anxiety

Already Known

anxiety, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, fear, Forgiveness, grace, hope, memoir, mercy, obedience, patience, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, Stillness, surrender, Trust, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder, writing

It’s both awesome and awful to realize just how completely we are known by God

From our first breath to here.

I stood at the kitchen window and noticed the lime green glow of Spring on the grass.

The trees.

I remembered the sycamore tree, the hand sized leaves and the broken branches.

Thirty-plus years ago, I cut down branches heavy with green leaves and decorated a tiny cinder block room.

There was a grand plan. I’d be teaching children about the man who climbed the tree to get a chance to see Jesus, Zacchaeus.

It would be my first time as a Vacation Bible School teacher and I was intent on winning best decorated classroom.

The first night, a line of children trailing me down the hall, I giddily swung open the door to discover a disaster.

Leaves wilted and woeful covered the floor and the stench was unbearable in the poorly ventilated room.

I don’t remember teaching the children about a greedy man who got to see Jesus and then fed him supper.

I remember who I was then and am grateful to be not quite the same today.

Just as Jesus knew Zacchaeus was hated by many, was sneaky, corrupt and greedy, He knew I was just learning back then.

Just learning what matters to Him.

Not fully grown, but fully known.

We are already known. The secrets, the shame, the actions we take wrongly motivated,

Jesus is not surprised and doesn’t keep a record. It’s we who do.

My mama used to say, Lisa, stress’ll kill you. I’m here to say I believe its not so distant cousin, shame is more fatal.

The Woman at the Well in the heat of the day encounters a man who shouldn’t be there. She calculated her replenishing of her water to go to the well when she could go unnoticed.

She is surprised by a man who tells her he can help. He has a certain kind of water that won’t run out, she’d never have to be sneaky again in coming to the well.

“Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
‭‭John‬ ‭4‬:‭13‬-‭14‬ ‭ESV‬‬

She’d never have to be thirsty again. She decides to accept the stranger’s offer.

“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”
‭‭John‬ ‭4‬:‭15‬ ‭NLT‬‬

And we know Jesus wasn’t talking about a cool drink of ice water on a humid day. He was talking about the refreshing peace of an abundant life.

Jesus tells the woman to go and get her husband and come back. She tells him she’s not married and he answers with “I know.”

Then he tells her what he does know. That she has a reputation and is well known for being with husbands of others and is now with a married man.

Whoa! or “How dare you?” she could’ve said.

She was brazen after all.

But he continued to enlighten her and she listened, connecting his gentle wisdom with the possibility he might be the Messiah.

So, he told her that indeed he was.

“The woman said, “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus told her, “I Am the Messiah!”
‭‭John‬ ‭4‬:‭25‬-‭26‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Then she is overjoyed and goes to tell all the townspeople what they already knew about her she’d tried to avoid.

The reputation she tried to cover was now a proclamation…you’ve got to meet Jesus!

“Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”
‭‭John‬ ‭4‬:‭39‬ ‭ESV‬‬

There was no shame anymore, only her story.

Only a tax collector’s, a disciple’s who denied and regretted, a woman’s wearing shame and a lascivious reputation.

A woman like me who didn’t know anything about the value of the story of Zacchaeus, only wanted to be noticed because of trees in a room.

God is patient. He already knew and knows our journeys.

Yesterday, I stood in the parking lot with a woman. As women our age do, we caught up on the lives of our children. We compared wisdom and we exchanged worries.

She asked me to keep writing.

Said she needed my storytelling.

My story of rescue and of tripping and getting back up gradually as I learn.

Today, when you recall your own mistakes, missteps and wrong motivations, will you pause with the truth of being known?

Will you accept the grace that has never said give up, go your own way or isolate in secret shame?

And he gives grace generously. James 4:6

Will you decide to know that being known is love?

You’re already known.

Continue and believe.

Resonance

Abuse Survivor, anxiety, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, hope, memoir, Peace, Redemption, rest, testimony, wisdom, wonder, writing
like an echo

I stared out the window, the tops of pines golden in the early light. A mysterious sight, a dab of different color caused me to stare.

A pine branch must’ve splintered and the light color must be the underbelly of the bark. Then, I looked again. The object was gone.

I concluded it had to have been an owl or a hawk and naturally, that led to even more romanticizing this enigma in the trees.

Mid-morning, I looked again. With a baby on my chest, I discovered the object was a balloon that had gotten tangled and deflated and the wind had it dancing in and out of my sight.

Then, I began to get excited.

