Children

Providence

Abuse Survivor, bravery, Children, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, family, grace, memoir, Peace, praise, Prayer, surrender, Trust, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

I suppose I should surely call myself with confidence, a writer.

Just because of the way I love words, the way God made me to love words.

I wake up with new plans and consider a bullet list Thanksgiving blog.

This little garland left unhung and it was cute in Target, but I’m not sure if it was right for any place in my home. I’ll let it lay, it can go undone.

Again, I’m thinking of the list, the thankful today list. I could fill several pages and yet, not include it all.

Instead, I love the idea of three, so three it shall be.

Thank you, God, you are patient and unconditionally present and tolerant of me and you help others also to be.

Thank you for the way you got me here, to a place of morning sunshine landing on my succulents as I disciplined myself to know you more in the years before and how now, like today it’s an unexplainable joy, my morning space I rush towards in my morning return.

Thank you, God, for your word. When I said to myself I want to know more about providence, you sent me straight to Job, Job who cried out to the God who “molded me like clay” and found himself in a place I only know as well but on a much smaller scale, saying I trust you God, I do because you and only you know me so well.

Lists and exchanges of thanks should surely rule the day.

For me, I prayed I’d be an encourager that those around me would know my love, would surely see my love in a grander more consistent way, only possible if I lean into and stay leaning into You.

Happy Thanksgiving my readers who comment just when I need it, unbeknownst to you, perhaps.

That’s God who nudged you towards encouraging me.

That’s providence.

Thank you, God

“You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.”

‭‭Job‬ ‭10:12‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Thank you for all you’ve brought me, brought me through to be used to honor you!

Walks Across the Country

Angels, bravery, Children, courage, grief, sons, suicide loss, Uncategorized

Yesterday, I met two vivacious young women. They were dressed in athletic type shorts revealing tan lines and their T-shirts boasted of their initiative. Its front had a logo of a bicycle and the words “wheels for mental wellness”.

Tomorrow night I’ll host a gathering, a platform for them to share their why.

I’ve heard there’s a reason, it’s because of someone in their family.

Yesterday, I walked with the largest group ever as I participated in our community’s AFSP Out of the Darkness Walk. Some of them I know, they call me Miss Lisa and friend.

I thought of them last night, hoping so badly that the day had not been too draining, that they’d know they’d done their best, always.

The woman in the red shirt’s name is Rose. I’d never have known her if she hadn’t decided to come with another mama to my office, both of them military moms, both of them mothers of sons who died by suicide.

Both of them, there today, walking proudly and purposefully. Mamas who most likely moved heaven and earth for their sons when they were little boys to grown-up men…and still, they are, they’re not letting up, walking, taking up for their boys, moving heaven and earth for them in the only way they can, still. I’m fortunate to know them, moved in lots of ways I can’t describe, my being close, not really knowing; but, close to their grief.

I hope they sleep soundly tonight knowing they gave it all they had today for their boys!

Walks are happening across the country right now if you get a chance you should join in, walk alongside another.

I’m told and I know that being there is not ever enough or maybe close to anything at all. But, it is important; important for others to simply, be there, there with them.

31 Days, Freely – Whole

Abuse Survivor, bravery, Children, confidence, contentment, courage, family, freedom, Good Friday, grace, Homeless, memoir, Peace, praise, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Teaching, Trust, Vulnerability, wonder

I kept working because I wanted to finish what I’d begun, I suppose.

Only partially complete, it would have maybe worried me all day as to what the ending might be, I needed to finish.

I needed to treasure the whole thing, the pleasant dream that blessed me with blissful sleep past seven.

Oh, joy, I’ve slept til almost nine!

I dreamt I was living in my grandma’s house and it was all mine, the whole place.

It was standing tall and mine for the taking, for the living.

The room across the tiny hall from my grandma’s room, it was exactly the same as before.

The hall, like a bridge we were warned not to cross, just a little hollow place between, its occupants, the phone on the wall and the gas heater caused crowded passing through to the little bathroom congregating.

I was there again and I could hear the long clangy echo of a ring and my grandma answering to talk to maybe my mama, my aunt or one of her sisters.

