This tiny bird is a keepsake from my daughter’s pre-wedding weekend. A small shop in the mountains filled with cute trendy things and I chose a bird as small as the cup of my palm.
A sparrow danced on the porch yesterday. Instead of hurrying my granddaughter outside, I watched through the window as it watched me. It rested on the ledge, turned to face me, and then flew away.
As if to say, remember.
You are seen and known.
You are cared for fully.
“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 ESV
Today, my devotional included this verse. It’s a verse you might see on a greeting card, a coffee mug or framed words written in pretty black flowing letters.
It occurred to me, not sure why not before.
God is not small at all.
His voice is mighty.
It calms me and calls me.
It protects me with warnings.
It soothes me with song.
God’s rejoicing over me may cause me to think of beautiful birds.
But, God is not that small at all.
Nor is His presence, love and power.
I pray you remember with me.
God is singing over us and His voice overpowers all other songs, all other voices that threaten or sing worrisome songs.
Look up. Notice God.
He is with you.
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17 ESV
“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble.” Psalm 107:2
The spaces I created for newsletter and blog share the word “redemption”. The idea was to share the gift of a closeness with God over time and to write honestly about it.
To embrace redemption as my theme, my guide, my breath of life.
re·demp·tion
/rəˈdem(p)SH(ə)n
noun
1. the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.
Last month, and the ones before, I wrote mainly about art. I didn’t write redemption stories. Either I stopped believing in them or I felt I’d shared enough. I wrote and illustrated a book, I shifted my sharing to self-promotion. I was told it’s what I’m supposed to do.
It’s mostly an inside job, this enemy I fear called control.
I still get triggered by the mask. Lately, the shame of my “for now” decision against the vaccine is a causing ugly looks and a sense of judgment from others, all leading to isolation, a less obvious trigger.
If you understand, you understand. Otherwise, it makes no sense why you may think things that are not true.
I dreamt last night of bruises on my arms from being held down. My dream me disguised the bruises, made excuses to others about their cause.
I woke and shook off the thoughts, said to myself that is not true anymore.
Nobody held you tightly in their control, you are safe. You are not controlled by others.
Again, this won’t make sense unless you’ve known it.
Many of us fight an internal battle against control, decisions made for you.
We move closer to wholeness when we know peace comes with making decisions with God, quiet ones on your own.
We trust that tiny voice that’s God saying now you have the strength to speak up for yourself, to know your help is from me most of all, it is where you find rest.
Where your trust becomes unwavering faith.
“Faith over Fear” becomes
“Trust over Dread”.
It is awareness of the much to dread, not a whole lot of looking forward to happy according to all we’re told of our country’s condition.
It sort of feels silly to long for things. Some unexpected illness, sorrow or tragedy may knock on your front door or you’ll hear of another injustice and see the hearts of mankind broken and the trend towards true change a bigger obstacle than before.
This is why I’m building up my trust reservoir.
I’m remembering what never runs out, never says I’ve nothing more, never abandons my tender tired heart in need.
It is God’s love and grace.
I wrote 3 words in my journal today. All are distractions to my connection with God.
Distrust
Dread
Drudgery
Then, I added. “Pay attention to the way you approach life.”
Are you dreading the future? Has your hope been stolen? How is it that you know God and believe in Him, have for a bunch of years; yet, you don’t trust as much anymore?
Are you apathetic, exhausted?
Is it because you can’t be sure what life will be like where you are headed or because you’re afraid you won’t look at all like the person you hoped to be next year.
If you feel (with good reason) it is unlikely life will be any better, it is likely you’re incapacitated by dread.
noun
1. great fear or apprehension
If you have the Bible app, search “dread”. You’ll find God’s conversations with Job, the words of Jesus and other gentle warnings about how it’s not God’s idea for us.
“but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.””
Proverbs 1:33 ESV
My granddaughter was teeny tiny when I first sang “Deep and Wide” to her. Her newborn expression was attentive and calm, enthralled.
“Deep and wide
Deep and wide, there’s a fountain flowing deep and wide.”
There is a fountain for us. It won’t dry up, parched by sun or heat.
The river is grace.
It is wide and deep.
It is deep and wide.
Continue and believe,
Trust over dread.
Be attentive to God’s voice in your thoughts.
There’s nothing to fear when we trust God as the maker of our days, the lover of our souls.
