Oh, What A Week!

My Dear Siestas, it has been way too long! I’m sitting here in my gown in my very own bed with pillows behind my back and Star lying across my feet. (She has no intention of taking her eyes off me today. The last time she looked away, I disappeared for 5 days.) I’ve already had prayer time and two cups of coffee. About to start on my 3rd.

So much has happened this week that has deeply impacted me but nothing, you might imagine, more than Melissa’s post. I sat in an exhausted heap at a long layover at an airport yesterday and read and read and read the blog and your comments. It was everything I could do not to roll in the floor. It was so much more than I deserved but a spring to a weary soul. I love my girls so much. I don’t just love them. I respect them. Like so many of you, they are such fine and gifted young women. God has given Keith and me no greater proof of His grace and redemption on our sinful, former pit-dwelling lives than our two daughters. Both of them are a little undone that they won’t be home for Mother’s Day this year (btw, look for a Mother’s Day post tomorrow – I think God has given me kind of a neat idea) but I have told them over and over (and meant it) that I am among the most blessed moms on earth who hear every single day from their children that they are loved. We are a very close family and they are my favorite people – wise and impossibly witty – on earth. Thank you for allowing us a little room to be family on this blog.

Many years ago I heard someone say (don’t even remember who anymore) that “no amount of success in ministry can make up for failure at home.” And I wrote that in the very front of my Bible and have it engraved upon my brain. Family life is tough. It’s never all clean and tidy because it is lived wholly without cover. We Moores, Jones’s and Fitzpatricks are not without bruises and scars from all-things-family but to know each other intimately and still respect each other is a profound gift of God we do not take lightly. I say again and again to you in hopes that you will be encouraged to hang in there, our family is a miracle and He can perform that same miracle in your home.

And now, for just a few other highlights – written in long hand, of course – from a very exciting week in Washington, DC. Because you’re my dear Siestas, I’m giving you the personal goods:

*Being told by a darling young woman that I mentor that, in her intercession for me, she’d never prayed so many patriotic prayers in her life and, at the end of a very intense time of prayer (by herself) for our national leaders, NDP, and those of us serving in the observance, she didn’t know any other way to close it. So she put her hand over her heart and said the Pledge of Allegiance. I laughed so hard I cried. I thought of it so many times during the week. But then when we said the Pledge together in the Cannon House at the actual observance, surrounded by these difficult days in our country and mounting persecution against the belief system upon which it was founded, my lip quivered so hard I could hardly get the words out of my mouth.

*Spending the week with Travis and Angela Cottrell. I’ve told you before how much we love these ministry partners of ours. These two unlikely couples have been on a wild ride with Jesus together for eleven solid years. We can almost read each other’s minds at this point. We pray for one another, serve together, and laugh until we cry together. Honestly, we laugh so hard sometimes we throw ourselves into muscle spasms. And Keith and Travis tease each other unmercifully and wrestle and punch each other, for crying out loud, like they are nine year-olds. If I snapped my fingers and said, “Stop it!” one time to the two of them this week, I said it a hundred times. Lord, have mercy. Then Travis gets up there and sings and I think, honestly, that he is the most gifted man I may know. Mystifying.

*Touring Mount Vernon. I’m not kidding. It was THE most interesting thing!! I’ve been to D.C. many times but I’ve never been able to take the time to go on the tour of George and Martha’s homestead spread. It is the coolest thing ever. The grounds are gorgeous and the house so entirely telling of what their lives were like. (Did you know he had step-children and no natural heirs? Did you know he and Martha raised their young grandchildren after the deaths of their own children? And did you know they had overnight guests several hundred days a year??) Michelle Parrozzo, my new assistant (Amanda’s age and a long time friend of Amanda’s), worked in D.C. for 6 years (in the Whitehouse, Pentagon, etc.) and, through her long list of connections, she was able to get the Cottrells and us (and her and her good friend, Lauren) a private tour. Mr. John Marshall was our Mt Vernon expert-guide and I learned later that he had the opportunity to personally tour actor David Morse as he prepared for the role of George Washington in the superior HBO miniseries, John Adams.) We history nuts were completely bug-eyed. I learned later that evening that they used to display George Washington’s Bible in the exhibit but it has been removed in light of all the secularization of recent years. (It’s a privately owned park so it’s not a government thing.) I found that flabbergasting.

*Having dinner with Caroline and Karen. The evening of the tour, we had an NDP dinner right there at the Mt Vernon facilities. Keith and I had the pleasure of sitting at a table with several courageous (and fun, by the way) God-seeking congressmen and their wives. Needless to say, I soon migrated to more personal conversations with the women. They were both absolutely delightful. Karen Pence told me something that I’ve replayed in my mind over and over. She said that a while back she checked with her husband’s office staff about what they’d need to expect schedule-wise regarding this year’s National Day of Prayer. One of the staff members wrote her back with details and told her that a woman named (well, you know…that’s so awkward) would be speaking and that she’s some Bible lady. Karen said her response was, “That’s my Bible lady!” Turns out she’s done many studies with us. It was one of the most wonderful things anybody has ever said to me. I was so tired on the plane ride home that tears stung in my eyes every time I thought about it. I have loved serving you women so much. I’d be honored to be your Bible Lady any time and would marvel over the grace of God to this needy life.

