"A Missionary to My Own People"

 "Now the GOD of peace, who brought back from the dead that GREAT SHEPHERD of the SHEEP, our LORD JESUS, by the blood of the everlasting agreement, equip you thoroughly for the doing of HIS will!  May HE effect in us everything that pleases HIM through JESUS CHRIST, to WHOM be glory for ever and ever, Amen." Hebrews 13:20,21

"Thus it is written, that the CHRIST should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in HIS name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem." Luke 24:46,47

Dear Praying Friends and Family,

Dog Eared copy of the book "Missionary Stories"

                           

     A couple of days ago Phillip and I were reading a missionary story about David Livingstone from a book i read to my kids when they were growing up.   I am loving having a little guy to read to again...i sure do miss those days of reading to my kids.   I had forgotten that David Livingstone was a doctor when I was reading the story to Phillip.  The story recounted how David had grown up in Scotland and how in every spare moment he read all the books he could especially about science and travel in other countries.  At the age of 20 he decided to become a missionary doctor. This is what GOD created him, called him and equipped him to do, just as HE does you and me for the plans HE has for our lives...isn't that neat and a loving GOD.   The LORD led him the to dark continent of Africa during the mid-1800's.  In those days, Africa was called "The Dark Continent," because no one had ever made maps of it or had any knowledge of its geography. David Livingstone blazed the trail, opening the country to Christianity.  Many new mission stations were planted all through the regions of Africa where David had explored.
     In the story Phillip and I read, David risked his life to perform surgery on a tribal chief's little girl.  David knew she would die without the surgery and yet the chief was afraid the surgery would kill her.  The chief told David if his daughter died, David would die.  Dr. Livingstone performed the appendicitis surgery and the little girl recovered.  As a result, the chief believed in the LORD, was converted and baptized.  As soon as possible, he learned to read, and became a missionary to his own people."

    Those words, A Missionary to His Own People," burned in my heart....that's what GOD has called me to be!  Several years ago, when we felt GOD leading my husband to go to seminary, and me to nursing school, we thought HE was calling us to go and serve HIM in Africa...Tanzania, Africa to be more exact.  As it became apparent that my body didn't handle stress well when i traveled overseas, we realized then we would probably never live in a foreign country. When i got very, very sick when my husband was a pastor here in Alabama, we felt forced to move back home where our family lived and could help us with our two small children.  Living back in Athens was the last place we both wanted to be.
    Our moving back we thought would be a temporary move until i could get back on my feet again....little did we know the LORD would keep us here for the next 20 years and my husband would continue in the family business and i continue to struggle with "a thorn in the flesh."  It was a hard pill for me to accept...and took a while to get adjusted to the "new reality."  But more and more through the years, we have known that this is the place GOD wanted us to be missionaries....to our own people in various ways.

    The health journey HE has led me on has included the finest doctors in the world as i have traveled to many places in pursuit of lasting answers to my health issues.    GOD continues to  further equip me to be a missionary to my own people, as i share with them the healing i have found and continue to search for the missing pieces.  GOD reminded me of a devotion this week i have read in Streams in the Desert throughout the years...."HE holds the diver down long enough to find the pearls."  HE is still holding me down in some areas as HE teaches me more and more...otherwise, i would be flitting off doing something else i'm sure.  This equipping and healing has come as CHRIST's salvation came to us...through HIS broken body, and through mine, and through those who have gone before us. In fact this is how GOD has equipped most of the doctors who have helped me so much, through the search for answers to their own health issues as their bodies were broken. As they learn and regained their health, they have passed this teaching on to us.    That is how CHRIST equips us to minister to others...being broken and poured out... pouring into others, what HE has poured into us by those who have gone before us.

      Last year when i returned to school, i felt GOD was leading me to do that so i could share with others the knowledge i have been learning.   When GOD put the skids on that pursuit, through my health being broken once again, and a lack of financial resources, little did i know HE was bringing a doctor here to our area to help us.  Dr. Soto practices similar to Dr. Henry, my beloved physician in Richardson, Tx who has taught me so much these past several years and discipled me in the importance of eating healthy, living in a chemical free environment as much as possible, along with the importance of detoxing and supplementing what we are lacking in nutrients in our bodies.   She and other integrative or holistic or functional medicine doctors  seek to find the causes of our illness, and heal  through nutrition, detox, and other natural means as much as possible.  I was so relieved when i didn't have to go back to nursing school.  I  have spent the past year, continuing to learn how to  help restore healing to our bodies and prevent getting sick in the first place.  In some areas of our country this knowledge is abundant, but in our area in the south, it has been slower coming.  Thankfully, GOD is opening more and more doors up to us here, and i believe HE has called me to be a missionary nurse right here to my own people. Communicating with others sources that have been so helpful to me is something i love to do.  Just reading my CHRISTian History Devotion reminds me that GOD equips us with enthusiasm and HIS power to carry out HIS plans for our lives, just as HE equipped the JEWS when they returned from the Babylonian captivity to restore Jerusalem (Jeremiah 29:10).

