Wisdom from my aunt. I’ve written about her before. We call her “Aunt Boo”. Her name is Sue Nell when it truly should be Grace or Vivian or maybe Jacquelyn she’s so timeless in beauty.
When she calls, I need an hour and it’s the best hour I’ll ever spend.
This morning, my phone rang and I talked to “Aunt Boo” who said I was heavy on her heart and asked me how I was feeling. When I told her I wasn’t having a good morning, she said, Oh, Lisa…me neither and then we took turns telling how this time is scaring us. By the end of the call, she said she felt better. I did too. Even though she didn’t once say “prayer and patience”, she said plenty even better.
She said, “I’m not a psychologist and I don’t read books; but, I just think God made some hearts to feel things much harder than others and that’s me and you.” 💕
She talked about family and the way my granddaddy was so rowdy and yet, had the heart of a baby, he cried over lots of things. He did some things he shouldn’t have, she told me, but oh he had a tender heart.
We talked about wisdom, how things you don’t think you can survive are meant to show you that you can and are meant to make you trust God forever. We talked about my cousin and how long it had been since she passed away but how everybody in the family still remembers her from her “good days” not her bad times. She reminded me, family forgets the hard, holds on to the good.
She told me “Women are just different than men, the way we react to life and hard times.” Keep moving, she shared her solution or anxiety will put you down.
Then she told me to do something for her.
She said, “I want you and Greg to sit and hold hands.” I laughed. She was quiet. I forgot about it until I went outside. “Aunt Boo wants me to hold your hand and send her a picture.”
“Okay” he said.
And it didn’t really hit me until I looked back at the photo, the wisdom in this one small thing. In a time of isolation and talking to friends from a distance, sterilizing everything AND the kitchen sink. Whose hand can you hold? Who will be with you because they’re already here?
So, thanks Aunt Boo for the possible handholding you’re gonna inspire.
Get yourself an Aunt Boo, someone who’s just enough gentle faith, honest commentary and wisdom, enough for generations.
Last night, the first star was out, the one some wish on, the one that makes me think of my mama. The Lab and I sit outside in our spot til dark. I saw two stars shoot by the first one and I just sat waiting for night.
My son and I talked earlier, not long and drawn out, just acknowledged this time like one neither of us had ever known. He listed his unknowns, calmly gave worst case scenarios of his future, defined this time as limbo. I agreed. Limbo that’s an acceptance you can’t really fight against, you just are in it. I mentioned God and the power of prayer, said I believe this time will be remembered by prayer, God will be remembered by many, newly recognized by some. These are my certain convictions. My hope.
The 6th chapter of Deuteronomy contains the greatest commandment and it closes with Moses telling the people what to tell their children when they ask about God’s rescue of them in times to come.
“When your son asks you in time to come, ‘What is the meaning of the testimonies and the statutes and the rules that the Lord our God has commanded you?’ then you shall say to your son, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.” Deuteronomy 6:20-21 ESV
God would want us to remember just as Moses told them. To remember the palpable fear and uncertain dread in this time of limbo, to remember that God was aware.
The bystanders recognized the beggar up walking around. All of a sudden he could see and they began to dispute the truth of Jesus, they began to argue over the day of the week and were certain the beggar was mistaken in some way.
I’m wondering how he became a discarded one at all. Scriptures say he had parents. Had they given up on being his support system? He was an adult after all, he’d have to fend for himself.
Or was he so downtrodden by his lifelong blindness, he just grew tired of being their burden? He could beg others for money instead of his parents.
I love the Gospels, the Books of encounters with Jesus. There are many people who stir empathy in me. There are relatable stories to my healing by Jesus.
Jesus came along and he noticed the man blind from birth. The disciples, always looking to learn from Jesus, asked what had caused the blindness, were his parents neglectful, had they been bad people before they became parents, or was the little boy born with some sort of predicted worthlessness that led to him being born blind?
They wanted to know who or what was to blame.
Jesus told them it was God’s plan. The blind man would be an instrument for God’s glory to be real, for the mysterious to be memorable.
“Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” John 9:3 ESV
Jesus made a paste of mud and his own spit, pressed it against the blind beggar’s eyes and then said go down to the water and wash it all off. The man did and he could see.
Everyone asked how, the man said I did what Jesus said and that’s really all I know.
