Beth Lawrence

know god deeply. follow him furiously.

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The Sacredness of Rest

The Other Mother

The Ministry of the Mug: Serving Your Spouse in Love

Grace that Giggles & Wears Pink Rimmed Glasses.

Adopting Rachel

God Delights in Doing What You Least Expect

The Source of Joy

Poor Americans

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The Ministry of the Mug (from the MMG Devo Day 8)

The Ministry of the Mug
(from the MMG Devo Day 8)

I have a terrible habit. Every morning I take my coffee out to the porch where Nathan and I read the Bible and pray. And nearly every morning I forget to bring in the empty coffee cup. Instead, I leave it sitting on the table next to where I sit. It quickly becomes a prime target for children to accidentally knock over, or some other mayhem to occur.

Nate could fuss about my annoying habit. More than once he’s helped sweep up broken mug pieces or blotted up leftover coffee that spilled on the couch. Instead, he’s decided to offer me what I call The Ministry of the Mug. Rather than gripe about how I’m always forgetting to bring in my coffee cup, he simply brings it in for me. It’s been going on so long, we share a little smile when he comes through the kitchen and places my dainty white coffee cup in the sink. It’s even become something of an inside joke that we share.

While Nate is stellar at bringing in coffee cups, he isn’t always the best at ringing the laundry hamper. His may be The Ministry of the Mug, but mine is The Ministry of the Socks.

You could probably list a few of your partner’s annoying habits, too. Living with another human means being aggravated by their quirks. But I’ve never seen a great marriage where the partners gripe and complain about all the little things the other person neglects to do. However, great marriages are made when husbands and wives practice serving in place of nagging.

You get to choose whether to let small things become big irritants, or to protect unity by simply doing the small things or letting them go undone. While I can’t promise that your spouse will realize what a gift you’re giving by serving rather than complaining, I can say that Christ will be immensely pleased with your attitude. And, you’ll be protecting your marriage from one less conflict.

The Mawmaw gave me this book way back around 2003

The Mawmaw gave me this book way back around 2003 when I was beginning seminary. Since then it has sat on a bookshelf in five different apartments and houses, with nary a word read by my eyes. Not that I didn't want to read it, there were just so many other pressing things to read, and do, and clean.

But here I sit in my car nearly 20 years later while my daughter is at piano practice, reading voraciously and underlining every other word.

Why pull it out now? Because there is a season for everything, and it seems God has lead me to a season of preparing for a particular Bible study. Before I can teach, I must learn. And let me tell you the learning part is half the fun for me.

I'm not sure the point of this post, other than I like to talk about the Mawmaw and how we loved so many of the same things. But, maybe it's also to say that some people have a way of continuing to impact and enrich your life long after they are gone.

I believe God had numerous purposes for creating m

I believe God had numerous purposes for creating marriage. For one, marriage gives us a partner for the journey of life. God Himself said that it wasn’t good for man to be alone, so he created Eve and gave her to Adam as a mate. God also uses marriage to make us more like Himself. As we learn to make another more important than ourselves, we reflect that sacrificial love that God calls us to display.

But one of the grandest purposes for marriage, in my opinion, is the way it was divinely designed to reflect Christ and the church. As Christ gave himself up on the cross, denying what he wanted in obedience to His Father and out of love for us, so a husband is called to sacrificially love his wife, out of love for her and reverence for God. As the church is admonished to follow and submit to Christ’s leadership, so a wife is called to follow and submit to her husband. And as the relationship between Christ and his church is a covenant, a tie that is never to be broken, so should be the relationship be between a husband and a wife.

Marriage is a living, breathing picture to the world of the good news of Jesus. It’s a powerful illustration of the Gospel. But what happens to that illustration when we neglect to treat our spouse the way God calls us to? What kind of Gospel do we show the world when live like our marriage isn’t really important? When we fail to treat marriage as sacred, we destroy the power of marriage to point to Jesus. And we also begin to undermine the great marriage we want.

