Today's Featured Biography

 
Deborah Dannelly Wood

It's impossible to edit 40+ years into a coupla paragraphs - but suffice it to say I've lived a good life - a life I enjoyed, a life in which I was richly bless, doing most of what I wanted to do, entangled in several "it's complicated" relationships, 5 engagements and 3 marriages later, it finally occurred to me that perhaps I am too willful to even be IN a relationship! There is little that I wanted to do that remains undone but I remain hopeful that despite my age and handicap that I will manage to do even those before I take wing to be with Jesus and all my friends, family and beloved pets that have gone on before me (and I'm sure pets will be there - what would heaven be without dogs? ah and cats).

Within a year of graduating, I moved to Turkey for two years then spent a year traveling around Europe. Pretty much got a taste of everything from Venice to Geneva, Barcelona to Vienna, but did not get to the Nordic nations, something I do regret but have not given up on. Upon returning I graduated from Okaloosa Walton then transferred to West Florida for a year before moving to New Orleans then Atlanta where I graduated from Kennesaw State while working as a paralegal with a "prestigious" (or so THEY claimed) Atlanta law firm.

I've managed to live a good life, a full life, a life the Lord blessed me with and done things a lot of people couldn't do just because I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time and certainly not because I was well off enough to do them - theater, concerts, broadway shows, exhibits, just by living on the periphery and working with the "rich and famous".

Living in this area also afforded me the opportunity to do a lot of hiking and camping climbing and rappelling. We have some beautiful trails in Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina and I believe I've camped in all of Georgia's State and Federal Parks and probably all of Tennessee's. If you really want to see God, sit beside a tumbling stream, alone with your thoughts, birds chirping, singing or calling shrilly into a misty morning, sun filtering through the leaves - His presence all around you, He seeps into your soul like the mist does your skin ... it is THE most awesome place to worship.

I've rappelled into Cloudland Canyon and Tallulah Gorge, bungee jumped off the New River Bridge into the gorge in Virginia back when it was the "thing" to do. Now base jumping has become the rage and my body is too broken and tired to try it, not to mention I'm now old enough to have faced my mortality and KNOW better. LOL.

I never had children despite many wonderful relationships and I really DID love them - just couldn't live with them. I was way too selfish with MY time and knew it. How could I raise children and do the things I wanted to do? So I chose not to. However, later in life when all the thrills were winding down, I was still empty - something was missing and the Lord spoke to me that the emptiness was my selfishness - it was time to give back - to do something to make the world a better place.

That year I opened a canine rescue "The Dog Next Door" and as a Petfinder affiliate, rehomed over 550 homeless dogs facing death in shelters all over the south INCLUDING my home town Panama City. The beauty of this was it opened SO MANY DOORS for me to witness to others. To share God's love and mercy. I do not think it a coincidental that dog is God spelled backward. People are so receptive to the Holy Spirit when talked about in the context of loving God's creatures.

I've spent thousands of miles transporting dogs to their forever homes nationwide and some to safety in Connecticut, New Hampshire, upstate New York, Maine, states with a demand for rescue dogs and not enough to place. Even that work finally took its toll financially, emotionally and physically and after 12 years I had to make some changes due to health problems.

I placed all the easily adoptable dogs and closed the rescue keeping a dozen of the older dogs who were less adoptable. Here they will live out their lives with love and all the care I can provide them. To support them and to support other local rescues I opened an ebay store selling fashion jewelry. Every penny earned there "goes to the dogs" so to speak. LOL

When the last dog passes if I outlive them all, I plan to adopt one more old dog and return to Panama City and HOPEFULLY I will still have enough of "the stuff" to travel the US committing random acts of kindness from a small motor home. If not I will stay in PC and do what I can there to make the world a better place.

I CAN say for every arthritic ache, for every broken bone, for each twinge of pain, for every lonely moment, for each tear I shed in silence there is a remarkable memory and Jesus is with me every step of the way - as long as Alzheimer's doesn't steal my mind, when my time comes, I'll go home a happy fulfilled Child of the King.

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