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Thursday, August 26, 2010

END of THIS STORY

SO VERY THANKFUL

that
"I CAN BEGIN AGAIN"

with 
Larnelle Harris

(hit start and continue to read, no video to see, just a great song to hear)


Yes, as the words of this song say:

"I can begin again..."
and
I am so thankful
that
in
JESUS CHRIST
I am
BORN AGAIN
and
through
HIS HOLY SPIRIT
I can
LIVE
again

BE
FREE
and
TESTIFY

"THIS IS MY STORY"
(the personal testimony of my steps of faith)
is really not complete
because
the greatest part
has
just begun
...

So the
END of THIS STORY
is actually the
beginning
of more
yet
to
BE

of course, the real end, I believe
will be when I am at the feet of my
Precious Lord Jesus
and even then
it will be the BEST & REAL END of this story
I cannot wait until the
Author & Finisher
completes this
Never-Ending
STORY

<>

It is in these last 15 years that my life and passions have really come to be and I know that God willing, if He tarries much longer, the best is yet to be! My journey from so many MAZES and MESSES; bondage to freedom, brokenness to wholeness; failures to true success did not just happen overnight or in one conversion experience. I am still on the path to becoming more and more complete and free in Him; because it's a lifelong process. Wrong habits, unhealthy choices and hang-ups, feelings, thinking and acting take time to change and be transformed. And it all happens because of Jesus Christ & the Holy Spirit in me, step by step... these are STEPS of FAITH!



ooohhh 
And the end of this story...well, we'll all see how that turns out...

ONE DAY
AT
A
TIME
UNTIL
THAT
FINAL
DAY
OF

JUDGEMENT

It's a never ending story... I'm hopeful in that!


[THESE POSTS are in the 
REVERSE ORDER]
so the start is at the end of this list as


Still awake in the early hours, in prayer for so many on my heart over at The Lighthouse of Prayer and throughout blog land, when I was ready to shut down my laptop, this song just rose up from within me so, of course, I had to have accompaniment and I quickly rushed over to YouTube, not getting the right song and finally... well, it's posted over at a different blog:  THE POWER of YOUR LOVE!!! {when I recently tried to follow link I did not arrive there, so perhaps it's best not to follow} 

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

THIS IS MY STORY... Part VII.

STEPS of FAITH...
a LETTER from CHRIST


... a REFLECTION

(The Message) says:
...Peggy,
your very life is a letter...
that anyone should be able to read by just looking at you.
Christ Himself wrote it ...
...with God's Living Spirit...

and we publish it
right here

This next part of my life is very endearing to me. Once more I cannot share as much as I would like to about this because it involves our precious daughter. However, God used this time of a critical health situation for her, to bring us together in a bonded relationship like a real mother and daughter. His touch upon her life was a profound MIRACLE! Because of her undiagnosed situation for one year, after an emergency hospital near death situation; because her hemoglobin levels had dropped so low, followed by weekly doctor after doctor to specialists and frequent hospital visits, blood draws and infusions, much trial medicines, her body took a toil. It was at this time, an angel of the Lord in the form of a person, and a special family from our church, took us into their home to be closer to the hospital, but frankly, we needed the family support and love. I was homeschooling our daughter and this beautiful woman friend was homeschooling her two kids. This was a real growing time for both of us and seeing God in this family as well as how a family centered in God works. I truly could never say enough about how this dear saint, her husband and children encompassed us with God's love and made us family that moved me beyond gratitude and indebtedness.


After a year of healing, both our daughter and I moved on: our daughter back home for that summer to be with her brother, who she missed more than he missed her, AND I moved out on my own.(Yep you heard me right. My husband and I had agreed, had a talk, that this was best for now. Me coming home now was not good for either of us)(as of recent summer visit after 15+yrs., that is still the response).

Later in the fall, our daughter came to live with me so I could continue her schooling besides working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet. At this time, my husband, resigned to me being away and began to help me out financially to support our daughter being there. He also had retired at the end of the last school year & was now home full time but planning a trip to Mexico, where we had talked about moving to upon his retirement, so that I could begin working on a mission field I felt I had waited for since 6th grade to make real my calling in life. He knew of this and at one time had considered living part time elsewhere, but that he would travel to see which part was best so that we could go there and he would come & go from there. But all this would not happen until after both kids graduated.

