A conversation about fear led to a thought. The thought led to paintings, vivid and strong in color. Some softer and cheerful and others heavy with darkness and harder emotion.
“The world is so scary…it makes lots of noises.”
Anxiety, uncertainty, anger and sadness are beginning to be noticed not as secretly kept struggles, instead as realities to consider more closely with kind and committed responses.
I’m hoping to traditionally publish this book for children to remind them that the earth and heavens were made by God just as they were and this truth can be an anchor in their storms that they are never alone.
“Yours is the day, yours also the night; you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.” Psalm 74:16 ESV
Countless times I’ve known “goodness by surprise”, things continued and finished and left alone to develop or fizzle actually come back around to close the circle in response to that sort of open-ended question.
…let us run with patience the race set before us. Hebrews 12:1 KJV
in green pastures
I lifted the kitchen window. I’m home alone and it’s a Sunday morning rainy song.
Which do you think matters more
Skill or endurance?
Pursuit or acceptance?
I’m not a runner but I’ve heard pacing yourself is important.
Last night I dreamt I was running. It was a dream layered with threats and pursuit and one that ended with comfort.
Deeply personal and I guess likely will never be fully understood.
I opened my devotional to read an unknown author’s letter of encouragement to Christians during trials…words about endurance and about the things of life that entangle us and impede our ability to run the course set for us with peace and ease.
So many times, scripture seems nonsensical.
How is it humanly possible to run with patience?
I mean, isn’t the point of running to get there more quickly with faster dropping feet on the ground or pavement, of pushing past everyone else?
Or maybe the reason we run with patience is because there are no competitors in our race of life marked by our faith. It’s just us on our own pre-decided by our Maker trail.
The spirit of God invisible to others, but within and beside us.
A solitary race, an especially intense one not because of its importance, rather because of the very tender and personal reward.
Peace, often by surprise.
Peace that sometimes awes.
Run with patience the path that has been set for youalone.
Now, here’s the story of this I know.
Grandma, your angels…
This painting came to life after being layered and pondered many times. I’d been asked to “live paint” as an accompaniment to my artist story for a women’s event.
I was wise enough to choose the better, to not talk and paint at the same time. I’d tried that before and I decided to learn from what was not me nor easy.
So, this large piece traveled as a backdrop to my story of what had been not so easy lessons in my artist as business endeavors.
I spoke of how God was teaching me that my value was not acclaim, gallery shows, representation or sold out collections.
Rather, my value is my story of continuing.
Fast forward, I get all excited and choose this piece for a prestigious exhibit and am thrilled and a little too obviously excited when a couple decided it should be in their home…and then reconsidered.
Then, I submit “Of Lasting Value” as a part of my portfolio for an Emerging Artist Show.
Again, giddiness over the possibility of acceptance and “fame” convinced me I’d be “in”.
Not selected though and I’d actually decided not to enter this piece in a local show. I was so confident, I’d decided…well, I can’t enter it if it’s committed someplace else.
A simple decision, an afterthought led to entering it in the local show because of the tenderness of its story and it came full circle, a tearful surprise.
Of Lasting Value, detail
My husband and I entered the gallery for the opening reception and I scanned the room to find my paintings.
“There’s a ribbon on one of mine.” I said quietly, almost a whisper.
Then discovered and later heard the juror’s reason why
My painting had been selected, “Best in Show”.
Congratulatory chats continued and I told a friend, “There’s such a bigger significance to this for me.”
Later, I made a promise to myself, or I guess I should say a request of God.
Don’t let this fade, the blessing of this honor, the many layers to the story of me written by You
This affirmation clearly that I am your beloved, that I am loved by you, God.
I don’t know where the story of this painting will go from here, whether I’ll stop by the gallery to see a red dot saying she’ll be gracing someone’s home or whether she’ll be coming back to me.
I don’t know yet. I’ll be patient. I’ll keep walking with a stillness I can’t create or maintain on my own. I’ll be shepherded on this path I am on.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.” Psalm 23:2 ESV
We stopped by the gallery, my granddaughter and I. We love to decide on a “favorite”.
