Greetings this February Monday Morning!

Good morning, my dear Siestas! Checking in to say hello before this day shoots off like a rocket. I just finished my quiet time and this is normally when I'd go out to our garage to my universal gym and work out. Until my back injury heals, you can imagine that's off limits. I am slowing doing better though. I can even go for walks now and do certain floor exercises for it. Thank you so much for praying about it. It has been such a long (almost a year!) and painful ordeal. Honestly, my surgery (from a physical standpoint) was a cake walk compared to this but I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel and believing that another surgery will not have to be the answer.

I have to tell you the sweetest thing God has done for me and so much of it has been through you. Between the SSMT celebration at the end of January and (thus far) four book signings on the book tour, I have come face-to-face and short-story to short-story with more women than I've gotten to personally encounter in the last two years put together. We have hugged, laughed, said stuff like "You have got to be kidding me!" and "I know we'd be BFFs" and "Those are some danged good highlights you've got there, Sister" (me to them) ten thousand times and, when God would let that line dwindle down, some of us got to step to the side completely one on one and really talk. This is what I love. It's also what I get the least of in this season of ministry.

Don't get me wrong. I am constantly involved with women and have a steady dose of face-to-face encounters through the ministry and here in Houston but not very often when I'm out and about. I came home perhaps as exhausted as I have ever been (this book tour came a tad early in my post-op recovery) but my soul is full to the brim. For reasons known only to a God of immeasurably grace, I am called to serve women, just like many of you. Perhaps what I love best is that they come in all sorts of ages, just like all those young girls who saved a seat for me at church yesterday then hugged me to happy pieces when I got there (late). Like eighth grade Courtney who I've known all her life and who is now taller than Miss Beth but growing up so beautifully and gracefully I can hardly stand it. And like much younger Abigail who drew me a picture during the worship service and presented it to me at the end and asked me if we could ever have lunch. I am blessed beyond measure. Could honestly bawl about it.

Oh, the joys of girl world.

And the hard work! I could use your prayers this week. Bible study preparation today then teaching tomorrow night. Way before dawn Wednesday morning, Michelle (affectionately also known as "Hawk") and I will jump on a plane to Birmingham for signings in three bookstores there (I can't wait to meet you B-ham girls!), then late that night we will drive to Nashville and I will have the joy of also getting my arms around some darling necks in that home-away-from-home. So many good friends in that area. So, you won't waste a prayer on Michelle and me this week! I don't dread it though. I know that God will not only sustain and empower us. He will send us home with heads and hearts full of stories. Real, live face-to-face encounters. She and I have talked a hundred miles an hour about so many women we've met in the last week. So many Siestas! We were so glad to have Georgia Jan at the second bookstore signing in Atlanta so that she could amuse us by causing copious trouble. We do dearly love our Siestas.

OK, I better get to my day. Have already tarried way too long. I'll leave you with this:

My devotional time this morning was spent on the subject matter of anger. I thought to myself how life offers one opportunity after another to get hopping mad about something...or, more often, toward someone and what kind of price we pay. What kinds of words we say. Proverbs 16:32 (NET) says, "Better to be slow to anger than to be a mighty warrior, and one who controls his temper is better than one who captures a city." Let's quit blaming our hormones and our husbands and our workplaces and just bring our anger problems before God. Let's tell Him what we're mad about, repent for our reaction to it, ask Him to tend to us, heal us, free us. And, if the situation or relationship continues to be irresistibly, understandably infuriating, may He teach us how to refrain from sin in our anger until we can be loosed from it altogether.

For those of us who don't have one of those monumental, overwhelming reasons to be angry and we're just temperamental, irritable, and summarily lacking in self-control, sometimes it's just the matter of making a choice. As my grandmother used to say, we can get glad in the same clothes we got mad in.

Or, then again, we could just change clothes and see if that would help. One way or the other, it's time to get over it.

I love you, Siestas.