocities of human trafficking and press forward toward the goal of ending it in Jesus’ Name. Sing to it. Dance to it. BE AWARE OF IT. Be part of doing something about it.

To enjoy and also join in, download it to your computer: click here.

In order to do this, you do have to have iTunes installed on your computer. If you don’t have iTunes, no fear, simply click here and follow the steps provided. In case you weren’t aware, iTunes is free so you just pay for the individual music. This song is just $1.29.

If you do have iTunes, another easy way to find the song is to simply search “Twenty Seven Million” in the search bar of your iTunes.

Basically what we’re saying is, do whatever you can do purchase it, own it, be a part of it,  love it and spread the word about it! It’s a very inexpensive way to be part of something HUGE. Something that could touch 27 million lives.

What you may not know is that, besides recording it live, we also filmed the official “Twenty Seven Million” video at Passion. You don’t know what adrenaline feels like until you hear 44,000 people singing, “We’ve got to rise up, open our eyes up. Be her voice, be her freedom, come on stand up!”, all while jumping up and down like pogo sticks. If you really want to have some fun and experience vicariously what we experienced that night, you can watch the video on YouTube here. However, if you’re willing, don’t stop at watching the video. Become part of this freedom cry with us!

I love you, Siestas. You are dear to me. Let us not grow weary in doing some honest-to-goodness good!

PS. We’ll schedule a livestream really soon! I was so preoccupied for eight days with Mrs. Mary Helen’s homegoing that I had to drop out of the loop for a little while. I thought of you everyday anyway. Thank you for your gracious hearts toward her and your many comments regarding the testimony of her life. It meant so much to me.

First Installment: Meet My Sister

Second Installment: The Functioning Years

Third Installment: The Maelstrom

Fourth Installment: Like Sunlight Burning at Midnight

The fifth out of seven installments from my sister, Gay, to you…

I was never the same after that night … and who would want to be anyway???

I think there is a lot of fear in change.  Fear of the unknown, of what we will become, of who we really are, of life, failure, being uncomfortable, not being good enough, pain, and how to handle or ease that pain.  Addicts and alcoholics have found a solution for pain.  For me and many of my friends, alcohol wasn’t just the problem; it was the SOLUTION.  So now, since I have anesthesized my pain for a lifetime, I am in FEAR, because the pain might kill me.  I might come apart at the seams.  And then what?  The unknown.  More fear.  I’ve been told that when the pain of holding on becomes greater than the fear of letting go, that THAT is when we become willing to give up the drug (the painKILLER) and step out onto the living water of faith.

I knew that I couldn’t stay in Sugar Land forever, that my time there was limited.  It was the FIRST TIME I had not had visions of grandeur, of being able to put my little family back together.  I had repeated that time and time again to no avail and had ended up in relapse every single time.  All I knew was that God had performed a miracle in my life that very night under the bridge and that I owed Him, my family and mySELF my very best shot this time, for THIS TIME, I feared, would be my last.  Otherwise, I would surely die.  My ONLY option, the only one this Miracle God deserved was for me to do what He put in front of me to do to the best of my ability, and what I became so aware of later was that where my ability failed, His took over!  He continued to supply me with strength and perseverance to endure the race He had set before me, one day at a time.

For three days, Tut gave me a roof over my head, a so-very-soft-comfy-warm bed to sleep in (ahhh), food to eat and a phone.  He did not make one call for me.  I knew it was my responsibility to get busy and find help.  I did that — it was what God put in front of me to do for those three days.  The only place in the Greater Houston Area that would take me with no insurance, no money and no I.D. was a women’s detox center in Pasadena called New Hope — so beautifully named, isn’t it?  Now, New Hope is not a fancy-schmancy place like my first treatment center was, in fact, it isn’t a treatment center at all.  It is a house for women to non-medically detox from alcohol (and some other drugs), getting fully sober and staying that way through living the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.  My sweet sisters, God did not drop me onto the church steps to get sober.  He dropped me smack back into AA again — not weak, watered-down AA but what I love to call Nazi-AA.  New Hope does not play.  They require 4 meetings per day followed by hours of Big Book study (the AA text) followed by getting a sponsor and working the 12 Steps.  Period.  Or you get kicked out!  God knew that I had not HEARD all of the prior times He had put me there and He meant for me to HEAR this time.  He meant for me to hear that I was alcoholic and that He had provided a most wonderful solution for me that required work on my part.  He meant for me to ACT!!!

This reminds me of a scripture that Beth has memorized and taught on several times:

“Therefore get your minds ready for action by being fully sober.”  1 Peter 1:13.

I could turn those words around and say, “Therefore get your minds ready for sobriety by being fully ACTIVE.”

