Maggie, Maggie, Maggie

Her name is everywhere
as if Satan is trying to taunt me with it, get the better of me...
get me to crack
so nice try
and pretty diverse a selection of Maggie's everywhere...I'll give you that...
Street signs,
and cartoon characters,
Ice cream shops with the word "Moo's" attached,
Junk emails from someone with the same first name,
I hear people say the name in public
I hear it in movies
it is chanting from the baseboards...no not really...you'd be worried about me then aye?

but you know the beauty of all this?
It is the peace of God that surpasses all understanding.
I should be cringing and ripping my hair out at the mention of that particular name
but instead it is almost humorous
(and P.S. I wonder if she hears "Christie" everywhere...)

It is so very awesome how God can take a huge gaping wound and bind it up and heal it with his light. He is so good to take me to such a deep place of forgiveness that I am able to conquer with Him, any attack, any reminder of the pain that caused such a wound.

So yeah I admit there is a scar there, it is shiny, and stands out...and yet it blends in too because...
God takes us through this life by our hand, and he knows it will hurt from experience, but he pours out His compassion and understanding...He walks slower when we resist, and he stoops to help us up when we stumble, and he is encouraging us the entire time...with His presence, with His word, with His completely faithful Love.
He is so patient with us but at the same time so persistent if he knows our lives need change, if he knows we need to change directions. All we have to do is listen, to respond, to trust Him.

I am in awe of what He has done in me. I am forever grateful to Him, for His promises that He keeps. For the work He is doing in my heart....transforming my mind more and more. It is such a pruning process, of cutting back and of growing pains and waiting for fruit to show. I get it now God, and the more I listen the more I hear, and the more I search, the more I find....

So I am not intimidated by her name. Hearing it before would wound me, weaken and disable something inside of me....but now....it strengthens me because I recognize that when I do hear it that I don't weaken, I no longer am wounded or disabled like I was.
I am strong in my weakness now.
In the way you do not realize what you have until it is gone, I now realize how strong I am when faced with the same things that made me so weak, so vulnerable and hurt before.

I don't know that her name will not ever awaken a part of me to certain memories, I am sure it may do so for my lifetime long. But I am not worried about it because God helped me gain an outside perspective, He took the stinger out of my memories....so that now it is a name I recognize as significant to my past, but one that will not taint my future.

~C