What a Week!

My Dear, Dear Siestas,
I am in the airplane on my way home from breathtaking New England with a whirlwind-week wrapped up in the Name of Jesus. He alone knows how much your prayers carried us. Never do I ever take intercession lightly. It takes time, concentration, and labor. I am humbly mindful that the requests we throw out to you here are added to a monumentally long list of your own. THANK YOU.

You’re already up to date on the first three days of our tour but I gave you my word I’d keep you up on the whole week. Praise His merciful, faithful Name, God was unsparing in His Presence among us in both Delaware and Connecticut. The arena on the campus where we met in Delaware was not only full to the brim with people but full of passion for the Lord Jesus. Their praise and worship rocked the whole house. I loved them to pieces and God granted us an altar time that night that I will never forget as long as I live. Our last night was in beautiful Hartford, Connecticut and I was deeply moved that God had us end this ten-year season of Living Proof Live in a church. That’s where we started these events, stayed for a long time, and where we will no-doubt (joyfully and obediently, I pray) return. Make no mistake. Every time we meet in an arena or civic center, we gather as His CHURCH and He graces it as such but it was wonderful to be back in a lovely sanctuary where God is praised week in and week out. We didn’t have to follow up something like ACDC if you get my drift. We also had a powerful altar time there last night and I can only imagine how God esteemed the many tears that stained the carpet.

After we concluded (late!) last night, LifeWay threw all us team members a surprise party. We had so much fun. Travis and I received three gifts that we will each treasure the rest of our sanguine lives. We were given framed maps of the United States will flag-pins in all 50 states identifying the city and the year we had the chance to serve there. I’ve got to preface the next gift we received with a story. Trav and I were saying at the party how much we wished we had a photo journey of the events in an album. We called over our dear Rich, our photographer extraordinaire, and asked him if he’d put together such a thing for us (as only he could do, creative as he is). We told him we didn’t even want a brother-in-law deal. We’d pay him full price for his labor. He promised he would. And fifteen minutes later he was called forward to do his part at our gathering and with tears in his eyes, he pulled two gorgeous, professionally crafted hard-back books out for us. The cover was a picture of one of the largest LPL events we’ve ever been charged by God to do. It was at Philips Arena (with CeCe!) in Atlanta, Georgia and the sight of that place filled to the brim is almost unbearable. The title beneath it is, “Living Proof Live: A Photographic History.” And, yes, by our very own LPL historian, Rich Kalonick. It is SLAYING. And, oh, Lord have mercy, the hair styles. And, if you don’t mind me saying (he will), not just mine. Trav’s hair has been through some seasons, too. But he is consistently the cutest thing for the whole ten years! I, on the other hand, have decided, big as it is, my hair looks better longer and blonder than shorter and darker. So deal with it. And, really, I should have gotten a nose job along the way. I used to want one but by the time I had the money to pay for it, I didn’t care anymore. As I look at the pictures, perhaps I should have cared more. (TEASING, GIRLS!) But that’s all beside the point. The point is, it captures a journey of God’s faithfulness amid frail but seeking people. I love every single page of it but my favorite parts of all are shots of the participants in varying states of praise and study, laughter and tears. Man, I am so blessed to be able to minister to women!! You just really get into it. AND, my other favorites are the group pictures of our entire team: tech guys, sound guys, light guys, graphics guys, event girls, Trav and the praise team, and, okay, yours truly. (When they’ve taken a picture without me, I always love to say, “I love it! But there’s something missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”) You cannot imagine the diversity of people and personality God has teamed-up at these events and we have grown into family. I am so thankful for them.

