| “Elizabeth Moore, pick up your cellphone right now.”
“Why?”
“God, help me, woman, you’d exasperate the pope.”
This sounds like an exchange in a novel or film. In fact, these are the words that Beth Moore’s husband, Keith, said to her one Saturday evening. Yes, that Beth Moore, the one who has written dozens of Bible studies and taught the Scriptures all over the world.
Keith made this statement, which Beth describes in her memoir as “a concoction of compassion and frustration” as the Moores were trying to decide where to go to church on Sunday morning. For decades, Beth had loved and served in the Southern Baptist Convention. After exiting the denomination, she didn’t know where to turn.
When Keith told Beth to pick up her cellphone, he was stepping into the fray of her uncertainty. He told her to Google Anglican churches in Houston. They needed to get off the path they’d known and try a different one. When they attended a service the next morning, Beth was unsure when to sit and stand, unfamiliar with the liturgy. But when a congregant welcomed her with “palpable tenderness,” Beth burst into tears, so grateful for a place to belong.
“We stumbled accidentally, woundedly, wearily onto the Via Media,” writes Beth. “A middle road. It would take us a while to recognize the scenery.”
Each of us has seasons when we don’t know what to do. We hit our limits, asking questions that would “exasperate the pope,” throwing up our hands while we wonder if God will ever answer our prayers. In those seasons, may we do what God led the Moores to do—just keep going, just take one more step. And may we, too, find tenderness and open arms when we do. |
