Bev Hickam and Beth Moore

I have only seen Beth Moore in snatches. She bothers me. She is so animated that she turns me off. I just want to tell her to turn it down a notch or so. But she must have something to recommend her that I am missing. Bev Hickam, my friend of many years, studies her books and sets up a televised showing of her for Trinity Lutheran Church. Bev is not fooled easily so Beth Moore must have something that I have not seen. So I will rectify that.

I pulled up a video of her on the subject, "Living Forgiving" where she spoke about forgiving offenses that devastate a person. I will watch and listen. I have been there. I am trying to find a way through it 20 years later. She can animate all she wants if she has some roadmap tips.

Yuk. She hits me in the face right on quoting Ephesians 4:31-32 "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

Just as I was saying to myself, "That's great advice for people who have to "forgive the minors; not too easy for people who have been deal major pain. Does God honestly expect people to forgive this kind of pain?", Beth Moore said the same thing. Instant semi-bonding. It cemented when she said, "Bitterness is drinking poison and expecting someone else to die from it." Kind of statement you love to hate. She quoted Proverbs 14:10 "The heart knows its own bitterness, and a stranger does not share its joy."

I liked her comments and I felt her own pain. She says that devastation leads to isolation and no one really can walk the walk with us except God. He gives us permission to feel that we must find our own way and not fit someone else's pattern.

My finite mind cannot fathom the idea that every snowflake and DNA are different. I quickly grasp the idea that I got to this point as a unique individual and I have a high permission to deal with it with that same uniqueness. Thanks to you, Beth Moore, and to you Bev Hickam.