Siesta Video Message from LPV on Vimeo.

Hi Siestas! This post is going to have information for you about a block of hotel rooms at a special group rate, hotel room scholarships that we are giving out, and a few other tidbits. We will also use the comments in this post to allow you to connect with each other regarding the event, especially those of you who are traveling solo.

Special Hotel Rate

We were able to confirm a block of rooms at an Omni Hotel for our Siestas so that you will have the option of staying together. The Lord came through for us in a big way because initially they were not able to accommodate us. Praise Him! This is a nice, newly renovated hotel just 2 miles from the church and they have given us a reasonable rate. Here’s the information you need if you’d like to reserve a room there.

Omni Houston Hotel
Four Riverway
Houston, Texas 77056
Phone: (713) 871-8181
1-800-THE-OMNI
Tell them you want to book a room with the Siesta SMT Celebration for the night of Friday, January 22, 2010.
The room rate is $80.

*This is NOT the Omni Westside. That would put you much farther from the church and you wouldn’t get our special rate.

Hotel Scholarships

By God’s grace, LPM is able to scholarship 100 Siestas in 50 double rooms at The Omni for our Scripture Memory Celebration. We are thrilled to be able to do this!

-We will cover your stay for Friday night, January 22.
-You will share a room with another siesta in which there will be two double beds.
-If this will allow you to attend the conference, please email [email protected]. She is going to give scholarships to the first 100 women who email her.

Jenn and I are both part-time LPM employees with small children, so it may take us a couple of days to answer all the emails. Thanks for your patience!

Things to Do

If you’re staying the whole weekend and will have time to play, here’s a great web site to help you plan. You can even request a visitors guide.

www.visithoustontexas.com

What About our Husbands?

We have been asked if men can attend the Siesta SMT Celebration. This is going to be a very intimate group and we want our ladies to feel the freedom to worship and study with just the girls. We love our Miestas, but we would like to keep this event for women only. Thank you so much for understanding.

Connecting with Others

We know many of you are traveling solo and are hoping to connect with a travel buddy or even someone to split rental car and hotel costs. We want to open up comments in this post to allow you to do that. Just make sure you provide a way for others to contact you.

We hope this information will be helpful as you plan for our big weekend. We can’t wait, Siestas!

Our church hosted First Fest on Saturday night. We went every year growing up, so it’s fun to go now with my own kids. Back in the day, mom was the women’s fitness director at our Christian Life Center, so she was always dressed in a costume for this event. On our way there, we were recalling some of her best ones, which included the year she went as a plumber (our family was in the plumbing business) and another year when she was a present. She wore a huge, wrapped cardboard box. I would give anything to have a picture or two. I don’t have those, but I do have these!

Here is our little tiger giving a loud roar to let everyone know he had arrived.

The best part of First Fest is all the inflatables they have. Jackson loves these. Curtis and I had our wedding reception in this outdoor area at the church. I think our groom’s cake was pretty close to where this thing is.

I’m really blessed because my groom turned out to be a fabulous dad.

There’s our tiger getting ready to take the plunge.

Me and AB, who happened to be A Bee.

Why is Santa Claus at First Fest and why isn’t he wearing red? Oh wait, that’s Noah, as his name tag clearly states! Meet Pastor Gregg, who was preaching about Noah the next day. Next to him is Bethie and our little bumble bee who was trying to figure out if she should grab onto Noah’s beard.

Here’s Jackson getting his face painted by Cinderella.

My camera battery died on me, but my friend took this of our family.

Here’s the Queen Bee at home.

And here’s her brother in a sugar high frenzy.

He kept saying, “I love candy!”

These shots are all the same – Annabeth looking a little iffy and Jackson thinking it’s hilarious.

Annabeth is 9 months today. I can hardly get over it.

We are planning to do another post on Thursday about the Siesta Scripture Memory Team Celebration. We’ll have some info about a block of rooms and a group rate at a great hotel. We’ll also give those of you who are traveling alone a chance to connect with each other. Be looking for it on Thursday!

Whew! That title was a mouthful!

Siestas, congratulations on making it all the way to Scripture 21. It is finally time to register for the Siesta Scripture Memory Team Celebration! Woo hoo! (From now on you might see it abbreviated as the Siesta SMT Celebration.) This is a free event for all of our Siestas who have been working hard to memorize two Scriptures a month in 2009. It will be held at Houston’s First Baptist Church on January 22-23, 2010.

