October 2025 – maggiemarcum

All He Has Done…

Do you ever find yourself in a place of beating yourself up because you just aren’t good enough? Beating yourself up because you still have bad habits that you wish you didn’t have. Maybe you’re looking at the world around you and wishing it were better than it is.

It is so easy to get stuck in that rut of despair, and in a place of hopelessness. It is easy to go down the dark windy road of doubt and disbelief. And yet I don’t believe that’s where God wants us to land and to stay.

I found this morning that I needed to sit back and make a list of all the things God has done in my life. I started with the near term, and that list was pretty long. As I write this, I’m thinking back to my childhood, my adolescence, and my early 20s, It really is but by the grace of God that I’m still alive and healthy.

My life has changed radically because I was willing to ask for help. I was willing to go to another and say I can’t do this. Sometimes that was a counselor, sometimes it was a lay minister, sometimes it was healing prayer. A lot of times it was sitting in the darkness of my room, crying out. Asking to be changed. But it was me asking. It was a desire for my heart to be different.

So what changed in me? Little things started the change. I quit smoking overnight. I quit over eating to fill the void in my heart. I quit drinking so that I would fit in. A change in who I was dependent on, from seeking out relationships with with people (OK, let’s be real, men) to a relationship with God. Getting to know who Jesus is and become willing to open my hands and ask the Holy Spirit into my life as a guide.

I got a soul friend, a spiritual director, a partner in Faith, whatever you wanna call it but someone who I could wrestle with my insecurities and who would hear from the Holy Spirit and talk me through it. And I opened my heart up more to ask God where I need to change.

Someone asked me the other day how long it takes to change and become more like Jesus. I had to remind them, and me, that we are made in the image of God, but we are not God. We will never be perfect. Our journey will never end until it ends. That means for the rest of our lives, we get to have a close dependent relationship with the Lord.

This morning, I woke to a vision of Angels. I never really believed in angels before. I have come to believe that spiritual and human angels led me to an understanding of what God wants to do in my life. Just like Paul, these angles helped break the chains that bound me to behaviors I needed to relinquish. And just like Paul, they led me out of the darkness and into the light. (acts 12:5-1)

When I sit in that light and when I breathe in the Holy Spirit, I can feel a presence unlike anything else and I know that God isn’t finished with me yet. I am thankful for what he has done, and trust that there is more to come. I’m not as young as I used to be, my body doesn’t jump as quickly; however, my heart still does. I’m still asking how he wants me to change, and working on that change. I’m asking what he wants me to do in this part of my life, and that gives me energy and excitement.

I encourage you to read Romans 8. Learn about living life in the Spirit and God’s desire to transform our lives- together! One little word of advice from Paul:

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭28‬ ‭NIVUK‬‬

Peace be with you friends.

I Hear You, and Still I Linger

Each day I have the opportunity to choose to sit with God. I get to choose if I will spend a little bit of my day, reading the Word and allowing it to sink into my heart. Each day, I have the opportunity to sit with my hands open and listen for that small voice to speak to me. Each day I have a choice to hear from God.

Some days I choose to start my day in meditation. It always changes everything about my day because those words sit with me. It’s like feeding on the word fills me up and gives me strength to be positive to be kind to be compassionate. I don’t do so well without those words filling me up.

I have the choice of sitting with God in the afternoon. I’m busy trying to get all my steps in,, trying to lose weight. Trying to be healthier. And it’s so easy to turn my app on and listen to the word and be filled again and again. But it’s my choice.

I have the choice to meet with him before I go to bed. I can scroll through everyone else’s story, or I can sit with his story and let that help me to fall asleep. I seldom choose that one. I usually fall asleep to some silly show that I’ve watched 100 times. The nights I do listen to the Word before I fall asleep, I know my dreams will be better. I know I will sleep better. But it isn’t always the choice that I make.

And when I take time to be in those moments with God, he does speak to me. I hear those words and I listen to them over and over and I ask Lord: “What do you want me to take from that today?” Recently in the mountains of North Carolina he spoke very clearly to me through others who prayed with me. He told me I was done with something that I had held tightly for too months now. In fact, it had become my identity. Oh yeah, I was his servant, but I was known and seen and mostly appreciated. But he said it was time to let that go because it was no longer healthy spiritually or emotionally for me.

He gave me a new place to land. A safe place. A place where I could heal and place where I could spend more time with him, if I chose to do. And still, I linger in the past that he has said to let go of. It’s funny how our own self-worth – the identity we choose for ourselves – can trap us in a place where God no longer wants to use us.

I need to listen. I need to go. I need to follow. I think today about those people who left everything to physically follow Jesus. Their life wasn’t easy, but I believe it was better. When we drop the thing that we are holding so tightly, and open our hands to receive the love of God, the blessing of the Holy Spirit and the wisdom of Jesus we can step into the unknown, trusting, having faith. I do believe God will use us in ways that we could never begin to imagine.

Take that step. Spend time with the Lord and ask him what the next right step is to take Do the next right thing for him, because of him, and because he loves you enough to lead you down that right path.

“I waited and waited and waited for God. At last he looked; finally he listened. He lifted me out of the ditch, pulled me from deep mud. He stood me up on a solid rock to make sure I wouldn’t slip. He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise-song to our God. More and more people are seeing this: they enter the mystery, abandoning themselves to God.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭40‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭MSG‬‬