"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion — to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."~from ISAIAH 61 Bible verse for this Blog

APOLOGY to READERS who followed a SEARCH to HERE & didn't find it

On July 18, 2017, I drafted almost 3000 blog posts that I had published since 2008 when I began blogging, rather than edit each one. So if you clicked here from somewhere else and ended up with the post unavailable or error, I am sorry but this is why. It'd be too much work for me to go back and fix them. There's an explanation on 7/19/17 as I'm still learning.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

MESSES... this too is my story...

MESSES...
yep, the story of my life...
continual messes having to be picked up,
cleaned up, cleansed
straightened out Mazes...


This may look like a MESS, but the MESSES I'm talking about are wrongs; wrong choices & decisions... the 'Christianeeze' word is SIN. Many of us tend to shy away from that word: SIN.

People that aren't in church especially, but even many of us in churches. Many of us do not recognize our many faults as SIN. Our failings to make the right choice or healthy choice are SINS. Any wrong doing or poor choice in thought, word or deed.

Some believe that nothing is a SIN just a difference in perspective. But the Bible tells us and history does as well that WE ALL ARE SINNERS, WE ALL HAVE SINNED... yes, everyone of us. And there is no gradient of SIN. SIN is SIN. A MESS is a MESS. It will always be a MESS.

Perhaps it is easier for us to relate to it this way: there are or have been times in our lives when we have really MESSED up. Some MESSES involve other people. Some MESSES are just our own MESS that needs fixing. Many MESSES affect more people than you may be aware of at the time of the MESS. And some of those MESSES disappear at the time but lo and behold, they show up again later because we never really took care of cleaning them up correctly or completely just haphazardly for the time being or maybe we had no idea how MESSed up we were, maybe we were in a BLAME game or running away from facing the truth. Maybe we were believing lies and buried in deception.

Whatever the reason for the MESS, God is ready and always waiting to clean us up, wash us...

If you're even a little bit like me, you don't want to live the kind of life where you are barely hanging on, merely finding ways to cope with your MESS, your misery, your circumstance just to get by. Many of you have had this feeling like me that you absolutely would like to START your life over, or at least before this MESS overtook your life... 'I have been there, done that'... and I just don't want to continue THAT WAY.

I, for one, do not enjoy going around in circles, those MAZES that I showed you but still have not given any specific MAZES, but the ones where you head out in one direction and find either a dead end or you end up right back where you started. Especially if this WAY leads you into the same MESS that you were either trying to get away from, make right or move beyond. Especially the same territory or valley that you already thought you'd passed through.

And then you find yourself coming back to the same problems, the same habits, the same hurts, the same hang-ups and patterns from before, the same frustrations, same limitations, same mistakes... same MESSES. We need to steer clear of ending up calloused, hard-hearted, bitter, unforgiving, anxious, impatient, hopeless, unteachable with a negative attitude that will creep into ALL of our ways, sometimes without our awareness because we have not stopped the MESS

"We need to put our expectations in the Lord, He is the only One who should have power over our souls. We will never be happy until we make God the complete source of our fulfillment and answer to our longings and we need to stop putting those expectations & longings in other things & people." (from Stormie Omartian's book that we will be starting in September)

I decided, after far too many years wandering through the wildernesses and the deserts in my life, that I wanted (no, it was more than wanted) I needed to break free and break out of any self defeating cycles of repeated patterns and habits... NO MORE MESSES without a complete CLEAN-UP: HIS CLEANSING! Life was demanding that I become an OVERCOMER not just a SURVIVOR!

So you may be thinking (if you've been following my posts)..."ohh so that's when she gave her life to Jesus and accepted Him as Lord, and Savior. When she was MESSed UP the most. This is when she finally gets down to sharing her testimony ... and what no details of these MESSES?...the nitty gritty." No, not yet (sorry) I'm just not sure that sharing my MESSES really frees anyone. 

[Yes, confession is good for the soul, but ALL of theses MESSES were confessed back then & dealt with... and because much of my life involves other people's lives, I'm at this hard point of not sharing their story or messes and bringing any shame, condemnation or judgement on them. Yes, bringing issues into the light, does free me & hopefully them but not in a public place of infinite eyes forever.]

No, I have to admit this was not the beginning of my life knowing Jesus Christ, as my Savior... sad to say... this had to happen over and over again throughout my journey with Christ... until I finally GOT IT... awakened to all the knowledge I had in my head, learned but not totally submitted, and it sunk right down to where I thought it had been all the time... my heart. I knew the words, I had said the words, I even had meant the words the many times I found myself repenting for the same MESSES, but I had known Jesus & read His Word for many years, until I found out that I had not truly made Him LORD over my life or allowed Him to change me, transform me & mold me into ALL He desired me to be in Him. I had been working on doing it my way. I just had to make the wrong right. I made the MESS and I will do whatever it takes to FIX it, CLEAN it up and I'll keep trying until I get it right.

Perhaps, now I'm closer to sharing a personal life testimony...

