I woke with the thought, “Yet, not I, but Christ in me.” and began searching for the scripture. This is typical, it’s either a song or verse. This time a song by CityAlight. My friend texted me early another song by them. So my day started with the gift of worship.
I’ve been resting, revisiting and relishing Psalm 23 for going on three years. I could live and be led by the six verses.
Last week, as it often happens, I read verse 3 with a new clarity. I’ve been thinking/saying “God kept me for this time.” as an acknowledgment of the gift of being an artist and sharer of words.
Like most people, I can get tripped up on my own steps and I pray, less Lisa, more Jesus and little phrases like God, not glory. I gotta keep my steps in step.
Because when David wrote about restoration, he also praised the Lord for guidance and he remembered the most important truth:
This path of restoration and righteousness I am walking is for the making known the Lord’s name, not his, not mine, not yours.
Today has been the first day this week I’ve been able not to rush from my Bible to my to do list. Now, when I rise to do some things, prepare myself for obligations and the weekend, I rise lighter. I rise with a lifted spirit and a steadiness in my heart and steps.
“…where have you come from, and where are you going?” Genesis 16:8
If I inventory my speculations, judgments, concerned observations and exchanges in chatty conversation last week or so, I could fill a page of my journal, the pages that typically contain personal/selfish prayers.
Think of Others
Like the practice of contour drawing, I laid down names on the paper. A simple free flow based on things I’ve heard, concerns I know and mostly, worries and hopes others have that only they know.
You can pray for others without “needing to know”.
Some names of people who have questionable behavior, names of some who’ve told me their woes and a really random one.
Facebook clamored yesterday around a sighting of a pretty girl on the loose, darting in and out of, in front of cars on the most cluttered and crowded road in our city, Whiskey.
Comments became jokes, a few worried, a few diagnosing the addiction she was caught in and one or two sincere worries over why she was running.
Speculation.
When I worked, I did my best to support families and friends of those who lost someone to a suicidal choice.
I learned that we ask a lot of questions, those of us who don’t know this tragically unique trauma.
I wrote an essay and titled it “The Tragedy of Speculation”.
Because, I noticed I needed a reason to know this wouldn’t, couldn’t happen to me.
I needed to justify the behavior of another from a distance, so that I could have assurance. In my time there, doing the work, the foundation of me living by “but for the grace of God, I go there” became solid, steady and strong.
I am grateful.
So, I rounded out my list of praying, with “girl on whiskey”, gave the page a header.
pray without ceasing
trust in the Lord.
I hope the pretty girl gone crazy on Whiskey is better today. I pray she finds her way and that it is safe.
Steady.
And I pray for others who were the subjects of my speculation, snarky comments masked as concern and I open my palm to heaven remembering it’s God who knows the way I go.
Also, knows where I came from.
Now time for page two, I just remembered more names.
“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” Psalm 139:14 ESV
A flowering bush hidden by the fence is so exotic it seems more fit for another country. The blooms like tiny cups of strawberry buttercream on a tiny spoon, the center a plop of darkness.
She plucked a few “babies” and I picked a branch full of blooms for inside.
The splendid color praising a very sweet Saturday.
Rarely do I pass by the patch of grass shaded by pines and hidden by high fence.
The place of the flowers showing their brilliant display.
Yesterday, I was moved in a sweet heavy way by the nearness of spontaneous praise, the connectedness to another who felt the words of a song and proclaimed in a way that was personal, something they only knew, were fearing or taking hold of in renewed faith.
Once, I sat beside a woman with a jawline changed by the ravaging in her body evidenced by the cloth covering her head.
I felt her being comforted by song. I embraced it beside her. We listened together.
I touched her arm in a goodbye as we exited. I hope my look said “I care”, words felt unnecessary.
She’d surely heard them in abundance already I was certain.
Another time, I sat next to a man about my age who looked like he’d been a linebacker in his day. He smiled as if he’d been lonely when I asked if the seat was vacant and he made affirming sounds during the message.
My favorite part was his singing, his abandonment to the joining with others maybe better at singing than he or I.
He sang along.
He sang loud enough to be heard clearly, his one voice in the crowd of others.
I listened.
One Sunday, I found a spot next to a woman who was large and strong and dressed up for Sunday in a way that said confident joy. Once the music began, I saw my first impression was accurate.
Joyous.
Because she sang like the old cliche’ “like no one was listening”, like maybe she understood what Maya Angelou felt…
like a splendid bird who had been set free from its cage.
Like me.
Together, we were in an old country church with the windows up in August. She swayed and her swaying body made me sway.
We became secret sisters.
Reluctantly, I went to church last night. Sullen over feeling alone, burdened by answers not coming soon enough and vulnerable over what it seems God is calling me to that I sort of wish He wouldn’t.
I listened to a podcast on the way, one hosted by a woman who is learned because of her scholarly credentials coupled with the dilemma of serious illness, typically an honest and helpful voice, interesting.
