"Now thanks be unto GOD WHO always leads us forth to triumph with the ANOINTED ONE, and WHO diffuses by us the fragrance of the knowledge of HIM in every place." 2 Cor. 2:14
"Delight yourself in the LORD, and HE will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4
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| Cypress Trees beside our house |
Last week, i was trying to figure out how our family might manage to spend some time together on a little trip before Hannah Beth leaves to go back to school this weekend. I really wanted to head up to Gatlinburg, but the funds weren't there. I was having a hard time not being envious of our neighbor's on both side gone, okay i was i confess. One took their family to Arizona to the Grand Canyon and to the National Championship game with Auburn playing Oregon...War Eagle! Our other neighbor's are "snowbirds" down in Miami. Then we have other friends who took their whole family to Gatlinburg for their CHRISTmas present. I'm thinking why didn't we think of that before CHRISTmas? Well, i through up a quick prayer and asked the LORD if it be HIS will, if HE would somehow make a way we could spend some time together and it not cost much. Well, HE did that in a way that only HE can...HE let it snow Sunday night, 9 inches, and close down everything so we could all spend time together at home! Wow...i know HE didn't let it snow just for me, but i think it's neat the way HE gave me the desires of my heart, along with the snow. We did have some fun times playing Rook together, watching TV and eating several bowls of hot soup i made, Brunswick (sort of) stew, and Chicken Noodle Soup...both sure did hit the spot in this cold, snowy weather. It wasn't all fun and games as Hannah Beth got sick on Monday, along with Johnny, and then John Mac on Weds, and today i am not feeling well. But, i thank the LORD for the time we've had together, all under one roof, for a few days... and I didn't have to wrestle with sleeping in smelly rooms or a cold car...family vacation, designed by GOD! Thank you, LORD! Today, everyone but me is feeling much better. They are all gone here there and yonder...HB is making us for lost time with friends she wanted to visit while she's home and the men are working. So thankful GOD kept me up and going for the first part of the week and i did get to enjoy the beautiful, beautiful snow and to be able to care for my family. I took several long walks in the snow with the "Big Girls," Dixie and Midnight, and enjoyed watching our neighborhood boys build an igloo out in the field nearby...i even got to crawl inside and sit a spell. It was really neat until Dixie and Midnight found their way in, and made things a little too cozy.
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| Neighborhood boys working on "igloo" in the field nearby |
Last night, i was starting to feel badly and getting rather cranky when the kids were asking for PB and J sandwiches while i was washing the last of the supper dishes. Hannah Beth said, "Mom, aren't you glad you feel needed again like when we were little?" Hum, i don't think i answered that...but i finished the dishes, hit the sauna, and headed to bed early.
This morning as i was laying in bed and thinking about what to write today, my mind was thinking about several different things the LORD has been working in my life...not only recently, but as i was reminded in my time with JESUS this morning, HE has been working very diligently the past several years to "Change," me. HE "changed," me when i was 19 and I surrendered my life to CHRIST at a youth revival at Central Baptist in Decatur, Al. I didn't even pray the "sinner's prayer," but i did walk up the aisle in the power of the HOLY SPIRIT, with a desire to surrender my heart and life to CHRIST...and was not expecting what would happen next. I felt the weight of my sin gone from my shoulder's, and a joy I'd never known...a joy that has remained in my heart through thick and thin. I instantly wanted to read the Bible and study it in a way that i never had before, and be with GOD's people in church, and be separated from my sinful way of life. "I had been changed..."by the blood of the LAMB WHO gave HIS life for your sins and mine on the Cross of Calvary.
CHRIST works in all HIS children's lives to "change" us, not just salvation, which "Ye must be born again," as CHRIST told Nicodemus, but also, once HE has given new life in CHRIST, HE shapes and molds us to be more like CHRIST, a process the Bible calls sanctification. Through that process, that often comes through circumstances and suffering in our lives, GOD shapes us and gets us to the places HE wants to use us to do HIS work here on earth.
"I've learned that all of life here is a preparation for life in heaven and also that all of life here is the LORD's work." Elisabeth Elliot, www.elisabethelliot.org
GOD often does use suffering in our lives to prepare us, to educate us and equip us with compassion, patience, wisdom, perseverance and other qualities to help others coming behind us. HE uses the very things that we despise and want to just get out of as fast as possible, to help us "become more than conquerors through HIM that loved us." Romans 8:37
Joseph in the Old Testament is a great example of one WHOM GOD orchestrated his circumstances to allow great rejection from his brothers, to be sold into slavery, falsely accused of sexual advances, and thrown into prison for around twelve years for those false accusations. Joseph's life seemed to be going nowhere and he could have gotten easily discouraged. I'm sure he did at times, we all do, though the Bible doesn't say that. But we know the rest of the story. GOD was preparing Joseph to be second in command of all of Egypt, and to save his people and the Egyptians from death in the time of famine. When Joseph's brother's were forced to go to Egypt in search of food, and discovered that the brother they had sold into slavery was second in command and had the power to kill them, he told them, "...you meant it for evil, but GOD meant it for good." Joseph, because of the humility and spiritually discerning heart GOD had developed in him in those long years of suffering, understood that GOD had a higher purpose for his sufferings...they were not for nothing as Elisabeth Elliot used to say, www.elisabethelliot.org. Joseph was not mad or bitter at his brothers because of what they had done to him...he had long forgiven them, and because of that he was free to see the higher purposes that GOD was working beyond his circumstances.
