I hurried out to give my daughter her daughter’s forgotten water bottle.
“She wants to tell you something”, my daughter said.
And with a bit of timid and hopeful whisper of surprising me, she said
“I gave you something, a gumball and a frog.”
On the hood of my car in the mist of Monday morning, smack dab in the center, a tiny green frog for her baby brother and for me, a seed pod from a tree, “gumballs” we call them.
Gifts.
I brought them inside, laid them on the counter, gifts for keeping.
I have been given an abundance of many such treasures.
Feathers, pebbles, sketches, smiles, kisses and walks on October mornings.
“…Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint… Isaiah 7:4 ESV
Of all the seasons, Fall feels most like either a resistance to or a gentle walk with open hearts and hands into new.
Fresh wind, fresh chances to let things die (finally) and wait for new after the coming Winter, uncertainty of hard and cold.
Waiting requires hope and hope never disappoints. An open heart, hands opened to let God handle what you’ve been clenching way too long.
The leaves are loosened from the trees, their dance is light and free, letting go with glee. There’s a metaphor here, a message for me maybe you, indeed.
Open hands, open heart, thriving souls.
I plant tiny and tender violas, the most fragile of petals and yet they survive the change, the wind, the cooler and brittle air.
Precious flowers, every year planted to sort of honor my grandmother and to tangibly decide to believe,
Hope won’t put me to shame.
Hope never disappoints.
Hope is soft, a demeanor of belief, whereas as dread, fear, speculation or defeat offer nothing at all,
only take and tie up our precious souls, leave us to decide we’re worthless, discarded, without hope.
Choose to hope.
“Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.” Proverbs 23:18 ESV
This cross on canvas was added to my website on Monday. It’s 5×7, small enough for a shelf or side table. Beside it is an old ceramic rooster. I don’t know if I collected it or inherited it from my mama.
There’s a basket full of beach shells and a jar filled with goose feathers from “Aunt Boo’s”. The antique dry sink was Greg’s mama’s.
When I pass by in my coming or going, my eye meets the cross and I pause if only for a second. I am just passing by, passing through, heading to the laundry room or out the door for the day.
Yesterday, I looked through the verses I chose for the 2024 calendar. I found the one I’d pulled from the passage about the woman at the well.
I especially rested on a few words. “he had to pass through”.
“And he had to pass through Samaria.” John 4:4 ESV
Traveling alone, walking from Judea to Galilee, he sat down to rest beside a well.
And a woman with a sordid past met Him, He met her there.
I think that’s what this cross and all the crosses signify for me and I pray for the ones who have one for themselves or have gifted them.
When they pass by and glance for a second, I hope they know, sense, and remember, Jesus meeting them there.
Holy Spirit whispering, all will be well.
John included this brief story of lasting significance in his recordings of all of Jesus’s healing, all of his many experiences with Jesus. He included for, centuries later, women like me who are reminded and receive new mercies every moment because of its significance.
Your personal story of being met by Jesus matters. Treasure it. Cleave to it. Strengthen it.
But, don’t keep it to yourself. There are many people in need of it, of being quenched by living water, freely offered no matter the present or past.
Mingled in a dream that included family at the beach as well as unfamiliar children asking to play on a trampoline, I am recalling “Psalm 90”.
The Spirit of God interspersed just that in a dream that included my mama being a given a healing prognosis, “Now, you’ll have a chance to really live!”
Maybe it was the beautiful and educational sermon on Sunday on heaven.
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Psalm 90:2 ESV
Maybe it was the call from “Aunt Boo” my mama’s sister. She talked about crocheting. Maybe I tucked away the visual of her teaching my mama, the memory of their back and to sister chatter.
Who knows? Around 3, I woke and tossed and then recited mentally, over and over, Psalm 23.
Imperfectly still, after all these years of using this chapter to calm me. For some reason, portions and not the entire Psalm linger longer than others and I drift off to sleep.
Note the commentary
All my days have been a meandering sort of trail. A pause to consider, I’ve been in the darkness, I’ve lived in the dread, I’ve found myself off course because of conflict or circumstance.
David knew. He did too.
And so, his words aren’t ones of a perfect follower. Instead, a perfect “returner” to the place where he and God dwell together safely.
I used to believe “all the days of my life” meant the actual dwelling place of Jesus…heaven.
Again, instead…David is acknowledging and giving us permission to acknowledge the beauty we can claim as our own here…
As long as my lungs are providing me with breath and my heart is beating…I am dwelling with God, and He with me.
We are together.
I am known. I am seen.
I am invited to keep returning to rest.
Why Psalm 90 mixed in with a captivating dream of life getting another chance for my mama?
Psalm 90 is one penned by Moses.
It opens with this.
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Psalm 90:1 ESV
There were other people in the big bright room with my mama, not just my brothers and sister. My children were there too.
Psalm 90 closes with an acknowledgement of what had not and has not been without affliction. Moses offers us his prayer back then as a promise and prayer we can choose today.
“Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” Psalm 90:15-17 ESV
“Favor” here meaning “beauty”.
Return to beauty today.
Embrace grace. More than you expected, the grace you’ve been shown.
The grace that you know.
Continue and believe.
Dwell in peace.
“Now you can begin to live”, the words promised to my mama in my dream.
I had a dream that felt sort of silly. The blip of remembering was simple, I looked in the mirror and saw myself having a day of “good hair”.
My hair is super thin and greying. My hair and I have always had an unhappy relationship.
What an odd dream, likely birthed from two conversations.
The first, a fun exchange, the second an honest answer.
I arrived early for my appointment with the doctor. I had my information and privacy forms completed in advance. The receptionist sort of celebrated that and smiled.
“I need an insurance card and her I.D.” she added. I provided both and she said…
“Tell her to have a seat and we’ll call in a few minutes.” One last question,
“Does she have an emergency contact, is it you?”
I answered yes and sat back down.
In a minute or two, I went back to the counter and in a sort of hushed tone I said…
“I’m Lisa.” And she was clearly puzzled.
I added quietly still, “You said “she” and “her” and I’m just curious why…is this a new protocol?”
And then to my surprise, she raised her eyebrows and mouthed an “Oh”.
She didn’t think I was the patient, she did not think I was 63 years old.
We both smiled and continued to chat about age and wrinkles and I told her so excitedly, she had “made my day”.
To know that I had been seen in a different way was the sweetest thing.
The kindest conversation.
Not like one that questions your age in a flattering way; no, one with sincere surprise that I was the patient, not the companion to an elderly parent.
“Lisa” they called and I was escorted to the scales. I slipped my shoes off, had to step off and on twice, the nurse said the scales were “being difficult”.
Mismatch Socks
I acknowledged the seemingly unchangeable number was the same at home and casually said, “Good to know.”
And I had my check-up, scheduled another and went on with my day.
I bought a new bathing suit, one size smaller but seemed it may fit, lined in lavender and covered with painterly abstract flowers.
It was a bargain, really pretty.
Bought groceries, caught up with a friend and her husband who are grandparents to their second, a two-week old.
Then home to cook supper.
Decided to ask my husband a question, a sort of curiously brave wondering.
Not sure why, he’s super late to the game and needed a little education, but he decided to create a Facebook profile.
Now, he’s all in.
I warned him, it’ll draw you in. It seems he’s reviewed as far back as a few years ago, all of my posts, all of my content.
No worries, he’s often read this blog and he knows I can be a little deep, sometimes pitiful and I hope, always honest.
He mentioned a particular post of him recording a little song for one of our granddaughters on her little karaoke toy.
It was sweet. It was a few years ago.
Knowing he was familiar with my Facebook presence, I asked
“I post a lot about my faith, my struggles, my hopes, my learning to trust…The things I post are mostly about faith.
When you read those things, do you say to yourself, they don’t know the real Lisa, or she’s not really that way?”
Brave, right?
He answered, “No, not at all. It’s good that you’re that way. It’s good.”
Grace, right?
Just last night, I complained about something trivial and apologized for being “hateful” right away.
And last week, I came clean about my in general self-centeredness. The me that had become miserable and often, mean.
I’m learning to catch it quickly, see it for what it is, the enemy trying to taint the essence of me so that my light is too dim for others to see,
my story fading back to grim rather than walking towards the brilliance of light and living water worth sharing.
Healing from old mindsets is not a snap of the finger,
(I hope you know that)
It is a choice to choose the work of being a participant in healing, not a parader of our trauma as a reason to be hopeless or an excuse to be hateful, the darker side of you enveloping you.
A meal, a sort of gesture
When I bought groceries on the day my age was mistaken, I had in mind a gesture.
I cooked a meal for my daughter’s family, the meal (one of them) my mama was famous for.
My grandson and I sampled it.
It was lovely.
It was a small thing.
It came from that reservoir of grace God placed in my soul, the bubbling brook of mercy I don’t deserve, and the meandering path of my beautiful inheritance through salvation that I sometimes veer from because I get caught up in the before of me rather than the moment, the day.
And I find myself by the slightest ugly little pull, questioning the details of my life and I focus on what I don’t want to accept, the dark days of me and I’m prone to plop down in that dark dank place of not remembering good, only horrific
until I pray and count the gifts of today.
And I walk in the light, the place where my story, the lightness of it may give a little light to others on my way. And I notice and cherish unexpected light that came my way.
I felt old, a stranger blessed my day.
I felt hopelessly overweight, I was met by my own acceptance and a bathing suit that fit.
I felt ashamed of my self-centeredness. I apologized quickly and I cooked a meal with a nine-month old playing “drums” with a spoon at my feet.
All of my life, I have been loved.
I’ve often slipped and come close to falling.
I’ve been kept.
This is my story.
“The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.” Psalm 121:5 ESV
“Why do you use/love weird words?” one or both of my children.
