Faith

Crazy and Possibility

Angels, Art, contentment, courage, Faith, grace, hope, memoir, painting, Peace, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

This is crazy I told myself.

Two hours in my work clothes, shoes kicked to the corner.

And the background music…on point. (I’m not sure what this means but

I like the sound of it!)

Painted soothing blue, planning on a marsh late summer but not quite right.

Paint on. Paint off.

Missing my girls. Add the shape of one I’ll call.

“Possibility”.

I want to keep on. I want to finish. I want to stand back and go “Yes…oh.”

Then I remember this little thing I saw today and I told myself you can come back and add layers or even paint over to start over.

Either way, you had two glorious hours of painting…and painting always, always gives you way more than it takes!

This piece, to be continued.

Battle On

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, doubt, Faith, freedom, happy, memoir, obedience, Peace, Prayer, rest, Stillness, Teaching, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

In the Book of Luke, the 21st chapter, Jesus told of a poor widow having very little left to give.

Yet, she gave all she had, two copper coins.

And Jesus noticed.

He noticed her poverty and He noticed her commitment.

my girl and my grandma’s purple pansies

My days have been an absolute hodgepodge of diverse people and places this week.

All the voices loud and mingled together and pointedly expectant of me.

Who am I to have all the supposed answers?

At dusk yesterday I sat alone in the backyard. The clouds were clearing out, one lone puff of one resisting the drift, the last one to fade away.

I woke up today and told myself.

Don’t give up.

Don’t give up because the internal angst has blurred the external hope people read of, hear you speak of and assume you’re quite certain, okay,

It’s all good.

Yes, I say.

Everything gets messy before it becomes clear.

You’ll be super miserable before you walk away, that way you won’t feel guilty for leaving as you know is your typical sweet martyr way.

Or…as my sweet and ever sincere friend said the other day:

The peace you had in the beginning is still there, it is still leading the way. JM

The thing with the battle of the mind, the fight for the settledness of the soul is that it is insidious if we don’t know it is up to us, our own choice to refuse to allow its control.

To say, I know your motives, I know it’s your plan to make me weak from within.

Not happening today.

Today, I will see you in every face I see and I will battle on.

And maybe, just maybe even though not a single soul could ever know my battle, just as I don’t know the one that they own

They may see my countenance renewed and therefore, they may see you!

Chapter 21 of Luke continues with Jesus warning of persecution and it being an opportunity to bear witness of how we are different.

“Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭21:14-15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I love the permission this gives me not to have to know every single thing.

Mostly I love the permission this gives me to not mull every encounter to the point of misery, rather, to trust I will know how to respond, what to say.

My responses will be different when I respond from the place of peace within.

Still, some may come against me, baffled over my demeanor and ready to push their agenda to topple my resolve and tip my trust from within.

This is earth, not heaven. This is to be expected here.

By your endurance you will gain your lives. Luke 21:19

I won’t give up.

I want to see the plans for my life I have yet to fully see.

Continue and believe.

This part is up to me.

Set Your Intention

Abuse Survivor, bravery, contentment, courage, Faith, fear, Forgiveness, freedom, hope, memoir, Peace, praise, Prayer, Redemption, surrender, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

In a matter of twenty minutes, these are my thoughts upon waking:

Set your intention.

Tomorrow’s freedom is today’s surrender.

Resilience can be developed, the effects of trauma can be undone. It is like exercise, my choice.

First, I roused from a heavy like cinder block sleep that finally came about 3:00.

Mind you, I had been sleeping, just not resting.

Years ago, I had no sleep apnea but my mind was found to be a racer, a wrestler all night, the report told. But, I woke and from I don’t know where, thought “set your intentions.” thinking of my friend the gentle, Dana and how I rarely make it to her class. Still, this might be a worthy goal for me, every day.

Set your intention.

Then, a song you won’t hear on the radio and rarely on your favorite subscription, the lilting tone in the voice of a man I decide is surely kind, sings of tomorrow’s freedom being today’s surrender.

Lord as we turn to You
Come free us from our sin
We only have today
So let us now begin
From dawn to dusk
We are waking up. Dawn to Dusk, All Sons and Daughters

Thirdly, I’m scrolling twitter and land on an article on resilience. I decide, this may be good and so as I’m waiting for the coffee press to do its little trick, I read.

Wouldn’t you know it?

It’s about focus and choices in our mindsets, our turning negative to good by deciding to look for the “silver lining”.

