hope

Inward, 40 Days

Abuse Survivor, Angels, birds, bravery, contentment, courage, Easter, Forgiveness, freedom, hope, kindness, Lent, memoir, Peace, Redemption, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

Every day this week, the robins have said “Good Morning.” As if they are thrilled to see me return, they fly from the cedar tree to the oaks and back again, as if announcing, “She’s here, she’s here, come and see!”

And I pause before entering my office door, I pause in the parking lot longing to discern their meaning, their message, being so captivated by them there.

I heard a podcast speaking of change in habits, change in mindset and how most of us make it about four days.

Good morning Day 4 of 40 and my observation of Lent!

Someone chuckled when I announced my decision to fast, added we’re not Catholic or Episcopalian or anything like that.

She watched as I chose water over wine.

Had little to say when I told her I had to choose my favorite indulgence, my favorite reward or as we both know so very well because I used to belt the lyrics loud in my powerfully independent voice,

My favorite mistake.

My girl grew up on the anthems of Sheryl Crow.

So, we continued as I shared with her why I chose my indulgent red wine in the pretty stemless glass that my hand hurried home to cup after life and work had worked my nerves and took from me more than I had to give.

How could I not choose to give up the thing that I decided was my worthy reward, my justified balm for my weary soul?

How could I not sacrifice in an effort to find perhaps the true balm that was being perhaps, ignored?

For some it’s social media, others it is sugar or bread or chocolate or maybe stronger drink, intoxicating the heart and mind.

For me it could have easily been Instagram or peanut butter.

Because, I’ve taken to peanut butter in excess again.

Made up for the break from red wine by mindlessly cleaning out the jar of especially crunchy and sweet salty amber colored cream while waiting for dinner to be done.

Then I had my dinner with water in the wine glass and I was satisfied until it came time for something more…my pattern, I am learning.

So again I go to the kitchen and I finish off the chocolate almond Halo Top that boasts of being harmless.

The wine stayed corked in the cabinet and I began to learn what I know now.

I look for reward in things outside of myself to be told that I am enough and when I feel unnoticed, I indulge in the first “good” thing I can get my hands on that is waiting there for me.

To burst through the back door, tell my husband it was a horrible day and reach for my reward.

Maybe three days in, I’m learning already about that “heart shaped hole” people speak of that we try to fill.

The place of our souls where Jesus wants to be enough.

Maybe by day ten I will have fully exhausted all of my immediately gratifying rewards and I’ll sit with Jesus and myself just quietly.

Maybe I will be filled not from the immediate things I seek to gratify me, food, drink, a device in my hand or a reader that likes me and says “you’re good”.

Maybe my needs will be less and my soul’s wants, becoming more will be seen more clearly.

They’ve been so fully met all along.

What you need has always been here.

I chose to fast from red wine for 40 days for two reasons, one of them selfish, I admit.

I see it as sort of a spiritual experiment. I am curious to see how my faith will change, what I will hear and see more clearly.

How I will know myself and God when I surrender intentionally.

The other reason as I told my young assistant when she, seeing all the conflict of work these days announced…”Oh wow, you really chose wine?”

Women and wine, it’s obviously a thing.

To which I answered.

How could I not sacrifice something that will be hard when Jesus died for me…sacrificed His life on the cross for me?

She smiled sweetly.

So, Lent for this not churched that way poor country girl, I am learning and I am allowing your lessons.

It may be more than wine as the wind down “waiting to comfort me reward” that’s been buffering God’s voice.

It may be that and other things I am only just beginning to hear.

It may be finally that all the mistakes I casually named my favorites because you don’t tell your little daughter dancing in the kitchen about your shame.

You masquerade your shame with reckless sometimes funny mommy behaviors.

It may be that three days in,

I am at last understanding

and embracing

forgiveness.

It will be joy for me, fully believing.

It will be like resurrection morning!

Last night, I drafted a post about the robins, deleted and started over three times. Went to bed thinking, well I don’t know why…but, I may be losing my writing voice. It seemed so unnecessary, for me to tell again about my love of a bird.

So, I woke and I journaled and I decided to be brave and share my choice for Lent. Like most writing, the words just came. And it is about me; but, it may be for someone else, God said. “It is my will that you be brave.

It’s your part to be real at the risk of being ridiculed, this is what you should surrender, your fear of being shamed and allow your truth to go the places I say, Lisa Anne.”

About forgiveness I’m learning more every day, every new day I am becoming more free.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

‭‭John‬ ‭3:16-17‬ ‭ESV‬‬

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.

Beautiful Things

Angels, birds, contentment, courage, grace, hope, obedience, rest, Stillness, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

Home too late for walking so I peddled as hard as I could and my arms worked hard, push, pull, push, pull.