She’d pull the long curly cord around the corner so she could see. She’d talk a long time sometimes.

But, it was mine in my dream, the whole place, last night. The place not standing now was there for me.

So, I set my mind on fixing up my granddaddy’s room, the one that seemed such a secret, his “Chester” drawers all piled with loose coins, papers and cigars, I started and I cleared and cleaned and made it fresh, different than before, a place to lie down and rest, inviting and bright.

A place I’d been afraid to pass through, it was mine to make new.

To make whole.

31 Days, Freely – Ask

bravery, Children, courage, doubt, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, mercy, Peace, praise, Prayer, Stillness, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

“Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.”

‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭9:11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

We decided against the campus tour when we realized we’d most likely not make it in time.

It was the day after the unexpected, the unavoidable interruption of our day.

The journey and itinerary was wrought with unexpectedness, hurry, and hassle.

We were traveling for a special tradition, beyond excited in a nervous way, an unease that I thought was because of the getting to all the places on time, staying in step with regimented flow.

My son attends a military college. He is a Senior (thank you, Lord) and there would be the ring on his finger by the end of the day. Campus overwhelmed with scurrying excited and prideful parents for Parents Weekend.

We’d wear our fancy dresses, his sister and I, his escorts. He would wear full dress uniform. Two events in one day, we were on track it was gonna be stressful I told my husband, neither of us known for our “go with the flow”.

Pretty day and cool blue skies, we travel the back roads before the busy interstate, a well known path, an oft taken road.

I noticed in my approach, it seemed the driver was considering whether to go. The old sedan eased forward and rested and then, it seems the driver just decided to go.

I screamed, I believe. My foot found the brake and I made my car turn to try and get away, safely away and it pounded to a halt, stopped suddenly in the softness of a deep ditch. The front, the side, the tires splattered black and mangled. I sat and I cried, a scary moan of a cry.

I was afraid and because I couldn’t define just why, decide it’s the fear of missing my son’s big day and I cry and I can’t stop crying.

It seems an irrational thing but I feel irrational, I feel unable to define my fear over the intersection of possible loss of life and life.

My daughter on the same path but a different route finds us with her husband and they help us and it’s a discombobulated mess; but, we make it on through.

We are problem solvers, we make it work.

That’s how we roll!

We make the ceremony. We wear the fancy dresses, he gives us roses and we are good. We are fine.

We fill up the coastal weekend with other, good fancy breakfast, the ambience of dinner and the beach and the dog and shells, big unbroken shells we find.

Home now, I ask the question I asked before.

Why was she stopping, was she easing forward just to see for sure, or did she look once and not again and then, too late, her car crashes into my side?

Why was she tentative or was she distracted or was it as she told us, she never saw me at all?

I ask myself how and why and I’m curious how to measure a split second because it seems that could have made all the difference.

Whether she’d have waited

or continued on.

I hear the words to a song that remind me there’s no reason I shouldn’t now continue on.

It is entirely up to us whether we notice our chances and take them. It’s personal, after all, the believing we can or not believing at all. No one might ever know, whether we believe and take chances, whether we decide still to go, to try, to not simply say no.

Carry on calmly, LT.

There are more things to see, more places to be.

There are chances not to miss the way you have have missed them before, focus flitting towards future and making your every day present a blur.

Slow, steady now. You don’t have to be strong to be able. You don’t have to be wealthy to be willing.

Time and chance, pausing or going forward faithfully, these are encounters, opportunities and interchanges that will happen for us all.

Pace yourself, now.

Continue, carry on easily more aware.

Chance and time are in God’s hands.

Our hope endures.

Our hope endures the worst of conditions.

31 Days, Freely – Praise

Angels, Children, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, freedom, grace, memoir, praise, Redemption, Stillness, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

I suppose I’m a quiet “praiser”. Not so much keep it to myself glory to God; but, not one to raise my hands during song or praise or prayer.

I tell you, it’s a beautiful thing to see, to be in the presence of.

Someone off in the distance or someone not distant at all whose eyes are closed in listening, worshipping, honoring mode and their hands won’t contain themselves…can’t hide their joy.

