A Wrong Turn(ed) Right

Salem Methodist Church in West Limestone where many of my relatives on my Mother's side, the Beasley's, have attended through the years.

                          




"I know, LORD, that our lives are not our own. We are not able to plan our own course." Jeremiah 10:23

Dear Praying Friends and Family,

    I started writing this yesterday after campaigning all morning and most of the afternoon in the rain.   Johnny did campaign all afternoon in the rain.  Our opponents were out campaigning too...i understand why they call these political campaigns a "race:)."  It's interesting to me the people GOD picked to be in this race...so thankful that GOD's grace is sufficient and HIS power is made perfect in our weakness.   We are leaning on HIM, and daily i am refreshed by my husband's faith in the LORD when i am walking by sight. We are so thankful for all the support and love that has been shown to us and for the people and places we are getting to meet and see along the way....so i'm just going to continue now what i started yesterday afternoon.

  

    I have not been able to write until today, and i miss it when i don't get to.  But, i am learning the LORD has HIS reasons when I am delayed...just like this verse says above.  Our lives are not our own...and we are not able to plan our own course.  Once again, i was shown that so clearly this week, and I am eager to share that with you.  But first, i want to ask you to remember in your prayers Mr. Gerald Wisner's family.  The LORD JESUS called Mr. Wisner home this past Thursday.  It was unexpected by us, but not unexpected by JESUS.  HE knew the days HE had ordained for Mr. Wisner.  Mr. Wisner was a reader of my emails since almost the beginning when i started writing them, and he was a great encouragement to me.  He came to know the LORD later in life, and he had a great humility about him that only comes from realizing we are sinners saved by grace.  He and I shared a love for gospel music, and he was a great patriot, and lover of our country, and sent many emails pertaining to government and our country.   Check out the last line of his obituary that was posted in the Huntsville Times http://obits.al.com/obituaries/huntsville/obituary.aspx?n=gerald-wisner&pid=15575488 . He was a professional photographer, and was very good at it.   He is the Daddy of our former pastor, Andy Wisner, and I sure will miss him and his emails.  His last one to me, less than two weeks ago, was about "being honored to put up a sign for Johnny in his yard"...that's just the kind of humility and graciousness he always showed me. He leaves behind his wife, his two children, and grandchildren, including Roxie and Lauren, and numerous other relatives and friends.  Please remember the Wisner family and friends in your prayers...Mr. Wisner will be sorely missed, but knowing that his SAVIOR took him HOME makes it so much easier to let him go.

     

     This past week has been another busy week of campaigning...thank you so much for your prayers.  Your prayers are sustaining us and carrying us and GOD is showing HIS favor through people donating their time to help put up our big signs, donating  money(it's expensive to run for office), donating land for us to put signs on, people asking for yard signs, and people helping us in many different ways. We are so thankful for the Wahl family and my Dad and brother, Ralph helping to put up the big signs right away when they came in on Weds. Everywhere we turn  we see GOD's power and love even in things like the location of a booth at the Chili Challenge coming up.    My thorn in the flesh is still there, and keeps me relying on the LORD very much.  Yesterday i had slap ran out of "gas," and has to stop and fuel up with an IV.  Our opponents wife had to okay that, she's the supervisor at the Homehealth Care agency i get my IV's administered through...so thankful she did so i could refuel and get back on the campaign trail:).  By the evening, i put up a couple of yard signs nearby, and met my husband at the East Limestone vs. Athens ballgame to hand out fliers and stickers.  It was a real blessing getting to see old friends, and meet new ones, and in between handing out brochures, we enjoyed visiting with our opponent who was also there campaigning. I told him, I sure appreciated his wife helping me, or i wouldn't be able to be there...isn't that interesting how GOD works?  All these twists and turns the LORD takes us down in life...

      This past Tuesday, i took our cat, Peaches, back to the vet in Pulaski to be rechecked after her recent surgery to have a large cancerous tumor removed. 

"Peach" a week after her surgery...still moving slowly but eating well. 

                                                            

 Dr. Galbraith said she had an infection, and gave me some medicine to give her by mouth and a few shots.  Glad my nursing skills can be used for Peach and for me:).  Dr. Galbraith asked about the campaign, and complimented the fliers, and then told me to put one up in the window.  I was shocked, because most business folks don't let you do that, but we were very appreciative so i put a large flier up in his window before i left for home.  Even though Pulaski is in another state...Tenn, many folks from here go up there because he's so reasonable, and he is very kind. I've met a lot of folks from our county up there, so i was really appreciative of his letting us put up the flier, and leave some in the waiting room. 