Before I tell you how to register, I need to emphasize one thing. We know based on the size of HFBC’s worship center and the number of comments that we get on our Scripture memory posts that we can accommodate every single one of our Siesta Scripture Memory Team members. Praise God! We are not in danger of selling out this event, for lack of a better word. Please know that you can take your time registering. If you’re not sure that you can really attend, please wait to register until you know that you can. We won’t close registration until two weeks before the event. Having an accurate count will help us tremendously as we plan for that wonderful and long-anticipated weekend. Thank you so much!

Registration Step One:
Please read our event FAQ page for all the details. If you have a question that isn’t answered, it will explain how to handle that.

Registration Step Two:
Follow this link to our registration page and register thyself!

We were a little nervous about rolling out registration on a Sunday because our web masters are not on call. But we really wanted to do it in conjunction with today’s verse. So if you have any trouble registering, please know that we will do our very best to get it sorted out on Monday.

The whole LPM staff is so excited to spend a great weekend with you, Siestas! We can’t wait. Thank you for taking this Scripture memory journey with us.

*You will see the post for memory verse #21 right below this.*

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

Now, onto our present purposes: our next verses!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You are loved and prioritized here at Living Proof.

When Curtis and I started volunteering occasionally in the preschool department at our church, I was embarrassed to find out that I didn’t really know how to play with the little girls. The boys are easy simply because I have one and I am now equipped with the ability to make engine sounds, the importance of which cannot be overestimated. But toddler girls were a mystery to me. What has shocked and tickled me about them is how much they love to play with the baby dolls. I had no idea!

Usually there are more little girls in the classroom than there are baby dolls, so you can imagine how they follow each other around, hoping to recover any doll that may be fumbled. In spite of the inevitable fumble, these baby dolls are very well taken care of by their pint sized mommies. They hold them close, with their little plastic heads over their shoulders, and they walk around patting their little backs with such intensity. One Sunday Curtis had a line of girls who wanted their baby dolls swaddled. It takes a lot less energy to sit next to my friends in the married young adults department, but you cannot get entertainment like this anywhere else.

I never really played with dolls when I was small. I was much more into stuffed animals, My Little Ponies, and an E.T. doll that I dragged everywhere I went by one arm. Ironically, Melissa loved baby dolls and she has yet to have any interest in giving me a niece or a nephew. Even though I never liked dolls myself, I’ve been so excited about getting Annabeth her first one. I didn’t know when this big event was going to occur, but when Annabeth started crawling last week, and when she started crawling repeatedly to Jackson’s large plastic garbage truck, I knew it was time for some girly toys in our house.

So Mom and I went to Target yesterday and bought Annabeth’s first baby dolls.

Here’s the tiny one. I thought it would fit nicely in the diaper bag.

Here’s the big one, which I later realized doubles as a bath toy.

I am now presenting Annabeth with her first doll. We are in the dining room because it’s the only room that isn’t a mess right now.

Perhaps counting fingers and toes?

This doll is useful for teething.

We’ll take that over this.

Let’s see how she does with two.

Annabeth is either giving this baby the infant Heimlich maneuver or demonstrating the colic hold. She’s already so advanced.

Thumb sucking is Annabeth’s sign that she would like a nap. Motherhood is very tiring. Who knew that two were twice as much work?

Thank you for my first dolls, Bibby!

What was your favorite toy when you were a little kid?

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

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

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

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

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

Pause.

By this point he was disgusted with both of us.

Then, he pulled a vintage Keith:

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

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

I woke up this morning at 7:22 to a loud crash of thunder. In my pre-tea grogginess I could only form one clear thought: my sister is flying home this morning! I flew into a frenzy of getting myself and the kids ready so we could be at the LPM office when Melissa arrived there from the airport. But the rain, thunder and wind grew worse and I had to face the fact that she might not be arriving on time. Or anywhere close. Her flight had taken off on time but the airline web site was showing an hour delay. Then we got word that her plane was diverted to New Orleans. She’s safe and sound in the airport, but we don’t know when she’ll make it here.