Our third gift was a blast-of-a-video compiled by our dear friend (and team member) Stephen Proctor. He’d compiled all sorts of greetings from team members and participants and a few special guests. Many of the shots were hilarious. I nearly died when it came to the part he shot of the team at an airport. He’d taken them into the nursing room (it was empty, praise You, Lord) to video them so it would be quieter. You can imagine most of them were too flustered with the environment to concentrate on their greetings. The video is complete with bloopers and you’d best run to the ladies’ room before you watch them. Other parts of the video made me do what I HATE to do in public: the ugly cry. Man, I hate that. Nobody looks cute doing that. The three gifts were the absolute best-possible ways to document and celebrate a decade of ministry. As LifeWay Vice President John Kramp so aptly put it, we don’t know where God will take us in the years to come – nor how! – but today we hold up a stone of Ebenezer and proclaim, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” He alone did it. He alone gets the glory. He alone decides where it goes from here. Not one of us would dare share one single success with Him. I’d be a wreck without Him.

I want to tell you one last thing I’m taking home with me from New England. My biggest loss – and it’s a BIG ONE – on the road is that I often don’t get to know any of the women personally. For this season of time, my one-on-one mentoring is done with serious concentration and calling toward my own daughters. They are the dearest ministry I have. Most of what I’m called to do otherwise this season is in a group setting. I’m so thankful for it and I can read a number of things from faces but I always wish I’d had the privilege of hearing their stories. One group of city coordinators sent me home this week with a very well-done photo album of their pictures, personal stories with Jesus, and their journeys over the last year as they worked toward their event. When I tell you I pored over it a little while ago on this plane ride and sobbed, I’m not exaggerating. It was as if we’d sat in a circle over a strong cup of fresh Starbucks and shared face-to-face. So many things struck me, some of which I’ve already written back in a letter to them, but one thing I feel compelled to share with you because I respect the same thing in so many of our bloggers. Many of them are living the Jesus-life faithfully OUTSIDE A SPOTLIGHT where they’d more often be affirmed and in the places where it counts more than anything. Where, as my people would say, the rubber meets the road. Right there in their communities, their school systems, amid hectic schedules of carpool and what on earth to cook for supper. Serving their churches, many of which are very small. Some of which lack a little spark. Many of them don’t have a sprawling LifeWay Christian Store near the neighborhood mall nor do they have a Christian concert every other weekend like we have in the Bible Belt.

One NE sister wrote me and said their beautiful city only has one Christian radio station and it’s mostly talk radio. Many of you could say the same thing. Numbers of you live in apathetic communities that just don’t give a rat’s tail about church or Christianity. Others live in very intellectual communities that look down on Christians like they’re ignorant and gullible. And yet there you are. Doing the thing. And doing it faithfully. Getting down on your knees at some point every day. Reading the Scriptures. Asking God to help you know Him. Living it out in your homes (is there any harder charge?) and in your work place and communities and finding yourselves wounded and wondering from time-to-time if God knows you’re alive. There is no such thing as serving in obscurity when you belong to Jesus. He is attentive to your labor. He is attentive to your CRY. IT MATTERS.

Sweet Thing, there is no one on Earth God notices more than you. He knows that the atmosphere He’s entrusted to you is not the easiest place on the planet to serve and, yet, day in and day out He sees you doing the thing. He knew you would. That’s why you’re there. He didn’t bother entrusting it to a light-weight. He knows you may go weeks between true soul-encouragements. Thank goodness we have the example of the man after God’s own heart, who, in 1 Samuel 30:6, was surrounded by bitter people who couldn’t see past their own problems to regard how he’d tried to help them. There, we’re told that David encouraged himself in the Lord. Yep, you can do that. When not one single soul bothers to encourage you, you can just go right to the Lord and encourage yourself. How ‘bout that? Speak to your own insides and say, “Why so downcast, oh, my soul? Why so disturbed within me. Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God!” As alone as you may feel, every time you praise Him, some ten-thousand angels jump in the chorus with you and your song becomes a symphony.

Stay faithful, Darling One. STAY FAITHFUL! Every ounce of your effort and every drop of sacrifice are poured like anointing oil on the feet of Jesus.

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you and watch over you.” Psalm 32:8