“For thou art my lamp, O LORD: And the LORD will lighten my darkness.” 2 Samuel 22:29 KJV
I drove tentatively under the leaning trees, doing my best not to imagine the response I’d need in disaster.
Driving slowly thinking the weight of my car and the weight of me might lead to a shifting of the earth.
I crossed under the canopy of three frail leaning trees.
Glanced left and noticed a figure.
A small child of a deer had been watching.
Waiting for me.
We both paused.
Eyes met each other in the predawn light. I wanted to linger.
I thought of quietly opening my door, carefully stepping up the ditch to the edge of the cotton field.
I thought to get closer as a way to thank this beautiful creature that seemed to say…
“See, you are safe. You made it.”
It’s been a bit since I’ve written here. This morning, I decided I miss writing simply about noticing beauty, noticing God all around and then sharing those encounters. I’ve missed writing simply to preserve the noticing and express it through words. Timidly, I’m dipping my toes back into the hopes of writing more.
My noticing of feathers had faded until yesterday.
God is everywhere, don’t forget to notice.
One feather, not spectacular at all caught my eye, my face toward the ground.
A few weeks ago, a bird sat in the driveway. It was not tiny. It seemed paralyzed and I thought it must be my place to help it.
Soon, I discovered it was newborn. Large and loud birds began to appear. It was odd, the realization that they saw me as a threat.
I stood only a minute. I was captivated by their aggression and the way the newborn bird began to move away from me, recognizing because of the elders, I might be unsafe.
They were mockingbirds. That’s what they do, it’s the way of God and nature.
Yesterday, I reached for the feather and I wondered why I’d stopped considering my “finding feathers” as sacred as before.
I decided it’s because of my vision being too “far focused”, either looking into my future with uncertainty and fear or looking into my past with longing to no longer “go there”.
Rarely just in the moment.
So, the wonders that once captivated me with simple surprise were less sacred than before.
Sacred, a word that invited itself into my heart a couple of months ago, a word I’d rarely used to describe my life or my living and its contributions as quietly important.
Significant.
An ask came and with my yes came the assurance that this thing I’d been called to do was sacred.
Now, a memorable gift not to others only but to myself because of that realization.
That secretly and intentionally has led to my noticing wonderful things again.
I’m realizing just now that maybe yesterday was different, the joy in my heart when my grandson nodded yes, smiled and gave me a “high five”, the sincerity in my husband’s voice, the giddiness in my daughter’s voice and in her daughter’s brand new dancer’s pose, my son calling to tell me of a new thing he’ll be trying and the subtle excitement in his voice.
I remembered that yesterday and again this morning, I spoke a new prayer, pondered a word I’m newly fascinated over.
I consecrate this day to you, God.
Consecrate.
: dedicated to a sacred purpose
I consecrated my day to the Lord and I began to notice God again in the small ways.
“May we never lose our wonder…wide-eyed and mystified, may we be just like a child.”
“Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us…” Hosea 6:3 ESV
One of the surest ways to finding yourself back in what I call that “deep hole” of feeling aloneness or burn out over things you thought you could control and learned that you couldn’t is this…
You don’t have to tell anyone. Just tell God alone. You may be surprised over all you’ve been holding in either because it seems trivial or you believe you should’ve long let it go.
Sit in silence. Let your disappointments come to the surface. Be honest with God.
If tears come, let them. Actually, be glad they did.
Don’t hide your disappointments, express them so they don’t keep you hidden.
“Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us…” Hosea 6:3 ESV
One of the surest ways to finding yourself back in what I call that “deep hole” of feeling aloneness or burn out over things you thought you could control and learned that you couldn’t is this…
You don’t have to tell anyone. Just tell God alone. You may be surprised over all you’ve been holding in either because it seems trivial or you believe you should’ve long let it go.
Sit in silence. Let your disappointments come to the surface. Be honest with God.
If tears come, let them. Actually, be glad they did.
Don’t hide your disappointments, express them so they don’t keep you hidden.
It’s not covered with paint, not a stain or a splatter. It’s not folded and stuffed in a drawer, it’s on a hanger.
Soft material, sort of beige and in a classy black font, one word “influencer”.
It was given to me, not a purchase. Someone thought it was a good fit.
I woke this morning recalling a beautiful dream and contrasting it alongside a question waiting to be responded to.
I journaled,
If I am quiet, I will be able to know which things and which people align with God’s will for my life.
In a way, I was wondering which influences in my life point to hope and which do not.
I asked God to help me see others clearly and to be able to know which influences are healthy and which are not.
I recognized in my soul that just as God sees the vulnerability and weakness of me, He sees it in others and those weaknesses in them cause them to not be a right now good influence on me.
So, I made a bullet list, not one that says “you don’t belong”, just a quiet inventory of those who contribute to my hope and those who don’t.
Not a cancel type thing, just a recognition, a nudge of clarity so that I don’t give up hope.
I have a bookmark in my Bible.
“Only speak words that make souls stronger.” Ann Voskamp
I’ve been trying to commit to this as a filter in all I speak, write or even show in my facial expression.