The article describes Bradley Cooper’s character remembering a song that sparked his outburst, his sadness and his potentially defeatist again mindset. Jennifer Lawrence tells him it is just a song. (By the way, did you see the greatest moment in my opinion of the Oscars, only second to Regina King’s acceptance? Bradley Cooper exited the stage with Lady Gaga on his arm and lifted his hand to his forehead as if wiping the sweat from his brow in a whew of relief.”

Saying, at least to me,

I did the thing I thought I couldn’t do.

The choice to not be led down a path of negativity towards depression and dismay signifies not allowing your past to dictate your future.

It is not easy, patterns are embedded. It’s safer to be the you that you and everyone else has always known.

To set your intention on that little tiny pinpoint light calling you forward, not the murkiness of the darkest traumas of before.

To measure your life in a dawn to dusk way, to wake up and surrender every morning, believing over time tomorrow will only know freedom, no longer waking to unravel your nighttime tragic dramas.

To look for the silver lining, tell about the silver linings you never imagined would be. The biggie for me, stop saying oh my goodness I never thought it could be, still letting the past have its undeserving part in my story.

Instead, celebrate with intention and boldness the good, all of the good!

Try not to include the bad in as many of your stories!

Be amazed at the lining up your morning, take it with you all day.

A waking thought giving you a new way to think about healing.

A song about freedom.

An article about the power of the mind and the way we drive our days, our lives, simply by choosing the optimistic road.

The steadfast love of God endures all the day. Psalm 52:1

Grief and Grace and Beautiful Things

Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, grief, memoir, Peace, praise, Prayer, Redemption, Stillness, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

The Sway of Grace

There was no inspiration in the sky above me, its color was thick and like taupe mixed with gray.

The color of old water left in the kitchen sink, murky from faded suds and dirty plates.

No music seemed to suit me. The podcast I was moved to hear again had strangely gone away.

I walked on with the bounce of a trendy and sort of tired old song.

Next one and the next the same.

They were not working, the songs that usually drive me, keep me distracted from the pain of my hips, my feet.

Songs about grace and Jesus too trendy for me today, too much like radio pop.

Volume down.

Twelve or thirteen minutes I told myself, just a brief bit, you can endure it.

So, I picked up my pace and I listened to my feet hitting the ground and I know it’s not possible but I could describe the sound of my own breath coming up from my core.

And I felt it, the way my body changed as my breathing weaved up and past my ribs and into my particularly patterned exhale.

Control, keep control. Focus on the release.

I kept on and got to the place with the dangerous curve and the steep right bending hill.

The geese had congregated on the water and were conversating loudly.

I slowed and felt the wind sweep across my face making me realize the warmth I’d created on my chest, caused by my own private version of running my race.

For about a minute, maybe seconds more, there was this bliss caused by God’s grace.

In a less than spectacular sky I couldn’t find Him and so, grace found me.

Again.

And I ran up the hill, all the way this time.

Although I’d decided I might not be able, I kept running.

Last week, I sort of analyzed my life using the big chunk of moments, days and years that were either sorted and stacked as either joy or fear, as either mistake or reconciliation.

My husband and I recalled the dog adopted and where he peed, pooped, what he destroyed, and how difficult he was in the beginning.

I asked him to compare the joy of the Labrador being with us to the initial hassle and adjustment.

He agreed he was worth it.

Worth it to sit in your spot at end of the day to have a big dog plop down and prop his big face across your feet.

Worth it to be greeted at the door with his goofy eyes and happy tail.

If you look closely at your life, all the happenings that you know were true trauma, the interruptions that you remember and think that was it, that’s what totally blew my chances of being complete, you might be justified in never believing you should believe.

You might not take chances with new things.

Perhaps, the trauma that began it all has never been fully grieved, a grievous grey sky that you haven’t faced fully, haven’t accepted for what it is and so you’ve not felt it, not allowed the grace to be greater than the fear.

In college, my first year, I was raped.

I blamed myself. I hid in shame.

The big and grotesque figure of an athlete loomed behind me the next day in Chemistry lab, elevated just over my shoulder, he was enormous and so powerful in his seat.

I blamed myself because my sweater was way too tight and glaringly hot pink. I know better now; but, only recently realized this thing that made me live so very long in fear and defeat.

It was unresolved grief for the artist in me that died there that night, accepted the disbelief of me.

But, even better than the realization that this trauma was not invited by me is the realization that this incident makes up really only an hour or two of me…of my whole 58 years!

I don’t minimize the damage, I’m just choosing to line it up beside the other things:

I was the middle child, shy girl who went to college on an art scholarship.

I drove myself through Atlanta all the way to the beautiful mountains of Rome.

I tried something new and I made a great friend who was beautiful and statuesque and intelligent who still remembers me.

