Big God, Small World

I was reminded this week of a family story I hold dear to my heart. There was a knock on my front door. Sunshine, the elderly lady who lived next door, stood sweetly on the familiar Brandon threshold holding an envelope in her hand. She had something she just had to tell me. It took her a little too long to get it out. I wondered what was wrong. "You know, Bev, every morning I hear your Barrett---(my oldest son)---rev up his engine at 5:15 am and roar loudly right past my front window driving down our short street of one block." Uh oh! I thought to myself---she finally has had the courage to come tell us that he's disturbing all the senior citizens in our block with his 1975 International Scout---if you know that kind of car, you know it is really a noisy engine! Six days a week, Barrett drove to early morning swim practice and our one block neighborhood knew when he pulled out of our driveway. So, I braced myself to respond correctly to my elder. Instead, Sunshine's words to me stung my eyes with tears, melted my heart like wax. This is what she said: "You see, Bev, every weekday I am already up at 5:15 am, meeting with my Lord, usually on my knees when that yellow thing roars by. I want you to know that I can't make his high school graduation, but here's $10 for your boy. And I want you and Barrett to know that I prayed for him every morning that I heard his engine coming down our street for the past four years. I prayed for your boy to grow up to be a man of God." This mom melted right there on my threshold. I'll never forget Sunshine in that May moment. I didn't know many people who were specifically praying for my boy to be godly other than his parents. You never know who is praying for you.

That was the story my gracious God brought to my mind this week when I received an early morning phone call from my daughter in Thailand. Precious missionary friends of Brooke had just received the devastating news that their young son had been killed in an automobile accident back in the States. I sat at my picture window and wept for a family I don't even know. I knew they were in the air flying back on a very long flight as I prayed... and I thought about their arrival back to their familiar home without their little buddy. I asked my sovereign good God for His Presence and His Power for this precious family to find Him in this. I was overwhelmed for Phil and Pam---I still am. I thought of Gen. 21:16 when Abraham grieved over losing his son..."lift up your voice, God hears, God opens our eyes to see." And I prayed Psalm 3:3 that my beautiful God, their sovereign God would be the lifter of their heads." How do you even hold your own head up when tragedy strikes? They are surrounded with the favor of our good God as with a Shield, Psalm 5:12. Their loving Lord will be their confidence, Proverbs 3:25, in their sudden disaster. Oh God! Give them grace for they are humble people and so low right now but safe in your Hands. Help them to lay hold of all Your Words with all of their hearts, Proverbs 4:4. The nearness of You good God is their good. Looking out my window, I thought about how we can pray for someone and don't even know them. I thought to myself, this couple has no idea who is praying for them today---they would never have any way of knowing that this Texas mom was so moved in their loss wherever they live---up around Missouri, I think. I finished my quiet time with my present God and went on with my morning. I checked my blog, then went to the LPM blog...a comment caught my eye...please pray for a missionary family who lost their son in an automobile accident. I couldn't find an e-mail or blog to respond to so I asked Amanda to post a comment on the LPM blog from me to a girl named Kathy inquiring if it could be the same family...Kathy responded back to my post---it was. She had just gone to the funeral. I told Kathy to tell Phil and Pam that they will never know who is praying for them. They don't walk alone for a big God in our small world is moving on their behalf. This precious missionary family needs our prayers. Pray for these devoted Christ followers whom we don't even know but will spend Eternity with---and we'll meet their beloved boy, Chris, There! He'll be waiting...

Let Your Light Shine Before Men

Bob and Britt and I found 25 high school kids from Britt's high school to help run the Candlelighters Night Run in our community benefitting children with cancer at Cook Children's Hospital. Above are seven of our high school girls who were The Chip Officials giving out the chips and cutting them off the ankles as the runners crossed the finish line.

