freedom

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.

Grown and Growing

Abuse Survivor, bravery, courage, freedom, Homeless, hope, memoir, Prayer, Redemption, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

In Progress

Today a woman I love who I’d never have met were it not for my work and a shelter, a temporary home.

She stopped by with her girl who was born there, now 3.

Just stopped by to see me.

We talked about a young woman who is helping her, a beautiful girl the age of my daughter.

We both agreed. She is special.

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

‭‭Zephaniah‬ ‭3:17‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Then the woman who used to live in our shelter said, “I want to be like her when I grow up.”

I said, “me too”.

Then I told her and I meant it.

I’m not there yet either.

Not in the place of joyous all the time hope and freedom but I’m closer than I’ve ever been.

And so is she.

Then, I reached for the paper under my keyboard with Isaiah 43:19 and I told her about my Sunday, how I prayed and cried and prayed to finally believe.

I am free.

She held the little slip of paper and then said, “I hope I can remember.”

I told her to keep it.

I don’t need it.

She reached across my desk for a pen.

Then we told each other goodbye and keep praying, no stressing and don’t give up or give in.

I noticed the paper when she laid it on the table to put the jacket on her baby.

In blue ink she had added.

“Finally, free.”

Forgetting the former.

Tonight, I read just a sentence or two of someone’s blog. The idea of God being our nourishment, otherwise we’d never grow.

I thought of my existence, of my faith being like long ago designed genetics, like deep roots I’ve only just begun to allow to be fertilized.

I thought of how I am growing at a rate lately that seems to have been after a stagnant stretch of nothing happening too long.

Yet, I’ve been cared for and I’ve been attended to and now finally, I will grow, my growth is beginning to have an ease about it, a natural bloom.

Not forced.

Finally free and thus, able to grow.

Trying is Succeeding

Abuse Survivor, Angels, Art, birds, bravery, confidence, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, memoir, mercy, Redemption, Vulnerability, writing

The following was to be the launch of my newsletter. I had a very good morning and I prayed and then tried. MailChimp, you are not a friend of mine.

But nothing’s wasted, right…other than my time.

There’s a lesson here and it keeps coming back to continue and believe.

Eventually, I know I shall see. Forward not behind, I’m moving forward.

Here you go…the newsletter that wasn’t meant to be.

“Finding Your Sky” is an expression of what, for me feels like believing in possibility and considering God’s view of us and His longing for us to live not based on our “befores”. 

What if we focused on next steps rather than our stumbles from before?

Take just a second and ask yourself what you believe about redemption, about second chances, about freedom from shame over past mistakes.

Ask yourself if you believe in redemption for others but struggle to accept it consistently as mercy meant for you. 

When good things seem to be coming your way only to go another do you decide “that’s okay, I wasn’t worthy anyway?”

I did this today.  

Working on this very thing.  

Trying is succeeding, I believe, when it comes to stepping towards new things. 

I thought of all the people Jesus beckoned just to try, to pick up your mat, to step into the water, to not turn away ashamed when He knows all our sins by name. What if we held out our withered hands to touch his, to grow stronger and open to all the good He has waiting to give? 

Do you have a spark inside that feel likes what I like to call a “treasure” but you keep it close and hidden because “what will happen if I try to be something, someone other than what everyone has always known?”

Each month, on a Sunday, I’ll send out this newsletter. I’ll ask God what it is He has shown me that someone else might need to know. I’ll maybe add some art work or inspiration you can download. There will be scripture to say so much better what I am trying to say.

My prayer is to help you believe in the beauty of redemption, to have you look up to the broad sky and to be open to new things and to continue in them, to continue and believe. 


Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing: now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
Isaiah 43:18-19


This verse is marked by a sketch in the margin of my Bible.

The timing of it was beautiful, I had been talking with a therapist about my past trauma. Therapeutic insight and challenges were met by my response to her question one day,

“How will you know when it is time to stop remembering and move on from your trauma?”

Our sessions were typically visited upon by cardinals in some way and so I answered, “I’ll know when I find a redbird feather.” As crazy as that must have seemed, she accepted my remedy.

A few weeks later, I was gifted two feathers and then, in the most unexpected of places, my own backyard, I noticed one of my own.

What would prompt you to stop dwelling on your hurts and pain of before and to allow freedom to beckon you forward? 

It’s safer to stay there, in the places we know, the people that we are known to be. 

It’s gradual, this new way for me, this believing and being exhilaratingly hopeful of what might be.

Here’s the angel girl from my Bible, the one dressed in blue who is ready to believe. Maybe by March, mailing lists and newsletters, etc. will come together! My plan is to include a downloadable image, a pdf of a painting. I’ll keep trying.

I’ll 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

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

Stepping Out to Wait

book review, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, doubt, freedom, hope, memoir, mercy, obedience, Peace, praise, Redemption, surrender, Teaching, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

Thomas asked Jesus where on earth they were going and how can we get there if I don’t know the way and Jesus answered saying stay with me, go with me, I’ll show you.