The garage was dark and the airdyne was rusty.

I was hissy fit angry over something someone said and my litany of why was wasted on my husband.

Podcast tried to school me on something, I don’t know.

I stared towards nothing

peddling and pushing and pulling.

Until the fuschia caught my eye.

The crepe myrtle puffs of bloom bursting through.

Better

and life, my life I decide is beautiful.

He makes beautiful things.

He makes beautiful things out of us.

“You better?” my husband asks as I come through the door.

“Yes, I am.”

Telling myself,

He knows.

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

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.

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.

Trying to Swim

Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, confidence, courage, doubt, grace, hope, Labradors, memoir, mercy, obedience, painting, Prayer, Redemption, Teaching, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

Colt’s first glimpse of the ocean, photo LT

I have an unfulfilled desire to be a swimmer, strong and freeing I long to be the one swimming laps at end of the day in our pool.

I long to be a singer too, one of those people with no concern over those around me or before me, just belting out a lyric from the bottom of my belly and resting my hand at my heart as I am fulfilled in the joy from within.

I’ve heard both are possible, with training and time and I tell myself it’s surely a crazy desire, Lisa Anne.

Clearly, you have more than enough on your plate! I’ll stick with art and words for now, come June I may try swimming again. I will.

Two things are pending, waiting for me to take a grand plunge and with time and training get them just right this time.

I won’t grow if I don’t continue to try. This one thing I do know.

I am the most ill equipped marketer when it comes to marketing me.

I’m embarrassed to ask for help and I get all bent out of shape when I believe people can’t believe I cannot figure it out on my own.

This is my perception.

When it comes to confidence in myself in this area I have none.

But, I am committed to trying.

I will update my blog today or tomorrow, keep my name on the front end, the uncomfortable place that says find her, read her words, and I’m adding a Sunday evening newsletter to all who want to hear my thoughts at end of the day, the end of a week. I know what I want to call it and I feel God leading me to what he wants me to say.

I may change my confidence, it may not say “quiet” or “confidence” at all.

I just need to continue. It may say continue.

I’ve deleted my art page. It had only three followers 😊 and I’ll incorporate hopefully a more professional look with links to connect interested buyers.

Yes, today I will begin, hopefully be complete by tomorrow.

I get confused over confidence the more I travel this writing and painting road. I make it bigger than it is, the challenge of trying and then following where God wants it to go.

Look it up, the dictionary says confidence depends on ourselves.

That can’t be so.

If it’s all me it becomes either reward or rejection and it goes back to being all about me, chubby little brown haired girl longing to be noticed.

I love the words to this song that keeps circling back to find me:

In Over my Head

Whether I sink, whether I swim 
Oh it makes no difference when I’m beautifully in over my head…Jenn Johnson

A song about abandoning fears and longing to see just how far we can go when we believe and allow God to lead.

Continue and believe.

Paul met Jesus and he knew where his life would go. Absolutely and unwaveringly he acknowledged his fear, his failures, his past violent offenses and he kept on, kept on walking the way He was called.

I don’t believe any of us should go through life without coming to a point where all we truly want to know is

God, where do you want me to go?

“Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4:1‬ ‭NLT‬‬

May my efforts be worthy of what continues to feel like my calling.

I’ve written for more than five minutes as I am inclined to do. But, these are my thoughts on confidence and I’ll share with others here:

FMF -Confidence

Wash Your Hair! an Early Story

birds, confidence, contentment, grace, happy, hope, memoir, praise, Redemption, Uncategorized, Unity, Vulnerability, wonder

It was early and I had a plan.

“What is wrong with my hair?” I demanded to me in the mirror, nobody else there!

I’d been mistaken for old enough for the 60 senior grocery store discount and I still can’t decide if I looked that crazy or just that worn out.

I mean, I chatted with the young man about how sweet it was to see all the men putting so much thought into Valentines flowers. He smiled. I thought he was agreeing.

Now, I know he must’ve been reminded of his grandma, he was thinking in a sweet grandson kinda way about me.

Am I becoming a crazy old lady?

That must’ve been it, I sounded like a sweet little old lady, crazy and sweet.

I should’ve said yes, I mean I could’ve used the discount considering all my little “Valentine fairy” treats I had for grown ups and for Colton Dixon aka the “living the life, Charleston dog”!

But, on the morning of Valentines Day I had a good plan.

And it was early.

I got up and got moving.

I didn’t sit with my coffee, my words, my not a single sound space but birds waking up to sing so I’d notice God there.

I looked for something red to wear then settled on black then tossed that aside for pink and then blue then back to black.

All black. Monochrome mood, I can’t help it, that’s just me, always been, not geriatric, just me.

