family

Distance and Love

Abuse Survivor, Art, birthday, bravery, courage, creativity, curiousity, Faith, family, Forgiveness, Holy Spirit, jubilee, memoir, patience, Peace, Redemption, rest, Vulnerability, wonder

I saw the man again on Monday but, yesterday I wasn’t paying attention. I neglected to glance over to find the front yard of the trailer hidden in a shady hollow place.

Overgrown it was the day I saw the pair standing so far apart they would need to raise their voices.

The grass was high like wheat and a man with a flock of blonde hair all crazy stood with his hands crossed and a positioning of his torso saying “I ain’t staying much longer.”

Facing him was another man, his head tilted to one side in a way that said sincerity.

I wondered about the relationship.

Father, step-father, mama’s friend, uncle or older brother.

I wondered who had caused the crack in relationship and who was resisting more the reconciliation of it.

I also wonder why I wonder. Why I see humans in conditions that are fragile and why God made me to want those conditions to be better.

I know God made me this way and somehow I know the intervening is not for me to accomplish, only God.

So, I pray for strangers. I just do.

And I think about them. I still pause to consider.

“What’s their story?”

I woke with thoughts about love this morning, about the importance of “for my part” demonstrating love.

Love that doesn’t put us in danger of emotional harm is just a positioning of our hearts and mind, we can stay safe in showing love when it’s hard by just deciding we want restoration for someone, we want them to know they are loved by their Creator and if they’ll allow it, by others too.

“Relationship, especially family, requires a commitment to relationship despite differences, dysfunction, and most importantly delays in the other person longing in the same way for relationship.”

I laid still in the place of very good and needed rest and questioned why these words came.

I figured it must be that I’m still curious about the family in the overgrown yard.

I saw the older man a second time. Tall and skinny, a bearded man with baggy britches and an oddly colored pipe dangling from his mouth.

He was swaying in a rhythm with a weed eater as he cleared and cleaned the high grass and weeds.

He was making the situation better.

There was contentment in his movements.

Maybe in the knowledge that he tried and is trying. So, I’ll drive past the place of these two people again next week and I’ll believe the best is being done to restore what’s been neglected or wronged.

And I’ll believe more strongly in the truth of love being demonstrated in small ways to invite change (even if we don’t get to see it).

Because, it’s not about us anyway, it’s about the one who’s messed up and in need of love believing it may be possible…

Restoration.

“God is a restorative God. He is restoring all losses.” John Eldredge, author of “Get Your Life Back”

Continue and believe.

“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”
‭‭1 Peter‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I discovered yesterday that 2023 marks a “Jubilee” year for me as I approach my birthday. It’s surprisingly tender, this discovery…almost too difficult to put into words. Maybe I will, maybe I’ll just rest in the discovery of a year symbolic of release and restoration.

There are no coincidences with God.

Light and Quiet Peace

Abuse Survivor, Angels, bravery, courage, daughters, Faith, family, grandchildren, memoir, patience, Peace, Redemption, Stillness, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder

“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life…”I Thessalonians 4:7

Peace

A slender gentleman, likely in his 80’s, glanced my way and offered me his spot in the checkout line.

Ninety plus degrees outside and I notice his soft sweatshirt hoodie was all the way zipped and baggy around his crisp but loose khakis.

Hardly a wrinkle in his thin face, I noticed as he smiled sweetly and asked again if I’d like his spot in the long line at Publix on senior citizen day.

He began to talk about kindness and how we need a resurgence of it. He moved on to politicians and I did my best to lead him back to kindness, respectfully agreeing with him that misuse of money or promises of wealth made by politicians isn’t what this country needs.

I believe he said what we need and I drifted in thought because I’m not one to engage in a discussion over the next potential President.

I’m not smart that way nor interested in debate.

Lines moved and he moved forward. I left my cart and went to tell him

“We keep our light and peace so that others get a little light when they’re near us.” LT

He smiled and added, “Seeing you blessed me today.” I replied, “and you for me.”

He paused to talk to another cashier, pushed his groceries past the exit to chat and lingered. I found my car and loaded my bags and turned to head home to see him engaged in another chat with a man gathering buggies.