Oh, how I understand that joy.

I’m prone to soaking it all in, holding it close in my heart, my hands at my side, I may fold my hands like a little girl sayin’ the blessing and then I slowly open one hand and the other

And I might lift my palms toward heaven and give and receive.

Receive and then, give.

Praise.

Or mostly, I sit in the quiet that I find or am allowed and I write little notes to my Father, long or scribbled revelations of my growing, His grace, His protection.

Oh, how my pencil praises!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

My story, my song, praising in our own little ways all the day long.

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

The one who’s kept me close, kept me grounded while growing, pulled me from the dangerous edges when I’ve gotten too scarily close and kept me, keeps me, loves me still, keeps me still.

31 Days, Freely – Believe

Abuse Survivor, bravery, Children, confidence, contentment, courage, daughters, doubt, Faith, family, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, heaven, memoir, mercy, Motherhood, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Salvation, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

My mama never kept a journal or to my knowledge, wrote thoughts in a Bible.

So, I can’t say I “get that from my mama”.

She’d rather speak her truths to you, long conversations with time in between her phrases to let what she’d given you sink in. Look you in the eye or leave something with you and look away, walk away like that’s it, now I’m puttin’ a period there.

I believe every single thing she ever said.

Lots of times there was no acceptable reply, either she’d put me in my place or I had to just keep my mouth shut and let the sometimes unwelcome truth sink in.

She was resilient.

She believed in the possibility of everything working out for good despite so much wrong she endured.

She rarely quoted scripture, just paraphrased God’s truths in her own no holds barred way. Some would call it irreverent, her language was generous with cuss words.

I don’t think she aspired to write and I rarely recall a book in her lap, she’d rather be one with people, one with life.

She talked about books in a different way, telling me “turn the page, Lisa Anne.” when I kept mulling over some misdeed or misfortune.

She was quick to give her commentary on all that might be wrong or someone’s crazy choices or just mean motives.

She’d say “They’re not reading the right book or they’re not on the same page.”

I know she had a Bible. I know because it was mine and towards the end of her days I noticed it moved from the stack of old Southern Living magazines to the place in front of her where she’d fall asleep with the noise of Fox news.

I know she believed. I know she wanted us all, the four of us to always believe.

To pray, believing more often than beckoning or begging.

To smile, thinking how far we’ve all come and how far she and daddy got to see us go and grow.

Yesterday, I had an encounter with someone who has changed. A distant person who acknowledged her resistance towards relationship, she stopped by to give me a book.

She had a cold, I’d had to same one, I shared. She let me hug her and she hugged me back.

We walked out and I told her she’d reminded me of a new favorite word, “countenance”.

She was puzzled, said she had never heard it before and I told her I thought it might be biblical but that it’s such a beautiful word, a beautiful thing to see.

I explained that it means to me, your sweet soul is shining through, the change in expression showing so pretty on your face.

She thanked me twice, and more.

I thanked her for stopping by.

Thanking her and God now for reminding me of my mama.

Reminding me to choose believing.

Believing God is so very good.

“Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.””

‭‭John‬ ‭16:32-33‬ ‭ESV‬‬

And to “live life today”, and then tomorrow live and believe again as you “turn the page”.

My mama’s stubborn resilience and God’s unwavering and believable peace and grace, I’m believing in both today.

Preparing for the Storm

Abuse Survivor, bravery, Children, confidence, contentment, courage, daughters, Faith, family, fear, memoir, mercy, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

So very excited to have her, my daughter might be sleeping in her little bed, her husband out working in the storm.

Crisp clean sheets and pillows fresh with light lavender scent and on Saturday night I’d have both she and her brother right next to me in their rooms.

Instead, the storm weakened, there was no need for her to sleep over.

No need for her to stay. I was prepared though, in every possible way.

Several days ago, I heard or read that if there are pleasant hills, there will be valleys.

I wanted not to hear that, wanted to look away as if my understanding of this truth might hasten my finding myself sooner in the valley at the bottom of my current pleasant hill.

My life is not all pleasant; but, pretty much is good, sufficiently and grace-filled.