My beloved Dr. Henry  pours her life out to help the broken ones like me

    GOD has opened up an opportunity for me to teach classes at our church, sharing with our church family and others information that GOD has been teaching me about "Caring for Our Temples." We meet at Sunday evenings at 5:00 p.m. and would love to have you join us. I have a new health blog at the site. http://hisgraceissufficienthealth.com/.  Please subscribe as i share resources from  health seminars, wisdom from my doctors, chiropractors, nutritionists, etc on this site.   These are just a couple of  ways GOD is  calling me to share information to help people get the best medical care they can.  There is some real darkness in our medical care system, just as there was the dark continent of Africa and GOD is providing a better way through many practitioners who are turning to organic food, detoxing, living in a clean environment, and supplements to help their patients get well.  Many of these doctors and practitioners have gotten sick themselves and the conventional medicine with drugs has failed them, as it did me.  They had to turn to more natural means of healing that GOD has provided to help us. There's has been a costly education to bring healing to folks like me...and if we want to be someone WHO brings CHRIST's healing to others, we too will suffer losses more than most.

   GOD uses our sufferings, our losses, to enable us to bear more fruit for HIM through these broken bodies.  

Streams In the Desert for September 21

“I count all thing but loose for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.” (Phil. 3:8.)

This is the happy season of ripening cornfields, of the merry song of the reapers, of the secured and garnered grain. But let me hearken to the sermon of the field. This is its solemn word to me. You must die in order to live. You must refuse to consult your own ease and well-being. You must be crucified, not only in desires and habits which are sinful, but in many more which appear innocent and right.

If you would save others, you cannot save yourself. If you would bear much fruit, you must be buried in darkness and solitude.

My heart fails me as I listen. But, when Jesus asks it, let me tell myself that it is my high dignity to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings; and thus I am in the best of company. And let me tell myself again that it is all meant to make me a vessel meet for His use. His own Calvary has blossomed into fertility; and so shall mine.

　Plenty out of pain, life out of death: is it not the law of the Kingdom? --- In the Hour of Silence.

Do we call it dying when the bud bursts into flower? --- Selected

“Finding, following, keeping struggling,

Is He sure to bless?

Saints, apostles, prophests martyrs,

Answer, ‘Yes.’

 I want to be GOD's hands and feet, to help others find true healing physically for our bodies.  More importantly, i want to be used by GOD to lead others to HIM in a personal and intimate way and be healed spiritually.  LORD help me to embrace YOUR Cross that transforms me into WHO YOU want me to be, one with YOU.  May YOUR Living Water flow through me to bring YOUR healing to others.

LORD CRUCIFIED, give me a heart like THINE,

Teach me to love the dying souls of men,

And keep my heart in closest touch with THEE

And give me love, pure Calvary love To win the lost for thee.

     -Hannah Hurnard

   GOD  loves us so much HE gave HIS SON to heal us of our sin sickness and from being separated from a HOLY GOD, WHO cannot look upon sin. .   "For GOD so loved the world that HE gave HIS only begotten SON that whosoever believes in HIM shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16.  

   GOD has not saved us for us to hide the light under a bushel just for ourselves...HE commands us to go and tell others the GOOD NEWS of JESUS coming into the world, dying on a cross for us, and raising from the dead!  

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Matt.5:14-15

      This morning the LORD woke me early and as I struggled to stay awake, I was reading a devotion from the book, "Abide With Me," by Andrew Murray, that a dear friend had given me for my birthday.   I fell asleep trying to read it on too little sleep but in my heart was the prayer that I truly wanted to abide in Christ and pray that for my loved ones.  Andrew Murray said the key to abiding in Christ is surrendering and obeying.

    When I woke back up a couple of hours later I read another devotion that really spoke to my heart from "Springs in the Valley," by Mrs. Charles Cowman.