It was while he was gone that our daughter hit the biggest crisis in her health due to the effects of her medicine... her back broke in 3 places and she needed to be put in a body cast, needing to have constant therapy and relearn many basic skills all over again. It was in this time, that she needed to come to rely on me, like a newborn child. So we grew closer together. A bond that deepened both of us in our FAITH. I became a constant prayer warrior. I became dependent on God. She became dependent on me believing in God and her faith like a child touched Him (and me). It was when my church family rose up once again and came together to not just help us by serving, being there but once again, another family took us in with a hospital bed & all the inconveniences of having two people live in their walk in basement. Our home had too many stairs. But when we were able to do so, we made our living room at home into our daughter's bedroom for her hospital bed. During this time, I learned all that I could about her medical needs and how to care for someone around the clock 24/7. My husband was not there, but my church family and God Almighty, the greatest Healer and Divine Great Physician came to live with us.

When my husband returned, with the news that he would never move or go back to Mexico, I told him that I had taken care of our daughter for 6 months alone without him and now it was time for me to go. So I left for a special Holy Week in Mexico... and not only was it the best price ever for a week away, but God met me right here and spoke to me, confirming that urgency, that desire to "go and teach others" about Him. I met a wonderful messenger of God, 108 year old Susana, who had a Word from the Lord she said for me... which was John 14:6 (I shared about SUSANA a long time ago on this blog). It was clearly God speaking...

This trip, just like one I had made before, with a short term mission group to Monterrey, Mexico, was too short for me... and I needed to come back and determined after my encounter with Susana that I would for an entire month to see if I could live in Mexico alone. I came home, ready to return that fall. That summer, my husband and I came to a new agreement. We would separate but remain married unless... so we drew up separation papers but they would not be filed unless... to this day they have not been filed. Yet we have definitely parted our ways.

I know that this is not God's plan for marriage, but I have stepped away, freed him and myself, by removing me from being his obstacle. Yes, I took myself out of being his problem, decreased our stress filled relationship, but left many conflicts unresolved, probably never to be resolved ...YET I believe that God is at work. Yes, I should be under my husband's headship, yes, I do know what God's Word says and Yes, some even believe until this is resolved there will be no fruit in what I do... but God is still working on me...on him and yes, even in the lives around me.

AND I BELIEVE that SALVATION is more than a prayer... and God's Spirit is at work." It is not by Power, nor by Might but by His Spirit... " and He is gentle, never forces, but beckons us to DRAW CLOSE and COME, HUMBLY, Just as we are and that message still needs to hit home and SO, I PRAY and I STAY until HE MOVES ME... and I have HOPE that as He refines me, HE is at work at home... I go home each year with an open heart and mind, ready & willing but it takes two and Jesus being in their midst, actually right in the center, as it should have been at the very beginning, if it is not God's will or God's plan, it will not be done, if it is... IT WILL BE DONE but salvation is for everyone... and it is our CHOICE because of our FREE WILL and Jesus offers this to each one of us with the same love; an eternal love; a forgiving love; a perfect love; just where we are... I have that kind of love for those that have crossed my life's journey.

...end of Part VII...
Do you know Jesus Christ as Savior and have you made Him Lord?
Do you have loved ones that you are praying for their salvation?
Have you witnessed to them,
opened the door
to Jesus
sharing
His love
for them?
I do

KEEP PRAYING then BELIEVE
and
SEE them as SAVED

RECEIVE by FAITH

THANK HIM
claiming them for God's Kingdom.

NOW LIVE LIFE like JESUS
filled by HIS SPIRIT

BE HIS WITNESS
LIVE IT
TESTIFY
KEEP IT REAL
LIVE FOR JESUS



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yydqnfYqT0E

How I would like these words to be
REFLECTED
in me
&
from me
through my life
actions
words


from one ugly duckling
to
one godly swan
reflecting
HIS LOVE
made in His image
to
be
JESUS
to
U

Can I pray with you? or for you? or for your family to know Jesus? I'd love to have the honor. Let me know right in the comments.


HERE are the other parts of "THIS IS MY STORY" (under the label testimony,too)

Thursday, August 19, 2010

THIS IS MY STORY... Part VI

STEPS of FAITH...
a LETTER from CHRIST
... a REFLECTION


2 Corinthians 3:3
(The Message) says:

...Peggy,
your very life is a letter...
that anyone should be able to read by just looking at you.
Christ Himself wrote it ...

...with God's Living Spirit...

and we publish it
right here

With these two heavy crisis my life began to unravel and spiral downward once again. Yet this time, I was surrounded with a new church family. I might not have had the support at home that I wanted to count on, but I had people who cared and were there. My pastor and his wife even came to my brother's funeral. I noticed them as I got up to do a selected reading from Kahil Gibran my brother had selected for communion time after the song "On Eagle's Wings". I did not think I had the strength, until I noticed them and immediately the heaviness lifted as I continued with my own reading from Isaiah 40:28-31. The downward spiral occurred the next day as the family was to gather at the cemetery to lay my brother's ashes to rest... and I headed out alone to go there, but never made it. I could not bring myself to go there and I tried to call "who"... I dialed my brother's phone number. For the next month, I did not go home but stayed at a motel (where I also got a job). It was a break away time that I prescribed myself to spend with God (except when I was working). Again, God provided just what I needed and time to heal. Then I returned home.