I downloaded the app for Chick-Fil A, that was the plan, surprise my staff with heart shaped biscuits.

Completed the order, added my card, got in the shower and planned I’ll press “complete” when I get in the car and pick up on the way to work, get there on time today!

It was early! All was looking okay.

Hot shower running and a song in the steamy room, I lathered up my hair and the phone interrupted my flow.

I stepped from the shower to see what was the matter.

It was an emergency, a friend of my admin’s had an emergency and she wanted to tell me about it and asked me to pray.

Oh, okay.

So, wrapped in a towel I went to my room and knelt by my bed and prayed.

Returned to the bathroom, scattered stuff all over the counter and the biscuits were still waiting, still waiting for me there.

So, I hurried to get my black sweater fluffing from the dryer but got sidetracked by white roses in a red vase and a hot pink card with my name written fancy with little curlicues at the corners.

Like a teenage boy putting extra time in to make it so cute.

I smiled, read my card, moved the vase of flowers to a pretty place, my morning place.

It was early! I was still doing okay.

I applied my make up, penciled in my brows in the space there are now only remembrances of hair.

Added mascara to thin lashes and considered more blush and lipstick a hint of more red.

Then began the process with product to make the best of my thinning hair…but, it wasn’t like it should be, no volume could be created, no curve around my cheek and no lift at all on top at the crown.

That’s when I shouted to nobody there,

What is wrong with my hair?

when nobody answered, I remembered, you forgot to finish, you didn’t rinse.

And I had begun early, for once I was early!

I cancelled the biscuit order, took off my jewelry and rewashed my hair.

We laughed so hard when I told them, I tried y’all I had the best intentions and I pointed towards heaven more than twice or three times to tell the truth.

It was early!

I just forgot to wash my hair.

Now I’m laughing to myself, Hmmmm…were they laughing over my crazy lady story or laughing over my insisting it was early?

Get yourself some employees and friends who know you and love you and more than just a few times.

Believe you when you tell them it was early and even if they don’t believe you because they know you so well, they still laugh with you.

And they always, always show you grace!

This one’s for you ‘Chelle!

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

Grace, Hold my Hand

Abuse Survivor, Angels, Art, courage, grace, hope, memoir, mercy, surrender, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

“…let not your hearts faint, fear not, and do not tremble, neither be ye terrified because of them;”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭20:3‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Sometimes I think of Jesus being next to me there, wherever there might be.

I think of my hand held still by my side, Him holding it to keep me from being overly talkative, “talking too much with my hands”.

I think of my mornings when things make more sense and I sense His presence as if the chair next to me that rarely seats a soul, might be Him with me, He might be seated there.

I think of the way I believe in angels now. Until I began to paint them were so insignificant, were not reality for me.

The same God in that childhood church that confused me, made me believe, for me He just wasn’t there, is the one who is ecstatic now over me, ecstatic that I am understanding grace and mercy and that I believe!

Lord, what is my place in this, what is my role in this time, this question of staying in my place or climbing carefully to higher places knowing you will not let me fall?

And what should be my response if I am to put one foot in front of the other and then am unable to move on, overwhelmed by the fear of being farther than before?

Asking myself why on earth did I climb way up here, how embarrassing that I can’t move because I’m worried I’m going to fall.

Yesterday, I thought of grace. I saw it on another’s face and I felt it when I stood behind a podium and my voice, I sensed was making waves like the threat of undercurrent, a dangerously coming high tide.

I initially called it nerves.

I’d been sitting and waiting for my name to be called to stand and to speak, to make a plea for our cause.

I told myself on the drive over, this is important, this is so important and then decided on it being for less and yet, so much more.

Told myself, this is for the children.

The children labeled homeless.

The matter was important. I took my notes and laid them there, all numbered in sequence to refer to, only seven points.

My nerves, I decided were passion.

Although I did not realize it then.

I paid no attention to my notes.

I spoke from a place, it must have been trust. I do not know what the outcome will be. I find it so “un-me” when it comes to asking for money.

I do know I felt it.

I felt God’s grace.

A humble and quiet chubby girl, a poor child faced a room filled with philanthropist women.

And she spoke. She was able to stand and she spoke.

Grace doesn’t promise winning proposals or submissions.

It does say “Try, I will be with you.”

And it silences the voices that say you don’t belong.

Grace reminds of God’s favor while unconditionally insisting that some fears might not go away, but try…

Grace says try.

It is both necessary and unnecessary in that we must embrace it and surely we must remember it did not and does not have to be given.

It is not necessary.

But, it is good.

It is good that His grace always stays.

Imploring us to new places and making new spaces we will walk in and can be sure they are wide, so very wide it is impossible for us to fall!

But, to try.

Try.

Try because well, grace is waiting to remind us, try.