Has been for the most part for some time. This is why I didn’t want to hear it, shook it off, the possibility of the valley.

David knew valleys. He wrote of them, of the one that skirted the border of death, the one wrought with shame over his significant sexual sin, the one where he faced Goliath, the embodiment of what would prove his strength from God or evil’s victory that would change us all.

David has lessons, lots of them from which we can learn.

Or relearn.

“So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.

Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things, O God, who is like you?

You who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again; from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭71:18-21‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I love to tell the story of the itinerant preacher man who traveled every weekend to the little church around a curvy clay road at the top of the hill, the one called Poplar Springs.

My life was in shambles. I found myself alone with my girl and my boy.

He visited me at my mama’s because we had been visiting the church, my children first for Sunday School and then I joined in.

Word spread quickly in the tiny rural place of my home, my dilemma a disgrace, it only made me strong.

So, I asked Him how I should pray for God’s help to get through.

His reply,

Just pray for mercy.

So, I did and I do.

Because the mercy I prayed for back then when my babies were young is the mercy I remember still now, and continue to seek.

Mercy in unexpected hardship, mercy in times of unknown outcomes, mercy that wraps its arms around me and is strengthened through remembering.

Strengthened even more in relating to others. Others recorded in God’s word.

The woman at the well called out by others and Jesus. The man who wanted healing but never thought to push himself towards the waters, the man called Saul who became Paul; yet, still knew he wasn’t able on his own.

He knew he needed mercy, for he would always remember how he’d been before, I believe this was his thorn “in his side”.

Like preparing for a storm that didn’t come with the devastation predicted, we should prepare for upheavals of a personal nature.

Praying not just when desperate, learning from God’s word not just searching for something to tell us all is well.

Believing all is well because we remember the mercies of before and we praise Him for the mercy of now.

Today, I’ll prepare good food for my son before he returns from his school’s evacuation. I’ll make enough in case my daughter stops by.

I’ll store up the goodness of these past few days, this weekend’s little victories and exchanges.

I’ll carry them with me as I rest in this time of merciful, this pleasant little place, this hill in my heart.

I’ll move on unafraid towards valleys that might come knowing I’m attended to lovingly, I’m held closely by mercy.

Pray for mercy, just pray for mercy.

My prayer, I once thought such an anxious desperate plea, now a dependence, a comfort and assurance.

If there are hills, there will be valleys.

So, we cling to the mercy of God, treasuring His truth.

God is for us.

God is with us.

August ‘63

Abuse Survivor, bravery, Children, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, family, grace, heaven, memoir, mercy, Redemption, Stillness, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. – 1 Corinthians 13:7

The greatest thing happened yesterday, more special than anyone will understand. I saw myself surrounded by love and I am hesitant to say; but, I am thinking it may be the unlocking of so much more, the freedom to change my perspective, to alter my imaginary ideas of what I was incapable of remembering.

That’s me there. The bobbed bangs and even back then I was unable to open my eyes for the shot. That’s me surrounded by love in the August of ’63 when I turned 3.

I’ve just read two separate perspectives on love after waking up with the realization that “we should just love”.

I can’t say how sleep unearthed this necessary proclamation.

It may have been the weekend with family, the coming together of us from different places and paths that had taken us all spread out from one another are bringing us back together.

In need of the other’s love.

In need of connecting again as if we were small and couldn’t help but be gathered together cousins, sisters, uncles, aunts, and dogs.

This morning I read of how disillusioned Jesus may have been perceived to be.

How he saw others as redeemable and that was all he saw. He saw them as returners to His Father’s love and He saw them without judgment of the places their hands, hearts, and feet had been before they came or returned from wandering.

I’d like to say I love this way. That I don’t pretend that my concerns over others is not judgment, that it is only my hoping for them to be better.

I’d love to know I could love, and that my love wouldn’t be questioned.

That I’d not have ideas about others that humbled me when they were conclusion jumping wrong.

That I’d love the way family loves, bound together although disjointed by life.

That I’d love without judgment, that my love would be childlike and innocent in acceptance and mature and intentional in the reality of its necessity and giving of grace.

