Sweet boy startled for some reason around 8 and began to cry.
Really cry.
Upset.
Grandma tried to let him have the infant resolve to resolve his fear or big emotion.
I caved.
We sat together after the sweetness of a sway that became a firm embrace and he was awake and it seemed thinking until I laid his little body back down.
Sleep continued until 6:13.
He woke happy, ready for the day.
Still dark outside, we walked about the house, down the hall, to the kitchen and with one hand clutching coffee and the other balancing baby, we decided to say good morning to the day.
I walked into the twilight, looked up and said, “Look, Henry, a morning moon just for us.”
Soft peaks of clouds broken and scattered and in the center filtered through the shifting, a very bright little moon.
And I was awed in a sort of tiny way when I thought about the serendipity type occurrence.
Sovereign God knows me so very well.
Knew the baby and I would walk into the dark of a Saturday morning and I would glance up and stand still until my glancing became a soul tending gaze.
Henry mirroring my face towards heaven.
This 31 days of good is I’m afraid not keeping its promise for light and “less, Lisa”.
Still, today very, very early, there was this moon and because I believe in a God who is very near, not at all far away.
My good thing today is the miraculously unable to comprehend, only celebrate.
Sovereignty,
the God who designed the riddle of me, being sovereign over me.
Singing like a whisper.
I painted today, covered over another abstract and just let it be and not be until it told the story I was holding.
Surprised by a sky striped pink on an unnecessarily early rising morning.
Coffee in hand, I tiptoed out into the misty air and watched it change, go away, fade just as quickly as I glimpsed it and decided to chase it, keep it somehow longer.
Just a moment, a moment later and I’d have missed it completely.
Cherish some small quickly fading thing today.
Like the splendor of a sunrise, the wisdom of an ancient “preacher”, the author of Ecclesiastes.
“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
I hurried out to give my daughter her daughter’s forgotten water bottle.
“She wants to tell you something”, my daughter said.
And with a bit of timid and hopeful whisper of surprising me, she said
“I gave you something, a gumball and a frog.”
On the hood of my car in the mist of Monday morning, smack dab in the center, a tiny green frog for her baby brother and for me, a seed pod from a tree, “gumballs” we call them.
Gifts.
I brought them inside, laid them on the counter, gifts for keeping.
I have been given an abundance of many such treasures.
Feathers, pebbles, sketches, smiles, kisses and walks on October mornings.
“…Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint… Isaiah 7:4 ESV
Of all the seasons, Fall feels most like either a resistance to or a gentle walk with open hearts and hands into new.
Fresh wind, fresh chances to let things die (finally) and wait for new after the coming Winter, uncertainty of hard and cold.
Waiting requires hope and hope never disappoints. An open heart, hands opened to let God handle what you’ve been clenching way too long.
The leaves are loosened from the trees, their dance is light and free, letting go with glee. There’s a metaphor here, a message for me maybe you, indeed.
Open hands, open heart, thriving souls.
I plant tiny and tender violas, the most fragile of petals and yet they survive the change, the wind, the cooler and brittle air.
Precious flowers, every year planted to sort of honor my grandmother and to tangibly decide to believe,
Hope won’t put me to shame.
Hope never disappoints.
Hope is soft, a demeanor of belief, whereas as dread, fear, speculation or defeat offer nothing at all,
only take and tie up our precious souls, leave us to decide we’re worthless, discarded, without hope.
Choose to hope.
“Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.” Proverbs 23:18 ESV
This cross on canvas was added to my website on Monday. It’s 5×7, small enough for a shelf or side table. Beside it is an old ceramic rooster. I don’t know if I collected it or inherited it from my mama.
There’s a basket full of beach shells and a jar filled with goose feathers from “Aunt Boo’s”. The antique dry sink was Greg’s mama’s.
When I pass by in my coming or going, my eye meets the cross and I pause if only for a second. I am just passing by, passing through, heading to the laundry room or out the door for the day.
Yesterday, I looked through the verses I chose for the 2024 calendar. I found the one I’d pulled from the passage about the woman at the well.
I especially rested on a few words. “he had to pass through”.
“And he had to pass through Samaria.” John 4:4 ESV
Traveling alone, walking from Judea to Galilee, he sat down to rest beside a well.
And a woman with a sordid past met Him, He met her there.
I think that’s what this cross and all the crosses signify for me and I pray for the ones who have one for themselves or have gifted them.
When they pass by and glance for a second, I hope they know, sense, and remember, Jesus meeting them there.
Holy Spirit whispering, all will be well.
John included this brief story of lasting significance in his recordings of all of Jesus’s healing, all of his many experiences with Jesus. He included for, centuries later, women like me who are reminded and receive new mercies every moment because of its significance.