I’m so bummed, Siestas! A couple of nights ago I was scooping the goo out of a tomato before I chopped it up. I don’t really like fresh tomatoes, which causes my mom to wonder how she could have given birth to me. She’s been known to salt one up and eat it like an apple. Curt and Jackson like them, so I went ahead and put one in our taco salad (see below). Jackson will eat tomato wedges like they’re candy, which makes me wonder how I could have given birth to him. Anyway, as I was scooping out the seeds, I was instantly taken back to when Melissa showed me how to do that. We were in the kitchen at the beach house we’d rented over the fourth of July. And I started to tear up because, y’all, that was the last time I saw my sister! The fourth of July! What is this world coming to?

Okay, I know I’m being melodramatic, but that’s seriously way too long. When I count it up, three and a half months doesn’t sound all that bad. But it seems like a lifetime ago.

I just got a text from my mom saying that Melissa has just boarded her plane. Praise Him! Please pray with us that she gets home safely and quickly.

You wouldn’t waste a prayer on my mom either. She had the taping at Life Today over the weekend and is now getting ready for this Tuesday night’s Bible study. It takes a lot out of a person.

Also, I’ve taken more pictures than I can possibly count this month. I can’t wait to share some (possibly a lot) of them with you this week.

In the meantime, here is my Uncle Wayne’s taco salad recipe. Most of my favorite recipes came from Uncle Wayne. When Curtis and I got married, he sent me a big envelope full of recipes from his and my grandmother’s kitchens. It was simultaneously sentimental and practical – the perfect gift! Especially since I only knew how to cook one thing at the time and that was frozen pizza. Oh, I’m kidding, y’all! I could also make pigs in a blanket.

Taco Salad

2 pounds of lean ground turkey meat
1 to 2 cans of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
Iceberg lettuce, chopped (half a head should do it)
1 or 2 tomatoes, chopped
2 cups of grated cheese
1 bottle of creamy French dressing
1 avocado, sliced
1 bag of tortilla chips, scrunched in the bag

Brown the turkey meat in a skillet. Add kidney beans. Cover and cook on low for 10 minutes. Meanwhile put lettuce, tomatoes, and chips in a large serving bowl and top with grated cheese.

Drain the liquid from meat/bean mixture if necessary. Pour meat and beans on top of cheese in the bowl so that the meat gets the cheese melty. (Is “melty” a word?) Then pour French dressing over everything and toss well. Put avocado on top to make it look pretty.

*Most of the time the Jones family uses lean ground beef rather than turkey. What can I say? We’re Texans. I also tend not to use a whole lot of the dressing. It just depends on your taste.

Uncle Wayne’s helpful tip for this salad is that it doesn’t save well for later. It’s tragic when you think you’re going to have a few more bites later, only to find it’s all turned to Play-doh. If you want to enjoy leftovers, save some of the meat and beans and chips. Then start all over with fresh lettuce, etc. You’ll pat yourself on the back for such good planning. I hope you enjoy it!

*Update* Melissa made it to the office safe and sound. Thanks for praying!

My Dear and Darling Fellow Sojourners, I wish I had all the time to be on here this morning that I’d like to take for this post but I am in the midst of preparing five messages for the Life Today taping this weekend. To say I have some work to do today is an understatement and I bet many of you know the feeling. Our schedules are beyond us, aren’t they, Girls? My heart is so impressed with something, however, that it’s about to burst so I’ll at least offer it in the short version and leave it in God’s hands.

So many of us in this community have been freed from big things. We’ve also, thanks to the persistent, sustaining grace of God, learned how to be on guard against other big things. We know that there’s a life we do NOT want to return to and that our joy, our anointing and our profound effectiveness thrive only when we are dancing free in Christ. But it’s occurred to me again recently how insidious the smaller things can be. If our enemy can’t hang us with one big rope, he’ll gladly strangle us with a thousand threads.