I’ve been set on being at peace so that I can bring peace into every room I enter.
So that through me, the light of Christ and the voice of hope is observed and considered,
Not simply tolerated.
And so, I quietly asked myself, right now which conversations and interactions are making me
Hopeful?
Which are contributing to
Doubt?
Which feels like a reverent posture of pure and humble wisdom.
The stance God desires.
When this journaling began this morning, this inventory of the “yes’s” I need to nurture
I had not opened my Bible.
I turned to today’s date in “Joy and Strength” and was led to Deuteronomy.
Wisdom that complemented my own words.
A warning for a woman like me, a people pleaser, a longing to belong “belonger”, a person who is easily manipulated in ways that seem innocent, that aren’t harmful, just not best.
“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’
you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.
For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”
Deuteronomy 13:1-3 ESV
Get quiet with God. Silence the naysayers. Listen to the voices that speak hope and healing.
Those who softly warn you of your straying rather than string you along.
Those who love you, not just court you.
Nurture the “yes’s” while not discarding the “no’s”. Tend to the hope God planted inside your soul so that it becomes bigger than anything about you.
Seconds after my dream was of lying in bed with a grandchild close by, my phone let me know I had a message.
I didn’t respond immediately because the dream was so real.
A small cardinal, bright red had flitted into the room and rested in the hollow place of my neck.
In my dream I got the attention of my granddaughter and then “ding!” I was awakened.
In Progress
“For this reason the Lord is still waiting to show his favor to you so he can show you his marvelous love. He waits to be gracious to you….Overwhelmed with bliss are all who will entwine their hearts in him, waiting for him to help them.” Isaiah 30:18 TPT
I answered the text, a long hoped for desire was decided would come true for a child today.
She’s been longing, hoping and waiting.
It’s exciting, the planned surprise!
A memory will be made.
There will be more “waited so long for” ones to come.
What have you longed for that’s already been given and yet, led you to long for something bigger or simply just left you wanting?
I sat in my “art room” with someone I love. What a mess, papers everywhere, started and stops and pauses, the evidence of where my art journey has come from and where gone
Is hoping to go.
Fascinated by a box full of artwork, I invited her to choose as many as she wanted.
Uncertainty
We went through the stack together. I loved the ones she chose and the reasons she shared.
I told her of my certain belief that it’s God who kept me for art and kept it safely waiting for me to enjoy it, to share it as a part of my faith.
I have surely achieved more, been afforded more opportunities than I ever thought, given my history.
That’s why I know it’s true, I told her.
This is what God made me for.
What began with the timid tagline “quiet confidence” has become more brave.
Now, “always hope” coupled with my truth that “art offers hope”.
Hopeful
This morning, I wrote “hopeful” under the date, the gift of the cardinal on my pillow invited the tone longing to be expressed.
And I wrote myself a note that’s as true as my very breath.
Whatever and whomever (other than Jesus) you make your everything, your tipping point to measure worthless or worthiness, will continue to frustrate you with its dependability as far as not beingenough.
So, wait for the one who is always and unchangingly enough. Be amazed by what comes with that commitment to will yourself to wait.
Success shifts.
People change.
Excitement is powerful and yet, it wanes. It’s supposed to.
God makes life this way so that we remember the only “enoughness” that never changes
Is Him, our Sovereign and often mysterious Maker.
Self-Portrait
Not since the world was made, Jacob was told in a dream of protection and little girls like me became women who waited even if imperfectly to recognize the providence, protection and promises of God…
has the gift of waiting been more an unchanging promise.
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15 ESV
It took three trips in and out of the Art Center to retrieve and load my unsold paintings yesterday.
It was hot. They were heavy.
I won’t deny the emotion I fought to deny. It was difficult.
Still, it was beautiful, the experience and the exhibition.
“Believer”, “In Every Season”, “Mercy Remembers”, “Secure” were a few of the unsold pieces.
Now they’re safely waiting to be found.
“It’s all in it, Lisa” my mama
This artist journey is a teacher. I’m still like a child learning.
For this reason,
I have hope.
Always hope.
“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Psalm 131:2 ESV
(P.S. I’m meandering my way back to writing from both losing the desire and I believe a bit of ability. I hope you’ll be forgiving as I decide to learn to write again.)
“It is possible to see the will of God in everything, and to find it, as one has said, no longer a sigh, but a song.”
Handley C.G. Moule
“Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.” Mark 9:23
Yesterday, I thought about the promise of “possibilities” and this morning one bird woke me up early. I remembered being drawn to read about the Samaritan woman at the well over and over, really drawn in by Jesus’s offer in just one verse.
That life could be different for her if she’d understand and accept His offer despite her history or her confusion and questions.
“Jesus replied, “If you only knew who I am and the gift that God wants to give you, you’d ask me for a drink, and I would give you living water.” John 4:10 TPT
I sit in the quiet, books all around me and coffee in my cup and just like yesterday, I find a promise in one verse I could “live with” all day.
And I, like the daddy of the boy in need ask…
I believe, help my unbelief. (Mark 9:24)
Can you imagine all the things that may change if you’d be brave and a bit innocent enough to simply believe God for the possibilities and breakthroughs He’s waiting to bring?