Caroline was equally delightful. She was from Alabama so her accent drew me in immediately like a bee to a honeycomb. I discovered in our conversation that she and her good friend, Sharon, had developed a reputation for their pound cakes and been encouraged to go into business. Pound cakes?? Did someone say pound cakes? Outside the Word of God and a great time of worship, can anything on earth minister like a pound cake? I sat straight up in my chair. These were words worth listening to. Worth salivating over. I learned that Caroline and her buddy have developed a small business right there in their own kitchens in D.C. and, since they’re both proper Southern women, they named it “Two Belles.” I assured her I would place an order the moment I got home and it was all I could think about that night. The very next night at the next NPD gathering, lo and behold, Congressman Aderholt delivered me two pound cakes, compliments of his beautiful wife. One was called “The Annemarie” (cream cheese!) and the other “The Miss Becca” (chocolate!). (They offer seven flavors and each is named for a woman who inspired the recipe.) Keith and I tore into those things with violence the moment we got to our rooms. Girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend. THE POUND CAKES OF MY LIFE. Honestly, we brought those babies home on the plane and I ate pound cake for breakfast just a few minute ago.

*Meeting honest-to-goodness present-day Esthers like Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen and Congresswoman Michelle Bachman from Minnesota. They LOVE Jesus and serve Him and the people He’s entrusted to them with utmost integrity and with a strong swim against the current. And don’t forget that God used Vonette Bright and Shirley Dobson to found and direct the annual observance of the National Day of Prayer and each has served several presidents of the United States. It really is awe-inspiring. (Y’all know me better than to think I’m on a feminist binge here. Woman to woman, I’m just telling you about some hard-working Esthers on our planet right this minute.)

*The Thursday observance itself at the Cannon Building. Profound. Surreal. Everything about it but here are a few things that especially moved me: the Joint Armed Services Color Guard marching in with the “Presentation of Colors” at the very beginning. My heart was pounding like a drum; the Ambassador of Zambia praying for our country in her wonderful thick African accent. I thought my soul would jump out of my skin; the official and personal message of General James F. Amos, USMC to us. He was so impressive. Everything you’d want a General to be. And he loves Jesus. His testimony took us straight to the battlefield and exploded our appreciation for our troops like fireworks on the fourth of July. Keith and I have talked about it many times since Thursday.

*Our NDP chapel at the Pentagon. Keith and I got to go alongside Dr. Ravi Zacharias and his wife, Margie, when they served in this position last year and we were both greatly moved by the people at the Pentagon observance. To be there this year was beyond what we could have imagined. Whatever you may be picturing, they were the furthest thing from stiff and formal. Very, very warm gathering. Sweet time of praise and worship. Many in uniform. Others right beside them who labor in administrative and support roles every day of the week. I share this with you to boast in Christ alone – goodness knows it was only grace – and because I know you won’t take it any other way than a sister sharing a highlight: they presented me and Lillie Knauls (who sang in the observance) American flags that had hung over the Pentagon. It was baffling. I would have given anything on earth for my dad, retired Army Major Albert B. Green, to have been there with me. Keith and I remarked later that he would have been right there beside us...and insistent on wearing his uniform, no less, whether or not we thought that was the best idea. Incidentally, he was buried in it. And rightly so. He bore a scar on his cheek where he took a bullet right in the face protecting democracy.

*Immediately flying out of D.C. in a bouncing prop plane in cloudy weather with the Cottrells and our good friends, Herb and Dona Fisher, to one of the largest NDP observances in the nation in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We would be on the platform there in only a few hours. I cannot tell you what it was like to go from the very (appropriately) intense atmosphere of our nation’s Capitol into an open air, outdoor praise and prayer celebration for NDP in Pennsylvania. Both were so memorable and so distinct. Approximately 18,000 people gathered on those green grounds on the most beautiful afternoon and evening you could possibly imagine on the tail winds of an Eastern storm. Dona is the chairperson for that NDP event that she began under God’s leadership eleven years ago with 350 people. Oh, what God can do through a willing soul with vision! Through the years it grew into 10,000+. The gathering of diverse people (a number of Mennonites) from every conceivable background and denomination for corporate prayer on behalf of our nation was simply amazing. Dona chose children and high school students to lead the prayers this year and it was the sweetest, most convicting thing ever.

Well, OK. Enough is enough. But you prayed so hard for us, I could not even consider pitching you a few dry leftover bones. You mean more to me than that. I wanted you to taste the event like a piece of Southern fried chicken. Or maybe like a pound cake. You can have cream cheese or chocolate. I’m going to go cut us both a piece and pour me another cup of coffee. I wish so much I didn’t have to eat your part.

Siestas, I love you like crazy. Thank you for welcoming my family and me into your lives. Our deepest desire is to serve Jesus Christ. He is IT.