I hoped they weren’t annoyed, the others like me interrupted by the kindness of this gentle man who spoke softly about life.

Who brought light and peace and just a hint of politics wrapped in age and wisdom.

This morning, I’m remembering a conversation about my father, about the longing for him to have lived longer.

Somehow I know God told the man in Publix to notice me, to take a chance on a grocery store conversation.

To gift my afternoon an encounter of peace.

To send an angel dressed in baggy but crisply ironed khakis, a thin face like my daddy’s and the same hair, only gray.

You are loved. Continue and believe.

How We Answer

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, curiousity, Faith, family, hope, love, memoir, mercy, Peace, Redemption, Salvation, testimony, Trust, Truth, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder, writing

“Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
‭‭John‬ ‭4‬:‭26‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I sketched a thin woman in a scarlet gown in the margin of John, chapter 5, page 893. I found her flipping through to reread the account of the Samaritan woman who was avoiding the crowds to draw water at the well.

She met Jesus.

Living Water

These pages don’t tell her story, only have the recorded words of Jesus talking about living water, a life without thirst, a limitless provision.

“On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’”
‭‭John‬ ‭7‬:‭37‬-‭38‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Yesterday, I had a moment that led to chills up my legs and over my entire body. I sensed the truth of my physical reaction. I paused to accept it and allowed a tiny bit of wetness on my cheeks.

My college roommate for just a year, now a successful business woman who I’ve not seen nor spoken to in over forty years, commented on a Facebook photo of my granddaughter.

The thought that came was sudden.

“She needs to know how I came to be okay.”

She needs for me to keep sharing my story.

She needs to know how I moved from hopelessness to hope.

The Woman at the Well went into the town nearby and told everybody that she’d met the man who knew everything about her, told her all he knew and gave her hope, living water.

I find myself wanting to read more of her story.

I long for the next chapters in her life to be in my Bible, her walk forward with Jesus.

I want to know if it was shaky, her faith. I long to hear from her through John, Luke or Mark, her battles, her returning to life with the reputation she’d created.

I wonder if we don’t read about the other “chapters” in her life and others’ because God feels they wouldn’t serve us well, wouldn’t offer others that same water of hope.

I wonder if others wonder such things.

When the Samaritan woman returned to her day to day, possibly less enthused about her encounter with Jesus, was she met with disbelief, with sarcasm, with scorn?

I’d like to know what all the ex-husbands and ex-lovers as well as those who thought they might get the chance to be her lover had to say.

Was it hard for her to see herself differently than what she’d come to be known for?

Was her salvation just a fluke? Did she struggle with doubt?

Maybe.

After all, she was human as were all the humans healed by Jesus.

She had emotions.

I believe she held on tightly to the simplest of words.

“I met Jesus.”

We read that she changed the lives of many Samaritans that day.

But, we don’t read how she walked into her new future day to day.

Maybe there’s just not enough space to record all the ways Jesus continued to help her, how she continued to remind herself of the day at the well, how she hurried to tell everyone.

I have hope now. I am well.

I used to believe I’d always answer the question of why I believe in Jesus by telling of all the answered prayers I have experienced.

Now, it’s in the stories of others, in my story, in the unexpected and beautiful nudges that say I matter…

the woman you became despite the little girl and young woman, growing older woman, often imperfect that you’re becoming.

The entirety of you, your story matters.

“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.”
‭‭John‬ ‭21‬:‭25‬ ‭ESV‬‬

There’s still plenty of time and space to share it.

Continue.

Continue and believe.

And if you’ve not yet believed or your belief is fading or shaky.

I’d love to pose a question.

How might your life be different if you decided to believe and believe in Jesus.

He giveth more grace.

I am evidence of that.

Older Now

Abuse Survivor, anxiety, bravery, Children, contentment, courage, Faith, family, fear, hope, memoir, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, Trust, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, wonder

When my granddaughter balanced on the highest beams and danced on the lofty walls up the playground equipment, I imagined her losing her footing. I was ready to drop all my stuff and catch her. Instead, she offered joy. She shared her confidence with me.

She demonstrated faith in herself and faith in me and reminded me of God that she sees, clearly more clearly than me.