THERE ISN'T A MESS
that
JESUS
cannot
CLEAN
UP

COMPLETELY


and
then
HE NAILED IT
ON
CALVARY
FOR
YOU
&
ME


Other parts of this MESS:
MAZES... this too is my story...



* went back and removed images or things that might make this a problem 

Monday, August 2, 2010

MAZES... this too is my story...

... MAZES ...
yes this was a true depiction of my LIFE ...

[source]

... that is ...
B.C.

BEFORE CHRIST

[source]

HE straightens out my life,
takes away confusion and going around in circles
HE makes the MAZES aMazing
no longer with dead ends, cut offs or repeated patterns
HE directs my steps
MOVING FORWARD


3 Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting,
“Clear the way through the wilderness for the Lord
Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God!
4 Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills.
Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places.
5 Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. The Lord has spoken!”

ISAIAH 40

I'm in the process of trying to share a personal life testimony, parts of this MAZE in other posts:
more parts are coming
STAY TUNED

Sunday, August 1, 2010

THIS IS MY STORY... Part I.

Yep, today is the day that I take the first plunge with my...

STEPS of FAITH
 
[source] in Mazatlan

Blessed assurance...
words of this classic hymn by Fanny Crosby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1eZvMsr7_Q

"THIS IS MY STORY... this is my song..."

I'm not sure that you, as a reader can see or follow this, but God seems to have been presenting "posts" or songs, or His Word to me in a certain thread and for a specific purpose of sharing my story, which in many "faiths" we label as a 'testimony'... a life testimony... a personal testimony... because without a doubt God does change my life daily...

Ever since I started my blog, various friends have asked me, if I've shared my testimony?...and then throughout this time, I've been noticing so many great ones in blog world. I determined that I was to pursue this endeavor in 2010 (thus part of the reason for my lack in proper blogging etiquette this year) though I just was not sure that I had a testimony to share or as my earlier post today sang

"WHERE DO I BEGIN..."

... though my life is not at all like "LOVE STORY", it is a love story when it comes to my walk with Jesus Christ... the good, the bad and the ugly. I truly believe that GOD ordains my steps. My entire life has been a series of Love stories ...

I set up these posts with that in mind and now have no idea where to start, which has been my reason for delaying writing or sharing this for all this time.

Where do you begin to share this story, when you've known God, the Father, Son & Holy Spirit all your life. The problem is that I was not in a church that speaks about 'testimonies', or at the time I grew up, even allowed "regular people" to read the Word of God. My...how I have grown and changed because I could not even live a day without a taste from His DAILY MANNA... I have no particular 'conversion experience' or a great elaborate story of a life changing moment but a lifetime of these.

Yet my foundational beliefs are basically the same, I have grown so much in the transitions through my life and the churches that I've attended that knowing Jesus Christ becomes more REAL every day since we began our journey of LOVE, a relationship that far outweighs every other and a life that would not be complete with knowing Jesus Christ as my Lord & Savior. The problem is allowing ALL you KNOW to transcend the knowing & go deep down and transform my heart and my life.I may have said all my life that "Jesus is Lord of my life" because He is my Lord & Savior, but it wasn't until an awareness hit me & a clear awakening that I have said this over and over, been in church all that I can, served, heard, ministered & was ministered to much, prayed with other's but I truly was not LIVING an abundant life in Jesus Christ, and really had not MADE or ALLOWED HIM to reign & rule as my LORD. This awakening makes me wonder when does my testimony begin.

I have prayed "the prayer"* millions of times! I was baptized as an infant; than chose to be baptized again as a believing adult, wanting to affirm my dedication & commitment to Christ; surrendering my life to following His, more than once... and each time that I MESSED up, I wanted to start over again, clean slate... surrendering again, but each sweet surrender was more each time; instead of one from complete brokenness in need, I was now ready & willing to be fresh; being filled with the Holy Spirit; on fire for Jesus... yet still NO moment of TESTIMONY, just many experiences which testify of His Redemptive Spirit in my life. 

[sidenote: I recently was absorbed in watching many of Francis Chan's videos, and he mentioned in a video that no where in the Bible, God's Word, does it guarantee entrance into our eternal life by just saying "the "PRAYER"*(cited to above). Now, because that's been my intent, many times, as I go out to witness/ evangelize, to lead each person in the "sinner's prayer", this really struck me and stayed with me.

[Since this is my first in my series of sharing my walk, I will try not to meander on his point here.]



I am a spirit filled BORN AGAIN Christian!

I am so thankful for my roots and also my wings in my faith walk. I am aMazed every day by God's AMAZING GRACE... I did not know the day I sat down to start a blog all the reasons for choosing as I chose; or better said as I was led to declare: my blog title, my name, my profile, my purpose, my mission, my verse of Isaiah 61... yet step by step, I was led by His Holy Spirit. I prayed before I began and the rest has been the history and my 'modus operandi' each time I posted, to PRAY, as many of you do... and allow His Spirit to lead me...