She is a researcher, well read and well respected, a historian of religion.
She once believed in “praise and worship” and has now decided she doesn’t. She is now quite critical of what she defines as manipulative.
Although she misses the beauty of joining others in worship, she’s just not “taking the bait” anymore.
So, I stopped listening as I began to feel conflicted and that “critical spirit” that’s not beneficial began to creep in.
I thought of her jadedness. I can relate.
I felt sad for her. Her scary illness had caused her to become cynical, to be expectant of bad things, to decide maybe, after all, God is “not good, not great”.
I switched to music and listened.
One hand on the wheel on the crowded interstate, the other raised in agreement to a song about prayers, circumstances and healing.
Three or four years ago, I too believed most people were faking praise, were desperate for attention or just liked it when church felt more like a nightclub than a sanctuary.
Then, I landed on the second row from the stage because I was late. Pondering on my drive there, my ambivalence over my commitments and asking God to help me know where I belong.
God answered that day.
A thought, a word,
the Holy Spirit.
“You resist most what you need most.”
I need to feel connected to worship, I need to be led by vocalists and musicians to do so.
Not manipulating me, rather encouraging me.
It’ll be rare for me to be seen raising my hands. I’m more private, more quiet. I believe made “wonderfully” that way.
My personality of praise is more receptive, more being alongside the extravagant praises of others and with eyes closed, a simple opening of my hand, palm towards heaven.
In a way, I suppose, an exchange.
Freely receiving the goodness of God and privately, quietly joining others in a praise that says “Thank you”.
I’ll never stop singing.
Quietly.
Steadily, and mostly in secret places.
Being so grateful to stand so close to others made different by God’s design, that the praise they give, I get to join in.
A spirit of grace, love and mercy, one that’s not critical.
May what you’ve been resisting find you today, my prayer.
And another, let there be a song that beckons the jaded, the reluctant, the uncertain of us today.
I was given an opportunity by Hayley Price, owner of The Scouted Studio and The Art Coaching Club of which I’m a member, to share my thoughts on being an artist and why I continue this intentional journey.
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.
Months ago, we reintroduced ourselves in the parking lot. They were a family. She had a baby in her arms and another on her hip. The oldest, a boy was clinging to her legs, locked arms holding with all his little might.
A man stood by. He allowed our brief catching up, listened as she answered timidly, not meeting my eye, that she was okay. I watched all of them pile into a tiny car and slowly drive away.
She was a tough one, struggled to make up her mind that life could be better. She didn’t stay long, only enough time to bring her tiny firstborn into the world.
Then, she left the shelter, starry-eyed over her aims to try to have a “family”.
The next time I saw her, she was running the register and she saw me before I saw her. Face down and eyes of a child who’d been discovered in the wrong, she tentatively said hello.
Again, “Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“I’m working here now and I like it and the babies are okay.”
Smiles and see you soons were exchanged.
Yesterday, she sat on a pale pink bicycle, its basket loaded with groceries. I hurried up to see her. We talked about her bike, how much I loved it, old fashioned cruiser, no gears, simple and sort of cool.
She told me she needed it for work and how she’s not too far away but had been missing work, just came back after her daddy passed away.
Her face was stoic. He had been in a bad car accident and he never got better. I told her I was sorry.
I noticed the box of “Nutty Buddies” and thought she better get home, but she kept talking and the resolve despite her grief and trials was in her eyes, meeting mine and wide opening up with determination.
She told me she’d seen another of the shelter’s residents, this woman I thought had successfully moved on in work and raising her daughter.
She told me, “No, I don’t know what happened.”
“Well, I hope I see her too.” I said as I thought of how I wished she’d been able to stay stable, to stay in the “better than before”.
We said goodbye and I watched her cross four lanes of traffic towards her home.
I wondered about the man/father of the babies. I wondered about the other woman who has fallen back into hardship. I wondered if I should have driven her home.
For a second, I thought about the one I thought would make it, the old language of programmatic inputs and outcomes and for another second, I felt I’d failed her.
Then thought of a word God woke me with a few days ago, “shifting” and how everyone grows and then maybe dries up, withers and then along comes a little grace and rain and look it’s breaking through the hard earth, the left alone to rest soil.
Growth.
We shift to better in a moment, an hour, a day or sometimes after a long hard season of barrenness or mistakes of our making.
Acquiescence, a beautiful (even if reluctant) acceptance that may not make sense to others, but brings light and peace, resilience to our faces.
“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:7 ESV
“Blue Ribbon Girl” was painted a few years ago to remember the college girl who left art and after a bit of life and shifts, is finally home.”
Last week, the horizon greeted me like a welcome rescue as I turned to the skinny road from the wider, more busy highway.
Both frustrated by my anxiety over the big white ghost of a Tahoe with headlights like a cat following me closely all the way and determined to breathe and be okay, thumbs on the places 4 and 8.