We had the whole space to ourselves and after she’d pointed out “my angels”, said “Hurry, hurry, look” and turned the corner to gaze long at a brilliant painting of the ocean.
A textured piece with vividly and perfectly rendered sea grass with a background of water and sunset.
And this one, she told me was her favorite because it was “shiny”.
And I told her, my little artist and watcher of all things, just how spectacular I found it to be too.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.
And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Hebrews 12:1 NLT
Run with patience the path made for you.
Others are watching, not following, not chasing you.
“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” Isaiah 30:21 NIV
My friend, Susan gets me, the way I share a story that goes down every path possible and then I circle back around to the point of my sharing.
God has placed wisdom in the form of listeners and those who notice me and mostly unbeknownst to them lead to clarity.
Many years ago on a Thursday morning, a question lingered, had been lingering long. I asked God what to do and added that I knew me and I’d be confused and conflicted forever if He didn’t show me in a big and clear way.
And He did and the course of my life changed.
I accepted that I would be a single mother.
I may never have a prayer answered so promptly and sure again. Or I may.
Wednesday morning, the country road was quiet, the half moon moved with me and fields on either side, sprinkled with cows and crops were striated by thinly layered fog.
Like a canvas changed by an artist who intentionally used light spectacularly well.
I’d been thinking of that same sort of application in new paintings.
seeing goodness
I thought of my words in a journal, the research into what the phrase “honing my craft” truly means.
I was happy. I love words and I love when they are like little secret gifts.
A term I used as a nonprofit professional came to mind, “mission creep”. New to the leadership field, I inherited a mess of misuse of many things. Funding was failing, the agency facing catastrophic losses and necessary changes.
I had no skillset for this position other than compassion for others and a commitment to that call.
There were talks of “adding programs” for which grant funding was freely distributed. If we did more, there might be more money.
But, we had two employees and no capacity to carry out additional programs. I said no and I had a board who trusted me.
I offered, “No, let’s figure out what we are known for, what matters and what we do well and let’s get better at that.”
That naive assertion on my part redirected the course of the agency I oversaw for ten years and I suppose as I write this, it’s the actual first time I have given myself credit for that courageous “no” to chasing after new at the expense of forgoing good.
Abstraction
Choosing better over bigger.
Lord, I see you refining my jagged edges.
A prayer I offered on Wednesday morning, the fog striated in the sky, layered like paint in varying thickness on the canvas of an abstract painting. The sky wrote a beautiful note to my soul that morning,
told me to slow down, settle into what you love about writing and painting and do what is you, not anyone else.
A friend later surprised me with what she’d been seeing in me.
“With your painting -it is beautifully abstract-it does not have to be “perfect”. I sense you feel that your writing has to be “perfect” whatever that is for writing which trips you up. I see Holy Spirit lovingly pouring what looks like liquid gold over and into your mind. I feel that as you continue to explore God’s unconditional love for you. His words are going to flow out of you.” K.
My friend’s response to the question that wears me out (and probably others).
Should I just paint and not write?
If you’re still reading, you may be tired of this old weary question.
Me too. ME TOO!
I stopped by the gallery of a friend. If you’re anywhere near Augusta, Georgia, you must stop in to CANDL on Broad Street. The photographer and curator, Drake White is someone I described as just “happening upon me and my art”. I am honored to have been photographed by him.
I committed to seeing the current exhibit of the acclaimed artist, Ed Rice on the final night of the show and so I drove over yesterday evening, scurrying into the gallery without an umbrella in the sprinkling rain.
I was greeted by two gentleman, one an artist and the other Mr. White. Fascinated by the works, I commented on the emotion of the subjects, not people, rather 18th century dolls.
Still, I decided one was demure and another had been “harmed”.
I was introduced to the other artist with words about three things…
my faith
my writing
my art
faith
I stood quietly and accepted the kind commentary of me.
The me I’d been losing, sort of like a “mission creep” in creative endeavors seeking to be known.
“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength. But you would have none of it.” Isaiah 30:15 NLT
I hadn’t lost my faith; but, maybe I was losing “faith in me” as in the Holy Spirit answering in the most unexpected ways and quietly, a ripple of wisdom that barely changes the stream.