Maybe you may be thinking as you listened to this beautiful classic song & admired these young precious dancers, 'how presumptuous of me' to think this great song or even "aMazing Grace" could be songs used to describe my life in Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit would give them to me... but though I knew of these dancers and even this great song... I, myself, would not have chosen them or looked for them to begin to tell my story... yet I was led for a reason only known by God Himself, at this point... ya' have to laugh about the earlier ones today, however they are favorites of mine from the 70s... God does have such a sense of humor when He knew this was my intent in August to finally put this together... throughout the month of August, I'm hoping as He leads and lays the groundwork... or perhaps after I finish the upcoming study... we'll see...

aMazing Grace was added quickly to my blog name after I began... because I was amazed and continue being aMazed by His aMazing Grace. It just seemed to fit... and I heard the song at that time. First I chose the 3 words, MAZES, MESSES & MIRACLES to describe my life journey. God, in His infinite wisdom, instilled those words in my mind and He has been revealing so much to me of why those words and the significance they have to my 'testimony'. With the "name" I chose for myself, being "mazmagi", it was only natural to get MAZ from Mazatlan, and the word "más" in Spanish means "more"...so More of Him in me... is all I need, and from that came the "mazes" having HIS MAZE as my only path instead of many dead ends... (it's also the style in which I write sometimes, in a maze with a purpose maybe only I follow or can see, so forgive me)

Hopefully, He will continue to reveal and direct my words, lead my steps or how much I share because my life story is in the making... not a history or herstory maker, but HIS Story ALIVE in me!

So instead of being a well, put together or thought out TESTIMONY or LIFE STORY, I will be sharing portions as I go along and TRUST in HIM, to lead, direct and guide me (maybe for the first time ever as truly being my LORD) in this MAZE, through the many MESSES of my life, to shine glory on what Jesus has done in me, and is doing through His Holy Spirit even as I write, in what I see as His MIRACLE producing fruit hopefully and blessings on me through this journey of life, I call a FAITH WALK... yes, even the name of the dance group "STEPS of FAITH" had a part in laying out the groundwork... I hope you'll be blessed as you "walk" through this with me...

... end of PART I ...
... to be continued as led ...
marked by this
&
from my WFW now
personalized
2 Corinthians 3:3 (The Message)

"...Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ Himself wrote it, not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives, and we publish it."


...Peggy, your very life is a letter...
that anyone should be able to read by just looking at you.
Christ Himself wrote it - not with ink,
but with God's Living Spirit;
not chiseled into stone,
but carved
into human lives
YOURS
and we publish it
right here
at
The beginning of this BLOG (in case you're new to me and never read):
Earlier posts that are leading towards my testimony:

aAnd even some others ever since I returned from Minnesota, the Holy Spirit has been clearly directing my steps!!! These are Steps of Faith and I know all the books that I am reading added to His most Holy WORD are speaking and I'm really listening attentively.

The following link is a PROPHETIC MESSAGE I read today, from JULY 23rd, as given by Mary Liddow (The Messenger Blog) that seems to be one example of God speaking - and not just to me:

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Celebrating & Remembering a Life

Happy Birthday, my friend...

Te Extrañare Tercer Cielo

IN MEMORY OF
ENRIQUE MEJIA TORIBIO
July 15, 1970 - December 6, 2009

Today would have been your 40th birthday

Psalm 13
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeTaJlXcw5k&feature=related


 
Eternity
Misty Edwards

HOLY, holy, holy, holy
(Eternities)
Eternity's eternal song 
Is drawing me -
calling me away (repeat) 
It's calling me away 
 All flesh is grass, fading away. 
Only You last, only You remain 
All flesh is grass, fading away. 
Only You last, only You remain the same, 
You never change. 
 Holy, holy, holy, 
You are fairer than the sons of men 
 Eternity's eternal song 
Is drawing me and calling me away (repeat) 
calling me away 
 Surely man is like a flower of the field,
True life is but a vapor, at best, but a vapor. 
Surely man is like a flower of the field, 
And the fragrance but a vapor, at best, but a vapor. But You, O God, Are better than a thousand blooms. Hallelujah, Amen! (x6) Eternity's eternal song, 
Is drawing me - calling me away (repeat) 
It's calling me away Eternity's eternal song

***
Eternal REST grant to him O Lord,
and let Your perpetual Light shine upon him, in Jesus Name. Amen!

Praying for your family, loved ones & friends
that Our Holy Comforter
wrap His loving arms
around each
one

***

Look at this beautiful e-card I received from Dayspring 
from our precious sister Denise
(wish I could put her butterfly background on my blog)


Thank You Lord that YOU do really CARE!


Comments are turned off...thank you for your prayers & thoughts!




To my faithful visitors;
all of you who spend your valuable time here with me
I do appreciate you so much!

Thank you for taking your time to visit!

Love, Sweet blessings & Hugs!

DIOS TE BENDIGA
GOD BLESS YOU

always

Peggy