His vision restored, the interrogations continued. The parents were questioned, they confirmed their son’s blindness as well as his current condition. Told all the skeptics to ask him, not us, he will tell you! According to scripture, the parents were keeping their distance because they were Jews and they would be disallowed from the synagogue if they acknowledged Jesus, if they acknowledged their own child’s healing.
These were the times I suppose even a parent of a son who was healed was careful about boldly agreeing and believing in Jesus.
Seems it was safer to be a skeptic, to know there are people who believe in Jesus because of their own healing; but, they were not ready to believe for themselves.
Maybe it seemed too impossible, too unattainable, too supernaturally “magical”.
Same as today really.
The man who could see could only speak for himself, hope with all his heart that his testimony mattered.
“So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” John 9:24-26 ESV
Centuries later, I sit in my mama’s covered chair with my Bible, the margin on the page has a pen and pencil resemblance of me, my face turned towards the words and a slight listening tilt.
I understand the blind man. I can relate to his dismay over Jesus initially. I can sit with my Bible and know beyond doubt that I too have been healed when many for valid reasons discarded me, left me to fend for myself.
And like the blind man who couldn’t explain mud and spit restoring his vision, I often wonder how me simply believing in a cross, the likeness of which I now add to my wrist could have altered my life so very significantly.
It is not my place to understand it all, to know every how or why God found me worthy of healing. It is mine to believe. To be able to rest in this:
But, you do know, God, You do.
We’re all in a state of not knowing now. On Sunday, I knelt in the place by my mama’s chair. I was distracted, I admit. Still, I joined in the prayer of Pastor Steve Davis with many others. I prayed and am praying in agreement with him that this time will bring people who don’t really understand God, maybe just hope in the possibility of Him being real closer to believing. The prayer closed with that very request of our Heavenly Father, that during this pandemic stirring panic, countless people will come to know God, will believe in Jesus as their healer.
I pray this as well. I know healing that saved not just my soul but my very life from risky, dangerous, threatening to kill me situations.
Like the blind man, I believe in Jesus.
“Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.” John 9:35-38 ESV
Continue and believe, moment by moment if necessary.
Acknowledge/Admit you were born a sinner. Believe in Jesus, God’s plan for us to be with Him in heaven. Confess your sin and begin to live healed.
It’s not new, my fascination with the sky. The clouds on Tuesday looked like fat pillows against clear blue and situated as if a pillow fluffing designer had been busy all morning setting up the shop.
Then Wednesday morning not too many, cloud cover interspersed very flatly, blank canvas space.
But, in the afternoon we spotted the big crow. My granddaughter smiled and then giggled when her clearly adult grandma sang a song she made up and then over and over added “Ca Caw! Ca Caw!”
My sky is different, I thought yesterday evening walking. I’m not as sullen or driven to staring at the blankness as if looking for inspiration or looking for anything else. Maybe it’s not necessary I decided.
Maybe, as my friend answered yesterday when we talked of trauma’s inability to be anything less than honest with us. Maybe it’s just now a representation of clarity, of sweet truth despite storms.
She answered my question.
”Do you think it’s possible not to be affected by trauma?”
Were the people who were healed in the Bible really going in peace or did they get drawn back by their pasts? We decided the scriptures are true and if there had been a “rest of the story” about the women Jesus made well, God would’ve included it.
Instead, the stories have a certainty. An encounter with Jesus that brings certain healing.
My friend told me the way to believe in our very own healing is simple.
We become certain of God’s love. I loved her reply because I see it. It’s a slow coming to terms; but, it is becoming certain and it is making the difference.
I am certain of my healing.
So the sky is now different. It’s not a place I’m looking towards to ponder possibility and wait for some answer aching heart turned in an upward skeptical way.
No, now the sky is my solid confirmation. I see its steady changing and its transformations daily. Same sky, steady and at the same time changing.
God. God and I, the sky above me reminds me of His knowledge of me, of His delight in what delights me.
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-19 KJV
How can we truly believe all the promises we’ve read, heard from pulpits, been enthralled by testimonies? How can we embrace “daughter, you are healed” or like the prodigal who returned know it wasn’t just a fluke, God was waiting, He ran out to meet us and we were welcomed. How can we believe God planned our meeting Jesus just like the woman at the well, a prostitute who was surprised to see Him, even more surprised by His intentional kindness?
