I’m so happy that my mom has outnumbered me in posts! She’s really getting into blogging!
Here are some pictures from Passion ’07. These are from Sarah K., who is a student at the University of Arkansas, a member of the yellow community group, and a lover of Jesus! Thanks, Sarah!
I am so worried right now. My beloved Sunny, the mixed-breed dog that showed up on my porch many years ago and became my shadow and my best friend, is not doing well. She is fifteen years old now, has failing hearing and some failing sight, and arthritis in her back legs. We’ve had her to the vet a number of times and we’re doing all we can to make her comfortable and to extend her days. Of course, like all creatures, the course of her days is in her Creator’s hands. I just know He loves this little furry servant He sent to us years ago when I was so lonely I didn’t know what to do.
She has been indescribable company to me while my lively home has grown quieter and quieter with each sparrow that has flown from the nest. Sunny, whose coal black fur is now salt and pepper gray, is getting very old and I’ll be honest with you. I can hardly stand the thought of not having her. (I can hardly see through my tears to write.) She is so attached to me right now that if I walk out the front door or even leave the room and she awakens from a nap and doesn’t see me, she hops up and cries, looking around frantically. Many years ago, some of the neighbor boys used to make fun of her because she’s such a mutt. They’d mock, “What kind of dog is she anyway?” And one of our kids would always answer, “A guard dog!” And that she is. She’s been what Keith and I always call our “trusty dog.” When I wake up, she’s right on the floor next to my side of the bed. When I come home in the afternoon, she’s waiting on the front porch. When I’m out of town, Keith has to pick her up and carry her in the house because she doesn’t want to go in until I’m home.
I know that so many people have far worse pain and far more debilitating troubles. I prayed for a number of them in my prayer time a little while ago. But the prospect of losing a pet that has been such a fixture in the family for so long is still painful in its own right. This morning I let her out in the front yard to roam a bit like she likes and, refreshingly, I watched her prance around almost youthfully. As is her usual routine, she then headed down toward the end of the street to visit her dog friends. A funny thought occurred to me as I watched her make a bee-line their direction. Sunny is probably going to say all these same things to her dog buddies about me.
Sunny and Beth in 1998.jpg)
Sunny being her most patient self as baby Jackson plays with her fur.jpg)
Hey, my sweet sisters! I’ve just hit my desk after two and a half weeks away from the office. Our holidays were extended so Keith, Melissa, Amanda, Curt, Jackson, and I could participate in Passion ’07, a huge, life changing event for college students that was held in Atlanta, Georgia. 23,000 college kids from every state in the U.S. and at least ten other nations hit the city on New Year’s Day and sought God, worshipped their hearts out, and poured over Scripture from early morning until late at night until the afternoon of January 4th. The entire family was involved in one way or another. Curt, my favorite young preacher, has been a community leader at the event for several years and Amanda and Melissa help me in a number of ways. Among other things, this year they participated in a question and answer session I got to do with the college girls in several breakout sessions. They sifted through a large number of questions then asked them from the platform and helped me answer a few. It was a blast to work beside them in that capacity. Jackson provided non-stop entertainment to everyone he encountered. He flirted with everyone he saw and adored anyone who would let him chew on their cell phones. (Mainly me. His mother is picky about whose cell phone he is allowed to gnaw.) Keith was all over the place lending a hand wherever he was needed. I was so glad he was there. He’s one of those who thinks an ounce of pretention is worth a pound of cow manure so he keeps everybody honest.
