"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,
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| 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.
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| 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 THEEAnd 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
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