     Lend me thy body, our Lord says.  For a few brief years, in the body that was prepared  for Me I delighted to do MY Father's  will.  By means of that body I came into contact with the children of men-diseased, weary, sin-sick, heavy laden ones.  Those feet carried ME to homes where sorrow and death had entered; those hands touched leprous bodies, palsied limbs, sightless eyes; those lips told of my Father's remedy for sin, HIS love for a prodigal world.  In that body, I bore the worlds sin upon the tree, and through its offering once for all my followers are sanctified.
     But I need a body still; wilt thou not lend me thine?  Millions of hearts are longing, with an indescribable hunger for ME.  On that far off shore are men, women, and little children sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death- men who have never yet heard of MY love.  Wilt thou not lend ME thy body, that I may cross the ocean and tell them that the light after which they are groping has at last reached them; that the bread for which they have so often hungered is now at their very door?

     I want a heart, that I may fill it with Divine compassion; and lips, purged from all uncleanness, wherewithal to tell the story that brings hope to the despairing, freedom to the bound, healing to the diseased, and life to the dead.  Wilt thou lend ME thine?"

    

    GOD is asking each and every one of us today, "Will you lend me your body?"   Will we surrender our hearts fully to HIM, that HE might use us to reach out to the darkness that may live right in our own families, in the house beside us, down the street, or in our towns, our own churches and be "A Missionary to Your Own People?"    Will we lend HIM our bodies to reach those that HE died for?  They may live in your town and mine, or they may live in another state, or halfway around the world...where ever HE is calling you to lend your body to HIM for HIS plans and purposes.

     My place is Athens...and through this blog, GOD has allowed me to reach others all the way around the world for HIS NAMES SAKE...GOD is so good!  I can still be a foreign missionary...and "A Missionary to My Own People."  Am i lending HIM my body this day to share HIM with others?  Will you allow HIM to lend your body today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life to share JESUS CHRIST, our SALVATION with those who are lost and going to hell? Just as i was in darkness with my physical problems and searched for years for healing, so many all around us continue to be in spiritual darkness. CHRIST wants to use you and me to show them the way to the LIGHT of the WORLD.  Each day is a call to each one of us to surrender and obey..."Trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in JESUS, but to trust and obey," for us to lend GOD our bodies that others might be brought to HIM.
 


   David Livingstone lent his body, and layed down his life that  God might use his body to bring the light of JESUS CHRIST to the continent of Africa.  What will GOD do through the body that you and i lend HIM? It's HIS body.... "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the HOLY SPIRIT within you, whom you have from GOD?  You are not your own." I Cor. 6:17,19...and HE created us to do good works for HIM.  "⁸ For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹ not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰ For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

    The LORD just brought this song to mind, "This Little Light of Mine, I'm Going to Let It Shine," as i was writing...how appropriate for this to be an African Children's Choir singing it on You Tube!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bv6nuDeB-eM.   May we all with HIS power and HIS enthusiasm let HIS LIGHT shine through us that others might be drawn to our LORD JESUS CHRIST.

       GOD is the one WHO is at work in our hearts, to will and to work for HIS good pleasure.  For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey HIM and the power to do what pleases HIM." Hebrews 2:13.  Thank you JESUS for calling me and equipping me to be "A Missionary to My Own People."  Thank you for all the dear people you have brought into my life to equip me for this calling, many who have suffered greatly, including our LORD and SAVIOR WHO suffered most of all.  Thank you for the open doors, the enabling, the power and the enthusiasm you give each one of us to be "A Missionary to Our Own People."  May  JESUS CHRIST be lifted up through all of our lives through our surrendered hearts that others might be drawn to HIM.  ""And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." John 12:32

                                                                                          With all HIS love,
                                                                                                mitzi


"But unto you who revere and worshipfully fear MY NAME shall the SUN of RIGHTEOUSNESS arise with healing in HIS wings and HIS beams, and you shall go forth...like calves [released] from the stall and leap for joy." Malachi 4:2 Amplified

Overwhelmed By HIS LOVE in HIS Texas...and "GOD Loves the Broken"

"Blessed be the GOD and FATHER of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, the FATHER of mercies and GOD of all comfort, WHO comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by GOD." II Cor. 1:3-4

