"But GOD, WHO is rich in mercy, because of HIS great love with which HE loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with CHRIST (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in CHRIST JESUS that in the ages to come HE might show the exceeding riches of HIS grace in HIS kindness toward us in CHRIST JESUS. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of GOD, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are HIS workmanship, created in CHRIST JESUS for good works, which GOD prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." Ephesians 2:4-10
Dear Praying Friends and Family,
Today is my 49th birthday and what a sweet birthday the LORD has given me! I just got through looking at my sweet cards my family and friends sent me, and have been so blessed by all the well wishers on FB...thank you all so much for your kind words of encouragement to me, and thank you for your prayers for our family. Your kindness means so much to me.
After a good night's sleep, I had a sweet time with the LORD this morning. So thankful for these good nights of rest, as I have been having some pretty difficult days. Today is the best i've felt in a long time, and what a blessing it has been...
I sure have been doing a lot of "wincing" lately instead of having a cheerful attitude about what GOD is doing in the midst of the trials HE has "orchestrated," in my life the past few months. As I wrote in my prayer journal this morning, the HOLY SPIRIT seemed to nudge me to think about my blessings and GOD's grace to me these past 49 years. During this time, as I was jotting down these thoughts I looked up the definition of grace in Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary:
Definitions of grace from Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary:
- Favor, good will, kindness, disposition to obilige another, as a grant made as an act of grace
- The free unmerited love and favor of GOD, the spring and source of all the benefits men recieve from HIM.
- Favorable influence of GOD's divine influence of the SPIRIT in renewing the heart and renewing the heart and restoring from sin..."MY grace is sufficient for you." II Cor. 12:9
- the application of CHRIST's righteousness to the sinner. Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.
- a state of reconciliation to GOD.
Here are a few examples of GOD's favor and good will in my life and those i love:
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| Me with my Dear Daddy and Mother on my Birthday at Cracker Barrel |
- like Jolie, my friend i asked you to pray for several months ago, has come to know JESUS, and she is growing leaps and bounds in the LORD. She has been staying with our former pastor and his wife, Vicki and Andy Wisner. In that nurturing atmosphere of CHRIST's love, Jolie has blossomed. Vicki called me yesterday to see if she and Jolie could take me out for my birthday and i already had plans, but it was so great to hear how Jolie is growing so in the LORD. She plans to be baptized soon at New Life Baptist. Thank ya'll so much for your prayers for her...she has gone through a very difficult year, and what amazing grace that GOD has blessed her trials so with this sweet time to live with the Wisners, to nurture her in JESUS.
- The second thing i jotted down, was my dear husband who loves me and cares for me and has stuck with me through thick and thin...believe me, i haven't been a whole lot of fun to live with the past few months, and how thankful I am for him loving me with the love of JESUS.
- then i jotted down my dear parents are still in good health, and want to spend time with me on my birthday. What a joy it was to meet my Mom and Dad at Cracker Barrel this morning, and get to have breakfast with my 81 year old Mother who celebrated her birthday this week, and my Daddy who will be 85 in October. We had a sweet time visiting in the rocking chairs on the front porch of Cracker Barrel, before and after we ate. I included a couple of pictures from our outing together. I passed my Mom and Dad as they were driving home later...sure was concerned for them, and said a prayer that the LORD would get them home safely. Mother gave me a card she had written a note inside that said, "You have always been precious to me, and always will be." I love you, Mother. Her short note sure does mean a lot to me...I know that Mother suffered a lot to get me here, and then after I arrived her health was never the same.