Your personal story of being met by Jesus matters. Treasure it. Cleave to it. Strengthen it.
But, don’t keep it to yourself. There are many people in need of it, of being quenched by living water, freely offered no matter the present or past.
Mingled in a dream that included family at the beach as well as unfamiliar children asking to play on a trampoline, I am recalling “Psalm 90”.
The Spirit of God interspersed just that in a dream that included my mama being a given a healing prognosis, “Now, you’ll have a chance to really live!”
Maybe it was the beautiful and educational sermon on Sunday on heaven.
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Psalm 90:2 ESV
Maybe it was the call from “Aunt Boo” my mama’s sister. She talked about crocheting. Maybe I tucked away the visual of her teaching my mama, the memory of their back and to sister chatter.
Who knows? Around 3, I woke and tossed and then recited mentally, over and over, Psalm 23.
Imperfectly still, after all these years of using this chapter to calm me. For some reason, portions and not the entire Psalm linger longer than others and I drift off to sleep.
Note the commentary
All my days have been a meandering sort of trail. A pause to consider, I’ve been in the darkness, I’ve lived in the dread, I’ve found myself off course because of conflict or circumstance.
David knew. He did too.
And so, his words aren’t ones of a perfect follower. Instead, a perfect “returner” to the place where he and God dwell together safely.
I used to believe “all the days of my life” meant the actual dwelling place of Jesus…heaven.
Again, instead…David is acknowledging and giving us permission to acknowledge the beauty we can claim as our own here…
As long as my lungs are providing me with breath and my heart is beating…I am dwelling with God, and He with me.
We are together.
I am known. I am seen.
I am invited to keep returning to rest.
Why Psalm 90 mixed in with a captivating dream of life getting another chance for my mama?
Psalm 90 is one penned by Moses.
It opens with this.
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Psalm 90:1 ESV
There were other people in the big bright room with my mama, not just my brothers and sister. My children were there too.
Psalm 90 closes with an acknowledgement of what had not and has not been without affliction. Moses offers us his prayer back then as a promise and prayer we can choose today.
“Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” Psalm 90:15-17 ESV
“Favor” here meaning “beauty”.
Return to beauty today.
Embrace grace. More than you expected, the grace you’ve been shown.
The grace that you know.
Continue and believe.
Dwell in peace.
“Now you can begin to live”, the words promised to my mama in my dream.
I wondered as I refreshed my memory on the prophet Jeremiah, why he’d been marked with the identity of the “weeping prophet”.
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13 ESV
His call was to restore the people he loved to a relationship with God the creator rather than pursuit of other gods and things.
He wasn’t very successful. His success was committed obedience regardless.
Strange Waking Words
Jeremiah asks, “Is there no physician there? Is there no balm in Gilead…why then has the health of my people not been restored?” (Jeremiah 8:18-22)
On Tuesday morning, God woke me with a promise, “there is a balm in Gilead”.
A lingering cough and congestion with no other symptoms caused me to decide I’m getting older and I just don’t bounce back as quickly. Still, it was strange to wake with that very first thought.
Clearly, my heart was in need as well as my body.
Still, strange if it’s difficult to believe what you can’t see…that Jesus lives within us, the Holy Spirit…the comforter.
So, to be told, “Lisa, there is a balm in Gilead.” (just that clearly) was to remind me of the Healer of all my wounds, those already well and those in the process of true wellness.
I had no idea. I understand balm as sort of a salve like Neosporin but no clue about Gilead.
I discovered there’s no verse with this promise, only one that questioned why wasn’t there, why was there no balm?
And old hymn came from this same wondering of someone long ago…
“There Is A Balm In Gilead”
Traditional Spiritual
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. Sometimes I feel discouraged and think my work’s in vain, but then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again. There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, there is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. If you cannot preach like Peter, if you cannot pray like Paul, you can tell the love of Jesus and say, “He died for all.”
So, I sketched a wounded and contemplative woman in the margin, the words alongside her…There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole.
Lord, I was near enough to your heart to hear this the other morning. Draw me nearer, I pray. Help me to be a seeker.
Jeremiah penned the verses adorning well wishing cards at graduation, the ones that proclaim we all have a purpose and I wonder; actually, I believe he questioned his purpose when it didn’t pan out, when it seemed it nor he made a difference in his calling.
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 ESV
There’s not always a straight path, life circumvents what we hoped would be our future or at least would give us hope.
Jeremiah wondered why there was no healing, no physician, no balm in Gilead and centuries later, someone penned the words to a hymn that promised healing, one that said, there wasn’t a balm then; but, then came Jesus.