My granddaughter’s butterfly balloon had escaped her grip and “gone up to heaven” never to be seen again.

She arrived home with her mama and before I could tell her, her mama spotted it.

A hurried gathering of jackets began and I listened as she asked, “I gotta show you something, remember us asking God to help us find your balloon?”

She nodded with a smile that said she knew the surprise already.

Then baby boy and I watched from the window as they struck out through the hay field to the very back corner, a valley.

From a distance, I saw my daughter grab a broken limb and somehow dislodge the tangled ribbon and the flattened balloon.

Then, they took the long way back around the field, the walk I call “around the block”.

I asked my daughter, “Was it the butterfly?” anxious to join them in the mystery, the answered prayer.

“No, it was a Valentine’s one from who knows where.”

I watched my granddaughter, ever the listener as she quickly announced that it was hers anyway, just not the butterfly, it was her Valentine balloon (imagined).

She decided it was worth celebrating, special and unexpected even if wasn’t exactly the miracle we thought.

And then she moved on to something else, balloon adventure forgotten.

This morning, I discovered a pretty word I love and had big plans for I may have misused or slightly made wrongly “mine”. (I do this.)

Resonance.

I suppose it has nothing to do with feelings and mostly with science.

Like my granddaughter, I think I’m gonna think differently and decide on my own.

I don’t know why this happens. I decide to pull out the beginning pages of my long ago decided memoir and I go to the library and I run my fingers across the familiar words and the tenderness is so tender, I begin to cry.

I’m not sure what this means.

I’m not jumping to any conclusions as to whether it means close that door or throw every window and door back open. Step back in and don’t ever pack it away or fold it like a letter and seal the envelope forever.

It’s just an observation.

Library, window view towards the blue sky, laptop open, pages ready for pen and then…

Soft, never harsh tears.

I’m in the library, a place I love for two reasons though. My husband is painting cabinets and needed me not to hover.

More importantly, someone I know only through blogging is publishing her memoir and sent the manuscript to me. She asked me to read and endorse her book.

We’ve never met. I know her story and she knows mine through our blogs.

I’m forty pages in to her memoir which begins with a note to the reader, to women like me who’ve had their lives complicated by uninvited trauma.

Resonance.

An inaudible echo in my soul as I read her story, pause to be amazed by her knowing my feelings.

Resonance, a pretty word I love to decide is mine to choose sort of like the mystery balloon not being completely true and yet, choosing to believe.

Sort of beautiful really, the license love affords us to use when we decide life is and can be full and we fully immerse ourselves in the good, the bad, to the no way it’s true…we can choose.

I hope this is a soft echo for you.

Life lived fully known and open to the enigma of you and others who privately or not say “me too” adding to the resonance in ripples.

The echo of you.

Me too.

Continue and believe.

Quietly Forgive

Abuse Survivor, anxiety, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, Forgiveness, memoir, Redemption, traumatriggers, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder

On the day everyone’s talking about love, I’m reminded of the “love passage” and a new thought I embraced over the past couple of years and am still embracing.

Let some things die.

It’s your choice not to keep a record of wrongs.

While it seems you may be giving cruelty or wrong a free pass…you’re actually opening wide the gates to you being joyful, free, arms spread wide to love completely.

You can forgive others without them knowing, that’s what safety is.

You can decide to forgive without it being a big face to face conversation.

It’s a decision of the soul, after all.

It’s a private quiet decision.

It’s therapeutic, self-helping.

You have grown now… you know what is safe. Respond lovingly to your own wounded heart known by no one on earth better than you.

You’re likely correct about your decision to forgive being met by more words that wound.

That’s on them.

They’re not where you are in deciding to live fully. They’ve perhaps not acknowledged their damaging role in your story.

So, just mull on the the decision to “let it be your life before” and not taint the life you’re making quite intentionally well now.

Try it. Decide to forgive.

See your capacity for genuine and healthy love expand.

Test my theory, see if you even feel less condemnation, less disdain of yourself.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭4‬-‭7‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Continue and believe.

Forgive someone today.

Gift yourself by the doing.

No one needs to know but you.

Inviting Emotion

Abuse Survivor, anxiety, Art, bravery, confidence, courage, creativity, doubt, Faith, fear, hope, memoir, mixed media painting, painting, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, writing

The world around me was dark on Wednesday.

Gorgeous though.

On either side, grey with spattering of a heavier shade of green. Illuminated by headlights switched courteously to dim, the asphalt blended in and danced with shining specks.

