By GayAnn Davies

The GFWC-MFWC Twentieth Century Club met January 21, 2014 at the Prentiss United Methodist Church fellowship hall for its monthly meeting. President Deborah Dickens called the meeting to order and welcomed all members and guests. She then led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Tracy Waits centered her devotion on an article by Adrian Rogers regarding love worth finding. The article stated the greatest invitations to prayer – ever given to anyone – was spoken to Jeremiah when he was in prison for preaching the truth. God told him: “Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not,” Jeremiah 33:3. She listed the 10 lessons stated in the article about what we can learn about prayer:

1. Make prayer a habit. When you fail, start over, day by day, until prayer is a habit.

2. Designate a time and place for prayer where you regularly go to pray.

3. Make that time and place the most optimum for you. Find the time when your mind is the keenest, your attention strongest.

4. Take some things with you: your Bible, notebook, pen and devotional materials. I expect God to say something. If he does, I want to write it down. The weakest ink is better than the best memory.

5. Begin by reading God’s word. Don’t pray, then read the Bible. Read the Bible, and then pray. What God says to you is more important than what you say to God. Your prayer will be enlivened and instructed when you get in the Word of God.

6. Learn to pray about things all through the day. “Pray without ceasing.”

7. Keep a record of your requests and answered prayers. I keep a journal where I enter requests. The other day I decided to look back about ten years. I was incredibly blessed to see how many prayers God has answered. A prayer journal will increase your faith.

8. Put on the whole armor of God. Prayer is warfare. All the artillery of hell will come against you when you pray. The doorbell rings, you set sleepy, your mind wanders. You must put on the whole armor of God.

9. If you’re by yourself, pray out loud. If your mind is like mine, it wants to wander when you pray. There’s something about vocalizing your prayers that keeps your mind from wandering.

10. If your mind wanders, pray about that thing. Thoughts will come to you like, I must remember that; I need to this this. Here’s a secret that works wonderfully. If the thing drawing your attention away from your prayer is that important, evidently it’s really on your mind, so pray about it. The thing distracting me becomes the focal point of my prayer. Then return to your original prayer.

Tracy concluded her devotion time with a prayer giving thanks for the refreshments of the evening and most importantly stating how grateful all of us should be because we have a forgiving and loving God.

At this time the club recessed for its social time. The hostesses for the evening were GayAnn Davies, Patti Estes, and Marie McNease. The tables in the fellowship hall were covered with a white tablecloth and accented with gray and white chevron toppers. The flowers for the evening were hydrangeas. Each table was embellished with a silver mercury glass vase holding a small floral arrangement of white hydrangeas while the center table was bedecked with an impressive glass vase topped off with even larger white hydrangeas. The food for the evening consisted of a breakfast sausage casserole, fresh cinnamon rolls, a heated spicy chunky fruit dish and a choice of coffee, water or hot punch.

The speaker for the evening was Kym Garraway Braley from the Community Service in the Art Department. She is a wife, mother, hunter and a talented Christian artist from Hattiesburg (Oak Grove) area who is blessed with a zest for life that is vividly portrayed in her painting. She loves to paint in vibrant colors along with everything from God’s creations. She is never one to claim praise for her work because she knows her talent is a gift from God. When asked about her gift Kym tells everyone “It is God’s talent and God’s Glory I have been blessed with”. To the members surprise and delight while she was presenting her program she created a painting to be given away at the end of the evening.

Tracy Waits won the door prize given by Tina McPhail while the lucky winner of the Kym Garraway painting was none other than Patti Estes.

After the members recited the Collect the meeting was adjourned.