I’d love to love like Jesus.

I believe I shall love better, knowing, after all, I have been loved, was and am.

The little girl in the pointy hat, the stretchy string pinching our necks as we all gathered around the table with our mamas, daddies, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers and a bird dog patiently waiting for a scrap.

Children, now adults, all found our way despite stumbling, falling, faltering along the way.

One, Stephanie, not with us, missed so much more than time can attempt to measure. Others, babies then, too tiny for the table and some yet to be conceived.

When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be!

We all were loved, I’m so sorry to have ever doubted.

For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. – John 1:16

Love endured, endures still.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. – 1 Corinthians 13:11-13

Faces like Flint

bravery, Children, courage, Faith, family, marriage, mercy, Prayer, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

Walking in step with the other, he paused when she paused. Each holding a skinny canned beverage boasting caffeine.

I’m standing in the kitchen of our vacation place, cleaning up from the breakfast spread, I look down to stare.

I’m drawn to their partnership, she takes his drink as he looks down towards the little boy with his face towards his lap and his arms angled perfectly at his sides, his legs positioned the same, the child seated in a small wheelchair.

It’s early and not so crowded, already hot, I decide they’re set on letting him see the ocean, planning to beat the Saturday crowd.

The man waits while the woman lights her cigarette, he takes a sip from his can and then passes it back to her. She manages all three, her Red Bull, his Monster and her Marlboro.

With both hands, he grips firm the wheelchair and as they pass by underneath, I step back, hoping to go unnoticed, my gaze and my sad sympathy.

Because they were determined in their partnership, their faces without expression, their eyes hollowed slightly.

Their day unfolding and being met by their best effort to continue, I felt.

I looked away. It’d be a shame I decided to have them see the pity in my eyes or worse, really, the acknowledgment of gratitude in my gaze that my life is mine.

But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. – Isaiah 50:7

Their faces set like flint and continuing forward, Lord help them I pray, lighten their loads and bless them in their endeavors with their child, help them to know you see them, that you see them unafraid and unashamed. Help me to see others, see others more than I see me.

The Same Still

Children, courage, daughters, Faith, family, kindness, love, memoir, Motherhood, Trust, Uncategorized, Unity, Vulnerability, wonder

All the pretty pots sat near the sill.

Tender colors and smooth shapes. My niece has become a potter and all of her pieces, she’d brought home.

My weekend, I’ve named the weekend of nieces and it was a whirlwind, my daughter and I began at 5:20 in the morning on a Thursday and keep goin’ til late night on a Sunday.

I kept thinking, calling it, our trip on the “crazy train”.

Takeaways once we made it home through uncertain outcomes, a baby girl, perfection…a moonlit boat ride, a tropical storm, a downpour on a skinny back road and a time for bed ice cold beer with my uncle, excited over us joining him in the indulgence and laughter ’cause I decided not to be stubborn, to not keep driving on.

So we stayed the night with Aunt Boo because the rain had set in, the radar made my daughter a little scared.

Oh, the takeaway, yes, back to what I realized while walking, finally back home.

My family is diverse.

God has flung us one way and another and all within a three hour or so perimeter. Vastly different now, I kept thinking we are.

But, oh in many ways the same, just reshaped, reworked, fashioned as God would have us be, has had us become.

“But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭64:8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Each of us, reflecting the other, changed only slightly by life’s ripples and waves.

My brother in law noticed me in my sister. I noticed my daughter in my niece. My daughter noticed my son in my brother in law and I noticed my mama and my daddy in the newborn great niece.

I noticed my daughter in me, oh, that’s a given.

In my brothers, I saw myself and in my nephew, I saw his daddy. In my niece, I saw me.

In my sister, well,

I saw my baby sister.

Time changes many things, grows us, moves us, melds us and muddles and befuddles us.

But, change us deep down?

Maybe not so much at all, just all worked a little differently, made to work a little differently.

Not meant for sameness, only similarity.

We, the work of His hands.

Reflections of those gone before us and looking over us, of one another and of God.

All things work for good, we all the work of His hands, vastly different, still the same.

Still, the same.

The same, still.