Saved To Serve, Serve To Inspire,

Simply Peg

(In this picture A Giant and my husband Steve)

Has there been a time in your life when you felt a sense of calm just before things really broke loose? The picture above was taken at Patoka Lake right before a night of very severe weather rolled in, my friend JB rode along with me on this photo shoot and when I was driving to pick him up tornado sirens were going off  but being the adventurous type that I am we plunged forward and drove to get the pictures anyway..
The old saying life imitates art is true.. not too long ago I had a clam before the storm moment in my life the sad part was I was the storm. The calm part of the situation was that I thought I had forgiven a friend for a poor choice on her part and we were moving past it but then the storm came and it had my voice and like storms in life it came from out of nowhere and with no thought to the path of destruction it might leave behind. I really had no idea I was capable of such venom and anger… I destroyed another person with my words and more importantly a friendship I may have said things that some of her other friends say behind her back (and they do because they have said them to me) but I was so very wrong to allow the storm of anger, hurt and bitterness to destroy and devastate another person least of all someone who I called friend.  In all my years on this earth I have never no matter how mad, hurt or frustrated I was with another person especially a friend caused such great hurt toward them that I can never recover the friendship yes I have had words but always chose to say little but this time just like a bad storm brewing I let everything I bottled up come flying out like a Texas Tornado and the saddest part of all is that I not only hurt her but others in the process.
Will I learn to forgive myself for my actions yes eventually I will, have I asked her forgiveness, yes I have and apologized to not only her but her fiance and Mom as well. I have to know idea to this day why I did what I did something inside me snapped and I was off. Deep in my heart, I truly wish no ill will toward her or anyone for that matter but just know that if your life is not in check with God’s will we can all be capable of causing storms. Lesson learned is to keep open communication with your family and friends and don’t let something fester so long that you become a storm in someone’s life because you didn’t tell them how something made you feel in the first place.

Repost from a former blog May 2011

Saved To Serve, Serve To Inspire,

Simply Peg

It is not so much the focus of the geese in this picture that I love about it but the reflection… Life does at times mirror art… God’s creation can mirror life and without God, we would have no life so I guess there is no can to it, however, life doesn’t always reflect God.  So many times I fall short of showing God to others and it is usually those times that I am not reflecting on God and His word that that happens.
Today as our pastor was speaking about the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 I thought about how they are guides for the Christian life and that believers need to reflect them. God says Blessed are they who… before each which tells me He truly wants to bless however our job is to follow the guidelines He has put before us. For some time now i have had a personal struggle that I knew if I ever started would be very hard to stop this has proven to be true but the times I am reflecting on God’s word first thing of each day I find that that struggle is less because I have given it to the one who says He will carry it for me the way He did on the cross!
This is a quote from a sign I painted a few years ago that says: ” Good morning this is God, I will be handling your day, I will not need your help so relax and have a good day Enjoy! how true this is if we would only do just that, I will admit I do have some control issues especially when it comes to thinking I can handle things in my own strength the before mentioned personal struggle is a prime example of this I know no I shouldn’t but I think I can handle it and do it anyway, what is it that Paul says to paraphrase: The things I should do I don’t and the things I don’t do I should. Darn that evil free will… It is both a blessing and a curse.
So as I end this time of reflection for another day I once again am reminded of my life changing verse: Psalms 51:8-14 and go to it often the above picture is a reminder to me to enjoy God’s grace and forgiveness and to rest and reflect on Him and Him alone.

Repost from a former blog – May 2011

Saved To Serve, Serve To Inspire,

Simply Peg

Over the long weekend, I read a novel called: The Wednesday Letters what a beautiful story of a life spent loving one another through all types of seasons in life… It reminded me how my life has been these last 20 years with my best friend, Steve not only is he my very best friend he is my husband, he saw me through so much from the beginning, like most people I know I had some deep emotional scars from my past but my husband  has had so much patience with me especially at the beginning of our lives together. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without him in my life for the first time since I can remember I could really deal with some very deep-rooted issues and hurts from my past.  Maybe that’s why we have stayed married for as long as we have but really I think it’s because God wanted it that way.  In the book the husband write letters to his wife every Wednesday and now I am writing letters to my husband every Wednesday, sometimes it’s just about stuff we haven’t really talked about that week or maybe just letting him know how thankful I am to have him my life to know that no matter what he will always be there through thick and thin !

Thank you, God, for loving me so much that you sent the right person to share my life with and thank you, my husband,, for sharing your life and love with me!

Repost from a former blog – June,2011

Saved To Serve, Serve To Inspire,

Simply Peg

We recently bought a new home and in the process of moving I broke the glass front of a new clock I had purchased for said new home, it was actual glass and shattered into a thousand little pieces… This reminded me so much of the many times I have fallen to pieces from life experiences, the sharp glass from the broken clock casing reminds me how in life things can cut so very deeply.