Dear Praying Friends and Family,
   I'm trying out a new font this morning. I am typing directly on the blog site instead of on gmail first and copying and pasting...just thought i'd see if it would save a little time.  I don't know if you've noticed but i'm not posting as much as i used to.   It's not because i don't want to, i just struggle with having the energy and ability to put my thoughts down when i get time to write at this season of my life.  I am loving being able to be a "Mom" to Phillip, my friend Darlene's little guy for 9 hours a week.  Darlene passed away almost a year ago, on the 30th of this month.  I never dreamed i would get the privilege of picking up Phillip from school 3 days a week, eating popcorn and reading missionary stories after school, overseeing his chores, (he's a great little worker), and trying to keep up with him when he goes out to play with the neighborhood kids.  He's a great natured little guy, like his Mom and Dad, and I thoroughly  enjoy him.   Last week at his school they invited the grandparents to come to their class room and honor them.  Phillips grandparents all live in Georgia so he invited me to come in their place...he drew this great picture of me (gray hair and all, thanks Phillip!) and when i walked up to the room where he was waiting for me outside, his little face just lit up and he hugged me so tight.  Yeah, i'm loving being his Mom and Grandmom
 for a few hours a week!

Phillips picture of me for Grandparents Day!

  

Phillip learning to clean out from under the lawn mower.

  Some of you have asked about an update on Dana and Zach.  She was able to  come home  to Alabama with the baby for about 10 days and be with her family here.  They were able to see Zach some, though i'm sure not nearly what they desired.  It was very difficult for Dana to return to California and leave her son and her family where she feels safe.  This was her post on FB on "Bring Zach Home," on Sept. 10

God, give me, please, enough strength to pass through this difficult period in my life;
I ask that amongst your busy schedules that you please pray for Zach, my family , and me. God is at work but I'm falling to pieces. Without him I don't know how I could handle this. God is, has, and will always be my guide Please take time to pray. God Bless you all.

                                                   Dana and Zach in Alabama

 Please continue to pray for Dana, her husband whose trial should be coming up, for Zach, and all that GOD is doing in their lives through these "circumstances that GOD is orchestrating," as Oswald Chambers says.



     
     This past week, Johnny and i have the wonderful and awesome privilege of driving out to Texas and attending the wedding of Russell Irby and his wife Chelsea.  Russell is the son of David and Rhonda Irby who were among our dearest friends in Johnny's seminary days and still are our dearest friends from our seminary days.

Here is Rhonda with her son Russell...i honestly thought he was his Dad when i looked at this picture!

  As the LORD would have it, David and Rhonda, being from Georgia, never left the Ft. Worth area after seminary days, having moved 6 times, they still live in the Burleson area.   Now they live two doors down from Rhonda's Mom and Dad who are also from Georgia.  Rhonda's Mom and Dad moved to Texas shortly after David and Rhonda and Rhonda's Dad attended seminary too!  We were all in the same Sunday School Class together at Travis Avenue Baptist Church, where Rhonda's Mom and Dad later became teachers.  I will never forget the first Sunday we visited Travis, we got home from church, shortly afterwards, there was a knock on our apartment door.  I opened the door and there was Tomi Lenamon, the Sunday School Director's wife with a birthday cake!   She had noticed on the guest card i filled out in SS that it was my birthday and after church she went and bought me a birthday cake and brought it straight to me.  We had only been in Texas a couple of weeks, and were a long way from home on my probably 24th birthday....to say her love and thoughtfulness made a huge impression, well it did.   
     
    At the wedding this past Sunday afternoon at Rose Chapel in Ft. Worth, Texas, we were so surprised to see our old Sunday School teachers there, Tomi and Joe Lenamon, and Bill and JoAnn Morgan.  We actually got to see with Bill and JoAnn during the wedding and then afterwards, i got to sit right beside Tomi at the reception where we all sat around a big round table and reminisced about our seminary days.