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| Mom and Dad enjoying the rocking chairs at Cracker Barrel. |
- I'm 49 years old, and GOD called me to be HIS...not anything i've done, but HIS unmerited love and favor
- HE's given me eyes to see, physically and spiritually
- HE's given me ears to hear, physically and spiritually
- Our children growing in grace and knowledge of CHRIST, doing well in school
- and then the HOLY SPIRIT reminded me to thank HIM for my thorn that causes me to depend on HIM, to trust HIM to be my DELIVERER, to teach me so much...and then the LORD started reminded me how many times HE has delivered me through the years...times too numerous to count, but it sure did encourage my heart as i thought back briefly to when i was 13 and so very depressed, and that lasted about 6 months, and GOD delivered me, when I was a junior at the U of Montevallo and started having panic attacks and GOD delivered me from those, and then again in my mid 20's and we went to England and I started having some odd symptoms over there, and GOD delivered me when I got home and i was able to finish nursing school the following year. GOD delivered me from incredible pain all over my body, and so many ailments that I have had through the years...yes, HE has continued to allow a measure of my health problems to persist, but HE continues to remind me from 2 Cor. 12:9-10: "MY grace is sufficient for you, for MY strength is made perfect in weakness." I have pretty much kicked and screamed my way through my trials as of late...so it was high time i sat down to count my blessings...
- the greatest deliverance GOD has given me is my deliverance from my sins. When I was 19, the LORD reached down, and pulled me from a life of sin, and redeemed me by HIS precious blood. I had been wrestling with the LORD for 4 years, and HE quietly persisted, and helped me surrender and give my life to HIM at a youth revival at Central Baptist Church. My life has never been the same, and how I thank GOD for HIS grace in my life, to save me and then a month later my boyfriend whom i broke up with after being saved. Johnny is that boyfriend, and we have been married for 28 years, ...."HIS Grace Still Amazes Me."
I think more than anything this summer, through these trials i've had, the LORD is trying to get me to come to HIM...HE is the Healer of my soul and my body...HE wants me to know HIM more intimately that I ever had before...not about HIM, not about HIS WORD, but to know HIM...and the fellowship of HIS sufferings.
"That I may know HIM, and the power of HIS resurrection, and the fellowship of HIS sufferings." Phil. 3:10
"The whole discipline of life is to enable us to enter into this closest relationship with JESUS CHRIST. We receive HIS blessings and know HIS word, but do we know HIM?" Oswald Chambers
These words sure did convict my heart as I read them this morning...and i know that I don't know HIM the way HE desires me too. I know these trials sure have sent me searching for HIM more...calling and crying out to HIM, and asking HIM to deliver me, and to help me to trust HIM
I am always reminded in the Sept. 2 Streams in the Desert each year of these words:
"Unto you it is given . . .to suffer" (Phil. 1:29).
God keeps a costly school. Many of its lessons are spelled out through tears. Richard Baxter said, "O God, I thank Thee for a bodily discipline of eight and fifty years"; and he is not the only man who has turned a trouble into triumph.
This school of our Heavenly Father will soon close for us; the term time is shortening every day. Let us not shrink from a hard lesson or wince under any rod of chastisement. The richer will be the crown, and the sweeter will be Heaven, if we endure cheerfully to the end and graduate in glory.--Theodore L. Cuyler
The finest china in the world is burned at least three times, some of it more than three times. Dresden china is always burned three times. Why does it go through that intense fire? Once ought to be enough; twice ought to be enough. No, three times are necessary to burn that china so that the gold and the crimson are brought out more beautiful and then fastened there to stay.
We are fashioned after the same principle in human life. Our trials are burned into us once, twice, thrice; and by God's grace these beautiful colors are there and they are there to stay forever.--Cortland Myers
Earth's fairest flowers grow not on sunny plain,
But where some vast upheaval rent in twain The smiling land . . . .
After the whirlwinds devastating blast,
After the molten fire and ashen pall,
God's still small voice breathes healing over all.
From riven rocks and fern-clad chasms deep,
Flow living waters as from hearts that weep,
There in the afterglow soft dews distill
And angels tend God's plants when night falls still,
And the Beloved passing by that way
Will gather lilies at the break of day.--J.H.D.
God keeps a costly school. Many of its lessons are spelled out through tears. Richard Baxter said, "O God, I thank Thee for a bodily discipline of eight and fifty years"; and he is not the only man who has turned a trouble into triumph.
