LPL - Vancouver

In the first picture you will see the event team, praise team, and sound/lighting/video team - basically everyone but our friend Rich, who is responsible for taking these great pictures. Thanks, Rich! And congratulations to the Living Proof Live team on ten years of serving Christ together!

Conversations

Amanda: Hey Mama!

Beth: Good morning, sweet darlin'! How are you and my boy this morning?

Amanda: We're good. I know I'm calling you really early, but I had to tell you that Jackson woke up crying for you.

Beth: He did?

Amanda: Yes! He was in his bed wailing, "Bibby! Bibby! Bibby!" It was so sad. I think he had a dream about you.

Beth: Awww, was he missing his Bibby?

Amanda: Yes. Isn't that sweet? I'm putting you on speaker phone so you can talk to him.

Beth: Hi Jackson! It's Bibby! How are you this morning? Are you watching Sesame Street?

Jackson:----------

Beth: Jackson, are you gonna come to Bibby's house soon and play with Beansie?

Jackson:----------

Amanda: He doesn't seem to want to talk today. Maybe he dreamed you were giving him a spanking.

Beth: (Audible gasp) I know who needs a spanking! Mommy does!

Just Dreaming?

Hey, Siestas! It's Bible study day and I don't have three minutes to spare but I had a thought I wanted to quickly share with you. I'm sitting at my breakfast room table with my Bible, books, and notes, putting the last few sentences on my message for tonight. (Can't sit outside because the wind is whipping so hard that I can't keep my notes on the table! It's nearly blowing the feathers off my blue jays!) Keith is out and about, leaving the house nice and quiet so I can prepare - which was going well until I got distracted by a particularly silly birddog.

Beanie is sound asleep on the couch but must be dreaming she's chasing a rabbit or a squirrel. She's barking in her sleep the way she does when she's chasing a critter and all four legs are going back and forth as if she's running like the wind. It's the funniest thing you've ever seen. She does it periodically so maybe one of these days after I master the camera, I can move to video and catch her in action.

Every time she does it I think the same thing: is that what we're doing? Are we just snoozing our way through (purposeful) life and day dreaming about how we're going to chase down what Christ chased us down for - or are we going to wake up and actively pursue what God has created us for - even when the path gets rough? I ask the question because I've faced the dilemma. See if you can go here with me a minute: We get some vision from God and get pretty jazzed about it then, as God leads, we start taking steps that direction and suddenly the path gets hard. Or LONG. We wanted to leap there. Not crawl there. Somehow we weren't expecting it to be like this. We were thinking it was going to be fun. Always fulfilling. And, for crying out loud, not so dad-blasted hard and irritating. We didn't want to have to learn it or live it. We just wanted to do it. NOW.

So we retreat and decide we dreamed it all up - just like Satan was hoping we would. We don't understand that the pressures we face getting to our places of full-throttle effectiveness in Christ are crucial for developing the muscle to sustain ministry there. He's developing the character the calling requires. The Apostle Paul knew better than anybody what the path to Christ-ordained effectiveness required. In 1 Corinthians 16:8-9, he told of a "great and effectual door" that God had opened for him in Ephesus and in the same breath mentioned the great opposition he faced there. Let me echo here on this blog again and again: Satan will never oppose us more than when he thinks we're onto our callings. Bet on that. As L.B. Cowman said in Streams in the Desert, "Both in the physical realm and spiritual realm, great pressure means great power." (p.9)

Read these words from Paul with a fresh application to your significant life:
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me...Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:12-14)

Let nothing - no obstacle, opposition, pressure, PAST, or passage of time - stop you besides Christ Himself. And if HE does, stop immediately. It will be only for your good and your clarification. You will know the difference as you lie on your face before Him and ask Him. To double check that we ourselves have not inadvertently caused a delay, let's be sure and turn dramatically from pride and every hint of selfish ambition so that Christ can entrust us with power from on high...

"For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come." Habakkuk 2:3

"Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you"! Eph. 5:14

First Event of 2008 and A Party for the Tods

Can I just say that I'm so glad we have our first Living Proof Live event of 2008 this weekend? It is going to be in Vancouver. After the last event of 2007, I felt like the blog's right arm was in a sling. We've had no commissionings, no video recaps, and no before and after comments from the local siestas! I'm ready for my mom to get back to doing her thang!