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| Me and "sweet pea" inside the igloo. |
This week I have been reflecting upon the journey that the LORD has brought me on...I wasn't rejected by my brothers and sold into slavery, but GOD has orchestrated and allowed some very difficult health issues to be a part of my journey. HE has brought so much good from it, and I praise HIM for that. I praise HIM for the doctors who HE has used to help me figure out this web of struggles, and give me understanding into the problems I have and the ways to recover my health. Those doctors, Dr. William Rea, Dr. Katherine Henry, and Dr. Sherry Rogers, have all paid a great and dear price in their own health and education to learn the methods to help others like me to get well. Thinking of there struggles, I am reminded of a poem I read several years ago, "When GOD Wants to Drill A Man".
When God Wants to Drill a Man
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He's about.
Each of the doctors i mentioned above went through a great deal of personal suffering foryears, and some continue too, to get them in the position of learning and building other life lessons in their soul so that they could help others like me who seem to fall through the cracks of traditional medicine. These doctors treat patients from all over the world because of the knowledge GOD has given them in their great suffering. I read the quote below this week in "Streams in the Desert," and it is so true, no matter what kind of suffering you may be undergoing:
The burden of suffering seems a tombstone hung about our necks, while in reality it is only the weight which is necessary to keep down the diver while he is hunting for pearls. --Richter
I am so thankful that GOD in HIS wisdom, allowed these doctors to go through the suffering they did, so they would stay down long enough to find the "health cures," for folks like me that suffer from chemical sensitivities. These doctors to me are a real example of GOD taking something that was an "enemy," and "capturing it" and turning it into a great victory as i read in "Streams in the Desert," earlier this week.
"In all these things we are more than conquerors, through HIM that loved us." Romans 8:37
This is more than victory. This is a triumph so complete that we have not only escaped defeat and destruction, but we have destroyed our enemies and won a spoil so rich and valuable that we can thank GOD that the battle ever came. How can we be "more than conquerors"? We can get out of the conflict a spiritual discipline that will greatly strengthen our faith and establish our spiritual character. Temptation is necessary to settle and confirm us in the spiritual life. It is like the fire which burns in the colors of mineral painting, or like winds that cause the mighty cedars of the mountain to strike more deeply in the soil. Our spiritual conflicts are among our choicest blessings, and our great adversary is used to train us for his ultimate defeat. The ancient Phrygians had a legend that every time they conquered an enemy the victor absorbed the physical strength of his victim and added so much more to his own strength and valor. So temptation victoriously met double our spiritual strength and equipment. It is possible thus not only to defeat our enemy, but to capture him and make him fight in our ranks. The prophet Isaiah speaks of flying on the shoulders of the Philistines (Is. 11:14). These Philistines were their deadly foes, but the figure suggested that they would be enable not only to conquer the Philistines, but to use them to carry the victors on their shoulders for further triumphs. Just as the wise sailor can use a head wind to carry him forward by tacking and taking advantage of its impelling force; so it is possible for us in our spiritual life through the victorious grace of GOD to turn to account the things that seem most unfriendly and unfavorable, and to be able to say continually, "The things that were against me happened to the furtherance of the gospel." -From Life More Abundantly
A noted scientist observing that "early voyagers fancied that the coral-building animals instinctively built upon the great circles of the Atoll Islands to afford themselves protection in the inner parts," has disproved this fancy by showing that the insect builders can only live and thrive fronting the open ocean, and in a highly aerated foam of its resistless billows. So it has been commonly thought that protected ease is the most favorable condition of life, whereas all the noblest and strongest lives prove on the contrary that the endurance of hardship is the making of the men, and the factor that distinguishes between existence and vigorous vitality. Hardship makes character.
"Now thanks be unto GOD WHO always leads us forth to triumph with the Anointed One, and WHO diffuses by us the fragrance of the knowledge of HIM in very place" (2 Cor. 2:14).