I learned to love running there, running uphill every day.

We dined at a splendid restaurant where my friend worked on Friday nights, my choice always, Chicken cor don bleu.

I won an award for a painting and my parents came up to see my blue ribbon.

I began, just a little, to see Jesus differently and it challenged me.

I was brave there even though interrupted in this horrible way.

I was harmed in many ways by that night at a party; yet, that’s only a tiny bit of my experience, of my life.

The greater experience is that I was held even then and I am still held by the grace of my Father’s hand.

I was His child then. Didn’t believe it but that didn’t matter.

So, I choose looking back only to be certain of my worth from His perspective and of the importance in believing there is always so much better I have seen and been given, even when I line it up to the most unjustified of my griefs.

I pray if you’ve known trauma you’ll see the freedom of deciding daily that you are more at peace when your recall is one of the evidence of grace, not a harsh gauge of resentment over someone who harmed you and thus, kept you from all that might have been.

There’s truth in that sentiment. It just won’t take us anywhere, certainly no new places.

You’re so much more than the stain of your pain.

When the cool evening breeze brushed my face yesterday it was God saying to me, I saw you keep going.

I saw you turn your attention to me.

Continue and believe.

Don’t let the pain of your past cut short your beautiful race.

Luke recorded the healing of a woman bent by her pain for close to twenty years.

For me, my frame of reference for all my defeats or my failures has always been the harm done towards me by others, the hurtful choices made for me and the ones I made.

Disabled for far too long by my pain until I decided to welcome a change.

Like the woman Jesus was criticized for healing on the Sabbath, I am free.

“And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.”

‭‭Luke‬ ‭13:11-13‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Leave grief behind, notice the unrelenting grace of your God.

This perspective of forward not former thinking is the direction God is guiding me towards memoir. If you know someone who has lived hampered by harm, share my words. I pray God increases each reader’s awareness and embrace of His grace as He is with me, moment by moment, daily.

God Appointments and Rain

bravery, courage, Faith, Homeless, hope, kindness, Prayer

I did not want to hear her response through a text as I shared my day only two hours in.

God appointment, she texted.

Okay. Oh, okay.

There was an empty wheelchair in my office parking lot this morning in the cold drizzling rain.

What in the world??? , I said.

I didn’t get out of my car right away, ready yourself, ready, be ready.

I saw him in the lobby.

A homeless man and without his bicycle and now with crutches and a hand me down wheelchair.

Okay, I told myself.

Hands and feet, hands and feet.

Breathe, see this as an opportunity.

When he said he’d not eaten since Sunday, we bought him two cheeseburgers and a chocolate shake.

He looked around my office, saw the photos of my children, chuckled over one of my husband and me, told me he looked like a “pretty cool dude” and then because we needed to do what the system said, I convinced him to go for a mental health assessment and I told him we haven’t done this before.

It may be the one thing that will turn the key.

He kept talking about hope. I told him to continue.

Hope.

Then I found out they wouldn’t, couldn’t help him and he still said thank you, Lisa as my eyes met his as they loaded his wheelchair I brought to the van in the rain.

And I do not understand.

I don’t think I understand systems that push people through only getting a glimpse of their stories, I’m not sure I understand our present humanity at all.

I’m very regretful over resenting that I gave this man the bulk of my day and how I kept saying to myself “hands and feet, hands and feet” yet, I got him no remedy, no relief.

Such is life when it hits you to commit to the last few words you said.

I will pray for you, I told him.

I will. I pray I remember.

Least I can do when my hands and feet, do little at all, seem to be for naught.

I can pray.

Least of the things I can do when my hands, my feet, my heart falls short of relief.

Hope and pray.

Continue and believe.

Seesaw Prayers and Stephanie Sue

Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, Children, confidence, contentment, courage, doubt, Faith, family, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, hope, memoir, mercy, Peace, Prayer, rest, surrender, Trust, Vulnerability, waiting

From God’s perspective, I believe we pray more than we realize, that our thoughts are to Him, sort of informal prayers. Maybe He’s nudging us to pray, saying your thoughts are not trivial, nor too troubling, tell me more. I believe He says let’s wait and see, get there together.

What’s blowing my mind today is the reality of God hearing my prayers! Oh Lord, forgive me for taking this lightly or for only getting excited and wanting to sing loud praises when it’s mind-blowingly big.

I try to get out in front of God, as if I need to coax the direction of a certain “perfect” way. If I’m honest, God must think I’m whiny or either aggravating, the pendulum swings one or the other way.

Like the seesaw, I’m either the queen of the world buoyed up high from my worries by the force and folded knees of my brave cousin, her butt at the bottom and feet firmly in the smooth cool sand.