Twice I saw the man with the cross. Once on the southern part of town, the busy places, the reckless and impatient drivers, the scurrying about grocery shoppers in the days before Easter Sunday.
Then again downtown, on the northern side, blocks from the pretty shops, the sidewalk strollers, he was at an intersection.
The first time, he walked with the wooden cross, a display of his allegiance. He carried the beams joined together and he’d decorated the center with Easter colored florals. I seem to remember he himself was dressed in a jacket and was intentionally put together in a way that seemed to be his best.
At an intersection, two days later, he stood next to a bicycle. The bike, the big cross and this man.
I’d never seen him before.
I waited at the light and glanced to my left. Waiting as well to cross was a man in shorts, unshaven and gazing down at his work-boot clad feet, a faded backpack slipping down from his shoulder.
I didn’t recognize him either. In my years of homeless work I’d seen many like these two, just not them. I thought of their condition, I assumed mental illness and addiction.
I woke with regret over that supposed reason for their condition, their behavior and decision.
I drove downtown and across town yesterday hoping to see one or both.
I didn’t.
The Book of Mark’s introduction in the back of my Bible tells me that the writer is possibly anonymous, theological experts say he wrote his gospel based on Peter’s teaching. I love the tone in Mark’s words. I’m certain I would have been fixed on the words of Peter preaching too.
I read Mark’s description of John the Baptist and I immediately thought of the man on the bike with the flower adorned cross.
“Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.”Mark 1:6-7 ESV
John the Baptist, the son of Elizabeth, the unborn child who was moved by the presence of Jesus while in his mother’s womb.
It was his purpose to go first and then point to the one others like me should follow.
Maybe the man with the cross and the man crossing the intersection began a conversation as I drove home.
Maybe the assumed “crazy” countenance of the one honoring Jesus that day led to questions and then to answers.
Maybe the one I assumed would speak of Jesus was all wrong, maybe the man without the cross was the giver.
Maybe the man worn and weary, walking alone from somewhere had a story to tell.
Maybe the two shared their affection for Jesus.
Andrew Peterson has a voice of comfort, a call to consider love and understanding in most of his songs. Honestly, he beckons us to understand ourselves and then better understand others.
This song, this morning beckons me to consider the ways I don’t understand Jesus’ love for me and then to decide it’s not for me to understand completely, only to accept and believe it.
“And even in the days when I was young There seemed to be a song beyond the silence The feeling in my bones was much too strong To just deny it. I can’t deny this. I’ve been seized by the power of a great affection Seized by the power of a great affection.” Andrew Peterson
I took time to listen this morning, the song Pandora plays for me often. I remembered telling my first real boss that I chose to work in careers that helped others because of a little girl decision. I remembered being certain that I understood the burdens of other children and as a little girl, I knew I’d be called to help them.
I had no idea back then, that was Jesus calling me tenderly towards today, the notice of other tender hearts, the prayers for people as I see them on the street or downcast in the grocery aisle. The sharing of a book filled with birds for children that closes with the assurance of Jesus.
Not just for children.
I hadn’t thought of that shy little girl that I was for a very long time until I listened.
The followingis an essay submitted for consideration. It was not accepted. I, because I am me,decide it was too vulnerable, not uplifting enough, grammaticallyerrant or biblically inaccurate. Or, maybe it was meant to be here, maybe rather than trash it from my desktop, someone may feel a little resonancewith these not chosen words.
Continue and Believe
Sunday morning woke me with new content for my story God has been editing. The message, that His thoughts of me are far more important than my own. Recent years of angst over when things will be better again led me to define my emotion and it presented itself as dismay. I searched the dictionary for its definition, and I sat in my morning spot for a minute, both enlightened and ashamed. The meaning of dismay is “a loss of hope”. The accuracy shook me and then I sat and wrote a note to myself, recording the clarity and truth that this certainly did not define me nor describe my present life. I thanked God for the timeliness of the morning message.
I hoped this time I’d believe it past noon.
Timely, because I found my thoughts overtaking me again, revisiting trauma of childhood and of longing to understand. I told myself a lie one morning, prompted by the silliest of reasons. I needed a new printer, some socks and we needed oranges. I stood in the checkout line and gazed into the buggy. I am an artist and I needed the color printer; the other items were trivial. The line was long, forlorn faces glancing my way and I glanced again into the cart. I turned and abandoned the cart in the women’s department, and I walked away. I told myself I hadn’t asked my husband; I should do that before buying.