Sweet sisters, this disease lives to kill.  It is chronic, progressive and FATAL.  There is no wonder that a smaller percentage of us recover from it than fall victim to it because it is also a disease of DENIAL.  We continue to try to convince ourselves over and over again that WE DON’T HAVE IT!!  I believe that it is the enemy’s most powerful tool and that there is no amount of ACTION too great to arm ourselves with the tools required to fight it.  I also believe that the enemy is hateful, insidious and low-down enough to use our faith in the Power of God to keep us from using the very tools that He has provided for us to ARM OURSELVES!!!  I beg you do not under-estimate the power of this disease.  I watch the walking wounded come through the doors of Mercy Street every Saturday night, back in treatment again, back from jail again, back off the street again, and I wonder how many won’t make it back the next time.  I made it back purely by the extravagant, unlimited grace of God — I should have died out there.  My friend, Jerry, did die out there.  He drank himself to death and was found in a puddle of vomited blood inside an abandoned house in Texarkana, Texas alone.  He was 39 years old.  I know that he is with Jesus and I know I will see him again in Heaven, SOBER.  But, my friends, Christ means for us to have FREEDOM in the land of the living.

For you, LORD, have delivered me from death,

my eyes from tears,

my feet from stumbling,

that I may walk before the LORD

in the land of the living.

Psalm 116:8-9

I wrote these words to Beth as she prepared to go to a conference where she would speak about 1 Peter 1:13 above.  It is the shortest description of what I did to HONOR MY GOD and get to where I am today.  I have edited it just a tad here and there but, for the most part, it is in tact.

To Beth, August 2011:

It has been my experience that sobriety and action are symbiotic.  One cannot exist without the other.  I must get sober, e.g. put down the drink, detox, go into treatment, in order to perform the action required to stay sober and subsequently follow God’s will and purpose for my life.  It’s not easy!!  It takes a lot of work.  It takes a lot of action.  Today, I do what I do (Mercy Street, treatment centers, the Houston Council on Alcohol and Drugs, sponsor ladies and take them through the steps, go to meetings, share my testimony, experience strength and hope) for many reasons but the gift, the by-product, is that I get to stay sober and without sobriety I am nothing and I am able to DO nothing.

To document all the work that I have done over the last two years and four months is far more than you want to muddle through, believe me, but I will tell you this.  When God jerked me up off that concrete in mid-April 2009, He dropped me in AA, not in church.  I might have liked for Him to drop me in church but He didn’t.  I knew that I had blown all of my other chances, all of the other times that He had dropped me in that very same place.  I had to do something different which was ANYTHING but sitting around waiting for Him to heal me and DOING nothing.  I had to abandon my way and do it His way.  I had to unweave all of my plans and trust HIS PLAN.  Right there, right then, on April 20, 2009, His way for me was AA.  I could see that as clear as a bell, no questions asked.  He has required a lot of work from me, a lot of action, one day at a time, whatever He put in front of me that day.  It started with chores and following simple house rules followed by getting a sponsor and working the steps.  I believe that God has wanted me to do that work all along but that I was too stubborn or prideful or entitled or all of the above to do it.  I knew that it was working because at 90 days sober I not only had 90 days sober but the obsession to drink alcohol, which I had battled with for 37 years, had been removed.  Poof!  Just like that.  I was neither thinking about drinking nor thinking about not drinking.  It was not a thought at all.  I was calm and acting sanely and normally.  Step 2:  Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to SANITY.  Bingo!  Poof!  Done!  Now I have to STAY THAT WAY.  I saw that the work, the ACTION, was paying off more than I had worked (because God was working behind the scenes in my behalf) so I continued on that course of ACTION.

My sweet Sisters, I do not have the words or the white space to say what the process of working the steps did for me.  All I know is that as I wrote down and spoke out and prayed for my enemies and made amends to my loved ones and reached out to another alcoholic, the chains started falling off of me one by one and I was able to wiggle free.  The resentment, fear, unforgiveness, unwillingness, dishonesty, pride and pure-dee SELFISHNESS that had been blocking me from Him fell away and I stood naked, just as I am, in Grace and Gratitude and Awe and Light.  I stood in FREEDOM and in the Pure Love and Favor of God.  To quote Manning again, I had been “seized by the Power of a Great Affection.”  I had experienced a Spiritual Awakening (Step 12).  Talk about replacing the need to self-medicate?  I had found the SOLUTION.  I had found the Power or He had found me.  We had found each other, a match made in Heaven.

