When I am ninety-one, I shall wear rhinestones on my jeans

Happy Birthday to my mother's cousin, Jean Lorraine Frese. She is ninety-one years old today, very much alive and kicking, still driving at breakneck speed around mountain curves...and wearing rhinestones on her jeans. She has a cane now, but even that comes thrown in with a grain of salt. She gave it a name. George. "Don't forget George," she's reminded me often as we are going out the door on our latest adventure.

This is the relative of mine I featured in Called to the Mountains: The Story of Jean L. Frese. That's her picture on the cover.

There's so much more to her life story beyond the Salvation Army bonnet on the cover picture and the rhinestones on her jeans pockets picture taken a few weeks ago.

There was the fishing expedition.

The horseback mission.

The hours and years of study and preparing sermons, no easy task for her.

Her goal is to have many, many more birthdays, at least to one hundred and five, God willing. In fact, those two words have driven her life all these years. God willing. She depends on God to send her the right person at the right time, and that has never failed. She firmly believes God brought her to this spot, called her to these Smokey Mountains for a purpose. Her life is a testimony to what God can do. And. She's not finished yet. 

Ninety-one years and counting.

Catch of the day,

Gretchen