This school of our Heavenly Father will soon close for us; the term time is shortening every day. Let us not shrink from a hard lesson or wince under any rod of chastisement. The richer will be the crown, and the sweeter will be Heaven, if we endure cheerfully to the end and graduate in glory.--Theodore L. Cuyler
The finest china in the world is burned at least three times, some of it more than three times. Dresden china is always burned three times. Why does it go through that intense fire? Once ought to be enough; twice ought to be enough. No, three times are necessary to burn that china so that the gold and the crimson are brought out more beautiful and then fastened there to stay.
We are fashioned after the same principle in human life. Our trials are burned into us once, twice, thrice; and by God's grace these beautiful colors are there and they are there to stay forever.--Cortland Myers
Earth's fairest flowers grow not on sunny plain,
But where some vast upheaval rent in twain The smiling land . . . .
After the whirlwinds devastating blast,
After the molten fire and ashen pall,
God's still small voice breathes healing over all.
From riven rocks and fern-clad chasms deep,
Flow living waters as from hearts that weep,
There in the afterglow soft dews distill
And angels tend God's plants when night falls still,
And the Beloved passing by that way
Will gather lilies at the break of day.--J.H.D.
I don't know if the LORD is trying to tell me something...that' it's been given to me to suffer:).but i do know that I sure thought about being like the china that has to go back through the fire and get the paint burned into it...i feel like i've been going back through some similar fires lately that i went through in my past...fires that i had hoped were long gone. I was in Goody's today in the dressing room and all of the sudden i found myself singing the chorus from "Through the Fire, by the Crabb Family:
"HE never promised that the cross would not get heavy, and the hill would not be hard to climb, HE never offered our victories without fighting, but HE said help would always come in time. Just remember when you're standing in the valley of decision and the adversary says give in, just hold on, our LORD will show up and HE will take you through the fire again."
I haven't thought of this song in a long, long time...it sure was a sweet thing the LORD did to bring this great song back to my soul to encourage me, and I pray that it will encourage you too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you."
Isaiah 43:2
As I write i am convicted about those who are hurting much more than I, and going through much hotter fires than i...please continue to remember my friend Jean Brinkley who had a liver biopsy done yesterday. She lost 1/3 of her blood, and my friend Darlene Anderson...after being off her chemo for a little over a week, she has begun it again, but has really been in some incredible pain. We are so thankful her platelets are back up so she can continue the medicine. Please remember Darlene, Arthur, the whole family... lots of trials, and lots of GOD's sweet grace. I called over there Weds. and Darlene texted me back to say she and Arthur were having "JESUS" time together and she'd call me later. The next time I talked to her, Darlene told me that Arthur was singing hymns to her...sweet fellowship, and GOD's grace to help them through these difficult days. Earlier this week, George Cook, who is my husband's cousin, arrived at our restaurant to open early and dropped dead of a heart attack...little did anyone know that George had an appointment with HIS SAVIOR that morning, and wouldn't be staying for work that day. George was 74 and was a true Southern Gentlemen....he will be missed sorely by all who knew him. His life was truly characterized by love, and he was always serving someone else even with his own health issues. Sadly, George's brother died the very next day...his brother had been struggling with cancer. George's first wife died several years ago, and George was engaged to a very fine lady...please remember her in your prayers, George's son and family, and our whole family. George had worked at our restaraunt for the past 15 years or so after selling his travel agent business....Johnny and Jerry are really going to miss his steady faithful work at the restaurant.
George's funeral was bathed in the gospel of JESUS being shared, and as I reflected on how quickly George exited this world, i was once again reminded that none of us know when we are going to draw our last breath. George sure didn't know when he went to work last Sunday morning that HE had a divine appointment with JESUS but to my knowledge George was ready to meet HIS SAVIOR. I just read this quote by JC Ryle and pray that GOD would use it to encourage you that when you get ready to die, all you have to do is die. JESUS loves you so much HE died on a cross, that you and I might be delivered from our sin sickness...and might be healed and made whole. Won't you trust HIM today as your LORD and SAVIOR..."Look to me and be saved all ye ends of the earth for I am GOD and there is no other."Isa. 45:22 This is the verse the LORD used to bring Charles Haddon Spurgeon , the "Prince of Preachers" to HIM for salvation...
