Background story: For the past 3 years, I’ve been participating in Beth Moore Bible studies at my church. I’ve also been following her blog. Her blog followers are known as Siestas. Yes, that is "nap" in Spanish but to see "Why Siestas?" Check out her blog at http://www.livingproofministries.blogspot.com/
Anyway, back to the story. Last year, Beth (yes, I call her Beth because I feel like she’s my BFF!) challenged the Siestas to memorize 2 scriptures a month/24 for the year. A couple of months into the year, Beth announced that she wanted to reward us by having a celebration in January 2010 at her home church. My friend, Marilyn, and I were participating by memorizing our scriptures on the 1st and 15th of each month. We both knew that we wanted to go to the Siesta Scripture Memory Team (SMT) Celebration, and so we made our plans in April 2009 to go to Houston next January.
Needless to say, a lot can happen in a year. With everything going on in my life currently, I honestly had no business jet-setting off to Houston for 4 days. However, believing that God had orchestrated this trip 8 months ago, I knew full well that I was suppose to be in Houston. So, with that in mind, I continued to plan my trip, with the anticipation that I was going to Houston to hear a "word" from God.
A couple of weeks prior to us leaving, Marilyn suggested that we take Beth a gift. I suggested that I paint her a personalized name platter. I had previously painted a platter for a customer with the instructions that "it’s for a godly woman, so make it look religious." So I felt that if anyone could be classified as a "godly woman" it's Beth, right? With that theme in mind, I began to paint. Here was the finished platter:
Last weekend was our anticipated trip. Marilyn & I headed out to the airport on Thursday afternoon. Let me just say one word about the airplane . . . Small . . . wait, two words . . . VERY SMALL. For someone (me) who has not flown in about 12 years, I was a little freaked out. When standing in the center aisle, I could touch the walls on both sides of the plane. Once I got past the fact that our plane looked like a toy plane a small child would play with, I was fine!
From the time we landed in Houston, we had a blast. I laughed so hard that I cried. I was constantly telling Marilyn that we looked like the blind leading the blind.
Friday night was our opening session. There were 507 ladies from 42 different states (plus 5 from Canada) and 22 different denominations represented. Isn’t that awesome!!! Beth spoke on Psalm 119, and it was truly amazing. Afterwards, there was a meet and greet. Marilyn & I were able to meet Beth and personally give her our gift. Beth seemed truly excited to receive it and became even more excited as I told her what each letter represented. I was also able to tell her how I came to do this "gig" I’m doing now!!! It was a great experience.
On Saturday, our session commenced at 9am and concluded at noon. During that time was when all 507 Siestas broke off into pairs and said our memorized scriptures. It was an amazing sight to see all the 507 women quoting scripture to one another. At noon, Marilyn and I headed to the beach!! We drove to Galveston Island to eat some seafood. The food we ate was DELISH, but I have to admit that I was not all that impressed with their beach. This Alabama girl likes white fluffy sand and NOT dirty brown sand. Enough said.
On Sunday, Marilyn and I went to the church service there at Beth’s home church, Houston’s First Baptist. To my surprise, this was the "word" from God that I was in Houston to hear! Beth’s lessons all weekend were very eye opening, however, I had not had that "this is why I’m hear" moment until her pastor began speaking. Isn’t that just like God, to show up when we least expect him?Thanks for allowing me to share my Houston adventure.