I am the way, the truth,

the life. John 14: 6

Last week one gentleman told me he was proud of me for “stepping out” and that our paths may cross again. He’s a retired magazine publicist.

Another who was formerly my boss; but, always my friend listened as I shared my current “leaps of faith” and later ended his kind note with “I admire your faith.”

Both of them I sat with and shared my coming changes, my uncertainty of what will be and my peace that I am choosing rightly, to move into a new season and allow God to develop the rest of my story.

Be patient til your wings are grown. St. Francis de Sauls

Kate Motaung and Shannon Popkin have responded to the question agonized over by me and other writers hoping to gain an audience, hoping for eventual publication.

Their new book is an important one for naive and introverted women like me, ones who are known to be quiet.

Influence, Building a Platform that Elevates Jesus, Not Me

How to navigate the work of making yourself known so that others will know what you know of Jesus.

Some time ago I was on the launch team for Kate’s Book, A Place to Land, a Story of Longing and Belonging.

I knew of Kate because I participated in her 5 minute Friday link-ups as a way to conjure up words for writing and deep down inside, hope somebody, just anybody might notice me, my words.

Occasionally they did and occasionally they still do.

I’m not really the “community” type one, I keep to myself. I’m known for saying I am so tired of “peopling”.

I am believing this will be different in my new season people.

I have continued to read Kate’s work, posts and the helpful encouragement in my mailbox. She responds to my questions about writing. She responds so promptly! (Something I personally love)

I’ve gone from yearning to have a writing life similar to hers (sorry, Kate, for a little bit, I was jealous) to believing her advice and seeing I can have a writing life of my own.

Kate Motaung has influenced me.

But, back to the question over putting myself out there or just cowering in my corner hoping somehow some reader might stumble upon me, my words and pronounce me worthy of reading…

This is the imprint of my childhood. Do not ask for anything, pretend you can do life without attention or recognition, don’t seek to be noticed or noteworthy.

In a time when we are inundated with attention seekers, social media places becoming outlets and a grasping for just one other person to know, there’s new pressure of deciding to stay quiet, to stay in “our own lanes”, at least I feel it is so.

I am learning slowly, the best way, not everyone cares about what I say.

And that is okay.

Some do and tell you so, adding comments like “please don’t stop, you’re the first thing I read everyday!”.

But, the curious, voyeur-type readers of my instagram or my blog who scope me out and quietly slink away…

These are the ones that hinder me.

That cause me to question my goals.

These are the ones that read and I imagine are saying, “Why does she think she is supposed to write this way or who is she to think she has something important for others to know?”

I’m afraid these are people by whom I am personally known.

Is it this way for others? I wonder.

They’re probably just busy; but my little girl unnoticed feels insignificant so often, the imprint of insignificance trying to hold on.

Less often and increasingly so, I have readers leave comments or people who say “I needed that.” or “How did you know?”

They thank me for being brave, honest, for saying and writing about a pain they may have known or know.

These readers encourage me to continue, to grow.

To grow in ways like joining Hope*Writers, being brave enough to be with others.

To believe the words God gives me from my experiences and my perspective are mine and mine alone; but, they are words someone else may need.

That someone might have a similar heartache, a breakthrough type epiphany on grace or even may find a new way to connect with Jesus through my interpretation of a parable or passage something to which we both relate.

Kate wrote of her mother’s death.

She and I have a similar story although vastly different.

My mother passed away nine years ago yesterday. I was in a fairly new position and living two hours away. Kate was in another country, airline flights away. We both set other things aside to be with our mamas.

Gut wrenching and emergent interrupted days, we held onto the time we had left even though our hearts longed for more. For me, at least, I always longed for and thought there would be more.

I treasure our bonding through her words, her description of the drawing of her heart to be beside her mother, the angst over not being able to be constantly near and the utter helplessness and surrender to our lack of control.

The realization of this lack when I had returned home too early and I got “the call”.

Others may have read Kate’s story and gained so much more or been impacted in a different way.

That’s the power of our stories.

Today, I am trying to lean in to where God wants my writing to go.

The balance between letting go and continuing are much like my battle of being known and staying in my place.

Much like stepping out to wait.

I know that if I continue I won’t even look the same because my heart will be open to where God takes me, the story He is developing no longer hidden.

I’ll be different, I’ll be the me that God has always seen, has kept purposely through so much trauma and self-destructive “dis” grace.

My note to self of late?

Continue and Believe. me

A good starting place for a newsletter or a book title, I perceive.

For now it’s for stepping forward to see what God has for me to share and to increase my believing so that others will believe.

This, I believe, is what God means by influence.

I’m linking my thoughts up with others on this topic of thoughts and childhood labels and hindrances to pursuing platforms so that our writing voice might grow.

join in here: Thoughts on Platform Building

Thanks so much, Kate!