No Regrets on Your Death Bed |
We should endeavor, like John the Baptist, to provide for the future spiritual welfare of those we leave behind when we die. We should often remind those who we cannot always be with them. We should often urge them to beware of the broad way, when we are taken from them, and they are left alone in the world. We should spare no pains to make all, who in any way look up to us, acquainted with Christ. Happy are those ministers and parents, whose consciences can testify on their death-beds, that they have told their hearers and children to go to Jesus and follow Him!
~ J.C. Ryle
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Luke volume 1, [Carlisle, PA: Bann
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Your Grace Still Amazes Me
-My faithful FATHER, enduring FRIEND
YOUR tender mercy is like a river with no end
It overwhelms me covers my sin
Each time i come into YOUR presence I stand in wonder once again
(chorus)
YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR love is still a mystery
Each day i fall on my knees
'Cause YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR grace still amazes me
Oh patient SAVIOR, YOU make me whole
YOU are the AUTHOR and the HEALER of my soul
What can i give you LORD what can i say
I know there's no way to repay YOU only to offer YOU my praise
(chorus)
YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR love is still a mystery
Each day i fall on my knees
Cause YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR grace still amazes me
Its deeper, its wider, its stronger, its higher
Its deeper, its wider, its stronger, its higher
than anything my eyes can see
YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR love is still a mystery
-My faithful FATHER, enduring FRIEND
YOUR tender mercy is like a river with no end
It overwhelms me covers my sin
Each time i come into YOUR presence I stand in wonder once again
(chorus)
YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR love is still a mystery
Each day i fall on my knees
'Cause YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR grace still amazes me
Oh patient SAVIOR, YOU make me whole
YOU are the AUTHOR and the HEALER of my soul
What can i give you LORD what can i say
I know there's no way to repay YOU only to offer YOU my praise
(chorus)
YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR love is still a mystery
Each day i fall on my knees
Cause YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR grace still amazes me
Its deeper, its wider, its stronger, its higher
Its deeper, its wider, its stronger, its higher
than anything my eyes can see
YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR love is still a mystery
Each day i fall on my kness
Cause YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR grace still amazes me
Cause YOUR grace still amazes me
YOUR grace still amazes me
You are so kind to share this time with me. I've been so blessed on my birthday, and one of GOD's most wonderful graces is your sweet love and prayers for me and my family. Thank you so much for praying for us...GOD is hearing and GOD is answering. Hannah Beth is studying hard in nursing school, and got asked this week by her teacher to be the student representative for the nursing school at the faculty meetings...GOD's loving favor. She is enjoying spending part of Labor Day weekend at our friend's the Hembree's who have a beach house on the Gulf...again GOD's loving favor. We're so thankful for the generosity and kindness of the Hembree's. John Mac is back in the swing of school taking genetics and biochemistry along with working at the Math Lab. His interview for med school is coming up on the 15th...please pray the LORD's will be done. John Mac may help out some at the restaurant to take George's place...that sure would be a blessing...Johnny and me, we're hanging there...pray for all those involved in the Hurricane last week, and those down on the Gulf with Tropical Storm Lee expected to drop several inches of rain, and please remember my brother Joe, as he has one more intense week of training for a new job with Humana insurance. He is in Tampa, Florida, and has finals coming up this next week...please remember him and my cousin's little granddaughter Caylee, who had some tests run last week. What a great family, and what great friends the LORD has blessed me with to shower HIS love upon me. I thank GOD for each one of you. Indeed, HIS "Grace Still Amazes Me."
With all HIS love,
mitzi
"Men ought always to pray and not to faint." Luke 18:11
"When I passed by thee,...I said unto thee..., Live."
Ezekiel 16:6
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