On a short walk to the nearest convenience store one hot morning in July 2009, I surrendered my life to My Jesus and promised to follow Him, wherever He may lead me, for the rest of my days and to do what He asks of me.  I spent a lot of time praying and asking God to reveal to me what His purpose was for my life until I finally figured out that His purpose is for me to stay sober, do what He puts in front of me each day, and to step through the doors that He opens for me, despite my fears and my inadequacies.  I didn’t realize at the time that each day was getting me closer to my destiny as I continued to put one foot in front of the other.  The days would turn into weeks, then months, then years and then ONE DAY He would drop me onto the church steps where He was leading me all along!  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD.

It is as simple as this, Ladies.  I had to do something different.  Albert Einstein is quoted as saying “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.”  Since I had failed every which way I could possibly fail, I had to do everything different.  I had to do it opposite from how I had done it in the past.  I had not applied anything to my life — I applied everything to my life.  I had not been willing to get a sponsor and work the steps — I got a most wonderful sponsor and worked the steps honestly and wholeheartedly.  I had gotten into relationships that had taken my focus away from my recovery — I had NO RELATIONSHIPS.  I had not been willing to do long-term treatment — I stayed at New Hope for 5-1/2 months and then moved to The Women’s Home in inner-city Houston for 16 months totaling 21-1/2 months of solid, safe, quality care, sobriety and life recovery.  I had prayed to God to deliver me and then expected to wake up sane and sober the next morning and stay that way for a lifetime — I worked my head off day after day in accordance to His will for my life and was graciously given sanity and sobriety in return.

The National Association of Christian Recovery states this:  “NACR is passionate about joining the work of Jesus in the world — partnering with, instigating, resourcing, disturbing, advocating and influencing the manifold ways that Christ seeks to transform and liberate those in addiction.”  Manifold is defined as “of many kinds; numerous and varied.”  God has created and provided numerous and varied paths to recovery, Alcoholics Anonymous simply being one of them and the one that worked for this serious, hardcore, dedicated, classic, textbook alcoholic.  Whichever path you choose, do it with all your heart, all your strength and all your might.  I had to put sobriety first and foremost in my life for without it I had nothing and could do nothing.  By doing that, I put God first and He has honored that wholly in me.  Matthew 6:33 says, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”  In my case, sobriety is His kingdom!  And He has stood by His promise over these 34 months and 3 days to usher in the rest of what I so desired and much, much more that I never could have imagined.

Oh, by the way, if you walk into the doors of AA pull your walls down, check your judgment at the door and open your mind, unlearn the habits that have been standing in your way to freedom and be willing to do things different, and hold on tight to the similarities rather than the differences.  Yes, there are non-believers in AA — they just might be in our churches too.  If I go there I might not only GET SOBER but I might, just might, be able to shine the light of Jesus in the darkest night by simply looking straight in the eye of a sister who is scared to death to step out on the water of faith, smiling warmly and saying, “Hello, my name is Gay and I’m an alcoholic.”  Hope.  Everyone needs some.

James 2:17

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Philippians 2:12-13

New International Version (NIV)

¹² Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Every now and then, someone comes along who changes everything. I was in my late twenties when a woman I’d come to know through my aerobics class then a small Sunday school class came up to me and said with a gentle firmness, “God is calling me to support you in ministry.”

It was the first time…

A) that anybody had ever called whatever on earth I was doing “ministry.”

and,

B) that there was even enough to be done for anyone to actually help me do it, for crying out loud.

Though I’d already come to like her so much and was instantly taken aback by her kindness, I could not have begun to grasp how God had smiled on me that moment. As I look back on it, she would only have been a couple of years older than I am now.

Her name was Mary Helen Davis. Or, to my family and to multiple hundreds of people at Houston’s First Baptist Church, “Mrs. Mary Helen.” I was in my early thirties and teaching my first ungraded class of women when she walked in one Sunday right before class with one of those off-white rectangular cassette recorders with the big thick buttons. I looked at her curiously and she waved her hand as if to dismiss it entirely and said, “I’m just going to set this right here…” (a folding table near my small podium) “…and record some of these lessons. Who knows but that somebody might want one some time. Don’t pay any attention to it. You’ll never know it’s there.”

Within several years as the class grew, she moved a duplicator upstairs in her home and copied tapes all by herself each week for anybody who signed up for one. And…wait for it…laid hands on every single tape. She hand wrote the title of the lesson on each cassette with a Sharpie. Several years after that, her best buddy and our second official volunteer, Julie Weir, began helping her. Because of God’s grace alone, the class kept growing and people kept ordering and a couple of years after that, we started looking for a tiny little office space so our homes were not turned upside down. I wish I had some way of making this next statement appear on this page with all the passion and honesty that I feel as I write it: NO ONE ON THE PLANET has supported, (accidentally) steered, served and loved this ministry more than Mrs. Mary Helen Davis. She even let me try the name “Living Proof” on her. Turned out, she liked it.

Soon after that, that title developed into the name of a non-profit and necessitated a board of directors. And she was on it.