I left the store and pulled through and got myself the biggest cheeseburger I could and devoured it. I drove clouded by sadness and I allowed my belief to speak. I had left the shopping cart and walked away because I believed,
“You don’t deserve it.” and I let that lie the enemy planted linger for several days. I ached to erase the conclusion that began as a little girl who made certain not to bother her parents and led to a teenager who excluded herself from all possibilities and an adult woman who settled for abusive relationships because, “you don’t deserve a good man.” I found myself step into the foray of a fight to never win the battle against my past and I hated it although it felt so very true. After all the years, I figured out what held me back, the belief that I don’t deserve good.
I am letting the revelation change me now with God’s help.
Not long after the Sunday trip, one miserable evening I drove home from another shopping trip meant to comfort. The heaviness lingered like the thick grey clouds about to erupt into a storm. I paused. I asked myself,
“What does God say you deserve?”
Grace, mercy, love, freedom, peace.
Grace.
What a beautiful question, a breakthrough began! God woke me with new hope the next morning and I woke with the words to a hymn about the name of Jesus being written on my heart, the hope of earth and joy of heaven.
I made note of this day in my journal, listed the things I had been wrongly believing:
You didn’t deserve love as a child, didn’t deserve relationships that didn’t include abuse, don’t deserve now to be finally, all God designed you for. I realized the burdens I carried daily were never meant to be achingly carried alone. I deserve the help of Jesus walking in tandem with me and my woes.
Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15: 4-5 ESV
I sensed Jesus telling me to stop walking all alone, to believe in possibility again. However, to understand I will always strive when I try to be His idea of me on my own. I decided I deserve hope. I deserve joy.
I deserve peace.
Peace, in spite of cultural concerns, fears over our world’s future, anxiety over illness all around me and another that’s heavy, guilt over your own wellness when so many are suffering.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”Matthew 11:29 ESV
Sunday woke me with a word. I lingered in a state of rest I hadn’t experienced in weeks, the sheets soft and the weight of the covers safe, I allowed the thought to sing,
“The mind at rest is peace, the mind at peace is rest.”
I moved through the morning with coffee in hand towards my morning spot. Using my Bible app, I searched and hoped to find the words to make even stronger God’s message to me about being at peace. Was this scripture or just a thought? Either way I knew it was God continuing to connect things for me, like a seamstress following a pattern, scissors cutting away the unnecessary, God is creating a new outfit for me.
The garment he sees me wearing is one that is light and airy, allows the freedom of His love to move through me. My new garment is a pleasure to wear, unrestricted and quiet in color, a confident statement.
This is God’s design for us, a life of rest and peace.
I wonder what your waking thoughts are. I’ve begun to see them as a gift of God’s presence to set the tone of my day. Admittedly, my afternoons are often cluttered. My evening time is either a deep breath to welcome an indulgence of something that comforts or an endeavor to finish a painting or other endeavor I started. Just as I believe I do not deserve good, I often succumb to another lie, the one that tells me at sixty years old, it is too late.
To allow quiet to come is to allow peace. To recognize the constant plot of the enemy to hijack our thoughts is simply smart.
A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot. Proverbs 14:30
My Father knows I compare myself to others. He knows this has long been a stronghold of a little girl who grew up poor and afraid and became a woman who compares herself to others in an attempt to dispel the lie that says it will not happen because you don’t deserve it. I now recognize this as untrue.
New ways of thinking are ours to embrace. I hope you will consider when asking yourself what God desires for you, what it is that Your Father has decided you deserve.
Along with redemption, it is love. It is freedom, it is peace.
I treasure my morning meetings. May you find time, sense the Spirit of God in and with you and be renewed as you listen and begin to think in new ways.
May we all linger here a little longer.
May you discover the big lies you’ve told yourself are true of you and may you believe only what is true, only what God says of you.
It’s become the norm for me to wake with a lyric or a verse. I know the song and it sets my tone. I open my Bible app and search for the verse if other thoughts don’t get me off course.
The promise of today is bright sunshine and the Labrador returns with the ball jammed into his cheek. I step outside and decide just a couple of tosses. It’s still too cold, early Friday morning.
Fully Known and Loved
He’s satisfied and so am I. I turn to go inside, my feet numb from the cold hard ground and I see the beauty of what seems to be an overnight changing to green.