We forget we’ve been set free. We keep returning back to that enslaved way of thinking and living and find ourselves in bondage to a host of little masters. Most of these things are not bad in themselves. Maybe they’re even good. They’ve just taken more authority and attention than they should. I’ve had one of those recently. That’s not true. I’ve had a lot more than one but there is one in particular I became most aware of. It wasn’t a bad thing. Not a sinful thing. It had just become too much of a thing. It had the makings of an addiction and, Lord, have mercy, I’m the last person who needs to open that door again. I had lost the ability to be moderate with it. People can say what they want about whether or not we can hear the inaudible voice of God in our spirits but, as I live and breathe, there I was doing that thing again and I felt Him say, “STOP IT.” Not forever because it’s not a bad thing. In fact, a person would be kinda weird without ever doing this particular thing again. The instruction I discerned from the Spirit was to give it up just long enough to gain back some moderation. Would you believe, as silly as the thing was, that the first few days without it were really hard? That’s how I know it had the makings of an addiction. A week later, however, I felt a full release of joy. It wasn’t even a challenge anymore. In fact, it was a praise and a restoration of time and energy and focus that I could lift up to God. It’s been a month now and my date for having it restored is coming up pretty soon. I feel cheerful about it but, mostly, I couldn’t care less. I could live without it a whole lot longer if I needed to.

1 Corinthians 6:12 speaks to those things that aren’t bad in themselves but have the propensity to enslave us. Those things that I’m referring to, in this post, as little masters. Under the inspiration of the Spirit, Paul reframed a common colloquialism of his time. You’ll see it in quotations in the segment below just as you’d see it in quotations in most of your translations. Paul was frustrated with new believers in Christ who were twisting around the whole idea of freedom from religious laws and using a common saying in their culture to support their carnal appetites. He made a distinction that is the difference between day and night in our daily lives if we’re willing to listen.

“Everything is permissible for me” – but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me” – but I will not be mastered by anything.

Something may be permissible that has grown out of proportion until it has ceased to be beneficial. It has taken a place of mastery. Authority. We feel enslaved to it. Maybe some of us can actually go from addiction straight to moderation but most of us have to actually stop the thing for a while to give the power over us time to break. Then, if our flesh dies down about it and we can manage to rediscover that beautiful thing called moderation, we can reintroduce it. IF we will employ the strength of the Holy Spirit within us to command it to behave and keep its place. I’ve had a few other things in my life, things that offered no benefit whatsoever, that simply had to be cast out for good. And, after I could get over those first pangs of craving, I gladly said good riddance.

That’s not bondage to me. That’s not a life of denial to me. That’s freedom. That’s where I’m happy. Effective. Liberated. That’s where my arms are loosed to grab hold of all the incomprehensible graces for which I was apprehended. (Phil. 4:12) I don’t know how this speaks to you today but sometimes we in find ourselves in similar places. It’s often not the big things, Girls. It’s that host of tiny masters. Put them back in their place. They’ve grown from trolls into monsters.

I love you. I’m committed to walking victoriously with you. Let’s remember today that “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1)

Miesta Moose was on the road again. Where did he think he was going?

None other than Memphis, TN. Miesta Moose, you’re quite well traveled by now.

Miesta Moose waited with lots of ladies outside the FedEx Forum on Friday afternoon.

Here’s our fair mascot with Siesta Emily, who was attending her first LPL event with her mama, Lavonda.

M.M. waiting on the Word!

We heard Miesta Moose, along with many other Siestas, helped pay Starbucks’ light bill for a month after the Friday night session.

M.M. sang the blues next door to the Westin.

He even got to meet Morgan Freeman.

“Moose was here. 10/9/09”

Where will he end up next?

Did you know?
-Miesta Moose belongs to Melana/Moose Mama from Wyoming.
-He debuted at the Siesta Fiesta in San Antonio in August of 2008.
-Besides Memphis and San Antonio, he has also been to the Living Proof Live events in Billings, MT, Laramie, WY, a simulcast location Sheridan, WY, and to Travis’ Jesus Saves Live taping in Atlanta last January.
-When Moose Mama can’t take him, he travels with other Siestas.
-He wears all the wrist bands from the events he’s attended around his neck, but I’m told it’s getting a little crowded.
-He was originally intended as a gift for Beth, but Moose Mama says now he’s become “a symbol of the craziness that is Siestaville.” Amen to that!
-The camera loves him. His favorite pastime is taking pictures with all the Siestas.

Many thanks to Melana, Lavonda, Emily, Adrienne and Miesta Moose for making this post possible and for making Siestaville such a fun place to be.