Since the conference is still a few days away and my mom is getting ready for Bible study this afternoon, I will share some pictures from Jackson's second birthday. (Well it looks like we were blogging at the same time!) When I wrote the date in my prayer journal this morning, I realized it was my old due date. I don't think about it much because 2/17/06 was The Big Day, but I did cling tightly to 2/26/06 for nine months. It will always be special to me. It was also the date of a very large, sold-out conference in Birmingham, Alabama. Lord, help us! Well, He did help us! God worked it all out and everyone was there for Jackson's birth. I can't complain!

We had a birthday feast for Jackson at Pappasito's the afternoon after Melissa's wedding. The servers brought out a sombrero and a brownie sundae to celebrate. They even sang him a song. At the very end when everyone clapped, he looked at me and said, "Mommy? Mommy? Whaaaaaaa!" It was so tragic. But he bounced back.







Then we played in a park.




You can walk a bit taller when you're two.


Here are some pictures from Jackson and Ella's joint birthday party at Pump It Up on Saturday. They are only two days apart and have all the same friends, so it worked out great!

Me and my boy in a bounce house.






Curtis and Jackson shooting hoops.






Jackson on a slide.


Janelle and I got a sneak peek of the party room before it was taken over by toddlers.




Do I even need to tell you who this is? In case I do, it's Pablo from the Backyardigans.


A toddler birthday party takes a lot of moms working together.


Ella and Jackson having a snack.


Jackson really just wanted to play with the balloons.


We couldn't wait to take a picture of the Tods in this fun chair. They were not as enthused about it.




Janelle and Ella, Jackson and me, and Sunni and Ava


We played hard.

Glad I'm a Woman

OK, I just have a sec but I'm so amused by something that I have to tell you about it. I am at a coffee shop close to Melissa's apartment. The movers packed her stuff yesterday and are putting it in the truck as we speak. I'd been perched on her back porch but they needed to move that furniture, too. Besides, it's cold here today and my hands were freezing. All that to say, I had to find a place close by and, as God would have it, it has wireless internet. The place was packed when I came in. Really cute decor with a half a dozen small round tables surrounded by four wing back chairs. By the time I ordered my coffee, several people departed and I threw my stuff in a chair as fast as I could. In a few minutes, two men - I think in late thirties - couldn't find a place to sit so they asked if they could sit at my table. I told them to be my guest. They'd not distract me at all.

I totally lied.

Watching those two men try to do coffee was the most awkward thing I've ever seen. They couldn't have been business associates or, goodness knows, they'd have talked business. And I would've been relieved. Instead, for the life of them, they could not think of one single thing to say. And, no, they weren't trying to be quiet for my sake. The whole establishment is abuzz with conversation. One of them tapped on the top of his cup. The other made a few attempts at sentences starting with, "SO..." It was pitiful. Worse than pitiful. It was painful. I cannot tell you how tempted I was to help them. They needed rescuing in the worst way and I had at least five topics for conversation on the tip of my tongue: weddings, up-dos, grandboys who have learned to talk in full sentences, women's Bible study, and baby girls moving to Atlanta with new husbands. But somehow I got the feeling they didn't want my help. I tried not to look at them. It would have been too humiliating for them. So there I sat, pecking away on my computer, acting like I had no idea that they were having the world's most awkward cup of coffee. Anyway, I don't even think they were real coffee drinkers. Out of the corner of my discerning eye, I saw no pause for reflection after a single sip. Dead giveaway that they were posers. That was their first problem.

And here I am, communicating with a whole herd of women I've never even met with names that, five years ago, would've sounded like cartoon characters and about all manner of personal thing happening in my family's life.

Yep. I love being a woman.

PS. I like to have died (that's how my people always talked. I really do have some education. I just don't sound like I do) over Mommy Dot Com sharing that she'd been nominated as "customer of the week" at her neighborhood Starbucks and nearly started crying when they announced someone else as the winner. Laughing my danged head off. You are customer of the week to all your siestas.