“I’m older now. I can do this.” ELB

When I read about the man who was blind I can’t help but see a boy. I don’t know why.

“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”
‭‭John‬ ‭9‬:‭1‬-‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Jesus is saying exactly what he means.

As God’s Son, the “light of the world”, it was God’s plan that this man, blind from birth would have an encounter with Jesus and be healed. That he would follow the “doctor’s orders” and go to a pool called Siloam and put muddy water on his eyes.

This man, a beggar before this day, all on his own with no hope for better and no hope on the part of his parents.

He was healed and everybody thought it was impossible. So they refuted, doubted, questioned the simplicity of it.

And he told all the protesters of his sudden sight recovery that he didn’t fully understand either. He just knew he could see them.

In the margin of my Bible I have written,

Can it really be true? I am healed?

The next chapter over, John details the story of the death of Lazarus and of the way Jesus tarried in attending to his friend.

When Mary and Martha, who were friends of Jesus, worshippers of him, came to tell him about their brother, he didn’t immediately go to see about him…he waited two days.

What was he thinking? Isn’t Lazarus dead? What is the reason you’re not hurrying to heal this man, your friend…don’t you love this whole family, Jesus?

Valid questions.

Jesus told the disciples essentially, I know what I’m doing…you will see.

“Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
‭‭John‬ ‭11‬:‭14‬-‭15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

When Jesus saw for himself, he wept.

“Jesus wept.”
‭‭John‬ ‭11‬:‭35‬ ‭ESV‬‬

As the Son of God, he was broken over the death and yet, He knew God’s intention. This death and resurrection will be recorded. It will make a difference in the lives of others.

It will help others make sense of their own unattended to and lingering sickness of heart, mind and body.

When Jesus says “this illness (trauma, circumstance, abuse, neglect, poverty, anxiety, fear, addiction or unmet longing) will not lead to death, he’s not saying it won’t be difficult, He is saying, if you will allow me to enlighten you, to heal you.

You will be light for others.”

And that is the why, the worth, the reason for suffering.

So that we grow into who God knows we are, that we are resurrected from the lives of before.

That we live like a rescued adult, cushioned by grace.

No longer like that child with hurts, questions and or mistakes.

Joyously.

The intention of Jesus for you.

“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Keep going, higher than ever and with joy and hope.

Continue and believe. You are fully known and loved, have been all along.

You will see.

About Fear

Art, Children, Children’s Books, courage, creativity, Faith, family, fear, hope, Peace, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Trust, wisdom, wonder, writing
Illustrating Hope

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

A Quilt on the Grass

Children, contentment, daughters, family, grandchildren, Peace, Redemption, sons, wonder

“Childhood is a short season.” Helen Hayes

I found a photo of my daddy today. He’s a barefooted little freckle faced boy with a perfect part in his hair.

He is grinning.

He looks like me. My children look like him. I see my grandson, Henry.

I ask myself honestly, really…do I or am I hoping it could be?

Because it’s not the honor of claiming resemblance, rather it’s the purity in the pose.

The abandonment to being a child.

Today was a grandma day. While the baby napped, I sat across from my granddaughter on opposite sofas.

Captivated by “Eleanor Wonders Why”, she laid on her tummy with legs bent and feet taking turns tap-tapping on the couch.

I sat and watched her contentment and her little lying on her tummy sort of secret dance.

I paused to remember when I’d last laid on the floor or the ground like that, a motion that says I’m in my own little world and it’s so happy here.

She caught me watching, smiled and brushed wild blonde bangs from her cheek.

And I’ve been thinking all evening of the next pretty day I shall grab my grandmother’s quilt, spread on the shaded cool grass and lie on my tummy with a book or with nothing and just think, think, think as I lift my feet up and with no time to consider, just keep doing it.

Like a child,

A child again.

Resemblance

Art, Children, confidence, contentment, courage, creativity, Faith, family, grandchildren, hope, memoir, Motherhood, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder

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

Who resembles you?

Desire and Hope

Art, bravery, contentment, courage, creativity, Faith, family, hope, patience, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

“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.

Continue and believe.

You are loved.