Our church was offering a training course for anyone, who wanted to be a part of a counseling team and pray with people who would call in for help. We would be trained and then a center would be opening right in our church. As I read through the variety of counseling topics that the people would be covering, I knew this was meant for me. I attended not with the motive of being a phone counselor, but with the deep need to be healed and know how to pray with others to meet their need would be the end result. Out of my weakness, God restored me and poured out over and over again during the training and then the two volunteer shifts of late night phone call counseling each week. I became co-director of our site, then began teaching other centers and staffs. I became a teacher on many of those given topics that at the beginning were the ones that I needed to make it through my depression and grief. His Holy Spirit counseled & comforted me than trained me as His vessel. I did not realize then that I was going to be needing that training again very soon in my own life again not for me but with someone very important to me. God's love, mercy, grace and full knowledge is so aMazing and awesome as it is revealed before your eyes over & over. His healing power is awesome to witness as a MIRACLE!

Having your FAITH increased, strengthened and reinforced time and time again proves how much He desires us to draw closer each day of our lives. We need to stay in touch and connected to our Power source! I remember when God confirmed that this new church was for me, now I knew why. The "talk" that evening was on 1 Corinthians 14 and I knew that I knew this was where I needed to be, where I would grow but mostly where the Holy Spirit would not only make God's Word alive for me, He would now live in me & through me because I would now be baptized with the Holy Spirit & receive His fresh anointing over me. Manifestations of His Spirit & being slain in His Spirit would now become part of my new growing experience... I could hardly wait for MORE & MORE! 

And then it happened!

I had prayed time and time again, went to every possible altar call, speaker, preacher, Holy Spirit Conference, seeking & expecting until finally, a prophetic speaker told me that I needed to be set free and break a spirit of religion over me to be filled, so I was delivered and then it happened...

God and I were able to now speak without words from me, but words from Him, a spiritual language, a heavenly language and at times signs when I was overwhelmed with tears, groanings & moanings that only He understood, He dried my tears, He restored my spirit, He refreshed all of Him within me and I knew that I was on my way to grow & bear more of the fruit of His Spirit (which we're still at work refining)... Jesus was now teaching me to disciple others for His Kingdom & He deepened my first longings to be a witness for Him and serve Him in this world. He gave me an urgency... my prayer life deepened with an earnest desire of salvation for everyone, a new boldness. A fire that was put on hold ... because a new crisis arose at home... so I really needed ALL of Him now, because this time, the crisis was not 'me', it was for this someone that God wanted to draw closer to me and HIM: our adopted daughter, now entering her teenage years...

...end of Part VI...
Part VII next Tuesday
but the parts in between now & then
may have some parts
woven
in
them


STAY TUNED



Tuesday, August 17, 2010

THIS IS MY STORY ... Part V.

STEPS of FAITH...
a LETTER from CHRIST
... a REFLECTION

2 Corinthians 3:3
(The Message) 
says:

... Peggy

your very life is a letter...
that anyone should be able to read 
by just looking at you.
Christ Himself wrote it ...

... with God's Living Spirit ...

and we publish it
right here

<><><>
continuation from Part IV

Yet after the legal adoption of our kids (mid 80s), my life became more of an inward journey and the distance between my husband and I grew further apart. I began to question why I had involved two more precious lives with my MESS. However, I convinced myself and believed that their lives would be and were much better off with us, than if they had stayed with neglectful parents, who put their own needs & habits above the welfare of their precious children. I love both of them as if they were created within me, because it is so true, the poem that says "they may not be flesh of my flesh, ... but still miraculously our own,... they didn't grow under my heart, but in it". My heart is ever full of love for each of them... completion of God's love for me and my heart's dream. They did complete me and I only wished that I had completed them as much, but I was hurting. Our son came to just stay with us, at first, hoping that his mother could get her life together. The county came in and took all 3 away but their mom had a couple of years and some requirements to fulfill to get them back before we could adopt them. She stayed in touch by phone and mail but they got less and less. Finally she did the ultimate sacrifice (at least that's how I explained it to her children), she released her parental rights so that they could have a new life and chance. Just like Jesus, she loved them that much.

The miracle for me was that, not only were we given custody of our son, but shortly thereafter the opportunity for his sister,too. It's was a two for one miracle. God had truly seen a contrite heart and me, our children were His confirmation to me, to help heal and to bless me with a new chance to redeem my life. I promised my husband that he would not be sorry for this. I might have failed him as a wife, but I would never fail these children, who needed a home, where their little lives would be a priority and I would not fail as their mother.

Now this is where we continue from Part III when we (my son & I) were baptized.