During all this time, she was not just supporting me in ministry. She supported me in mothering. Melissa was one and Amanda was four when Mrs. Mary Helen first came into our lives. Because she was in both my Sunday School class and my aerobics classes, we saw her a minimum of three times a week. My girls do not remember life pre-Mrs. Mary Helen. To give you some idea of how in love they fell with her, there was a period of years when I never – let me say that again a little louder – I NEVER got one single craft that Melissa Moore did in Sunday School. Nope. Mrs. Mary Helen did. Stay with me here. EVEN MY MOTHER’S DAY PRESENT made in kindergarten Sunday School went straight past me and into Mrs. Mary Helen’s hands. We both laughed so hard behind Melissa’s back that we nearly couldn’t stand up. Mrs. Mary Helen was such a fun sport that she’d take them…and I’d let her…and we’d tell it and retell it on Melissa for years to come. (Amanda was too sensitive about people’s feelings to be as forthright about passing me over for Mrs. Mary Helen but I don’t doubt she wanted to. I’m sure it was a sacrifice.) My mother had gone to be with the Lord Jesus when Amanda married and Mrs. Mary Helen sat right beside me on that front row and when, at the first glimpse of that gorgeous bride, I stood to my feet, she stood right beside me. And bawled her head off.

When Melissa was six years-old and in the hospital for a week, you can guess who she requested. Of course, she got both of us. I did not give over that easy. But at least I got to go home and get a change of clothes on occasion. Melissa swore and declared that Mrs. Mary Helen would be one of her bridesmaids and we were all – including Mrs. Mary Helen – scared to death she was serious. We were all relieved when she gave over at the time and let Mrs. Mary Helen simply stand in place as the Bride’s maternal grandmother. Mrs. Mary Helen just didn’t know if she could bring herself to wear one of those strapless bridesmaids’ dresses.

Mrs. Mary Helen adored my children. And my husband. Oh, she’d laugh at him! (And all the harder if I didn’t think he was very funny.) But, to be fair, she didn’t just love our family. She loved everyone she met. She cooked for people, doted on them and showered them with gifts. Case in point: one time my coworker Sabrina talked about often serving her family their dinner on paper plates. Mrs. Mary Helen never judged her. She just bought her a whole set of dishes. Sabrina treasures them like diamonds set in solid gold today. So many of my coworkers can tell similar stories and all of them can boast in God’s kindness to them shown through that one powerful woman who never appeared anywhere except behind the scenes. She moved to Washington State several years ago to live near her daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren – whom she totally adored. We could hardly tear ourselves away from her but her health was declining and she did exactly what she needed to do. Her family got to lap up every possible drop of those last few years. God was all wise. He always is.

Our beloved Mrs. Mary Helen saw Jesus late Wednesday night.

We are so happy for her. And so happy for HIM. He must surely be delighted. And, there is no doubt in my mind that He has the best tape ministry He’s ever had.

But I have cried my eyes out, over and over since her daughter Carol let me know that He’d come for her. She was loving enough to tell me only a couple of minutes later. I am so thankful that she has so graciously allowed me to love her mother alongside her, as my second mother. My girls are heartbroken over her passing, too. Oh, mercy. She was a love. We will grieve to the extent that we loved. We will spend much of next week getting ready for her service. It will be back here in Houston where she raised her family and she will be buried right next to her man.This is the two of them. It was taken I guess about 10 years ago.

This is her and her BFF Julie Weir. We were all dressed in jammies for a staff Christmas party.

A few of us at another staff Christmas party when we moved from a jammy theme to a headdress theme.

And another. She is holding our Jackson in this picture who appeared that day as Claus.

I am almost positive this was taken at Amanda’s wedding:

This picture is Mrs. Mary Helen, her daughter, Carol, and me on a very important day at Living Proof Ministries: the dedication of the Mary Helen Davis Resource Center.

This will be on the wall of that center as long as God chooses for Living Proof Ministries to exist.

We all hope we’re loved but, for all of us, occasionally we absolutely KNOW we are loved. We don’t know why maybe. But we are. I do not know why God caused this woman to love me.

But she did.

And my entire life was changed in those arms.

First Installment: Meet My Sister

Second Installment: The Functioning Years

Third Installment: The Maelstrom

From Gay’s heart to yours…

Gregg Taylor, my pastor and sweet, sweet friend, said in a sermon one night at Mercy Street that “the person who has a WHY to live can bear with almost any HOW.”  He was quoting Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning which chronicles Frankl’s experiences as a concentration camp inmate.  It means that if I have a reason, a purpose, something beyond where I am, a sense of what I could become, and I know that tomorrow is going to bring me closer to that then I can work with where I am today.  He went on to say, “If you have no hope, life ends.”