Louie and Shelley Giglio, founders of Choice Ministies as well as Passion Conferences, are personal friends of ours and we’ve been watching this movement swell into a tidal wave since our first participation in 1998. For those of us who have done the conferences together for years, we also enjoy a family reunion. We get to meet back up with friends like Chris Tomlin and his band members, all of whom we dearly love and I actively mother whenever I feel the need. We also look so forward to getting to see what God is doing in the UK based on Matt Redmon’s annual update to us. We are crazy about Charlie Hall (as a person and not just a worship leader) and who wouldn’t be nuts about David Crowder? (His parents are some of the most wonderful people you’ve ever met.) If you’ve never had the occasion to meet any of those worship leaders personally, you’d be so pleased to see their personal integrity and warmth and the blatant reality of their own pursuits of Christ. I can tell you one thing about Louie and Shelley. They don’t think much of fakes or of personalities just looking for a platform. Big egos are big no-nos. You would approve of the humility practiced there by people who the world would welcome to be completely full of themselves. They are each the real thing. As my husband Keith says, Texans can smell a varmint from a mile away.
Dr. John Piper brought a message that I don’t think I’ll ever forget on not letting guilt destroy your God-given dream of engaging in what God is doing in your generation. (I think most of the sessions are available by podcast and some by webcast on the official Passion website.) I got to hear Francis Chan for the first time. He is a fabulous communicator who pastors a thriving church in California with multiple plants elsewhere. He called students to not just love the Word of God because of the human instrument delivering it but to love God’s words because they are HIS. I could have “Amened!” myself off the balcony. What God did among the students, however, was the unparalleled highlight. They brought such sincere heart-worship to the throne of God and studied the Word tirelessly in multiple sessions. Their unashamed proclamations of Jesus Christ reverberated throughout Atlanta. They gave titanic offerings…to see Bibles translated for the very first time in the languages of two people groups…to see a number of world mission organizations thrive…to lend relief in some areas of tremendous need. They also committed to the hard work of intercession for various missions for the next year. Refreshingly, their sacrifices came as a response to opportunity and not pressure. Literally thousands surrendered to be available to God to go to any nation at any time upon His call. It was stunning. I won’t usually write this profusely on the blog but my heart was so full because of all I’ve seen that I couldn’t hold it in. With such dismal things on the world horizon, I saw the God of Hope in spectacular glory this week. As surely as Scripture has promised, depravity of man and persecution of Christians will increase as the day of Christ draws near but it also promised that glorious things will happen through the outpouring of His Spirit in the last days. I marveled over what might happen throughout the nations in the name of Christ over the next decade because 23,000 college students gathered in the State of Georgia this week. I wanted to share the experience with you in hopes that somehow you could get a little glimpse, too. You and I inhabit Planet Earth at a time when God is in the process of fulfilling monumental Bible prophecies. Lord, give us eyes to see! “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14. Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!
Leave a comment here. | Share with Others:That I surely do love you. I count it an unspeakable privilege to serve you, to laugh with you, to cry with you, and, more than anything else on earth, to chase after Jesus with you. He makes life worth living. Let’s persevere, Sweet Ones.
– Beth
The other day on the five o’clock news a Houston television station aired a news breaking story of a crime complete with telling video catching the culprits in the very act. A local family had a huge – I do mean huge – inflatable Frosty the Snowman erected in their front yard for the holidays. Upon arising on several mornings, they found him beaten down and a tad deflated. Since everybody knows he is a jolly happy soul, his benefactors had no choice but to suspect foul play. They did what surely any of us would do. They set up a video camera to catch what they probably surmised would be underage hoodlums playing sick pranks. That’s not what they found. The newscast interviewed the husband who awakened once again to an aired-out soul with a corncob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made of coal. Upon the discovery, he called to his wife (this is my favorite part), “Frosty’s down!” They threw the video in the player and to their great astonishment, the footage rolled upon two grown men punching, socking, pummeling Frosty with angry fists. Why, I ask you? What had Frosty ever done to them? Which brings me to the point. Sometimes the person we’re punching isn’t the one we’re really angry at. – Beth
Leave a comment here. | Share with Others:I just had one of the best Christmases of my whole life. Not perfect, mind you. The Moores are thoroughly imperfect people with a lot of feelings we feel free to share but, thankfully, we’re crazy about each other and crazier about Jesus – which helps tremendously when we’re just plain crazy. Did you get all that? I’d anticipated it as a very special – even once in a lifetime – Christmas because it was our first advent season with a grandchild. Jackson Curtis Jones is a ten month-old blue-eyed bundle of cackling energy on the constant move. Keith, Melissa, and I are drunk with love over the little guy. Amanda and Curt alternate Christmases between his parents in Missouri and our home in Houston and this – Jackson’s first – happened to be our year. I don’t make that remark smugly since I love his other grandmother so much. He’ll be even cuter next year under her tree.