Candlelighters Chidhood Cancer Foundation is a national grassroots “families helping families” initiative founded in 1970 by parents of children with cancer. Today there are more than 50 chapters in the U.S. One of my dear friends, Julie Gayle, is the president of the Board of Directors for the Fort Worth chapter. It was the privilege of our high school teens to participate in helping raise funds for this organization who is making a difference in the cancer community of Fort Worth.

While our students had lots of fun volunteering---handing out glow sticks to cancer patients, cheering runners on, being Chip Officials and clipping chips off their ankles, and handing out bottles of water to those who crossed the finish line---yes, it was a fun volunteer project, but it was a visible presence in our community of a group of LCCS high school students who cared about making a difference in someone else’s lives. Teens today are so self-obsessed in how they feel, how they look, how they dress, how they come across. But here was a group of 25 teens who cared to offer their time and smiles and help for those who are quite desperate at this moment in their lives.

There was a local teen named Trent who didn’t make it to the race this year---he passed away a short few weeks ago. But 50 of his loyal supporters donned red T-shirts and ran the race in Trent ’s honor. You can’t pass out water and witness something like 50 red-shirted runners passing you by without evaluating why am I here and what will I do with my life? What an honor to Trent's name to have such loyal family and friends show up and carry the torch, so to speak. It moved me deeply.

A diagnosis of childhood cancer is devastating---overnight, normal lives turn upside down. But these 25 students helped make this race successful and they were actually a small part of raising thousands of dollars that will go toward the Candlelighters programs and services in our community. Our kids may say that all I did was pass out a glowstick or a bottle of water or clipped a chip…but it is the light that we have in our hearts that we give away. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Matthew 5:14. Thank you for letting your light shine before men on a Fort Worth night. You were noticed!

Kiss the Son, Kiss the Moon

It is pitch black every night on our street that lasts one block---it's void of any lightposts. I went to my car to retrieve my charging cell phone around midnight last night. The moonlight illuminated my path to my car. I silently screamed inside in delight and ran back in to awaken my husband to coerce him to come view the full moon. I've awakened Bob in REM sleep many times to check for potential prowlers but never to gaze on the moon---would he buy my sales pitch? I think at first he was actually sleepwalking, but he came with me...and I pleaded with him to take me on a barefoot walk around the block in the moonlight. We did. And we laughed from way within trying to take delicate steps with bare feet and enjoy the moment. We started setting off motion detectors with our steps, our voices...how funny was that. It was one of those midnight moments where we didn't quite know why we were laughing so hard but we were. A little something happened to me under that moon. I'm asking my good God to give me a huge heart for my husband in our later years that we walk as sweethearts, not parallel lives, not just driven to do the work of the ministry. But both...hearts for the God we so passionately love to live and to listen to Him as well as hearts together to advance His Kingdom for whatever that means---if He uses us with five or fifty people. I'm afraid at times how others, even my husband, will respond to me and sometimes I fear failure, I fear moving into their world when I believe my good God is prompting me. It's too late at night to kiss the moon or they may not respond like I want them to or they may not value me. I find some company with Gideon in Judges 6:27 who did what God told him to do but Gideon did it at night rather than in the daytime cause he was afraid of his family, afraid of the people. Now, I really don't recommend waking your husband up after he's gone to sleep for the evening just cause there is a full moon again tonight...but I wonder what it will look like today if we follow the Spirit's promptings? In my QT this a.m. God spoke to me through Psalm 2:12........................ kiss the Son repeatedly--- and tonight I think kiss that Moon--- take refuge in Him only and trust Him only, not attached to anything else. That speaks to this attachaholic who longs for someone or something to come through for me...He is my Shield all around me...the Lifter of my head (Psalm 3:3). I'll have to tell you another time how much that phrase "lifter of my head" means to me. Oh my!

Kiss the Son! Kiss the Moon! Repeatedly...