Shortly thereafter, we went to court, after having our son & daughter with us as custodial parents for 2-3 years. We even had the option of having their oldest brother join us, but he was in a home with a family that wanted to adopt him and he would be their only child. We felt he needed this along with his psychological counsel where he was already in need of and getting... (my husband did not really want kids (remember?) and 2 were much more than he was thinking, but I know he fell in love with our daughter, as I had our son, and they were perfect for us). But sadly for their brother, his parents adopted another child from another country (I'm sure that they thought this would be good for him) and it was his great loss.(Now from hindsight of mine) I would say that we should have included him and not just stayed in touch, because it was detrimental to him... however, having 3, would have been detrimental for them and me. Far more than I could handle, mostly alone, even though their uncle, (their adopted dad, my husband) was with us, he really wasn't... he was a workaholic and isolated himself when he was home. [Not sure that he'd admit either]. Actually, to be more fair, I should say that he was very dedicated to his profession, career and "doing good" and he did. But not with us. He did not go to church with us, he was not their for meals. He was not there for us. Yes, but he did provide ... and I guess I'm thankful for that. (Forgive my words here if they sound harsh but they are the truth)

During this time, I had just returned to school for computer training but had to let programming go and come home to be a mom. I was so thrilled to be a mom and I also was involved with the evangelical church, women's Bible studies and co-directing/ teaching in their children's Wednesday night program. It was also during this time that I became part of Women's Aglow so that I could learn from other Christian Women. I enjoyed myself so much with these women who became dear friends and their Aglow monthly newsletter was my contribution to our local group. It was via Aglow that I received my first personal word from the Lord, given to a wonderful woman of God, Ruth Olson, in a vision for me. Now this was in August, over 20+ years ago, yet remains fresh in my mind, although I have it written out, it is not here with me in Mexico so that I can share it all. I just want to share a few of the images so you can see God's sense of humor towards me at this time: freshly trimmed toenails, a beautiful garland crown of sweet smelling white baby roses; Joan of Arc; straight path; with Psalm 91... parts (that is also one of my favorite Psalms to pray); pearl (the meaning of my name); then in another one: me fallen off a tricycle and an ice cream cone. Go figure. I am so glad that I had a few of these precious women to help me through these years and pray with me.

The following year after our children's adoption, my dear mother died, right after I had just sent both of our children off to school(K & 1st grade) so I could go back & restart my career in a nearby school district. I was glad to see my mom's suffering end, but the year afterwards, I could not deal well with this on Mother's Day. My memories of being at her deathbed with my dad, my sister and one of my 2 brothers, struggling and gasping for air, was not the final image I had wanted of my mom. It was beyond what I could cope with thinking of it. Shortly thereafter, my youngest brother became HIV infected, lived with AIDS for 3 more years before I had to watch him die as well. I was so close to him, we shared everything since he & I practically grew up together. We were the closest. I was the only one, at first, with whom he shared this part of his life, as well as his plans for his funeral & dying wishes. I stayed with him his final week in a coma, listening to his John Michael Talbot and music, reading God's Word, speaking truth into Him. This time I witnessed a peaceful departure of his spirit with an angel as I placed my dad's hand in his, I felt his spirit leave in his last breath.

I did not have the spousal support I needed during these times, but I know that my intimacy with God exceeded all expectations & grew with leaps & bounds. I heavily relied on God to meet all my needs & He did and still does. God was my support and His role became one more like my spouse. I went to Him for everything. I clung to His every WORD ...

I also read as much as I could from so many great authors... I listened to as many great teachers and speakers and preachers as I possibly could... I filled every waking moment with PRAISE & THANKS & deepening my time with Him through His Word & songs... I was searching for MORE to fill me and HE did ... It was at this time, I made my transition to my current home church ... a pentecostal one.

At first, I only went there to bring our kids to attend, because they did not go on vacation in the summer from God and I discovered that they had an excellent children's pastor and ministry. It surpassed what I had known and seen up until that point. This was very important to me since our children did not have their father guiding their spiritual life or take part in church. That was my sole role.

... I wanted MORE of what the people and this church had, especially for our kids, but I soon learned it was for me too ... As I waited out in their church parking lot during VBS (vacation Bible school) that summer, God was speaking & then "they"(the church) embraced me, accepting me, & inviting me to be a part. They even wanted me to teach a VBS preschool class, without knowing any more than I was a teacher and a devoted Christian. One person who knew me filled them in.

However, within less than one year of being at this new church, travesty struck me personally once again (I was raped in our home) followed by my youngest brother's death the next year. I really was a 'needy' Christian, not just in need of a Savior, but His Living Spirit breathing in me, filling me, giving me His very power to overcome, live, thrive...

...end of Part V....