When I was a freshman in high school, my principal came to me one day and said he saw that I seemed to be a happy person, but he said he noticed a sadness about me and encouraged me to just be myself and said to me “do you know one of the things I really like about you is that you are so different from everyone else?”  He told me that he noticed I didn’t let a lot of mess get to me, that he watched how helpful and kind I was to the kids others made fun of and that the teachers would say good things about me.  Boy, did that give me a boost of self-confidence!  It changed my total outlook on life and I started to feel a whole lot better about myself and who I was, because I never, ever felt that way at all.

My high school principal was half white and half Native American and he told me how often he had to fight to be just as good or better than everyone else and he told me to never let anyone make you feel less than the Lord made you.  I believe the Lord always made sure to keep that in the back of my mind, because I look back on my life and where I came from and how I could have gone in a totally different direction that would not have been good at all and I know that was nothing but the Lord who was always there, like two big hands just holding on to me and protecting me.  My high school principal was a wonderful mentor to me and to a lot of other kids who felt like they didn’t fit the “mold” – he reminded us all how special we were because that’s the way the Lord made us to be and to embrace it and use it to always be good and kind and be the best we could be and to help others who may feel the same way and I thank him for that.  I believe his support started to draw me closer to Jesus

The Lord is so good…He gave me the husband I always dreamed about – one that would love me for who I was and support me and always have my back.  When the Lord brought my husband and two sons to Westside after years…and I do mean years…of searching for spiritual guidance and a church home, I knew we were in the right place.  For the first time, I knew that we had found a church home that embraced our family for who we were and with the love that God requires us to give to those who seek Him. It didn’t matter that we were an interracial family or my husband was Jewish or that I was brought up in a different denomination, what mattered was that we yearned to be closer to the Lord and to learn more about Jesus. When I attended the Women’s Ministry meetings, I was like a sponge; I just couldn’t soak up enough of the teaching and fellowship.  At the time I joined the Women’s Ministry, Sis. Julia Pipkins was the Lead Teacher and I just loved how she broke it down to what it meant to be a godly woman.  I remember the first time when she said “Never waste an adversity” I thought my hearing was going when she said that.  I was like, “What?”

And then she broke it down even more and basically told us that we need to learn from every adversity we go through. Never waste the knowledge and strength we get from them and always lean on the Lord and not ourselves. I then realized that our blessings and our adversities are not always just for us, but for others too.  Our TESTimony can help someone else who is going through a similar trial.  “Never waste an adversity”

YSIC,


Sis. Phyllis Mutzman