It’s a simple little shift really. Just decide to believe all things are possible when we ask God,
Is this your will for me? And then take the next steps onto the path of unexpected possibilities.
Or wait quietly when the answer is no, not now, not for you.
Possibility is born in the heart of one who believes. God’s will becomes a song, not a sigh.
May your head and heart speak with one voice. (Last night’s teabag)
Yesterday, I heard someone say that trauma is not what happened to us as much as it is our response to it.
I wondered if avoiding what reminds us of a harmful event or period in our life is doing more damage than we ever thought.
I thought about this, sipping my tea in bed in the dark after reading “How to Babysit a Grandma” and planning matching outfits with a spirited five year old.
Thursday Night Sleepy Tea
I took my little girl self by the hand and we remembered what happened on Monday in the dental chair.
I decided to consider my trauma response, look at it closely, learn from the recognition of my reaction.
The hygienist told me there was a new approach to cleaning. It would involve an instrument blowing air with a little bit of force in my mouth. Because of that, a thin paper shield with an opening would simply cover my face.
The procedure began. It wasn’t painful. I folded my hands together and sat still. Then I began to sort of dig one finger into my thumb, an anxiety reliever, I thought.
Then, I noticed my breathing change.
Then, I noticed fear.
The hygienist finished and I felt my body unclench, my neck unstiffen and my belly exhale as she freed me from being trapped.
She didn’t know.
It was too strange.
Here I am on Friday considering the gift of small and unthreatening, albeit unavoidable reminders of trauma.
Here I am deciding that just maybe these not so scary things are meant to be noticed and acknowledged so that we over time may still have a trauma response.
But, we can make sense of it and making sense of it will only lead to even more healing than we would know if we’d silenced our thoughts.
Being held down with a hand over my mouth, my face, my eyes was decades ago.
Decades ago.
Has something deeply hurt you? Were you a child? Were you on the cusp of grown-up?
Are there reminders from time to time?
Don’t silence them. Notice how they show up unexpectedly and so very often in safe (but scary) ways.
When we consider our trauma, we’re not coddling the helpless baby of us, we’re simply honoring our story and giving ourselves and God credit for all the rewriting.
How can we rewrite such stories?
Maybe like this:
My cleaning appointment was better because I put my very own music in my ears. The hygienist was kind. She’d changed her hair and I told her two times that it was beautiful. The instrument used to remove the plaque was not enjoyable but necessary. The new technique with the air pressure in my mouth took the place of the polishing. The tissue paper circle covering my face was not pleasant but kept me dry. No changes, keep flossing, maybe go without your partial on top to ease the inflammation.
There’s trauma all over my issues with my teeth.
Last night Elizabeth, my granddaughter watched in fascination as I cleaned my dental “appliances”.
When she asked,
“How many teeth have you lost, Grandma?”
I answered “two” because the true story, the number being slightly more would’ve been too hard on her little ears.
Instead, I smiled and said “Two!”
And her little blue eyed face lit up as she grinned and said.
“Me too!”
Considering trauma, let it talk and pay very close attention when it speaks gently.
Simply longing to be heard and learned from.
You are loved.
Continue and believe.
Restoration is a process and a promise.
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.” Joel 2:25 ESV
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Solitary Watcher
I’ll likely forget it but I chose “healed” on a reset of yet another password forgotten.
Such is life.
Such is the life of one grandmother on the beach walking, eyes to the crannies and nooks created by the rocky barrier.
Deciding I found the perfect golden conch yesterday.
Announcing to my daughter “I’ve never found one like this before”.
No need for new discoveries today, I just whispered to myself.
That one, a reply to a choice to “find the joy today” on yesterday morning needs nothing more.
Not a grander discovery.
No comparisons.
I’m on the beach alone under the tent erected by my kind son in law. Chairs waiting to be plopped down on remain bottomless.
Surveying all the people. Older ones strolling, younger ones strutting.
Noticing
I consider their lives, curious over their stories.
I remember my self-defensive anger so many years ago when a woman who was struggling and angry over expectations of a program I oversaw,
Shouted at me,
“You don’t understand! You’ve got a picture perfect life!”
And I replied not with shouting but more of a how dare you to presume I’ve never had a “bad life”, I assure you I have not!
Today, walking along the edge of the ocean, glancing up towards our umbrella to greet my family’s arrival,
I realized a new thing.
Discoveries
I paused to pray for healing for typical childhood ailments, for others undergoing treatment and for pending resolutions to questions.
I thanked God for the good things already.
And I felt my breath catch in my chest and stood still to really acknowledge
The realization that maybe thinking of others, praying for others, offering open-handed surrender of others to heaven, rather than prayers and longings for self…
Might just be the evidence of one who is
Healed.
On the way to there, at least.
Farther along.
Because maybe, just maybe my life is not perfect but very
Close to the picture of what is closer and closer than I’d ever imagined.
Because of a heart that’s surrendered to softening, has opened all the locked windows and flung open the doors to hurts hidden, held onto for far too long.
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 