Walking Thoughts

Abuse Survivor, Children, contentment, courage, Faith, family, grace, grandchildren, hope, memoir, mercy, obedience, Redemption, rest, Trust, Vulnerability, walking, wisdom, wonder

“Endurance is not a desperate hanging on but a traveling from strength to strength.” Eugene Peterson

Why am I less moved by the sky, the clouds fluffed or swept like a feather?

Out walking yesterday, I wondered.

Just a few years ago I was moved by gnarly branches on an old pecan tree, scattered white blooms on the asphalt trail or maybe a solitary leaf dried so completely by the sun it glistened metallic.

Noticing God, I called this.

Why so hurried in an irritable way now?

A daily habit that over time seems to be sort of furious?

Walking too fast, too angrily hurry, hurry, hurrying to some better destination.

Better days?

The place with no remnants of pandemic.

The better place, the place with no residue or remembrance of what happened or who or what didn’t come through.

Couldn’t be counted on.

On Wednesday, my path crossed a Target shopper leaving. Her phone on her cheek, she passed me, quick as a rabbit and I overheard her tell somebody “what the Republicans did today!”

And I wondered, when did we ever in our lives finish up a midweek shopping trip and urgently report to someone what a Republican did today?

A woman, about my age, distressed on a pretty day about the government.

We are different now.

I am learning.

Learning still. I can embrace a thought that now makes my response to trauma make more sense.

I can befriend these surprising revelations.

I can toss them over in my mind and see the value in finally beginning to understand my own tender heart and behaviors.

I can allow truth to make sense.

Today, the sky was striated pink and to the right rested the remnant of moon, a crescent.

I couldn’t look away.

It kept getting better.

Too splendid to capture in a photo, I stood solid footed and I watched.

Unhurried, only noticing.

Noticing God again.

Maybe that’s what obedience is and not some frenetic race to keep on, keep on, keep on.

Maybe obedience is noticing splendor, noticing God.

Knowing that where you are in this very never to be repeated moment.

You are loved.

Continue and believe.

Pass it on, this slow walk called noticing.

“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭30‬:‭21‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Walking this way again.

Noticing.

You are loved.

It’s my hope that you know this.

The Art of Cake

Art, creativity, family, happy, memoir, mixed media painting, painting, Redemption, wonder
day 6, blueberry filled cream cheese frosted cake

Simply to create, I decided to paint one thing every day and I started with cake.

No plans for the works on paper, painted with ease and allowable error and then a scribble signature, set it aside.

Creativity for the sake of creativity and I guess to spread the word about my suggestion others get creative in their own way and also, share a slice of cake or two with someone special on January 28th.

“Cake with your Mama Day”

began on a whim. I wasn’t especially sad and I’m not sure I really wanted cake. It just seemed fitting to eat cake on my mother’s birthday to make it less heavy and more happy.

My mama passed away two days before she was to turn 70 over ten years ago.

Before my daughter became a mama, we had cake one day downtown after work. It was the sweetest day.

Mama was a professional for many years and then, although not at all lucrative, she began to bake cakes for people, the lusciously decadent cakes only her family had known her for.

And something changed in her, I saw her stand before a red velvet cake about to be delivered and I saw love on her face.

Her countenance reflected the gift of being a maker of only something she could create.

Her cake business was art.

So, every year, now on the closest Saturday to January 30th, I invite others into the #cakewithyourmamaday and for the past couple of years, my dear friend Jeanne at Juniper in Ridge Spring, SC (a very cool and yummy place) joins me in promoting the celebration…the invitation to remember your mama or anyone who mama’s or has mama’d you.

Or anyone at all, together sharing.

Friends gather together and dip their forks into cake, conversations about life, love, hope and happiness happen over shared slices of cake.

Cake with Your Mama Day is more an invitation to joy than just a day of enjoying dessert.

So, if you follow me on Insta, you’ve seen I’m painting a cake a day as I’ve come to understand more why this day is special.

I believe my mama understands my desire to keep painting. She sees the sweet release achieved by making something as she saw it in her country kitchen pulling the pound cakes from the oven. She sees and is smiling down on me over a slice or two of cake.

I hope you’ll have cake on January 28th.

Share your photos with us all on #cakewithyourmamaday

Be creative.