Esther - a Beth Moore Bible Study

“If it is true that God is speaking,
Than nothing would matter more than LISTENING…” Brennan Manning
God is speaking through His WONDERFUL WORD …
Not for us to master knowledge for knowledge puffs up but love changes…I Cor 8:1
But to ENCOUNTER MY BEAUTIFUL GOD…
And that’s what Beth Moore brings to the table or should I say altar...
How to read my Bible to meet my POWERFULLY PRESENT GOD…

Our Bible Study group is doing the Esther "It's Tough Being A Woman" study with Beth Moore... Once again, Beth makes you want to be caught up in the LARGER STORY OF OUR SAVIOR…for it is He who is the CENTER of our lives…it’s not about our story…I am not the center of my life...it is our story lifted into HIS STORY…

If God exists and He so poignantly powerfully does, then I must think about how I pitifully and powerfully and poorly and pristinely relate to my husband, my children, my church, my ministry, my friends, my community…not in a self obsessed way but in a self broken way….and this woman makes me want to think about how I want to relate to them in a God-obsessed way. A wild woman of the Word as she said…”www”…and it’s because Deut 32:47 – God’s words are not idle words, they are our very life!

There were, among many, three things that lingered with me from Beth’s opening session on Esther in Houston last Tuesday…

NO PLACE GOD CAN’T GO WITH SCARED WILLING VESSELS…
“No place God can’t move into, no place God can’t go with scared-half-to-death but willing, ill-equipped vessels.” She asked us if we would be willing to go with God? Her opening words made me want to know “the whole Megillot” looking into the life of a woman like Esther feeling fear and inadequacy just like me.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MY RED SEA PARTS…
Beth asked what happens when your Red Sea parts or doesn’t part and you can’t find Him but you know He’s there…what HOPE God gives Romans 15:4 that despite appearances we have not been given a stone but bread…Living Bread of Life…God has not lost me but I sometimes feel lost at times…and Beth went on to talk about God being anonymous working through the natural in our ordinary events in our lives, …a “coincidence”---not really, it’s God preferring to remain anonymous, God building our faith…ANXIOUS EXPECTATION---when I am out of my mind with fear and anxiety, I can look through eyes of faith…and our faith is putting God in every fill in the blank…oh my…nothing happens by chance…and when she talked about her own dark night of the soul and reflecting on what we know that we know that we know that we know in the darkness…it was one of those moments for me in my own darkness that I knew something that moment I didn’t know the moment before…and I walked away a little more convinced that “He is working out everything in conformity with His Providential Will”…you seek Him and His will finds you…oh my

ANOTHER WOMAN’S SHADOW…
It’s tough being a woman in another woman’s shadow…Miss Perfect or Miss Monster…and you know, I thought, my biggest problem is not other people but it is my failure to commune with my awesome God in the midst of my relational failures with my husband, children and friends…it’s my failure to find my Good God. Beth said the World Bible Commentary said God parts the Red Sea with you or without you…He is calling me to His Word and I can’t get enough of it, can’t get enough of Him…trust His providence even when there is no miracle…God is calling me to courage.

As I finish my first week of Bible study lessons in Esther and see how I am born for trouble…and what will I do with it? I loved it when Beth said: “Trust your life to the Hand and Pen of an UNSEEN, EVER-PRESENT GOD who is writing my life into His Story."

You can catch the aroma of this precious woman of God…II Cor. 2:14 – thanks be to God who is the fragrance of Jesus Christ through Beth. When I smell the fear, and I do, I also am finding a pungent smell of my Christ in the words of this Bible Study...and that changed the direction of my week a little as I related a tad differently to my husband and kids and world. Little by little Deut 7:22…He is changing me through His Word…I am listening and so grateful for this journey through Esther.

Tears Tumbling on the Treadmill for.... the Lion has roared

I was on the treadmill (Brookie told me that I have to post pictures if anyone is going to read my long posts) and my good God prompted me to take a step of faith and call a friend to speak a good word of tender truth. Do you ever feel timid that maybe your words are not appropriate for that moment? Sometimes, I don't know how I will be received? So I keep silent...