I didn’t stop breathing while I was out there on the street, but in all other respects my life had ended.  I knew that.  I knew that I had caused my family to leave me because I had not been willing or able to stop drinking.  I don’t know now whether I couldn’t stop or I wouldn’t stop (probably some of both), I just know that I didn’t stop. In my mind, I no longer had anything to live for.  My family was gone.  My employability was gone.  My desire to make another stab at recovery was gone.  My self-respect and integrity were gone.  My faith in myself and God were gone.  I had no reason, no purpose, nothing beyond where I was.  I only had another miserable day on the street, in the elements, cold, sick, hungry, filthy, beaten in more ways than one, full of heartache, resentment, jealousy, fear, self-pity, self-loathing and hate.  My only purpose each day was to figure out how I was going to drink myself into unconsciousness so that I couldn’t see or feel the hopelessness that each day brought.  I didn’t want to wake up to another day of hustling, begging, stealing, cheating and doing what I had to do to stay alive, all of which were pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.  I didn’t believe in God anymore — I knew that the All Mighty, All Powerful, All Merciful God that I had been taught about in Sunday School would not let me, ME, live out there like a wild animal!  I had lost all hope, and with that, I had lost the will to live.  I didn’t care anymore if I lived or died.

Yet somehow, unbeknownst to me, God WAS there.  I was just too covered up with my own “stuff” (heartache, self-pity, hate) and too busy trying to blot out that stuff to see Him. In the process, I had blotted Him out, too.  I did not see that when my body finally screamed out for food that food was there.  I did not see that the people I despised and hated, fought and scratched with, and told them I was BETTER THAN THEM were the very angels that God had sent to protect me.  I did not see that the porch that I slept UNDER (because I would get arrested for trespassing if I slept ON) was His shelter.  I did not see how much worse it could have been had my drug of choice been anything other than alcohol.  I did not see that each day that I woke up breathing was another day closer to the day He would strike … the day I would be ready; when all of the things that had blocked me from following His lead in the past were brought into submission.  The entitlement, the pride, the judgment, the dishonesty, the unwillingness to be obedient to His will for ME, for MY life, had to be surrendered so that I might not only obtain sobriety but also be effective in His world.

Now, let me rest on this for a second before I move on:  I found out later that His will for me was not simply for me to quit drinking.  It was for me to DO THE THINGS that He put before me each and every day, one day at a time, and that HE WOULD EQUIP ME with the tools to quit drinking!  He would EMPOWER ME.

Note: I know these things now.  I did not know them then.  Hindsight is better than foresight but I am hoping that those of you who are listening will not be as hardheaded as me!

Moving on …

After wandering aimlessly IN THE WILDERNESS for 18 months, a series of events that only a God could have brought together led me and my friend, Jerry, from Galveston to Houston.  The street was hard and mean in Houston.  No beach, no everyone-knows-each other-and-watches-each-other’s-backs, no First Presbyterian Church serving breakfast fit for a king on Saturday mornings.  As a matter of fact, all clothing and food supplies had been sent to Galveston to aid those still suffering from Hurricane Ike which had ravaged the island just six months before.  The City is much harder, walking distances much further, people more desperate, dangerous and demanding.  I couldn’t take it.  I couldn’t survive anymore.  It was too hard.  So I just laid down on the concrete underneath the Sabo Road overpass to die.  I didn’t panhandle anymore, I didn’t beg anymore, I didn’t fight anymore.  I laid down to die.

According to Jerry, I didn’t move from there for about two weeks, except to sit up long enough to drink myself back to sleep.  I might have eaten a bite or two.  I maybe even stumbled across the feeder road now and then to use the facilities at Jack In The Box, maybe not.  I don’t know.  I was in a blackout.  I had only one lucid moment during that entire time that I remember well, so well that it feels like yesterday.  It was night and I was alone in the dark.  I was lying on my left side and in my fear, whether of death or of continuing to live, I thought of my children and, at that moment, they became my WHY.  I didn’t care enough about myself to pray for my life but I cared enough about THEM to do just that.  I turned onto my back and hearing the endless roar of the traffic overhead, I spoke out loud to God where He could hear me and I could hear myself.  I spoke very precisely, almost demandingly and with my arm outstretched toward Heaven, I cried, “God, I know that You are up there.  I have been taught that all my life.  Now, I need Your help.  Now!  Because I’m going to die out here, Lord, and there are two little boys in Sugar Land that need a mother.”  Just like that, just exactly like that, and then it was done.  Amen and Amen.