So, the sun rising wide over my granddaughter’s home?
Redemption. Relief.
A whisper, a sigh.
I could go on.
“Dew on the Roses”, 2019
Thoughts rose up from an article or post I’d skimmed over, the question posed,
What is your Gethsemane?
Meaning, I supposed,
What did you ask God not to allow that He did anyway?
At first, I thought, how can we dare to compare our falling apart and asking to be spared with the request of Jesus?
Then, the mental list developed.
And then, another in contrast.
“Things that happened despite the things that happened”.
Angela’s Bible
I turned the ancient wisp of pages to Mark 14 in the Bible with penciled “sermons to self”. Angela, an educator from Bibb County, Ga. added her wisdom and thoughts back in 1937, became mine because of an estate sale.
Curiously, a page is torn down the middle.
I think now of the veil torn in two.
The darkness midday.
The verses that describe Jesus being anointed with a costly ointment by a woman who was chastised is no longer here. Neither, the Lord’s Supper.
The garden scene is preserved, the plea of Jesus face down in broken supplication remains.
And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it be possible, the hour might pass from him. Mark 14:34 , KJV, Oxford
And we know what happened next, the agony, the death and the resurrection.
We know what happened because of and despite the fear in the garden.
What are your “Gethsemane moments”?
What is “scaring you to death”?
Look up, redemption will find you
And, in time pale in comparison to the unwanted anguish.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” e.e. cummings
Photo by Drake White
Last month, I noticed a new follow on Instagram. A talented photographer with an affinity for capturing beauty in found objects fresh or ancient and in spaces you’d think too battered, but made brilliant.
His images compelled me, their stories.
An invitation came to be photographed.
Surprised. I was surprised.
Photo by Drake White
I studied his work, admired the portraits of others and felt drawn to each of them through his retelling of their time together, their stories of being themselves, artists.
He must be observant, a good listener I decided.
And so, I said yes to this beautiful surprising invitation to sit and be captured through his eye and his lens.
He listened as I responded to how I began painting. Then, he listened some more to the story of the ill-fitting art scholarship recipient who lost her chance and her way because of hardship, horror and harm-filled days.
Then, the always answer to my return to painting came.
Photo by Drake White
“It began with the gift of a Bible in 2016. Subtle sketches in the margins of women who understood me and I, them.”
And I sat for him twice, occasionally worried I’d overshared and yet, deciding that’s not for me to say.
It’s up to the listener.
The photographer.
The artist.
The capturer of me now, the shadow of the old fading to barely there grey.
I am grateful.
And surprised.
Courageously.
In quietness and confidence shall be your strength…Isaiah 30:15
Follow Drake White on Instagram to view the other artists’ portraits and his website to view his other work.
Does he not see my ways and number all my steps? Job 31:4 ESV
A family of seven walked the trail together. Up ahead they kept in a slow rhythm, a man, a toddler, a few adolescents and a woman with a stroller.
One looked back, heard my catching up to them. The man smiled and commented on the humidity. The woman pushing the stroller I noticed was empty, corrected one of the children about something. Her voice was loud, her face so serious.
I smiled and looked back at the group, told them,
“My children laughed when I tried to be mean, I was never good at getting their attention that way.”
The girls and boys looked at me and stayed in step with their mama who added in a way that her children know she can be “mean”.
Not in a fearful or threatening way, I sensed the children understood.
It’s a matter of how we’re made, how we convey our truth.
Job argued defensively with his friends and with God for whole chapters and yet, never disrespected or disavowed his Father.
He was quiet, but strong.
Distraught, but not demanding.
Frail, but not frightened.
The Book of Job is poetry for the introspective and honest. It is comfort amidst woe.
It is quietly strong.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” 1 Corinthians 13:1 ESV
Quietly strong, a tone I love.
In the mornings, I find a smoothly writing pen and I write the names of my children side by side, circle them on their own and then add an embrace of a larger encircling together.
A quiet practice.
Strong and soft, unwaveringly committed.
A way of trust.
The way I know.
Wisdom found in quiet confidence.
“God understands the way to it, and he knows its place.” Job 28:23 ESV
Think of others today, not peers, competing or measuring up comparatively people.
Sort of an exercise in out of the norm noticing or remembering.
Do you ever think about your grandma, your great-grandma, the legacy of their strengths and stories? The untold struggles, the pains they learned to comfort in their own quiet and unique ways?
I have an image of my grandmother all layered down in blankets, lamplight to the right, Bible in her lap, a pen for cursive notes in the margin.
On her screen porch, looking towards the crops, the winding path to Aunt Marie’s.
Looking for light, was she okay?
Had she gone to bed?
I walked out in the rain to see the bloom on my mystery vine and thought how very simple a joy!
What images make you smile, bring joy that doesn’t require scrolling, effort or comparison?
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 