Head Above the Wedding Waters

Hey, Siestas! I am so happy to reconnect with you today! I am just beginning to emerge from the throes and promised not to leave you hanging. Some of you may not be able to bear another entry about the wedding (last one till a handful of professional pics come back!Then that will be the real last one! Unless Melissa wants to talk about it when she gets back, then that will be the real last one really) but, for others, I fear I’d be slapped about the head with a corn tortilla if I didn’t offer up some treats on the festive table of Siestaville. Let me begin by giving a much deserved volume-10 shout of thanks to Amanda for doing such a fabulous job of keeping you up on our all festivities. All three of us – AJ, Lis, and I – wanted so much for you to be a part of it and, thanks almost entirely to just one of us, you were, if you wanted to be. Her terrific play-by-play and snap-shot walk-thru helped me relive so much of the excitement…and I really needed to! As so many of you know, you plan a wedding for months and it seems it will never come then suddenly it’s over in a flash and you wonder if you missed it.

Amanda won’t appreciate me taking up space here to dote on her about stuff like this but, truly, she is the ultimate big sister for big occasions. Among many other things, she planned the girls’ night out on Thursday night, hosted the spa day on Friday (I joined them at the end and took them all to the bridal lunch but felt they’d have more fun without a mom right in the middle of those two things). Amanda showered Melissa with numerous gifts that only a sister can give – complete with said celebratory CD – and, all in all, simply never left her side leading up to the ceremony. She also let Melissa be right for twenty-four solid hours which was no small task for girls who do not mind sharing their minds. Perhaps best of all (since words are our chief love language), Amanda wrote and read the neatest blessing at their reception, calling back to mind so many Moore memories and traditions that she hoped Melissa would carry on. (Equally I hope to call OFF, in Jesus’ Name, the ones we hope neither daughter carries on. And there are plenty.) Even as understandably distracted as our little bride was, the blessing wasn’t wasted on her. She called from the airport the next day and told Amanda how she loved it and wanted to make sure it was in a safe place so she could find it and keep it forever. Take heart, mother of fighting siblings!! Thanks to Jesus, they may one day be able to stand beside one another without you having to say, “Am I going to have to separate you two or paddle you?”

OK, here are a few of my favorite memories that haven’t been mentioned in our posts so far:
*Having Melissa upstairs in her room just like she ought to be on the morning of the wedding. Fixing coffee one last time for my darling little single daughter. Using our matching cups with our names on them (that one of our Bible study sisters somewhere in the nation sent all three of us, as a matter of fact! In case the giver is tuned into Siestaville, they are darling green and yellow mugs with parsley sprigs painted on them after an LBY story I told. We have used them a jillion times in the last three years!)

*Watching Lis and her Daddy do a quick run-thru of their dance that morning while they were still in their jammies.

*Springing the money for a stretch limo to take Lis, Amanda, and me to the church (the men came much later) so that we could lay her dress all the way out without wrinkling it. Stopping, of course, by a Starbucks on the way and laughing because we had to. Seeing someone from Tuesday night Bible study while I was in there and having her ask, “Don’t you have a wedding coming up sometime soon?” and pointing to the block-long car and replying, “That’s us and, actually, we’re supposed to be at the church right now.”

*Spending that one last hour with Melissa, Amanda, and the bridesmaids in the bride’s room before the ceremony began. We girls had already had our pictures taken in the sanctuary so we were completely ready yet we had an hour to wait. I didn’t want to crunch up my dress by sitting down so, since they all had on strapless dresses, I just walked around and gave all the bridesmaids and the bride back tickles. (Admit it, that’s what you really want when you go for a massage but you’re too embarrassed to ask.) The conversation in that room was so precious and it was almost like God heightened my senses where I could take in every sound, sight, and scent. I’ll never forget it. Melissa was so happy. She kept looking at the clock and, instead of being nervous or fretting about one single remaining thing, she kept saying, “Only forty more minutes…only thirty-three more minutes…only fifteen more minutes…only five more minutes!” I reveled in the absolute assurance that my baby daughter was marrying exactly who she wanted to marry. She could hardly wait. I couldn’t resist texting Colin to say, “Amid all the stress of the last four months, this child has not had one single doubt. She cannot wait to marry you.” I heard back from him instantly. It represented something so precious to me. I realized with entirely fresh understanding that, when the bride has made herself ready (Revelation 19:7), she doesn’t want the ceremony delayed. She wants to see her groom. I want to be that way about Jesus. Without a hint of morbidity, I want to be a bride who sets her mind on making herself ready for her startlingly gorgeous groom and can hardly wait to meet Him at that altar. I want to live like a young woman getting ready for the biggest royal wedding in the universe.