I don’t know how much time passed between that prayer and being gently shaken awake by Tut: an hour, a day, two days.  But alone again in the night in the exact same spot, I felt a nudge and I heard a voice saying, “Gay, get up and get in the truck.  We’re going home.”  I didn’t hesitate.  I didn’t look around to see who I might take with me.  I didn’t look around to see who might stop me.  I didn’t even look around to see who it was.  I simply got up off the concrete and walked to the truck, one foot in front of the other, each step closer and closer, remembering the prayer because it was the ONLY thing I could remember about the weeks prior, knowing with each step that God – that God — that’s all I knew, without a shred of doubt, — that God had heard my cry and had moved Heaven and Earth to save me!  I became acutely aware in those miracle moments of the size and depth of the Love of God for a sinner like me.  As I settled into the warm, soft, leather seat of the white Chevy Suburban that I had ridden in so many times and looked over to confirm that the man was indeed Tut, I was struck with an awe that I can’t possibly describe.  That awe multiplied as we pulled away and I saw the bridge that I had tried to die under get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.  It was over.

It was OVER.

It was OVER.

My heart is pounding now as I bang this keyboard and I feel an urgency to cry my eyes out in more gratitude than I know how to express.  In my mumbling and fumbling to find the words to describe those moments, I think of the words to a song by Francesca Battistelli.  It goes like this:

Don’t know how it is You looked at me
And saw the person that I could be.
Awakening my heart
Breaking through the dark
Suddenly Your grace
Like sunlight burning at midnight
Making my life something so beautiful, beautiful.
Mercy reaching to save me
All that I need
You are so beautiful, beautiful.

Gregg Taylor, my pastor and my sweet, sweet friend, also says that God never brings an end without offering a new beginning. I didn’t know HOW I was going to begin the climb out of hell.  I just knew that I was going to begin.  I was never the same after that night.
I have come undone.
But I have just begun
Changing by Your grace.
Like sunlight burning at midnight
Making my life something so beautiful, beautiful.
Mercy reaching to save me
All that I need
You are so beautiful, beautiful.

Praise Jesus, Love of my life.

At times like these, I wish so much I hadn’t already overused words like “amazed” or “awed” to describe what I’m feeling about God. Or “blown away” or “astonished” or “stunned.” For instance, I think I recall using a few of those very words about a red bird I saw in my yard yesterday. Not that God’s handiwork displayed on the delicate wings of a bird of such brilliant color that it has its own name (cardinal red) isn’t amazing. It’s just that I feel something on a slightly larger and more personal scale right now. I wish I’d reserved a few of the synonyms for “awed” for those rarer moments when I feel it to such full measure that my skin almost feels too tight for my soul. When I’m half tempted to do nothing but sit, stare out a window, and shake my head for hours on end. Times I want to say something like, “Who is this God who pursues us so personally?” Or in the psalmist’s words, “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him?” I wouldn’t bother sharing this sense I have in my heart with you if I thought moments like these weren’t smattered on the canvases of all followers of Christ. But they are. You’ve had them, too. I’m hoping you’ll remember some of them today. And perhaps you’ve had these moment of inexpressible awe for the very same reason:

The flabbergasting (I’ve overused that word, too) timing of God.

Timing that illustrates to you once again that the God of the universe who called the heavens and earth into existence really does know you are alive and what you are presently experiencing…and even thinking.

You’ve had times like the one I’m currently experiencing. Times when God made sure you were studying a particular thing at the exact time when it spoke most profoundly into that stretch of your journey. For instance, think of a time when you didn’t get to go through a particular Bible study journey during the same set of weeks as your regular discipleship group and maybe you didn’t get around to it for several years…but, when you did, you realized that God had distinctly held it for you until then. I mean, how on earth does He know??

You and I know the answer to that question Biblically. God is omniscient. A meticulous planner is He. But psychologically, don’t we still find it shocking? I mean, how on earth does He have the energy to keep up with millions of His followers and exactly what we need and at exactly which time?

Yes, we know the answer to that question Biblically, too. But, humanly, aren’t we still sometimes taken aback by it?

While Melissa and I were studying James together, she got wrapped up in the Book of Deuteronomy (they have flagrant ties) and talked about it enough that I also got drawn in. Enough, in fact, that by early Fall I knew God was preparing me to teach portions of it in our Tuesday night series that would begin in late January. (She would also co-teach by writing coinciding articles for our Bible study group. It’s the one we are currently serving.)

In preparation for the January series, I decided to start reading the Book of Deuteronomy as part of my quiet time every morning starting in November (of 2011). I did not in any way have preconceived notions about the theme in the life of the Israelites matching up to a major move in my personal life. I chose it strictly because it would prepare me daily toward teaching parts of it several months later. Of course, I anticipated that God would speak to me through it because His Word is alive and active but I had no thought of the concept being perfectly timed for me personally.