Friends, one of the ways to take your marriage from good to great is to treat it like the divinely appointed relationship that it is. The more you embrace God’s design for marriage, the more you will take seriously your role in protecting and strengthening it.

Great marriages are made when husbands and wives have deep reverence for the sacredness of marriage.

There is no more wonderful and profound relationship than the one a Believer shares with Jesus. Marriage is designed to be a taste of that. But we’ll never experience the full sweetness until we view it with the importance that God designed us to. May we treat our marriages as something holy, and reclaim the sacred.

It's always best to begin with prayer. :)

It's always best to begin with prayer. :)

I started reading Deuteronomy at the beginning of

I started reading Deuteronomy at the beginning of the year. I honestly don't remember the last time I studied this book. But let me tell you, it's blowing me away. Every single day I'm convicted and encouraged. In awe and spurred on. Motivated and moved. Only God's Word can accomplish all that in a single paragraph.

One of the major themes in Deuteronomy can be summed up in the phrase, "be careful." Over and over God tells his people to be careful to obey, be careful to remember, and be careful to walk in His ways.

I've been thinking about things that require being careful. Driving a car. Building a house. Flying a plane. Performing surgery. Walking through a minefield. Walking through a dark house strewn with legos and Barbie doll shoes.

Careful. As in, "if you don't navigate this well, terrible things can happen." And, "if you fail to pay attention to what you're doing someone could get killed." And, "If you get off course, you could loose your way completely."

I've been sobered on the daily while reading God's constant admonition to His people to, "be careful how you live." How careful am I, really? How much care am I giving to walking in God's ways and living under all His instructions? Do I behave as if they are the difference between life and death? Because that is precisely the weight God gives His word. Heavy. Critical. Imperative.

Dear Ones, let's examine ourselves and see whether we are walking in a way that reflects a deep reverence for God's commands. Let's do the hard work of being careful to obey, careful to KNOW His instructions, careful to be open to correction, careful to keep our hearts pinned to Him.

Things that require great care have the capacity to to yield incredible results. May we be a people who are careful to do all that He has commanded, fully believing that His ways are for our good and the good of generations of others.

I adore you.

One week from today, friends! I hope you'll join m

One week from today, friends! I hope you'll join me for the Making Marriage Great Initiative that begins Monday, February 1. I'll be posting here daily with all sorts of things to help give your marriage a dose of Christ-centered devotion. Plus, some entertaining (an hopefully encouraging) stories from Nate and I. Trust me, we have hilarious marriage material aplenty. 😬
Sometimes all it takes to jump start a healthier, stronger marriage relationship is a little focus. So, if you're interested in praying and working towards a better marriage alongside me, comment below so I'll know who's in. I'll be praying for you and your marriage all month long.❤

Last November, Nathan and I took a trip together w

Thirty years ago the Lord used the book of Prover

Thirty years ago the Lord used the book of Proverbs to open my eyes to the wonder of His Word. I have a vivid memory of sitting in the old green church bus as we were pulling away from summer youth camp at @shoccosprings, opening my Bible to the middle, and be struck by the the conviction that what I was reading was surely the truest thing in all of life.

I go back to Proverbs on the regular. This past Fall I returned to the familiar pages again and read it through slowly, carefully, and thoughtfully.

One of the greatest takeaways from my most recent journey through Proverbs was this: God has ordered all of creation to function in a particular way. If we want to thrive relationaly, spiritually, financially, in work, and in every other way, the key is discovering God's design and operating within it.

Being the Good God that He is, He has given us a practical guide full of wisdom about how to live well. If you're hungry for a book that is heavy on applying truth to life, look no farther than the book of Proverbs!

I wanted to teach a study last Fall on all the wonderful truths to be mined in Proverbs, but Covid wouldn't cooperate. Instead, I took 31 verses that were the most impactful to me and put them in a daily calendar of sorts. Yall know how I feel about saturating life with Scripture. ❤
God has been using these daily verses to continue shaping me to think and act with His wisdom. What a blessing.

I pray you are thinking on His word all throughout the day, as well. There is nothing so powerful to change us as the Spirit of God working through the word of God.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to settle

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