The colors of the morning like a softly blended oil painting evoking thought, allowing questions.

I slowed to press the Audio button to resume my walking podcast, again, again. It didn’t work. Thought to find the charger wire and took the second or two struggle with the plug. Then, made the decision to travel quietly.

To have the only noise be the noise of my thoughts being easier to address, more approachable as emotions, less of a hurry to stuff them down, keep them hidden.

Have them buffered by chatty voices or lamenting songs.

In the early morning hours, I woke without alarm, lyrics waltzing.

“We will never the see the end of your goodness.”

I wrote in my journal, “Don’t lose heart.”

On the first day in February, I had a thought about emotions.

The emotions we wish were not ours, the ones that come back pounding on the door like an official bent on taking us away.

I thought wrongly at first.

Emotions must not go unaddressed, I thought and

then thought to be more truthful,

emotions will not go unexpressed.

They won’t allow being held back. They’re bullies that way.

Because we cannot choose emotion, only our behaviors that tend them, embrace them, coax them gently to go away.

What are those behaviors? I’m sure I can’t accurately say for everyone.

We can choose behaviors that allow the beneficial expression of emotions.

Walking (without advice or music)

Praying (unashamedly allowing your anxiety to be exposed privately to God)

Sitting quietly (unhurried for evidence of His attentiveness)

Drawing (pencil on paper, no skill necessary and no ideas for precision or perfection)

Here it is February 2nd and I have already forgotten how to prevent that squeeze in my chest over my not yet enoughness.

Then I remember the words of David that woke me.

“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭51‬:‭12‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I’m participating (at least for today) in a creative challenge called Artfull February. It’s a way to acquaint myself with other artists, to engage. Yesterday, I introduced myself, told my artist story.

Today’s prompt suggests we share our “studio”. This space in my home is called “my art room” by my husband. It’s an add on room that was built for my daughter when our family became “blended”.

It’s tiny. It’s deficient in natural light and the floor is covered in old rugs. The corners are filled and growing higher with works on paper and the walls all have paintings completed and not purchased leaning against them.

I catch my paint thickened apron hung sweetly on the easel and I see a recent piece newly edited, “Pursuit”.

I snap a photo of the beauty to me in the midst of the mess.

David penned this prayer after a big mess he made. He’d slept with another man’s wife and that secret he tried to keep was only a tiny part of his descent into remorse.

He asked God to give him a willing spirit. I suppose he could’ve justifiably given up, hidden, quit living altogether or decide there’s nothing in my future.

Nothing I’m worthy of pursuing or participating in.

Instead he was honest.

With himself and God. The anxiety that tried to catch me as I surveyed the place others call “studio” and added to it the pending works of art I’ve promised but can’t seem to start was unpleasant and stifling.

But, not for long. I acknowledged it. Decided to realize today I may not paint.

That won’t be disastrous.

I asked God to give me ten more years of the “late to the game” pastime that’s becoming vocation.

Still, today is just one day.

Restoration, Refinement and Redemption aren’t instantaneous.

Emotions stem from destruction deeply imbedded. Be hopeful that you have the guts to address them.

Listen to what they’re telling you and then bravely reply

“This is not that.”

It just feels like it.

Then embrace the restoration you know, hold it like a treasure, press its cheek against your soul.

You’re not fully grown; but oh how you’ve grown.

Believe. Continue and believe.

Choose loving kindness for yourself.

Remember to be willing to do what is your heart’s desire as well as your obligations.

Maybe remember the old sayin’

“Lord willing and the creek don’t rise…”

Then exchange your grappling with graciousness, your tentative tasks with tenderness and your insufficient mindset with the certainty that we’re not the ones in control.

Be happy in that.

There’s an emotion worth choosing.

Happiness in knowing.

You’re not alone. Anxiety is a thing.

A thing tamed by acknowledgment.

Brought to Light

Abuse Survivor, anxiety, bravery, courage, Faith, freedom, memoir, Redemption, traumatriggers, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder
Black Jacket Symphony, Newberry Opera House

Because we had credit for two concert tickets close to expiration, we chose Led Zeppelin, the Black Jacket Symphony tribute band.

Our choices were limited. We love the vibe of the venue; but, knew we didn’t care to hear a faded country musician or a comedy show, certainly not a magician.

A couple of senior citizens who at one time loved Van Halen, Van Morrison, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin chose an overnight trip with a concert reminding us of “the days”.

The performance was spectacular. My husband asked earlier what I expected and I answered, “Well, at least I expect depth and you know how I like deep.”