Involving others as teachers, as witnesses of you.
For the sake of you.
For goodness sake and to contribute to the question…with the surest and sweetest answer.
Faith, writing and art, Lisa Anne…for the goodness of others, share my goodness in you.
Is there a place you’ve ventured away from what is for you?
Are you missing the goodness because of grabbing for grander?
Pay attention to what others notice in you and be reminded by a certain little phrase my granddaughter is quite proud of saying…
Walking, exhausted and walking, I thought about a storm I must’ve missed.
Fragments on the pavement, objects fallen and scattered.
I’d been away for three days.
Fern fronds, one facing upward the other folded, wilted. Similar, of the same family
Yet, different.
I’d just gotten home from two days with family, the aunt like my mama, cousins, siblings, nephews, nieces.
Grandchildren.
Shown off on social media, the celebration.
It happened again.
Someone said “she’s your mini me”, referring to my granddaughter, Elizabeth.
And it prompted me to think again
About resemblance.
I have two children, a daughter and a son.
One is fair, blonde hair, blue eyes and porcelain complexion prone to freckles.
The other, dark almost coal hair, brown eyes and a more easily bronzed complexion.
Still, I’ve heard through the years.
Oh, he/she looks so much like you!
Of course, I love the assessment.
Last week, I smiled as I saw the light in the eyes of an adopted child on her birthday.
This child, brown in complexion, parented by blondes I was fortunate to meet and be a part of their story.
I saw her mama’s smile. I recognized her father’s confidence in her shoulders.
Not genetic, not inherited.
I see my granddaughter and I see the glimmer of her grandmother, “Gamma” in her eyes. I see her daddy’s expression in her confident answers. I see her cousins’ smile in hers.
I see her mama in the freckles sprinkled across her nose and in her stubborn tenacity.
I see my heart when I see hers and I also see the heart of others.
And that’s what I’ve decided about resemblance…
It’s the heart that shows and the heart that knows.
One child can be seen as the echo of so many all at the same time.
Cousins, aunts, uncles, brothers, caregivers and protectors.
All of us, imparting resemblance.
It’s not the curve of the cheek, the tip of the nose, the color of the eyes or the way the lips turn above the chin.
Instead, it’s the imprint of love.
Less severe the likeness, more sweetness and nuance.
Love is the reason for the resemblance.
And resemblance is the evidence of that love.
Wildflowers, oak leaves and children.
The remnants of rhododendron.
All the same and on their own on display.
When others say my granddaughter is so much like me in her sweet little face
I know the resemblance is so far from physical and every bit
Spiritual.
The heart of me in her alongside the heart of others who love her.
A high compliment, I was once given and until now have kept secret,
“Your Bible could be in a museum one day.” D.W.
I paused in awe of his assertion, this skilled photographer who discovered me through the sketches I share from the margins of my Bible was quite convinced of this possibility.
I can only hope that if my Bible is found by someone when I’m long gone, that the gift of it finds them in the same lasting way.
That their response to God’s word catches them by surprise, that their reaction is a quiet and lasting one, a reaction that resembles mine.
On page 576 of my Crossway Journaling Bible they will find a sketch of a figure facing forward, she’s not small and her shoulders are bent in either thought or simply aged posture. Her hands are cupped in front of her and cascading behind her is a flow like a river that curves and grows larger.
She is pouring out all that’s within her, joy.
“With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.” Isaiah 12:3 ESV
She is giving to others what she has gone searching for, drawn up from deep wells.
I pray I resemble her.
That I focus less on the outer aging, conflicted and overly burdened by activity me and that I consider the gifting inside me, not my gifts, talents, words or physical abilities.
Instead, I hope my life is a resemblance of joy.
Babies are born and bystanders ooh and ah as they decide who the nose, the eyes, the hands are from like a fun little challenging trivia game.
What matters less is who they resemble and more the ones God puts around them to contribute to the best of our ability what joys and gifts and graces deep within us that we embody and get to give them.
When someone says “ELB” looks like me, I smile because I know in that moment caught in a photo it’s not at all that we resemble.