We can decide to be certain of His love more than anything. We can be as certain of God as we are of the sky.
Look up today.
Be reminded, God’s love is vast and wide and deeply unchanging.
I watched the soloist in worship, saw timidity in a way that led to her being brave. Fairly new to the stage, I’ve been attentive to her growing. I long to know her story.
Has she always sang so bravely, was it a thing she knew she’d always do? Was it a path that opened before her and at last she agreed she was able?
I watched as her hand held the microphone in its stand. I listened as she told me it’s God’s breath in me that led and leads to my breathing. She opened both hands towards the ceiling as her voice was elevated, “Great are you Lord!” I joined in agreement.
I’d still love to know her faith story. I’d like to know her journey as a woman.
I sat in the white chair later, the chair that was yellow when my mama got it. She had it in her den and I don’t recall her ever sitting there. It was positioned in front of her place for sitting, a place she could simply see it.
It faced the wide windows that opened the view to the field, the skinny lane that announced visitors. My mama lived alone for a bit and her yellow chair is only one of a few things she gave me. The others, ceramic roosters and a bracelet, now broken and not really jewelry, “costume” the jeweler said, “not worth anything”.
The yellow chair now recushioned and covered white, the little roosters and the bracelet, all yard sale discoveries.
My mama had very little.
Her legacy is wisdom. Wisdom and spontaneity, gifting herself with an occasional treat!
I thought of her as I drifted into a nap on Sunday. The yellow chair now creamy white facing my own wide windows.
I found solace in the soft chair, curled like a baby in my mama’s not made for sleeping chair.
I rested in the certainty of her joy when she found the fancy to her yellow chair. I celebrated her deciding she was worth it, something her life had never told her.
No wonder I find comfort in my mama’s yard sale chair.
It’s a side of her story she really didn’t tell. Her story of strength, of being worth something other than what life had shown her. A story of the bravery in believing, to wake to your very own beauty.
To believe in yourself because of God’s plan. I sit in my mama’s humble chair and feel the softness of her wisdom, I feel able to keep believing I am more than what my hard years have told me.
Continue.
Continue and believe.
There is wisdom in quiet joy. There is wisdom in pursuits that are tentative.
There is safety in remembering another’s very own wise path, as far back as when the writer of Proverbs called wisdom a “her”.
“When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.” Proverbs 4:12-13 ESV
I hope to ask her one day, the new solo singer in worship, “How did you get to this place of using your voice to strengthen my faith?” There is wisdom in her journey I’m certain. I long to know why.
Who are the wise women in your life? The humble ones, the overcomers, the singers, the confident business owners, the young mamas, the elderly still with us, the teachers, the artists, the singers?
Life makes us either hard or wise. Stay soft if you can, wisdom comes not from hardening.
You are not a taker, You are only ever Giving and drawing, seeking and calling. “Over us”
It only took words unsolicited for my fear over words to make sense.
I did not use my words as a little timid girl.
As a middle child buffering the childhood fights. Staying quiet, not adding to the noise. Only one person has ever given a word to my existence back then. She remembers me as “bewildered”. What relief that was when she told me, to find out after so long, someone had noticed.
As the teen who discovered her body and then lost it with food.
As a young woman who just didn’t tell because it seemed no one would listen.
And an older woman who continued not to tell and then found permission but got all kinds of bogged down in not telling because that’s what she knew.
Yesterday I read something I should quote but won’t because it’s so rich I fear I’d dishonor the writer, water down her revelations
Lessen the gift of it being shared by a blogger who calls my writing “gentle”.
Because the article led to a realization, this is why you don’t step out in the faith you now have.
You still do not think there will be listeners.
It takes a bit, has taken a bit.
You begin to believe differently.
You believe you have listeners and you may have actually had them back then, you just weren’t certain so you chose the safer solution, don’t tell, don’t need, stay quiet.
But your stories remain.
As do your listeners.
Continue. Continue and believe.
“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble” Psalms 107:2 ESV
A few days in a row I fixated on the idea of a bluebird landing in my palm. I imagined being able to get close enough before it flew away.
I set out with the plan that if I asked God to let that bird make a nest in my palm, I’d believe even more strongly in a God I can’t see.