But, I kept one thought to myself, no need to have him wonder the same.

I wondered if the soundtrack of some scary and hard years might be triggering, the room rocking bass, the woeful way the lead singer sang in a moan.

I kept quiet. Had a thought, an answer to my fear,

“I’m with Greg, this is now, not then.”

This sustained me, confirmed my wellness.

We can’t rewrite the lines in our stories.

We can only realize and remind ourselves that book that told your truth back then has been shelved, packed up or better yet, trashed in the bottom of a mountain of nothing by now.

Led Zeppelin? Lisa?

Music is a gift, even more so when you allow yourself to be open to the songs in another key, a better day, a different you.

Take what’s beneficial from your past.

Welcome experiences akin to what you thought you had to forget,

Let them touch you and leave new marks.

with Greg

I hadn’t expected a concert to create another path toward clarity and healing.

I’m writing it down to remember that it did.

The old bandages gotta be stripped away so that what needs healing can be brought into the light.

Be brave. Be expectant.

“For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord…Jeremiah 30:17

Stepping Forward

Abuse Survivor, anxiety, bravery, courage, curiousity, Faith, fear, freedom, hope, Peace, Redemption, Trust, Vulnerability, walking
Morning Thoughts

What ideas about your identity are ingrained deeply in you? Does it feel more safe to believe the hopeless parts of you instead of the hopeful?

I’ve been thinking about the lame man in the Bible who was afraid to figure out a way to move into the water. 38 years of being paralyzed. When we read of his encounter with Jesus (who he thought was just a man suggesting he simply try), we’re conditioned to label him as crazy, lazy or simply self-pitiful and disabled by choice.

What a label, “disabled by choice”. Maybe though, disability was what he knew, how he planned his day, accepted the unfairness of his condition. So, what seems crazy was really just fear of different. Unfamiliar.

“They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”
‭‭John‬ ‭5‬:‭12‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The man who learned to walk couldn’t really explain it. I suppose he just thought less about who and how than he was astounded to be walking. I wonder how long or if it took him a bit to feel stable, stable in his steps and the miracle that began his embrace of faith. Maybe.

I wonder if he was tempted to lay back down, in a sort of awe and uncertainty life could be this way for him.

If we’re not taught that change can be possible and that even though it might be trial and error, we might “stay on our mat” too.

This is a truth not often expressed.

It’s safer to be the person you’ve called yourself or been called (even if fragile and floundering) than to see our very own growth, to acknowledge how far we’ve come and to slowly dip our toes in the water…the truth of God loving us…until slowly, intentionally and not without moments of backward sliding, we find ourselves lighter, floating, completely and confidently immersed in our healed identity.

If the toil and trials of life have a larger tally it’s likely loss feels more dependable than gain, more believable.

Knowing we are loved because God is love and is patient with those of us who are just learning to swim without the weights of our past keeping us only frantically floating.

Be easy on yourself; but, do step in the water.

It may feel foreign, this trusting the better.

Be easy on yourself.
Jesus is.

Continue and believe.

Surface Things

anxiety, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, grace, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, Trust, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom

The older I grow, the more I know smaller things matter most of all.

A quilt your grandma made, a way of prayer that waits instead of begging and a sense of listening only age can grant you.

It’s no secret, I love words and I pay attention to their timing. I write first thought prayers every day.

Today, I thought of sorrow.

A word describing the emotion of heavy grief, loss, regret or dismay.

But, it wasn’t that way, felt softer like another favorite, “melancholy”.

I remembered a time a confident colleague challenged my assertion

“Everyone has a secret sorrow.”

He answered with, “Not me, I had no hardship or regrets at all.”

It puzzled me. I suppose it’s possible.

Not for most of us. Most of us long for different stories, past and present.

I believe it’s good to say so.

To those you love and trust or maybe a safe and objectively trained professional.

Or just a prayer.

Father, I surrender my sorrow. I will walk with my head lifted and my feet steady in your protection, your provision and the fulfilled promise of the redemption and unrelenting grace I know.

Amen

Secret or spoken sorrows become hope and healed joys when we believe it can be so.

What surfaces when you allow yourself to sit a minute in your thoughts?

Surrender what surfaces. We have a God who listens to our private prayers, whether sorrow or song.

Continue and believe.

Your needs are known.

Rather Resilient

Abuse Survivor, anxiety, confidence, contentment, courage, fear, hope, memoir, Redemption, Vulnerability, wonder

Behind the grill, in the corner there’s a collection of leaves, dirt, dust and a moth or two.