As God would have it, the whole book was/is about moving to new ground. (To us this side of Christ’s ascension, this shift to a land of promise would serve powerfully as a metaphor for new ground in our fruit-bearing as obvious disciples of Jesus Christ but, for me, it happened at a time when the applications were multilayered and so much so that, to ignore it would have been a fool’s choice.) And here’s the part that left me slack-jawed. One of the most powerful messages in the Deuteronomy is the warning never to forget where you’ve been with Him, what He has done for you, and that He alone is your God and that to forget Him is total destruction to you. From Chapter 8 alone…

Let me tell you something, Sweet Thing. There is nothing quite like emptying out a house you’ve been thoroughly entrenched in for nearly thirty years to cause you to remember. Keith sat across from me a few days ago, leaned back in the chair, placed his large palms on his knees – almost as if to brace himself – and said as soberly as anything I’ve ever heard him utter, “I have relived 25 years of our lives as I have cleared out that attic.” It wasn’t the time for me to correct him on exactly how many years it had been. “Well, 27 to be exact” was not about to come out of my mouth. In fact, I hardly said anything at all. I just nodded my head and sat in silence for a few minutes with him. It was a sacred selah because I knew that some of the things he’d remembered had brought joy. And some of the things he’d remembered had brought pain. I knew because the same thing had happened to me. The next day we were in his truck together going to Dairy Queen for a chocolate malt when I brought it back up.

“Keith, don’t you think it is so incredibly odd that God made sure you were out of town while I (and the movers) packed the house up for our move then you did the whole attic by yourself because I was back at work? Do you think it could be any coincidence that God had each of us by ourselves to remember so much of our lives there?”

Same house. Same children. Many of the same exact occurrences. But two completely different people with distinct DNA who processed the same events very differently. Just as Amanda would have. Just as Melissa would have. Just as even Michael would have after his seven short years in our home. You and I share many corporate events with the people in our familial circles: births, deaths, disappointments, celebrations, routines, great surprises, sudden crises. But, if we’ll let Him, God tends to us all uniquely and intimately and means each of us to glean something distinct in the process. Maybe something altogether opposite from the person sitting right beside us at the time.

The kinds of things we unearthed in the move seemed strategically planted by God, set right there for us to find one at a time as if we were following closely to a dog-eared treasure map.

Several of them came to me in a box Keith found in the attic. I’d forgotten it existed.

 I took the lid off and saw this:

Very uncharacteristically, Keith had looked through the whole thing before giving it to me. Don’t think that won’t make a woman nervous. In it, he’d found the first card he ever gave me. We laughed until our sides split over how beautifully it depicted us. It was like we’d had a word of knowledge about what was coming. Our whole 33 year old marriage has been the steady recycling of this exact same card given back and forth to one another:

Inside the box was the very first prayer journal I suppose I ever owned. I think that I recall a revival pastor coming to my church at the time and telling us about these little notebooks and I purchased one. I smile as I try to estimate how many I’ve purchased since. I used one this very morning.

It’s so moving to find keepsakes that you actually dated and penned with your own (young!) hand. I would have sensed the call of God on my life and walked the aisle at my church to make it public one summer before.

I read many things in that first journal that made me smile and others that pooled the tears in my eyes. Others out right mystified me. To say that I was in denial over my past childhood abuse is a mind-boggling understatement but that’s another subject for another time.  Let me just say for now that I watched my own pen flat-out lie to me over and over again. I even thanked God for the relationship I had with someone who’d abused me. Nuts. That very malfunction would put me in counseling in my early thirties. I woke up alright. That subject aside, I want to show you a specific page out of the journal because it held significant tenderness for me.

See the very top entry? That was intercession for the young people I got to serve at my home church. I was sponsoring that very group at a church camp when I first sensed a vocational call. See that second entry? I did hurt that person. A very wonderful person who deserved far better. I didn’t want to hurt him. But I surely did. I was on a terrible rebound and couldn’t be trusted emotionally. See that third entry? It was about a possible internship at a church in the Houston area. (The town is Humble, Texas. Not the name of the church. I wonder now if I meant First Baptist Humble but I’m not sure. Back then, I might not have known the difference. Grin.) They didn’t hire me and, at the time, I almost talked myself into believing that I’d made up the whole calling. I find it interesting and pathetic how quickly we (I) tend to give up and think God has passed us (me) by. I’d have made a terrible Abraham.

Now, look back up at that last entry from the page in my first journal. I fell head-over-heels in love with a young man in college who I dated for the better part of two years. He never even pretended to feel the same way about me (not his fault, God’s will) and my beaten-up heart finally shattered into a thousand pieces as I accepted it as a lost cause and bowed out. Fast forward 35 years. What makes this discovery in the journal so tender is that I received a call several weeks ago from my college roommate telling me in tears that this young man – who was now in his mid-fifties – had died that very morning of a heart attack. No warning. No prior heart problem. I had not seen him in many years. I grieved immediately and deeply for his lovely wife who he adored and who would miss him terribly. Only God could have had the tenderness to let me see this page only a short time later and have a moment’s personal mourning and remembrance over someone I’d felt much for many years earlier. God did not owe me that. It was tender mercy. Who but Christ does something like that??