And Jesus woke with me the words to that very song.
I had a dream that felt sort of silly. The blip of remembering was simple, I looked in the mirror and saw myself having a day of “good hair”.
My hair is super thin and greying. My hair and I have always had an unhappy relationship.
What an odd dream, likely birthed from two conversations.
The first, a fun exchange, the second an honest answer.
I arrived early for my appointment with the doctor. I had my information and privacy forms completed in advance. The receptionist sort of celebrated that and smiled.
“I need an insurance card and her I.D.” she added. I provided both and she said…
“Tell her to have a seat and we’ll call in a few minutes.” One last question,
“Does she have an emergency contact, is it you?”
I answered yes and sat back down.
In a minute or two, I went back to the counter and in a sort of hushed tone I said…
“I’m Lisa.” And she was clearly puzzled.
I added quietly still, “You said “she” and “her” and I’m just curious why…is this a new protocol?”
And then to my surprise, she raised her eyebrows and mouthed an “Oh”.
She didn’t think I was the patient, she did not think I was 63 years old.
We both smiled and continued to chat about age and wrinkles and I told her so excitedly, she had “made my day”.
To know that I had been seen in a different way was the sweetest thing.
The kindest conversation.
Not like one that questions your age in a flattering way; no, one with sincere surprise that I was the patient, not the companion to an elderly parent.
“Lisa” they called and I was escorted to the scales. I slipped my shoes off, had to step off and on twice, the nurse said the scales were “being difficult”.
Mismatch Socks
I acknowledged the seemingly unchangeable number was the same at home and casually said, “Good to know.”
And I had my check-up, scheduled another and went on with my day.
I bought a new bathing suit, one size smaller but seemed it may fit, lined in lavender and covered with painterly abstract flowers.
It was a bargain, really pretty.
Bought groceries, caught up with a friend and her husband who are grandparents to their second, a two-week old.
Then home to cook supper.
Decided to ask my husband a question, a sort of curiously brave wondering.
Not sure why, he’s super late to the game and needed a little education, but he decided to create a Facebook profile.
Now, he’s all in.
I warned him, it’ll draw you in. It seems he’s reviewed as far back as a few years ago, all of my posts, all of my content.
No worries, he’s often read this blog and he knows I can be a little deep, sometimes pitiful and I hope, always honest.
He mentioned a particular post of him recording a little song for one of our granddaughters on her little karaoke toy.
It was sweet. It was a few years ago.
Knowing he was familiar with my Facebook presence, I asked
“I post a lot about my faith, my struggles, my hopes, my learning to trust…The things I post are mostly about faith.
When you read those things, do you say to yourself, they don’t know the real Lisa, or she’s not really that way?”
Brave, right?
He answered, “No, not at all. It’s good that you’re that way. It’s good.”
Grace, right?
Just last night, I complained about something trivial and apologized for being “hateful” right away.
And last week, I came clean about my in general self-centeredness. The me that had become miserable and often, mean.
I’m learning to catch it quickly, see it for what it is, the enemy trying to taint the essence of me so that my light is too dim for others to see,
my story fading back to grim rather than walking towards the brilliance of light and living water worth sharing.
Healing from old mindsets is not a snap of the finger,
(I hope you know that)
It is a choice to choose the work of being a participant in healing, not a parader of our trauma as a reason to be hopeless or an excuse to be hateful, the darker side of you enveloping you.
A meal, a sort of gesture
When I bought groceries on the day my age was mistaken, I had in mind a gesture.
I cooked a meal for my daughter’s family, the meal (one of them) my mama was famous for.
My grandson and I sampled it.
It was lovely.
It was a small thing.
It came from that reservoir of grace God placed in my soul, the bubbling brook of mercy I don’t deserve, and the meandering path of my beautiful inheritance through salvation that I sometimes veer from because I get caught up in the before of me rather than the moment, the day.
And I find myself by the slightest ugly little pull, questioning the details of my life and I focus on what I don’t want to accept, the dark days of me and I’m prone to plop down in that dark dank place of not remembering good, only horrific
until I pray and count the gifts of today.
And I walk in the light, the place where my story, the lightness of it may give a little light to others on my way. And I notice and cherish unexpected light that came my way.
I felt old, a stranger blessed my day.
I felt hopelessly overweight, I was met by my own acceptance and a bathing suit that fit.
I felt ashamed of my self-centeredness. I apologized quickly and I cooked a meal with a nine-month old playing “drums” with a spoon at my feet.
All of my life, I have been loved.
I’ve often slipped and come close to falling.
I’ve been kept.
This is my story.
“The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.” Psalm 121:5 ESV
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 