I would see faith in a whole new way.
The fencepost is marked by a blue ribbon! Trickery to my vision even today.
If I clutched that resting bird, I’d go back home or sit on the front steps and I’d make a call. “Cousin!” I’d say with a loud happy voice, to my cousin who believes bluebirds mean hope.
“Cousin, you’ll never believe it! I have just held a little bluebird in my hand!” And she’d reply in her southern strong voice with either,
“What???? …Get outta here, no way!!!”
I love the way she always gets excited over my revelations.
Or, she’d say “Oh, Lisa, I can’t believe it, isn’t God so good?”
She might find my behavior odd, that I long to see a bluebird sit still in my hand.
That this crazy idea born of seeing a bird near the fence for me is a metaphor for faith, for sustaining it.
For me to be honest with me. Holding a bird in my hand would just lead to me longing for more. I’d love the way God answered my crazy request; but, what next?
Would I ask God to bring a cardinal indoors to live next to my bed? Would I have no fear of flying and ask to soar on an eagle’s wing?
Outlandish thoughts! Really elaborate tales I write in my intricately woven head.
God made me this way.
Last month I was more focused on the birds than ever. Crows all over the country field and a gathering of blue birds in the yard. Several cardinals seem to time it just right and I am turning my face towards the sky and they unravel themselves from the branches and hover over my walk on the trail. Bright red, soft and luminous blue, even the omenous charcoal black buzzard sitting atop the falling down house.
I noticed them. I thought about how God made them all. Thought about God telling us we mean more to Him than birds, than sparrows.
We are more intricately made. A blessing and a worrisome thing is a mind, a complex and compromised by life on earth brain.
Maybe that’s why I love the birds, love the idea of flying from place to place with my little flock. Being able to simply know my nest will be strong and safe if even for just a season.
Knowing there’s a pattern to life, there is a path for safe transition to Heaven.
Birds stay in that pattern undaunted by earth.
The coldest and most wet winter and I still hear the new bird in the tall pine singing its newly acquired noisy song. It sounds like anguish to me. Who am I to say? It’s most likely excitement.
It is a birdsong of faith.
As I type, the sound of a bouncing off the tall window has occurred. I don’t look up soon enough to see it, to know its color, brown, blue or rich red.
I know it may have been off course or maybe, just maybe it felt my longing and it thought it could come inside. Most likely not land in my hand, only let me truly see up close.
That’s faith that accepts our complexities. It’s faith in the God who made me who makes me unconcerned over writing this post, a crazy essay type story about how a bird not in my hand is leading me to deeper faith.
“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” Psalms 139:13 ESV
My thoughts are known and they are unique, one of a kind wonderings and at times quite woeful.
I am thankful I am loved completely by a God who knows me so well, who knows me because He knew me.
Who’s watching over and is satisfied by my longings over bluebirds.
Who is satisfied that I am coming into me as a work of His hand. A God who sees me testing Him to give me a bird as a measure of faith and is understanding of my ways and compels me deeper, deeper into His view of me.
God is okay with my oddities.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.” Psalms 139:23-24 NLT
None of us are the same.
We don’t see one another’s inward parts. For me to write about birds is a risk; a risk I pray gets others thinking. We can never understand the mind of another. We can only accept that as truth. We all have hidden vulnerabilities. Some of us overcome them. Others show and then regret showing because they’re met by the very different thoughts of another. Some brains have fought back with resilience.
Others still have little corners and crevices that have stored up fear. Some hearts don’t appear to be broken but are quite broken. They are not beyond repair. No, not at all beyond resilience sustained by faith. Some are not healed yet; but, they are closer to believing they will be, closer to the possibility of coming into God’s own. The place of rest.
So, from the perspective of one who ponders birds and skies, let’s all join together, separately and yet wonderfully made and believe together.
Faith makes us well, may we not need earthly evidence to believe it.
I don’t think Jesus would have told us to look at the birds if we couldn’t grow by looking. So look up today. Look for the birds, imagine if you like, being allowed to hold one gently for a minute.
“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26 ESV
Heavenly Father, thank you for making us so individually well and reminding us that we are so very fragile. It is you that makes us strong. Help us remember you through a flash of blue against a winter field. Because of mercy, in Jesus name, Amen.
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 