I find myself wondering if God is aware. Of my waking on a Friday morning after sleeping hard from unacknowledged exhaustion.
Did God know I’d wake up with the words to a song by J.J. Heller, “You Already Know”? (Yes, I adore her.) Did God know I’d be standing barefoot and I’d listen to Him reminding me of the dangers of comparison?
Does God know how many blades of grass surround my feet? Is he aware of every rain drenched fallen camellia? I believe so.
“But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.” Matthew 10:30-31 ESV
We are important to God. Courage and trust are the evidence of our embracing this as belief.
Hagar, a pregnant mistress in the Old Testament, used by others to fulfill a longing, felt abandoned, rejected, unnecessary. She longed to escape the bitter condemnation of Sarah. She fled into the wilderness.
God met her there. He pointed out the water she’d been thirsting for.
I wondered this morning if she’d been standing near the flow of water and couldn’t hear it or if she’d become so worried, afraid, confused and maybe angry over how her life’s direction had pointed towards self-destruction, that she couldn’t see the provision of God waiting there.
So, God pointed it out. She was changed by seeing that she’d been seen herself.
“So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”” Genesis 16:13 ESV
In a few weeks, a children’s book illustrated and written by me will be available. I may have chances to share its backstory, a story I only recently realized but God already knew.
“Look At The Birds” is a book born of talks with my granddaughter about birds and talks between God and me about worry, worth and trust.
The Birds
It’s a book with a mission of helping children understand their value is determined by Jesus and no one or no place else.
It’s a message God longed for me, the wife, the mother, grandmother, the author, the artist, to begin to finally embrace.
The moon is my favorite along with the color blue, the crescent curve and the hue called cobalt.
Crescent moon like a tilted uncertain smile, saying okay hang on, hang on.
And the cobalt like the ink from a broken pen, the thick fluid, jam from a jar.
I love the others, the sky, the teal, the baby; but, the strong cobalt calls me closer.
The half moon or the full in its brilliance are spectacular.
Still, I favor the crescent one.
Today, I watched a toddler persist. The country path that leads to her home had puddles of rain yet to dry up.
We walked towards one, I reminded her of her shoes, not her boots and she approached and then walked on.
One puddle, the largest of all and she paused.
She turned to find a pebble and then “plop” it went in the water and then she found a big brittle oak leaf.
Intent on tossing it into the puddle, she carefully skirted the edge of the muddy water.
But, the wind swept lightly across her little knees and then again and again, the brown leaf was swept up in the wrong direction.
I heard a little sound, like “umph” but, I saw her not frustrated, simply understanding.
Then she came from a new angle and she dropped the brown brittle leaf in the center of the puddle.
There!
Then, we walked on, “ready set go”.
I’m wondering now if there’s a color of water that I love, a thick colored watery taupe.
An oak leaf resting as we walk back by,
The cobalt of the morning sky allowing a strip of coral in.
My day began this way.
I welcomed the beauty, flipped my phone towards the windshield and I sensed the tone for my day.
Persist.
But, persist calmly. Consider what you value.
What you’ve decided decides your value.
Muddy water mid-morning then a cloudless blue sky against white spindly trees, I am reminded of the value I place on things decided by others.
The things I believe might mean my arrival. I remember now the persistence of a toddler when the wind was against her.
The wind picking up the leaf so lightly and the little hand that decided quietly,
keep trying.
Thoughts of an expression, “lightly child, lightly” reminding me to not try so hard that my trying becomes striving, obnoxious, an idol, not a quiet and important mission.
I am remembering the first time I read this thanks to a blogger friend, David Kanigan.
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.” Aldous Huxley
A collision of faith, nature and wisdom plus the plucky persistence of a toddler.
What are you chasing? What have you not valued that is yours?
The writer of Ecclesiastes sounds much like Huxley to me.
Small matters matter.
More than chasing other, anything other than moon and sun and birds and mud puddles.
“I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” Ecclesiastes 1:14 ESV
I wear a T-shirt quite often, lots of times under a sweatshirt. Soft in color and fabric, across the chest are the words, “known and loved”. Wearing it feels like my little secret, the one thing I want to remember once more.
Known by God
Once my life was different than it is today. Once there were reasons to fear. Now, there are reasons to embrace not being afraid.