In the last 3 years, there have been things, defining things to have happened in order to restore my life back to where it needs to be… most of those things have been by choice but some have not never the less the lessons are the same.  God will use the sharp pieces of brokenness to draw you back to a place of restoration and forgiveness.  For me the lessons have been many and heartbreaking all  God ever wanted or wants from me is a complete surrender to His will and not mine and in those times of complete disobedience those very sharp pieces of brokenness cut to a deep place within my heart.

Part of my personal Restoration process started when God clearly spoke to me and gave me direction and just like David I completely ran the opposite way, running into the arms of another lover, in scriptures it talks about God being the lover of our soul but at that point in time I wanted to run as far away from Him as possible ..I had my foot on the very edge of the slippery slope for awhile and what God allowed was a season of disobedience, listen closely He allowed , He did not in any way,shape or form cause it, I did that all by myself because of my selfishness, I think to this point in my walk with God I was a luke warm Christian who served but never stepped out boldly, It took being alone with God without interruption to hear that still small voice speak very clearly and with purpose “This is my plan for you” and like a child afraid of  such big changes and what it would mean in my life I ran and ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction of God’s  will.

In Psalm 51:10-13  it says;
Create in me a clean spirit O God and renew a steadfast spirit within me, do not cast me away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit away from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and Uphold me with your generous spirit, Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners shall be converted to you.
I so want to leave verse 13 out because I feel I am the biggest sinner of all and how will others especially those that know my sin look at me and may think she is a fine one to be talking… Yet this scripture has been my lifeline over these past few years.. and I truly desire to Create in me a Clean heart O God with every ounce of my being…

Can I say that I am perfect and no longer make mistakes? No ..absolutely not  I am still dying daily to so much but God’s word tells us that we will not be tempted beyond what we are able to handle and that God ALWAYS gives us a way out!! The real question is will we take it or not and when we do defy God’s will for us are we brokenhearted over that disobedience? Are we on our knees and crying out to Him?  Some lessons are learned the hard way and just like the broken clock, we cut our selves while sweeping up the mess.

There was a dark force pursuing me while I ran away and took me down some paths I never thought I would go or go down again but it’s just like God to use those experiences to bring Him glory and just like the clock I broke in the moving process, I to have been given new life and the broken pieces have been removed and now I have been given the same function but with a new purpose .

Repost from a former blog post-August, 2011

Saved To Serve, Serve To Inspire,

Simply Peg

My husband and I see differently on how to get from point A to point B, for him an old-fashioned road map is the way to go, for me, it’s google maps, input your start point and add your destination and hit the little arrow key on your phone screen and your off on an adventure! An adventure is exactly what you will get, you see sometimes I get ahead of or think that sweet Miss Google is saying one thing when actually she means something entirely different, take for example our recent trip to Indianapolis, well Caramel, Indiana to be exact we were staying in Indianapolis, anyway we were looking for Salvage & Company in Caramel, Indiana because my favorite HGTV show Good Bones stars were to be there for a meet & greet, Miss Google, kept sending us around the many roundabouts and believe me there are many, we would do what she said or so we thought, only to be told it was wrong and she would correct us once again, I really think at one point she was getting a bit snippy with us after about four attempts to get to our destination she finally said we had arrived, we have arrived?  But where are we?

After a couple laps around a large building and parking lot we had indeed arrived, we had our picture taken with Mina and Karen, looked around and then once again relied on sweet Miss Google to get us to Wild Eggs, only a couple of blocks from where we were, yeah right, here we go round the roundabouts once again only to get there by accident, never the less we arrived.

My husband prefers a roadmap in hand to the Google Maps any day of the week and truth be told it still gets us where we want to go and we still have an adventure. This adventure got me to thinking how God gives us a roadmap in his word and sometimes we take a long way around to getting where we need to be with God.

God gives us a clear route to take and yet somehow we end up going down the wrong roads in life, we make the choice not to follow the route laid before us and go in a completely wrong direction. Sometimes Satan throws a detour our way and we think this could be a fun adventure, and maybe it is for a season but eventually, we end up on a dead-end road crying out to God to save us, because we are so lost.

If you are lost and not sure what direction to take, go to God and ask Him to help you, ask him to forgive you for going the wrong way, and forgive yourself as well, then follow Gods map home to Him.

If you have never given your life to Christ, pray this prayer and ask him into your life;

Please feel free to contact me at pfranz@simplyhis.net for questions and /or to share your testimony.

Saved To Serve, Serve To Inspire

Simply Peg