Showing me, like Jesus.

I’ve got this. Sit still.

Then she lets go and either drastically I hit bottom or she’s easy and my place and turn in the pattern is more like rest on the level ground than a harsh descent, desperately back to prayer.

Or she’s so skilled in her timing, my seesaw partner, that she leaves me in the interim wanting me to trust her weight and balance will keep me there.

I don’t like the middle, the supposed to be at peace with not knowing, the trusting place. Yet, God always teaches me when He increases my faith, my confidence there.

He shows me that He saw me praying a different way, a surrendered and boldly strong expectantly way and so He moved and the situation, hours later changed, the circumstances swayed.

He answers our prayers all day throughout the day. I sometimes pray as if I’ve speculated the river is dry and the flow of sovereign power and grace can’t make it back my way.

Then He does it again. He answers the longing I brought and left with Him, the one I considered not bringing at all.

True story.

Prayer changes things and people.

I hope I remember it long, the thing that happened and It hit me…oh, you prayed! I’ll store it up in my journal of others chronicling the big grace and answered prayers of before along with the little ones He has anticipated and given replies that I may never know.

I don’t have to rush ahead fearing He doesn’t see I need His guiding hand.

I just have to stay close, let my trust be my hand in His hand on this ever changing road and that memories like seesaws and brave cousins who taught me so much are teaching me still.

This post is for you. I miss you, brave and beautiful one, Stephanie Sue!

“pray without ceasing,”

‭‭1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5:17‬ ‭ESV‬‬

New Things in New Places

Abuse Survivor, birds, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, family, fear, freedom, grace, hope, memoir, mercy, Prayer, Redemption, Stillness, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

I got this from my mama.

I’ll rummage through the clearance aisles and I’ll look for the most neglected, damaged or left behind things in the store.

I rarely go for the item that’s marked way down as far as it can go but still not worth anything for me, nothing that I would consider complementary to my home.

I picked up this little cracked bowl, held it up and noticed the red tag, $1.79 and I began to decide if I should take it home.

I thought how I’d not be bothered by the chip on the rim, how the design was really like no colors in my room at all.

Then I remembered the insect pen and ink drawing by my son from long ago and the birds on my table, one of them a black crow.

So, I bought the little bowl and it cups the brown magnolia pods perfectly well. It’s a little thing added to the place I gaze to measure the morning’s sun, a small thing, a beautiful change.

Last night before group work out, I walked/ran. It was dark and I was alone on the track. Women playing tennis on the lighted court, people alone with their dogs walking in balance and pace. Runners ran past me in their running attire, graciously passing me thinking I’d stay in my place.

I turned up the volume and told myself, you can run too.

So, I did and then I went inside to join my work out group.

I was doing everything I could to run out my mood, to outrun its pursuit, to work the kinks of dread and worry out in an intentional sweat.

To have my hope come back, my rest, my request to not fall back into my patterns of dread.

And I was intentional like Job in my prayers and I talked to God in my car after a good and solid and rigorous workout.

Take from me these disenchanted ways. These ways of being sidelined by bad dreams that I decide will surely come true in some way.

Then I waited because I heard His Spirit say,

this will not be an immediate change, immediacy in my reply will not build the trust that should be.

Yes, this I know.

You know what happened next if you know my God.

Small shifts began to change me, good food, hot shower, soft blanket, early sleep.

Brought pleasant dreams about little babies and being someplace laughing.

We all were having cake.

My dreams are just as real and as vivid as my nightmares. Jesus, help me to know fully this truth from you.

And if the bad ones come back to visit sparked by some passing thought or something I read, I know they will not take over.

You, my Heavenly Father, will not allow it, did not plan this for me.

But if they come back to stir up memories, may the fire of the trauma be for good use not bad.

May its memory spread wide and complete like the farmer burning his entire field for a new crop.

Destroying all the old, in preparation for the very same place to grow something new.

The former crop has done what it was supposed to do, God and the farmer know it is time to yield the same harvest or maybe something totally new.

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭43:18-19‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I’m smiling now as I write this. Will my prayers bring something like useful soybeans or will my words and art look more like giant stalks of hearty corn?

Or will the works of my hands and my mind exhibit a stillness and calm, like soft amber colored wheat stalks, late summer swaying in pleasant wind?

Or will it be all of these, beneficial, nourishing as well as calming?

It is possible.

Continue and believe.

Continue.

Believe.

Mary Geisen wrote a similar story, one about continuing on our roads. I feel it’s a feeling so many of us have. May we all be better and more faithful because we share the brave telling of our stories.