The woman caught in adultery found herself on display, a crowd had shown up to see her stoning. She waited. She knew the law of Moses. She anticipated the punishment.
The men invited Jesus into the discussion, into the abuse. He invited them to consider their own wrongs and sins of a sexual nature.
Telling the group, the one of you who’s never committed such acts, you can go first, I give you permission to commence the stone throwing.
Jesus waited. He wrote in the sand as the tension must have surely risen and the onlookers waited to see which among these men was perfect.
Jesus knew.
“And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground.” John 8:8 ESV
The men turned and walked away, maybe the crowd dispersed. Jesus asked the woman if she realized what had just happened.
Her sin of adultery was known and yet, she escaped death by stoning.
He made sure she understood that she was known and loved, not known and condemned.
Once my life was different. Now I am known and loved.
She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.” John 8:11 ESV
Walk in the way of forgiveness. Know your heart in light of mercy. Who we are now matters more than who we once were.
Linking up with others prompted by the word “once”.
There’s an odd tree near my home. Its branches are grey and twisted and it half stands half reclines in an empty lot.
It is solitary with only tiny tender pines trying to begin their lives nearby, bright green fan like needles on the skinniest of branches.
I’m not an arborist. I know this tree is old, “gnarly” comes to mind. It has pods of some sort and pale white tiny blooms in the Spring. I’ve yet to see it produce a nut or fruit. It still has a few crinkly leaves furled and scattered.
It has lingered long.
Planted in the empty lot or the lot owned by someone and long neglected.
A decade or so ago I began to notice, this leaning tree keeps staying, fascinating me. It is steady although it has no real reason, not attended to by anyone other than God’s good rain and sun.
I’ve just gotten word from a gallery telling me thanks for your submission, our walls are full.
We have enough for display.
I downgraded from a website for my art to Etsy. The decision surprised me with the ease, and the peace, the still today peace is keeping me.
The desire to be an artist feels like an ache, a wound that keeps reminding you to take it slow, slow movements bring lasting health and renewed fervor.
This I know. The change is internal. I am being refined. I am growing. I know because this time, I have told this change, welcome, come on in, stay a bit.
A crazy thing happened on Sunday morning. I heard a sound above my head and thought, an animal in the attic…a big one. At last, I’d convince my husband and he’d believe me, those squirrels are living above our bed.
Later, I went to make the bed and discovered branches curled against my window. The pretty poplar tree had been uprooted by nature and leaned in a precarious way against our home.
Home alone, I walked out in rain boots and pajamas to see the bulbous root upturned and the trunk resting against a patio table. The discarded table saved our windows and our roof. The tree is now cut into pieces by our sweet son in law and only debris remaining.
I am wondering what caused it to fall.
Today, I read a passage in a devotional referencing a verse about being refined.
I will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried. Zechariah 13:9
I thought of what it means to be refined, how I’d always equated being refined with having more polish, more finesse, what had been started becoming a final result that stood out from the rest. To be refined would feel as close to perfection as possible, a pleasing object to gaze upon, a showpiece worthy of applause.
I know the metaphor of life’s trials and traumas being a symbol of the fire of the silversmith, the heat melting the substance so that it shines smoothly.
Deep Roots, the Gnarly Tree
I’m realizing it’s not about shining, the refining God wants us to understand and allow.
It’s an inside transformation, a change in our souls that leads to changes in mindsets and goals.
A change maybe we and God only know.
To be refined, all impurities are removed from a substance, it becomes internally pure.
A Canon named George Body, born in 1840 describes it this way,
“His loving eye is ever eagerly watching for the moment when the purifying work is done. Then, without a moment’s delay, He withdraws the fire, and the purified soul is removed from the furnace. See, again, it is when the image of Christ is reflected in us, so that He can see Himself in us as a mirror. Raise your eyes, then amidst the flames, and see the Face of Jesus watching you.” George Body
Stand like the old tree, stronger because of the nature of its own depth and fiber and because of the refining hand of God.
The strength is inner, the strength that was brave when it said call yourself an artist.
Keep creating.
“Love Story” 16×20
Keep it quiet. Keep it confident. Keep it grounded.
we run away from our discomfort... but it doesn't leave us. to heal we need to turn around and face it, experience it and once we truly do we are out of it. We heal and we grow.
2 Timothy 1:7-8 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. This blog is about my Christian walk. Join me for the adventure.
Lisa Anne Tindal 