But I need to change my thinking and

Move to love my friend

Shift from how I feel about myself and how I will be received to...

How do I feel about my Christ? & even more than that...

HOW DOES my CHRIST FEEL ABOUT ME?

My glorious God

hems, holds,

loves, longs,

reveals, rescues,

drives, delights,

fights, favors

He has written 66 Love Letters to tell me how He feels about me.

Here are a few quotes He brings to my mind tonight as I write...

"I hem you in---behind and before. I lay My Hand upon you." Psalm 139:5

"I hold you with my Right Hand and guide you with My Counsel." Psalm 73:23

"I love you with an Everlasting Love. I draw you to Me with lovingkindness." Jeremiah 31:3

"I long to be gracious to you. I rise to show you My Compassion." Isaiah 30:18

"Your Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to you. The lion has roared, who will not fear?" Amos 3:7-8

"I will rescue you. I will protect you. I will be with you in trouble. I will deliver you. I will satisfy you." Psalm 91:14-15

"Little by little I will drive out your enemies before you." Exodus 23:30

"The Lord your God takes great delight in you. He will quiet you with His Love. He rejoices over you." Zephaniah 3:17

"The Lord your God is going before you, He will fight for you, for He has carried you as a Father carries his son." Deuteronomy 1:30-31

"May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us & establish the work of our hands for us." Psalm 90:17

My time on the treadmill was over. I walked briskly to the exit door. An unfamiliar unknown older lady approached me and asked me for a moment of my time. Hesitating, she spoke softly: "I don't know you...I don't know how you are going to receive this. But I was in the parking lot and I think that God told me to come back in here and tell you something. (I wonder if she saw my tumbling tears on the treadmill?) Two things she spoke above a whisper. The First one is this...it is your God who acts in you. Second: He will take care of what concerns you." Humbled, I thanked her for timely words to me. Oh, that my glorious God would send someone out of their way, out of their comfort zone, to remind me how my King attentively feels about me. She reminded me that if we walk by faith, isn't it His strength within us not ours? She reminded me of Psalm 138: 7, 8 that says though I walk in trouble, my Lord will fulfill His purpose for me and accompish all that concerns me. Tried to make it to my car but melted in the parking lot and sat on a curb with tears spilling down my face and a little bird at my toes. His eye is on the sparrow. His eye is on each one of us even when we are unaware. It's not about us. It's all about Him and how He feels about us.

Didn't realize it was You, my Beautiful God

I don't remember reading about Balaam's oracles before...but as I opened the Scriptures to have my Quiet Time, the Scriptures in Numbers 22 and 23 read me...for I didn't realize it was You, my beautiful God, standing in my path...

The donkey finally spoke---wait a minute---donkeys don't speak! The donkey said to Balaam---stop beating me for I have been your good donkey, not in the habit of stopping on you! And Balaam lost his mind for the moment and spoke back to the donkey exclaiming that if he had a sword, he'd kill his good donkey. God opened Balaam's eyes to see why the donkey stopped in his path. God went to extreme measures to stop Balaam and get his attention that his path was a reckless one. The reckless path meant Matthew 15:19 - what was coming out of his heart was reckless---like evil thoughts--- not actions, though. It was what was in his heart that God wanted to get his attention.

Balaam replied: I have sinned. I didn't realize it was You, my beautiful God, Who was standing in my path 22:32. Balaam fell on his face and repented of his old ways of making his life work. And I loved it when I read the verse in 24:1 - Balaam didn't resort to his old ways of living as at other times but turned his face to his desert. Balaam went to a barren height 23:3 and said perhaps the Lord will come to meet with me.