     On my way back home, i was going to come back the way i did last time, through a town called Elkmont, and leave some more fliers in the gas stations and restaurants along the way, but, as the LORD would have it, I didn't go back the way i planned.  I ended up making a turn that led me to the western part of our county instead. I thought as i went along, i have never noticed this before when i saw some little shops here and there along the way...there was good reason, i had never been down that road to my knowledge, but i have now.  Thankfully, the road led south, and i knew as long as i was going south that i wasn't too badly lost.  I was hoping to come out right above the cemetery where my granddaddy is buried over in West Limestone, but as I went through Minor Hill, Tennessee, it led me even a little farther west of there.  Before too long, i saw an arrow pointing to 99 and I knew exactly where I was.  By this time, i had reformulated my plan to put out more fliers in Elkmont, and decided for some reason the LORD wanted me to come through West Limestone.  To me West Limestone is the prettiest part of our county, and my mother was born there and her folks are from over there.  As I rode along, i saw a big sign for  our opponent right as you get into the county.  As i rode further up the road, i stopped at one of our former waitresses houses that was on 99 to ask her to vote for Johnny. It's a white frame house, set off on the corner in some trees.  Our friend had been in a car wreck a few years ago after leaving work one night at our restaurant and had a very serious car accident.  Her baby was unharmed, but she received very serious injuries and still struggles with her speech.  After stopping at her Mom and Dad's house and visiting a few minutes, i headed on down the road, and went past a beautiful old paddle wheel and waterfall. 

 I stopped in at West Limestone with a few stores and a feed store, and left brochures at all those places.  I went across the street to the gas station, and left fliers there, and at the Cristo Delight, ice cream store.  I headed on down the road, and stopped in at Salem Springs Baptist Church.  The receptionist was so kind there, and she introduced me to the Minister of Youth who was studying his Bible.  It turned out we were kin to each other...in our county lots of us are unless you are a transplant.   I had a great visit there, and stopped in at several other gas stations and convenience stores along the way...finally making it home around 3:00.  I hadn't eaten, and that was a miracle for me to be able to go that long without eating.  I realized the LORD for whatever reason, had wanted me to come back through West Limestone instead of the way i planned and HE blessed me with being able to go without eating for much longer than usual. 


   Below is  a couple of places that i stopped yesterday while campaigning:

I took time out from campaigning  to rest along the way and be strengthened in the LORD  where many of my relatives have been refreshed in HIM through the years.

Cemetery my Granddaddy Beasley is buried in right across from the Salem  United Methodist Church in West Limestone.

    This may not be a big deal to you...but as Johnny and I pray each day for the LORD to lead and guide our steps and show us favor, it's really neat when you know the LORD is guiding your steps, when you had planned to go a different way.  

    This lesson has brought great peace to me in a year that saw me last year feeling drawn to go back to nursing school to work so i could work towards my Nurse Practitioner degree.  After doing all the prerequisite work for that...the LORD allowed a little "detour" that altered the route...my health failed, and the money just wasn't there.  I have to admit, i felt relieved that I didn't have to return to school, though at times i feel twinges of regret that I wasn't able to.  GOD led me to it...and then instead of going on the path i was on...HE had me take a turn.  I didn't like that turn, but GOD knew, if it hadn't been something very painful to me, i wouldn't have turned.  He knows the plan, including this political campaign that i had no idea that was coming our way.  I'm so glad that I have been able to help my husband to the measure i have thus far.  There's one thing that Oswald Chamber's has taught me...GOD doesn't call us to be successful, just obedient.  He will take care of the rest of the journey no matter what unexpected "turns," HE leads us down...and ultimately we will be successful as HE leads us in victorious triumph in CHRIST JESUS.  Doesn't mean we will win the campaign, but it does mean we will fulfill the purposes that GOD had us to run.

   We all have "turns" in our lives that we think must be the wrong way.  I sure did when Johnny had to leave the pastorate because of my health struggles. I was in a health storm and we had two small children, that I didn't feel i could take care of by myself so we moved back home closer to family. That sure was a "turn" we had rather not made, but GOD had a plan.  Years later, i learned the pesticides they were spraying in the house were making me sick, and GOD delivered our family from further harm to our health by having us move from that home. Sometimes we get the privilege of seeing what GOD was doing when we look back, and sometimes we don't. I certainly don't understand all the turns that GOD has led in our lives...but it is comforting to know that HE leads and guides our paths even when we don't understand why.   We just have to trust that HE led us and our loved ones down the path that was best for us and the plans and purposes HE was and is accomplishing through those turns.  Life truly is a journey, and peace comes in knowing our Savior leads us like a gentle Shepherd along the way...no matter what HE allows through HIS loving hands...