As I reflect on my own health journey, i know that I have been entrusted a great blessing and responsibility to take the knowledge I have learned and continue to learn and share it with others who are suffering. I have been talking with my husband, my doctor, and others and asking the LORD to show me what HE would have me to do in this next season of my life. When my husband and I felt called to the foreign mission field, i went to nursing school, with the thoughts of preparing me to minister in a third world country. Because of my illness, those desires were not fulfilled, but now i'm thinking perhaps GOD wants to use my nursing and the education HE has taught me to be a " medical missionary" here among my own people. GOD has recently opened up the opportunity for me to teach a class at our church based on the book, "Detoxify or Die," by Dr. Sherry Rogers, www.prestigepublishing,com. Pray for me, that I would be able to communicate clearly to those the LORD brings to the class what is making us sick, and the pathway HE has for us to become well. This book so clearly explains what my doctors in Texas have been teaching me for years and I want to share that knowledge with others. There are also some other areas i feel the LORD is leading me to pursue, and I ask you to pray for me...that i would have the courage to step out in faith what HE is leading me to do. I know this, my life has been "Changed," through my health struggles. Changed for the good, and I thank GOD for HIS marvelous plan in my life and yours. I thank HIM for the suffering and the blessings and education that have enriched me so much. I thank HIM for the wonderful people, many of you who receive this email, whom I have been privilege to meet and become friends and be encouraged by your lives on this journey, as you have walked on a similar path to mine.
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| Midnight walking in the woods |
This past week at church, our choir sang the song, "Changed," by Tom Fettke. I was unable to attend choir practice on Wednesday night, so i wasn't real familiar with the song, except for the short time we practiced Sunday morning before church. Br. Ryan, our music minister had gone over it with the pianist and organist during our orchestra practice, and you could tell he was really into it. Later on, he told the choir that he had already had such a worshipful experience just practicing that morning with them. As i watched Br. Ryan worship HIS LORD while we sang it that morning, and sang the words, "I've been changed..." my heart filled with joy thinking of how the LORD has changed me...first by giving me "a new heart with new and right desires...and a new SPIRIT...to obey MY laws and do whatever I command."
Some things have been easier than others for me to obey in. GOD has had to work with this rebellious stubborn heart to get me to obey...and do whatever HE commands in some areas. He has had to "discipline," this gal, and sometimes those blows sure do hurt:). But i know that my loving heavenly FATHER does it for my good, and for HIS glory, and for the good of others.
"No discipline seems pleasant at the time but painful, but afterwards it yields a harvest of righteousness for those who have been trained by it.' Hebrews 12:11
I'm sorry, i couldn't find the lyrics to "Changed," or find it on youtube...i'll try to get the lyrics to that powerful song that so beautifully proclaims what CHRIST does in us when we come to HIM in faith and repentance and HE changes us...HE makes us a new creature in CHRIST JESUS.
For GOD so loved the world that HE gave HIS only SON that whosoever believes in HIM shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. II Cor. 5:17
If anyone is reading this and realizes that they haven't been "changed," in CHRIST JESUS, my prayer is that you will ask HIM to change you today. Ask HIM to forgive you of your sins, and surrender your life to HIM. You may say i'm not that bad of a person...have you ever broken even one of the 10 commandments? Of course, we all have...The Bible says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of GOD." Romans 3:23 It also says, "Today is the day of salvation...2 Cor. 6:2" and "do not harden your hearts..."Heb. 3:8. "Believe in the LORD JESUS CHRIST and you shall be saved." Acts 16:31. I sure would be honored if you would let me know if JESUS has changed you today and made you HIS child.
Thank you for listening to my heart...and thank you for your prayers, not only for me, but our family as we are seeking the LORD's wisdom and direction in many areas of our lives it seems. GOD bless you, and thank you again so much for your wonderful CHRISTmas cards and letters. I am really enjoying taking time each morning in my prayer time, and reading over the letters and cards and praying for you. I am feeling better today, thankfully, than i did yesterday when i started this email, but still feel like staying in and laying low. There's still a great deal of that 9 inches of snow on the ground...it's supposed to get above freezing today so that will melt a lot of it. It sure has been beautiful...i shoveled snow for the first time this week i think, along with John Mac. My feet came out from under me on some ice in the driveway, and I landed on my rumpus! Sometimes it's a special blessing from the LORD to have that extra padding back there...so thankful i didn't break anything!
With all HIS love,
mitzi
Below are some articles i thought you might be interested in: One is an article about a new book that Glenn Beck is coming out with describing how he is involved in New Age religion, and he is fully Mormon. Brannon Howse is warning us that he is a false prophet....as the Bible warns us about over and over to stay away from in 1 John, Jude and other places.
The other website is John McTernan's blogsite. He has a wealth of information almost nightly on his sight to help you understand what's going on in our world in light of a Biblical worldview, and prophecy. He also has some great nutrition articles on his site among other articles of interest.
Hope you'll take time to check out both of these sites and book mark them on your favorites. GOD bless you!
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"Pray in the SPIRIT on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints." Eph. 6:18
"Prayer lays hold of God's plan and becomes the link between His will and its accomplishment on earth. Things happen which would not happen without prayer. Let's not forget that. Amazing things happen, and we are given the privilege of being the channels of the Holy Spirit's prayer." Elisabeth Elliot, www.elisabethelliot.
"We Are So Blessed"
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