God gave Balaam 5 oracles that touched deep parts of me as I read this in my QT:

1. Speak only the words I put in your mouth 23:12

2. God never lies to me....He speaks/He acts and He promises/He fulfills 23:19 so don't rouse yourself like a lion that doesn't rest till he devours others

3. Even if I were given a palace or one million bucks, I can't do anything, good or bad, beyond the command of my Lord (24:13)

4. God opens my eyes to hear His words and see the vision of my Almighty and no one changes my vision unless I let them...and I fall prostrate before Him (24:16)

5. Amalek was 1st. (24:20) ...no, only my God is first in my life. No other man, no other place. Put first things first. You think like 24:21-- you think "your dwelling place is secure; your nest is set in a rock" but, oh no, what happens when troubles and temptations come? Do you have rest in your soul? Do we know real rest from the Almighty?

As I leave these words that read my heart...will I see my beautiful God standing in my path today? I long to leave my old ways of wanting too much to look good and leave a legacy and find my worth in what people think of me and what I accomplish...and I turn my face to my desert where I think my God is standing in my path. I don't want to live arrogant. I believe I can say He is my beautiful God and here I am stopped in my tracks.

A Thai Birthday for Brooke

Brookie 2 Shoes on her very

First Birthday

We were on a church-wide retreat when you decided to make your entrance into this world. The retreat grounds were 30 minutes from the hospital. It's a good thing cause you came into the world with one contraction, literally. The doctor didn't make it into the delivery room neither did your dad...

I have loved you immeasurably from the day you were born Brookie Two Shoes. I wanted a girl so badly and God gave me the desires of my heart---and having you was more than I could have ever hoped for. All of my children, Brooke, are more than I could have ever imagined.

Happy Birthday in Thailand dear girl...Acts 17:26 are the verses God gave me on that day you were born..."God determined the times set for you and the exact places where you should live (Benbrook, College Station, Chiang-Mai Thailand) so that you would seek Him and reach out for Him and find Him and He is not far from you."

The nearness of God is your good. You have found an awesome God, Brooke, and your dad and I couldn't be any prouder of you honoring your God in Thailand. "In Him you live and move and have your being." We love you so much! I can hear you laughing in this photo at your Thai 24th birthday party! We miss your laughter. We miss you my Brookie.

I didn't think roommates could get any better than Six Chicks living. No one compares to our Sarah, Hayley, Jessica, Cla, and Lauren. But it sounds to me that your new sweet roommates gave you not only a great day, they have given you their hearts. And that makes this mom's heart really happy.

Happy Birthday Brookie 2 Shoes!

Always a SOONER!

The diploma insert said: "No Matter Where You Go, You'll Always Be a SOONER!" Blair walked in May and we witnessed the day. Blair finished all of the coursework in July and that chapter highlights how time flies. Our baby girl is a graduate. Sooner Blair.


This is what this mom remembers about Blair's four year college visit in Norman, Oklahoma (and I may have something wrong on my list) but here goes a mom's perspective...BSU...touched for life at Trinity Church...touched by kids where you worked...Pursuit Bible Studies...football games...loving challenging political science classes...walking in the snow to class...four fabulous roommates...sand volleyball...President's Leadership Class...meeting Queen Noor of Jordan...themed house parties...dinner with Rudy Guiliani...making a million friends...Ronald Reagan Ranch...awesome Ghana mission trip...Pioneer missions...SCI delegate to Hungary & Budapest...road trips from California to New York...campus-wide Capture the Flag...two summer internships with Kay Granger and Kay Bailey Hutchison...but best of all, a mighty God who showed up for Blair in Norman! Your beauty is beautiful Blair!

I have spent most of August with my graduated girl... haven't spent that much precious consecutive time with her since high school. She left this week for Washington D.C. as a Witherspoon fellow... an internship with the Family Research Council in D.C.

There is a sweetness about this girl that is priceless. She has a big heart for people and more than that a big heart for her God. She may be a SOONER forever but she will always be my baby Blair. We are so proud of you sweet girl! I believe your God will show up for you in Washington DC.