   Our pastor preached on Psalm 46 this morning, about GOD being our refuge and strength and a very present help in trouble...and we are promised we will have tribulation and trials in GOD's WORD.   We had many people respond at the altar call, as many are traveling down paths of pain and sorrow and uncertainty they don't understand.   The song Br. Ryan led us in singing was "GOD will Make a Way," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRXt5OjIe5E and that is very appropriate for this email this week.  GOD will make a way, for you and for me...HE made a way for me to get back home last Tuesday though it wasn't the way I had planned.  He made a way for us to be forgiven for our sins and have a relationship with HIM through our LORD JESUS CHRIST dying for you and for me on the Cross.  HE made a way for the greater need in our lives, and HE promises over and over in HIS WORD that HE will make a way for our lesser needs.  "My GOD will provide all your needs according to HIS riches in CHRIST JESUS." Philippians 4:13.  I am having to trust HIM each day to make a way for me with my health issues, and HE is doing it.  HE has never failed me...and HE won't start now.  If you haven't trusted in the LORD JESUS as your LORD and SAVIOR, admit that you are a sinner,  that you've made many "wrong turns," believe that HE died for your sins, and confess HIM as your LORD and SAVIOR.  HE loves you so much, and longs to have a personal and intimate relationship with you and me, and loves to make the wrong turns we make turn(ed)  right. JESUS wants us to be ready for we don't know the day or the hour when HE will call us like Mr. Wisner.   Mr. Wisner's homegoing was very sudden as was my Granddaddy's who developed pnuemonia after hunting in the rain at 27 years old.  Yours and my death may be the same way. Are you ready to meet your MAKER, and YOUR JUDGE?   Don't neglect HIS great salvation today from the wrath that is to come and the hell fire that those who neglect HIM will burn in forever and ever. 

My Granddaddy's tombstone i visited yesterday on the campaign trail...i never knew him, he died unexpectedly at the young age of 27 when my Mom was 2 years old.

     When i was at the vet last week, i "met" a bull. 

Poor Bull

 He was having some testing done to see if he was doing his job of making the cows pregnant. The cows weren't getting pregnant so the owner was suspecting he wasn't doing his job.  While his owner went inside to get the results, i was walking around outside and took some pictures of this bull and spoke to him inside the trailer.  He was "strong as an ox" and a good looking bull.  In a few minutes his owner came out and told me the bull's head was coming off.  I said huh?  thinking he was kidding.  He wasn't...the bull's test didn't come out favorable, and so the owner was taking him to the sale barn to sell him for "hamburger meat."  That really made me sad...I didn't know the bull, had no relationship with it, but knowing his end was near made me hurt for it.  JESUS created you and me, and HE has done everything in this world to provide eternal salvation for you and for me...leaving HIS HOME in heaven, and dying on a cross.  HE has created us to bring glory to HIM and empowers those who accept HIS SON with HIS HOLY SPIRIT to accomplish what HE has created us for...HE doesn't want any of us to perish, but many will...not because they aren't "working," and doing the "right" things, but because they have rejected the salvation that is found in CHRIST and CHRIST alone.   The Bible says that "our righteousness is as filthy rags," and the literal translation of that is menstrual rags. In Isaiah 45:22, the Scriptures tell us, Look to ME and be saved."  This is the verse that convicted the great Prince of Preacher's Charles Spurgeon's heart at the age of 15 and led him to CHRIST. Young Spurgeon was on his way to church when a snowstorm caused him, instead,  to turn into a small Methodist gathering.   A layman was speaking because the preacher couldn't get there for the snowstorm.  He preached on this verse, looked to young Spurgeon and told him that he needed to look to JESUS and be saved.  That is what he did, and GOD saved him then and there, and GOD can save you too right where you are reading these words.    HE can take the wrong turns we've all made in our lives and make them right. I have seen many people who seemed "strong as an ox," and they are now dead...from cancer or other things that took them before any of us expected...if you don't know JESUS as your SAVIOR, surrender your life to HIM today and be saved from the wrath to come.

    I love you and thank you for sharing for this time with me...it's going to be along the campaign trail for a few more weeks at least.  We covet your prayers and need your prayers...and if any of you would like help out with the campaign in addition praying, just let me  or Johnny know and we will plug you in!

                                                                                                 With all HIS love,

                                                                                                   mitzi