I paused this morning to see the sky. The air fixated, it seemed on one leaf. Brittle fern fronds on the floor like rose petals left for a lover and the one leaf, edges upturned and a little bigger than the others,

Sort of shimmering.

I know it’s strange, to be fascinated by a dried up leaf on a sleepy Saturday morning.

Was it healthy or close to decay? Was there a notice of it over the others that caused it to be the lonely one taking in the breeze

While the others were still?

Had given in to decay.

I turn 62 next week.

There are unforeseen health things.

All in a matter of a couple of weeks. There’s the dental stuff that triggers childhood shame. There’s the inflamed knee that pains me and odd or maybe not, I’m unable to kneel to pray.

There’s the diagnosis of high blood pressure that I’m disputing, watching and waiting.

Because I think it’s anxiety.

There’s all this stuff that points to aging and old things and to the trauma of losing parents before they were old.

Someone I love told me of an emergency room visit and how it triggered her. I told her “no wonder” and asked how she recovered.

She told me it was just a few days ago. She’s getting better.

And not by crazy shaming of self “get it together” because

It’s not the same and that was so long ago.

Instead, by accepting her emotions and not shaming herself about them.

Letting the sorrow and fear revisit and then go their way.

This is now.

You are here. This felt like that, but it isn’t.

All the leaves have now been swept away together. The resilient one mixed in with the ones unbothered by the wind are in the yard with the pine straw and mulch.

Strange that I’d notice a crinkled leaf first thing.

Or not strange at all.

Rather,

resilient.

Here Now

Abuse Survivor, anxiety, contentment, courage, memoir, Redemption, Stillness, surrender, traumatriggers, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder
Keep Walking On

I pulled the brittle brown fronds from the weary looking ferns in the heavy heat of the day.

I’d watered the hydrangeas that bloomed rich cobalt blue last summer, but not so this season. I paused and looked out at the open field of green grass that was a sandy field last year. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but it seemed my granddaughter was instructing the dog “Eli” in some sort of life lesson.

And a thought came to me about me.

This season will soon be past, this Fall you’re gonna see its worth and it’s going to feel like an end to your grieving.

The thought seemed important, the timing of it unexpected, but welcomed.

I’m weary of myself. I think it’s time to acknowledge, I am here. This is now. I am not there or back then.

I am here.

Yesterday, God had me thinking about the man who couldn’t walk for 38 years and couldn’t get in the water to be healed. Today, I woke thinking of this healing after a night with a crazy/heavy dream…a dream that caused me to wonder (again) why “those things” happened to me.

“One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.”
‭‭John‬ ‭5:5-9‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Just because I’m curious, I always want to know things like…well, once he walked after all that time did he think he might be a cripple again or like the woman bent over with a disability or the woman with the flow of blood for so many years…did they ask Jesus…why’d you allow this horrible thing in the first place and why’d you let it handicap me for so long?

These questions are nowhere (at least I haven’t found them) in my Bible.

Maybe the reason is simple, these questions are not beneficial to our strength and sanctification.

Maybe it’s that God knows we waste the purpose and value of our redemption when we gaze at our damaged places so much more than our deliverance.

When we think of our deliverance instead of God’s delay, we can live out our own healing and that healing offers hope to others…it never hinders their believing in that very same hope for themselves.

God is changing me here, sometimes it feels like I’m kicking and screaming in a gentle sulky rebellion; but, it’s a change that’s needed, a change that forgets the former and believes in the truth of promised new things.

One last thought, it’s not easy to stop focusing on your self in a time and culture that promotes self-obsession, self-promotion to be the best, and for me, self-absorption with the ever looming “why me?”

You are here. That was then. You’re not there.

Continue and believe.

A Faithful Hope

anxiety, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, hope, Peace, Redemption, Trust, Vulnerability, wonder

Hold on.

This wilted one bloom rose met me as I waited patiently.

A remnant.

Were they coming? Was I wrong?

Did they decide against meeting?

Would I be wounded by naivety again?

Not a soul in sight, I spotted this rose and I knew all was well.

All will be well.

Trust.

Hold on.

A wilted and woeful rose, dry from drought.

I call it “noticing God” because that’s what it is.

I notice.

I’m noticed by God.

Trust is near. Patience is the way.

Peace is God’s purpose.

The peace found in waiting, artwork exchanged, words of faith shared, eyes met in conversation, bright in our individual and yet the very same hope.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭29:11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Continue and believe.

Our God is faithful.