In many ways having this darling grandchild has ushered in a whole new life. I have never experienced a more wonderful season of living. In other ways, I’ve reverted back to one I remember well when some of life’s greatest priorities were teething, immunizations, crawling, and pulling up. When God forbid we miss nap time. Having a baby in the family has made me so nostalgic about the baby girls I held in my own young, inexperienced arms years ago. The nostalgia led to the second reason this was one of my favorite all time Christmases.
About a month ago I crawled to the far side of the attic on a secret mission to retrieve my girls’ baby clothes. Keith was at the hunting lease and it was my first chance to throw myself into a task I’d been planning for weeks. My heart beat with anticipation as I carefully descended the ladder with lawn bags full of memories. With every tiny sleeper and smocked dress that tumbled on the kitchen table, I relived my daughters’ infancies. I washed every garment once and some of them twice. While I starched, ironed and folded them, I was suddenly a mom in my early twenties again, very unsure of my marriage and learning to parent one spell of colic at a time. I loved my baby girls so much. They brought out a desire in me to change, to grow, to be better at life. To know God and teach them to know Him. I laughed and cried with every tender memory and pondered how faithful God had been to such a messed up couple. When Amanda and Melissa would misbehave or fight like they hated each other, my mother always told me, “They’ll be the finest ladies.” And they are.
On Christmas morning, as my grandson squealed with glee from his exer-saucer, I presented his mom and his Aunt Lissy with shadow boxes of childhood memorabilia and long plastic containers each of their baby clothes. Life had come full circle. We have no idea what is ahead. Like all families, we will have sorrows and losses amid daily doses of dirty dishes and dog hair. But when a near-perfect family moment comes, I hope we always choose to take it. To stop long enough to feel it. That’s what I did this year.
-Beth
This is the recipe for my mom’s Texas sheet cake – our family’s favorite holiday treat. It’s simply amazing and it’s even better the next day. I’m having my second piece tomorrow for breakfast. Merry Christmas!
Beth’s Texas Sheet Cake
Grease a sheet cake pan. Sift:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
Bring to a boil:
2 sticks butter
1 cup water
4 tbsp. cocoa
Pour over dry mixture and mix in:
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
Bake at 400 degrees, 20-25 minutes.
Icing
Heat:
1 stick butter
4 tbsp. cocoa
6 tbsp. milk
Add anywhere from 1/2 to 1 box of powdered sugar to acheive desired consistency (Beth prefers close to 1 box) and 1 cup pecans. Spread on cake while it’s hot.
Leave a comment here. | Share with Others:There are two exceptionally fun days every year at LPM. One is Beth’s birthday. The other is our Christmas party. This year we had a bowling party. We divided into three teams – the Livings, the Proofs, and the Ministries. Beth led us in stretches and in cheers before we began. Yes, she is very sanguine. And we love it. We all received awards according to our bowling performances and attitudes. Diane’s award was “for demonstrating that the way up is down” (as we’ve learned in this fall’s Psalms of Ascent study). She took a little spill but managed to simultaneously acheive a strike. Truly amazing.
Welcome to my second attempt at a blog for Living Proof. The first one was short-lived. Only God knows what this blog will hold in the coming months or if it will actually last. My current vision for this page is to share news about Beth and the ministry as well as reports and pictures from events. Please be aware that this is one among many, many, many blogs that are hosted by blogspot. They host blogs from every slice of life. We have absolutely no control over what you might find if you click “Next Blog.” So if you do it and don’t like what you find, please don’t hold me responsible. And now that I’ve warned you, there’s something that makes you want to do it, isn’t there? In my family we say that it’s the law working in our members. (See Romans 7:23.)
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