Bill and JoAnn Morgan, Joe and Tomi Lenamon
David and Rhonda Irby

   Tomi, with all her love and flambuoncy, has been pretty much homebound for a few years now, and EVERYONE was so glad to see her at the wedding.  She is still a mess (in a good way), so funny, so full of love, and yet, she has this thorn in the flesh,  the LORD uses to keep her close to HIS precious side.    She and Joe now live in a retirement home after selling their beautiful home on a golf course that they use to share so very freely with us seminary students.  Rhonda and i had the blessing of visiting Tomi and Joe a couple of years ago at ths,eir retirement place, and i kidded Tomi and told her it reminded me of a cruise ship with the fine china and dining room and all the  they provide for them.  Tomi, who makes the most of her opportunity wherever the LORD plants her, showed us around, and told us about the little old ladies that GOD has given her there to share CHRIST's love with and reach out to them.  This past Sunday, Tomi told me she doesn't get out much now, even at the retirement home, but GOD does provide her with opportunities to reach out and build a friendship with a few of the "rich" older ladies who live there.  She says these ladies are very educated, and you have to be a friend to them and love them to reach them for CHRIST.  I'sm pretty sure that's what Tomi was doing way back when Johnny was in seminary and she brought that birthday cake to me...she was reaching out to us with the love of CHRIST, and we promptly joined Travis Avenue Baptist Church and their Sunday School Class! GOD grew that class to be very large with Tomi and Joe's love, Bill and JoAnn Morgan, Ron and Joann Waters, The Erwings, and the Pattersons.  The main ingredients for a successful Sunday School Class was the Truth of GOD's WORD being taught, and a whole lot of HIS love being poured out upon us through those yielded vessels.  We were only in the class for a year til the LORD led Johnny to be an assistant  pastor at another church, but oh what a special year it was for us!  

                                                              
    
   As we sat at the wedding reception,  the reception cranked up around us with dancing, the first dance was  Russell and his new bride, and then later Russell danced with his Mom to the song, "You are My Sunshine."  It was so sweet.

                                                                     Russell dancing with his Mom

     We reminisced about those "good old days," and the wonderful memories that were made in that class. It was fun watching the grandmother's and mother's and aunts dancing together.   

Rhonda and her sis in law's boogieing down at the reception...who says Baptist don't dance!

  We will never, never forget thee love that was poured out upon our lives through our wonderful teachers.  Now, Bill and JoAnn Morgan teach an older couples class, and it has grown to be a huge size too.  JoAnn has faithfully been the pastor's secretary at Travis Avenue for over 40 years and she told me at the wedding she is also the wedding coordinator for Travis Avenue!  I thought how in the world do you do all that JoAnn with all the weddings they must have at that big church!  Only the HOLY SPIRIT empowering and enabling Bill and JoAnn could they faithfully serve JESUS as they have for so long.  JoAnn has the sweetest spirit and i will never forget one day in Sunday School her telling us about their 13 year old daughter who was killed by a drunk driver.  Bill and JoAnn had gone to a staff meeting at church, while their daughter rode with another family somewhere.  JoAnn said she put a bow in her daughter's hair and she was out the door.  The next thing JoAnn knew was her daughter had been killed.   Instead of growing bitter about their daughter's death, GOD grew Bill and JoAnn sweeter.  I didn't know them then, but they are two of the kindest gentlest people i have ever know and GOD certainly has borne much fruit through their lives since HE took their little girl to heaven.  JoAnn was responsible for me getting the Minister of Children's secretary's job when Johnny was in seminary.  That was an interesting time as i got to see the behind the scenes affairs that go into making a big church run each week...I will always be very grateful for that experience.

    As most of you know, after my husband finished seminary, he pastored 2 and a half years and we moved back to our home town with my health broken.  It certainly wasn't what we had planned but it was GOD's plans and i am very thankful for HIS ways are higher than ours.  


    One of the amazing things the LORD has done through these plans is enabled me to go back to the Dallas area almost yearly for medical treatment and to see wonderful friends i have made there through the years.  This trip was no exception as we combined the wedding trip with a visit with my doctor.   We  were able to spend a couple of hours with her after my appointment, and what a sweet time that was for me.   I sure would have love to have felt better when i saw her, but that's what i was there for, and she has been such a channel of GOD's healing to me, and i thank GOD for her precious life.

                                          Precious Dr. Henry-she loves the broken ones!

   I had the wonderful privilege of going to Prestonwood Baptist Church when we were out in Dallas last Sunday morning,  another desire of my heart and blessing the LORD had for me on our trip out there.  Last night i looked up the Prestonwood website and  i came across a message from Shelia Walsh speaking to the Prestonwood Women at a Friendship dinner they had recently  entitled, " GOD Loves Broken Ones, and Those Who Pretend they're Not."  The title  intrigued me.  I watched the whole thing before i went to bed...way too late!  It spoke to me so much, and i wanted to share it here with you.  I hope you can carve some time out to listen and watch as Shelia humorously and very honestly shares:
http://www.prestonwood.org/am_cms_media/video-friendship-aug2012-swalsh.htm



    We are all broken...we don't escape this life without brokeness.  Whether that brokeness leads us closer to CHRIST and makes us sweeter, kinder, gentler like Bill and JoAnn Morgan when they lost their daughter, or whether it makes us bitter and hard depends on our relationship with our LORD JESUS WHO loves us so very much.  HE desires so much for us to love HIM back that HE died for you and me on a wooden cross.  HE constantly wooes us and wants our heart to be HIS for now and all eternity.  If you've never trusted in CHRIST as your LORD and SAVIOR i invite you to do that right now...invite HIM into the brokenness of your life, your plans and dreams.  HE longs to save you from your sins, and transform your brokenness into something more beautiful that you and i can ever imagine.  