Tell His Story

Someone I Don’t Know

bravery, courage, Faith, fear, heaven, Peace, Prayer, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, writing

For this reader, I pray.

Mercy

Peace

Love.

“Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.”

‭‭Jude‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I only know cancer because of my father. I know a writer only because he’s a blogger.

A blogger who regularly reads my words. He added a comment and words he said were inspired by mine.

I’m feeling cautiously optimistic over writing and being humbled by the realization that I put the “cart before the horse”. The query letter must come before the proposal. I felt and feel so dumb.

Well, at least it’s done.

Then I see Andrew’s “like” and comment and I love that he’s letting writing love him in this time.

His cancer is terminal I suspect and yet, he made time to encourage me.

No further words from me, only his words he said were inspired by me.

And a visit to his blog and a decision to pray for peace and comfort for someone I don’t know. Join me if you will, in prayer and in reading his prose, his words on his blog:

https://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/?m=1

The only way I can pass on the joy that lies at the eye of the hurricane is through the words whereby I can show that I do not deign to give the devil his sought-for prize of curses on blashpheming lips; blaming God for cancer’s enterprise as it wounds upon my body rips. But I have found a better path, writing through this vale of pain to climb out of fog-shrouded wrath and bring me out to light again. Words are lamps that help me toward the immanence of a Loving Lord. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

Mercy, peace, love.

Where Words Go

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, freedom, memoir, mercy, obedience, Stillness, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

A chunk of my day yesterday, a beautiful Saturday so warm I had to move from my favorite place.

To a library corner more shady and less distracting after all.

I tried my hand at something new, a thing God told me to do, told me so by giving me words that finally made sense as I sat in my morning chair.

I had found the Psalm circled, “memoir” written in the margin.

“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing your praises and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise you forever.”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭30:11-12‬ ‭NIV‬‬

And I finished it, the bio and summary of my book proposal. It will need tweaking and parts of chapters added today.

I typed away until my laptop battery faded, dead. Thank you, family, by the way for the best laptop ever last year on my birthday!

Lunch on Friday included a friend who felt it was time for us to know one another more and that our mutual conversation and revelations deserved a special date.

It was special. She is special and together and separately we are strong despite our perspective hardship and heavy loads to bear along the way.

She told me to keep writing.

She said that I must.

I know her instructions are true otherwise I’d not keep doing this thing I do.

Sitting in a quiet space and hoping for new perspective or a gentle lesson.

God speaks to me and I share.

I pray the words go where they need to be read.

And I do thank God for words.

I do love them so!

Linking up with the Five Minute group. Writing with spontaneity and expanding my horizons as God continues to enlarge my borders.

https://fiveminutefriday.com/2019/01/31/fmf-writing-prompt-where/

Happy Sunday, readers. God is waiting to be found in it.

Cake with Your Mama Day

birthday, Children, courage, daughters, Faith, family, freedom, grief, happy, heaven, hope, love, memoir, Motherhood, Peace, Trust, Uncategorized, Unity, Vulnerability

I’d love to tell you just a little about my mama, on this day, her birthday!

And then I’d love for you to make cake a part of your day!

She passed away nine years ago.

Too soon for us all.

There were more cakes to bake, more commentary to be made on the politics of the day, more acceptance to be given over her sometimes sullen, stubborn and set ways.

More big meals together with some variety of homemade cake.

It may have been my coconut or my brother’s red velvet, maybe caramel, maybe thin layered chocolate so good the sugar melted more sugar on your tongue as you allowed it to linger.

It may have been her pound of everything pound cake or it may have been the fancy cream cheese with pecans creamy carrot.

Today, I am planning to have cake!

You should too.

I give you not permission, but a virtual nudge-like nod to say yes to love, to loosening your control!

To enjoy cake alone or with someone, somehow with your mama.

To have cake and not stress over anything at all!

Stress’ll kill you, Lisa! My Mama

Happy Birthday in heaven, Mama!

Your love has brought us to who and where we are!

I celebrate you today.

Last year, I went “junkin’” and bought this little dog that looked like “Sunny” and then my friend Dana surprised me with cake!

Little did she know she’d be starting a tradition…your birthday will be remembered from now on by enjoying some sort of outrageously delicious cake!

I am officially declaring January 30th “Cake with Your Mama Day”.

If you still have your mama, go see her or call her and catch up over cake!

If your mama is in heaven like mine, sit with someone you love and let love lead your reminiscing or just your making time to be together.

Whatever you plans today, make time for cake!

Then share the love and yumminess of your day!!!

Yay for cake!

#cakewithyourmamaday