Rather, it’s that the person who caught the moment on film also captured my joy and it was joy, not looks that were mirrored in a toddlers face.
Who resembles you?
Who do you resemble?
Years from now, a grandchild may flip through the thin pages of my Bible and I hope they find a drawing in the margin and say sort of quietly to themselves.
That’s me. That looks like me in that same story.
And rest in their hearts in this,
“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.” Isaiah 12:2 NIV
“Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4 ESV
What are the desires of your heart? Or as Jesus asked,
“And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” Matthew 20:32 ESV
I keep a very old dictionary next to my morning spot. Its pages are thin from age and dark like dried clay.
I researched “delight” this morning, it’s a word that is defined as “to gratify or please greatly”, “high satisfaction”.
So, the psalmist tells us we will have whatever our hearts desire when we delight ourselves in God.
How do we delight in God? I think we set our hearts on pleasing Him and we couple it with joy that expresses to Him and others…”I’m satisfied with God.”
Then over time, our desires might surprise us or they may continue to be deeply important and personal, may seem like an impossible hope.
I get that.
I have a couple of those. But, my heart is at peace knowing, God knows and He has heard my prayers.
God knows the desires of my heart and He desires that I delight in Him…not just what I want. Maybe in a little while, what we desire most will be God and maybe that’s the discovery God knows we need and He’s so sweetly patient as we discover this ourselves.
He’s gentle and loving that way, isn’t He?
We can hope,have hope.
Not long ago, someone devastated by an injury and a woeful prognosis for her son had a tone of hopelessness in her voice.
And God brought a verse to mind.
I can tell you, this astounds me. Much of the Bible is still a mystery to me and I can’t recite the books in order or articulate truth accurately with confidence.
Still, there are things that pop up and I share them, the promises of God.
I told this mom that she could not stop hoping, that she couldn’t postpone, pack away or defer her hope.
That if she did, she would only be more heartbroken, heartsick and well, hopeless.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.” Proverbs 13:12 NLT
And as with every word I speak or write, every canvas I create, I’m telling myself the story first, the story of hoping.
The truth of a God who loves us, the embrace of a greater understanding of His faithfulness to love, protect and guide.
Desire and hope, such precious and fragile,
Secrets, mostly.
Don’t let go. Keep hope, wear it like a necklace. (I think that’s a verse). Treasure the knowing that your desires are fully known by the Maker who knew them way before you could.
You know it’s yours to tell and yet, you can’t bring yourself to share it. One of mine is about a well-loved one eyed teddy bear.
I have deadlines for writing and art opportunities. They’re looming.
Tuesday, an old question about a title resurfaced and God answered. God gave me the subtitle for the book idea I’d decided to forget.
Last year, I was given a t-shirt with the word INFLUENCER across the chest. It’s in my closet. It’s not me to proclaim such a label. I imagine people thinking,
“Really, who does she think she is?”
But, I am and you are too. Influencing others.
Whether it’s your faith or your confidence in anything else. You, by your beliefs lived out in what you do, are an influencer.
“Agree with God, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you.” Job 22:21-ESV
Job is influential because it made no sense to agree with God in his plight, but he remained committed to God being God.
You likely will never know all the people you influence.
I keep procrastinating writing and sending my Artist portfolio to two places I recorded as goals. The reason is an honest one. I don’t want to do it halfway. Because haphazard is my “go to” set up to accept rejection.
A way to ease the I wasn’t good enough anyway.
This is my truth. I do not like rejection. Thankfully, I am getting better at accepting it…of understanding that offering my art and words to the world is so much less about me than two things:
My confidence in me being made by God to be a creative.
And bravely understanding that my patterns of sabotaging my opportunities are not personal defects, only ingrained ideas that are being gently unlearned. (This is a biggie, hold it closely if it resonates for you.)
A prayer, maybe you have something to do and you’ve been afraid. It’s okay. We’re learning.
Go gently as you pray.
Dear Lord, Help me not to be haphazard or half-hearted. Help me to be fully me and present knowing that you are the maker of me, the intricacies and hopes that stir fear. Help me to know that you’re the Creator and I’m just the sharer.
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 