  "A bruised reed HE will not break." Matt. 12:20

"The sacrifices of GOD are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O GOD, you will not despise." Ps. 51:17

"He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3

" Thus says the ONE WHO is high and lifted up, WHO inhabits eternity, WHOSE NAME is HOLY:  "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite." Is. 57: 15, 16

"I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak." Ez 34:16

"Behold, your GOD...He will come and save you." Isa. 35:4




GOD's promise to the Israelites in Isaiah 61:3 is HIS promise to HIS children now:

To console those who mourn in Zion,

To give them beauty for ashes,e

The oil of joy for mourning,

The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;

That they may be called trees of righteousness,

The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

    On the way home from Texas, i listened to a song called "She Loves the Broken Ones," sung by the Talley Trio. Dr. Henry works with the most difficult broken patients in the world and she labors long and hard to help us when other Doctors have failed.   I want to be  one who loves the broken ones.  CHRIST has allowed my health to be broken so that HE can pour out HIS life through me to others who are broken in similar ways.  In order to do that, my love has to be the love of the ONE WHO was BROKEN and Poured Out for me...apart from HIM i can't do anything. Please take time to listen to this beautiful song...and ask the LORD JESUS to give you HIS love for the Broken Ones    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORD1kCCOe_E

    What a dear blessing the LORD allowed us to be with our dear old friends this past weekend....Mr. and Mrs. Russell Irby have honeymooned in Miami this week and the Florida Keys before returning back to their new home in the Ft. Worth area and beginning their new life in CHRIST.  The wedding reception was a ton of fun, and for just a little bit, i would have joined them...Grandma's and all out on the floor dancing! 

David's Mom dancing with Rhonda and David's nephew who was in a wheelchair....so sweet and precious.

 Just as i was getting my nerve up join the dancing,   Johnny said we needed to go....oh well, maybe next time:).  I want to be like the Irby's and the Waters....still bearing fruit for CHRIST when i'm old...and still able to dance,  in my brokenness, for JESUS!  

    Please remember our family in your prayers....JM is studying hard, and courting some on the weekends.  I know he will be glad when Dec. comes and get his wife down there at school with him!  HB is studying hard in nursing....both our Mom's just celebrated their birthdays and how i thank GOD for them and their precious lives they have laid down for us in their brokeness.   I hit the big 50 a couple of weeks ago and thank GOD for HIS great faithfulness to carry and love me all these years. Tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. at FBC, Athens, i will began a new class and it will be incorporating so many of the things i have learned on my health journey with an emphasis on loosing weight.  The name of the book is called "UltraMetabolism" by Dr. Mark Hyman, but i will be pulling in many other resources the LORD has used to help me. Just a note about the book. There are some mentions of evolution and i few other things that are unbiblical.   Please be discerning as you read the book and i am not endorsing those false teachings.  I do want to mention that David Irby's sis, Susan, has her own healthy cooking show out in California.  I can tell you...she looks good...no cellulite on the back of her legs!   You can check out her website at www.thebikinichef.com.  I am planning to use some of her resources for our class, she has written seven books, and the last one is the Idiot's Guide to Quinoa...sounds like she was writing for me!  I sure appreciate her gracious offer to be of help to us in any way she could...

      I am still broken some in my health....and continuing to learn each day.  Definitely the LORD has humbled me through this journey.  In the midst  of this journey the LORD has taught me so much about HIMself, how much HE loves me and you and the importance of caring for our temples from so many excellent resources. HE has also taught me that HE designed these bodies HE created to get well....and i'm on a mission to do that.   I hope that you will come and join us....if you can't join us, please pray for us.  Pray for me, as i depend on the LORD to help me gather my thoughts, and teach what HE wants to be taught. Most important, pray that CHRIST will love my class with HIS love through me.    I learned that from some very dear  Sunday School teachers-LOVE and sound teaching sure do go well together and enhance the learning process:). 

Precious Memories, Precious Teachers, Precious Saints of the LORD!

    I love you and thank GOD for you all....

                                                                                      With all HIS love,

                                                                                             mitzi