*Watching Colin watch her.

*Watching her watch Colin.

*Watching Keith watch me. Heehee. I dang well meant to catch his eye that night.

*I don’t know if I can describe my favorite all-time moment in words because you would kinda had to have seen it. As Melissa and Colin held hands and faced one another, saying their vows, Lis would periodically shimmy back and forth with the unbridled glee of a five year-old. It was almost like she’d get a sudden jolt of a happy-shiver. She was delirious. Happier than she was the night we got to see “New Kids on the Block” and I never imagined she’d ever be more in love than she was with Donnie Wahlberg. Alas, the heart heals. I doubt a soul at the wedding missed the shimmy because you could hear folks all over the sanctuary snickering. This I promise you: no one there could accuse either one of those two people of being dragged down that aisle.

*Looking around that beautiful candlelit room at the restaurant-reception and seeing so many people we love celebrating there with us: our families, our best buddies, our LPM sisters and many of their handsome husbands, our dearest church friends, Melissa and Colin’s high school friends. People like Travis and Angela Cottrell who are like blood to us and who we love so much we could cry. Friends like Steve and Dixie who took time they didn’t have and came several thousand miles to stand with us. Seeing couples dance and even smooch that I’ve hardly seen hold hands before. A wedding is so good for an ailing romance.

*Dancing with my man. Knowing we’d ride home together. And feel things nobody else could feel with us. Good things. Tender things. God things.

*Feeling happy but a little lost about 1:00 AM that morning back at my house…then tiptoeing in to look at my grandson while he slept in his crib. And it was his second birthday. And thinking how life really does go on. And how right it is for them to grow up. But maybe not so fast.

And those are good things for me to be thinking right about now as I sit on the tiny porch of Melissa’s apartment while the movers busy themselves packing everything she owns. Some things are meant to be felt.

Love big.

On behalf of the Moores, Joneses and Fitzpatricks, thank you so much for entering into this wonderful and important season of our lives. We do not take your love lightly nor your prayers sparingly. May God throw you a surprise party of your own. We are humbled to be your servants.

PS. DJ, you are smarter than a fifth grader to your siestas. How dare they?

Before Girls Night Out.




Jill, Melissa, and Erin at Cafe Adobe.


Outside the limo.


Inside the limo.


Picking up Liz from the airport.


The cake present. Each box was wrapped in satin. This was from someone who has been a mentor to my sister and it had all kinds of wonderful things inside - crystal, silver, and other treasures from her own home.


Spa extravaganza.


Lunch with the bridesmaids and the bridesman.


They weren't lying when they called it a pear salad.


Serving up the good stuff.


Jackson enjoying breakfast in Pappaw's chair.


The Bride getting all dolled up.


The Moore girls. I really liked my hair from the side.


The Moore men: Joe, Ben, and Mike Meadows; my dad and my grandpa.


My little fam. For now this is the only pic I have of us or of Jackson.


The highly anticipated dance.


Another sweet dance.


The Cottrells and the Fitzpatricks. And I believe the song I mentioned earlier was "Forevermore." Travis, correct me if I'm wrong.


Stealing a kiss.


M-O-B also stands for Mother of Beanie. Here she is after the wedding, cooking dinner for her four-legged daughter. (Beanie has a bone disease that gets worse if she eats carbs, so she's on a special diet.)


Beanie was ready for her sisters to fly the coop so she could rule the roost again.


After removing a few bobby pins, my awesome Queen Amadala hairdo looked like a Grand Ole Opry special. We felt the need to document this unique moment in my life.