There were other treasures found elsewhere. Like this picture of Keith and me boarding a cruise liner the morning after we married. (Our honeymoon was our wedding gift from his parents. We wouldn’t have two extra nickles to rub together for many years.)

That was the man I was meant to marry. And we have continued to ride many waves. It was deeply significant to me that God not only planned for me to find treasures from my spiritual journey. He also had similar intentions for Keith. I had never seen these certificates and Keith had no memory of them being placed in his possession by his parents. 

We found a whole bag of cassette-taped messages from Buddy Walters, the mentor that God used to strike a flaming desire in my heart to study Scripture. He was my first Bible doctrine teacher. These messages were preached years later at the church in North Carolina where he served as associate pastor.

Curtis converted them into CD’s for me last week. I’ve been listening to them and hearing the echo of that strong voice of authority and affection for the Lord Jesus Christ that took my breath away in my mid-twenties. Buddy died in his mid-forties and has been with the Lord for many years now but his ministry is poured into every message we have at Living Proof. God’s ways are so strange and beautiful. God knew that I could not fully “remember” my journey with Him without remembering the sound of this mouthpiece. My deepest love affair with Jesus through His Word began under that man’s teaching.

You can quite imagine that we unearthed artifact after artifact from our children’s lives. Stuffed animals. Artwork. Report cards. Clothes. You name it. I hadn’t seen this picture in so long. We were at Keith’s baby sister’s wedding. Oh, mercy, I love these two little girls so much. In this mother’s heart, they are about this same age.

I shared with you in a post soon after we moved (Dec. 2011) that I’d declared to Keith that I’d never leave that house. I also told you that one (irrational, unexplainable) reason was the fear that our time with Michael (who lived with us for seven years) would seem less real, further removed, and the door permanently closed. It was real alright. In this move, we’ve discovered him all over our house. Stacks and stacks of pictures, albums, artwork, report cards, etc, etc, etc. I found this letter that we received some months after he left.

Spud was our nickname for him. I also found this particular school picture. It was the year he departed our home. Wasn’t he beautiful?

As it turned out, the move did not distance us further nor close the door permanently. I have seen him as recently as two weeks ago and get to stay in regular communication with him. God is so gracious. Michael looks fairly different now but he is still so darling. He is a tattoo artist and has practiced a good deal on himself. I am smiling. I love him. And I am so, so proud of him. 

The 8th chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy says to remember “the whole way” (V.2) the Lord has led you. The “terrible” (NASB) and “terrifying” (ESV) wilderness (V.15) and the miracles of manna and water from the flinty rock. (Vv.15-16) Translation? Remember the awful times. Remember the awesome times. I not only dug up sweet memories. I’ve stumbled upon some terrifying ones. Some that I wish to heaven I could have forgotten. Some that make my skin crawl. I found journal entries from a time of such utter darkness in my life that only God could have brought me through in one piece. Reading my pleas from that time stirred up such strong emotions that I could have thrown up. I kept having to remind myself to keep my memories in the light of God and not let them descend into the darkness of the enemy. When I remember them before God who delivered me, I am helped. When I remember them before the enemy who full-well meant to destroy me, I am haunted. Oh, the grace and mercy God has had upon my life. He is the only good in me. I’m sure Keith found reminders of some dark days of his own. And those are between God and him. I’ll leave you with one last picture. Keith sent me this one from his phone two days ago to let me know that the house was completely empty. Don’t think it wasn’t significant to me.

Oh, yes, Lord. I definitely remember the heaps of trash. Thank You for assuring us that, through Your mercy, all of it – EVERY SINGLE BIT OF IT – has been thrown into the depths of the sea, swallowed up in a fountain of blood.YOU ALONE are our God. YOU ALONE delivered Keith and I from such miry clay. YOU ALONE have kept my family in tact. YOU ALONE have spared us so much shame and lifelong defeat. You alone persistently dogged us with Your Holy Spirit and Your Word until we could no longer cover our ears. You alone saw people worth fixing in our brokenness. And You still do. I never want to forget, Lord. Never. 

“Take care lest you forget the Lord your God…who brought you out of the house of slavery.”

Deuteronomy 8:16 says something so riveting that I can hardly read it without having a visceral reaction. It says that God TESTS us and HUMBLES us “to do you good in the end.”

In the end. Seems like we’ve heard that somewhere before. Somewhere this side of the Cross.

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 ESV