In some form or fashion, the question often came. And I’d say what was true.
“I love words. If we’ve got ‘em we need to use them.”
I have an old dictionary, 1962 Webster’s. The pages are the color of clay and smelly.
But, I love words. I just do. God woke me with the question again of why I have a pattern of making myself small, why small feels safe. A word came, do I try to “diminish” my worth? Alone and small feels safe. And yet, I am certain there’s only a tiny bit I know of all who might be influenced by my story, by my creative expression.
There’s safety in being diminished. I looked the word up in the old dictionary and it’s just what I thought, “to make less, weaken, impair”.
God led me to Exodus. The people were discontent with the bountiful provision. Most translations say they were “grumbling” and yet, the more appropriate and earlier translated word was “murmuring”.
Dancing Leaves, one of 3
Again, I go to Webster. To murmur is to “utter complaints in a low doleful sound”. And “doleful” is a sound that someone makes when they are sorrowful or in dismay.
The whole congregation of Israel was “grumbling”. In the ESV version, the word is used eight times in Chapter 16.
I’m the KJV, the word is “murmurings”.
“I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God.” Exodus 16:12 KJV
Yesterday, I saw faces of grocery store shoppers. I saw a dullness, an apathy, a less than attentive glance to those around them. I saw “doleful” expressions.
Why does one word matter? Murmuring comes from dismay. Grumbling is well just more of a selfish grouchiness.
It matters because of the invitation to know that God sees you, hears your quiet complaint. God is provision. Your woeful or questioning wilderness is being noticed.
And just as the Lord told the Israelites even in their hopeless state…I cared for you. He is caring for me.
For you.
For the generations that are here and to come because of you.
“And Moses said, This is the thing which the LORD commandeth, Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.” Exodus 16:32 KJV
I wonder if it’s a common feeling, the juxtaposition of two pursuits when you become a certain age…
A collector and cherisher of “small things” or an avid “go-after-er” of “limitless”, of all the longings of your heart you’d thought might not be for you, possibilities.
Maybe it’s both in a gentle and knowing of yourself as your Maker made you.
I bought myself two gifts yesterday on my 63rd birthday, a pear shaped candle and a bangle the rich color of jade, the same shade in the “Restoration” collection now available.
There was nothing I needed, I said with ease.
I just wanted those two things.
I came home to birthday cards and there were flower deliveries on the porch that were surprises and only found because my daughter asked “Is there something for you on the porch?”
And there sat two of the most boldly happy arrangements you can imagine, the colors complements of each other.
My son, my daughter ordered flowers, neither knowing the other hoped to brighten my day, yellow roses, lilies and sunflowers.
Patient, on my porch while I piddled around my solitary home, added touches to a canvas I’ll soon take away because they’re too contrived, too hard, not gentle; curled up with an actual book under my quilt and then moved with small and slow steps for the arrival of my daughter and her family.
For birthday swimming.
Dinner and cheesecake with cherries on top.
Later, I sat and lit the candle, knowing it wouldn’t be the same, the waxy drips changing the shape no longer to pear but possibly just a blob.
No telling.
My sister called, the last of my siblings to wish me a Happy Day and we talked past my husband going to bed.
About life, about children, about books, about hope.
About knowing we can never know how our lives or the lives of our children will unfold.
But we can know that to teach them not to expect to always know, only to confidently and gently continue on.
And we can live from that knowing for ourselves and we can carry on, enlightened by life in all the ways hard and soft.
So that we can be our truest selves…mamas, sisters, wives, friends, grandmothers, aunts and whatever our hope without limits leaves on our doorsteps.
We can be where we are because of all we’ve come from and all we now know.
We can love small things and we can believe in the limitless beauty of brave pursuits too.
One wilted rose remains. It’s wound its way among the limelight hydrangeas. I’ve been greeted by the beauty every morning this week. Soon, the petals will drop and not so long away, the green will be dried up by Autumn air and the tiny rose will just be a memory, but also a hope.
Could it be as simple as choosing forward looking more often than back?
Could this be the blessing over the curse?
“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse—” Deuteronomy 11:26 NIV
How we see things matters. Interactions, relationships and our part in the ugliness or beauty of them.
Exchanges linger in our hearts even if we’ve been long separated from the person or people.
We are marked by ugliness and yet, we can choose not to be forever marred.
We can choose to see the joy and lightness in looking forward.
I was frozen in the driver’s seat. I could hurry to catch up and engage in casual talk or I could sit and wait, not have the guts to simply be near her.
“How are you?” might be my question or maybe they’d go first.
Or there might be no words offered, no interaction for the sake of one another, just a layer of stifled breath between us.
And that’s quite okay.
Because hurt lingers long in the hearts of one betrayed, cast aside or used for another’s climbing the ladder advantage.
There was a time when my face was well known, known for the work I represented and recognized in the “right” circles.
Now, I’m just “someone people used to know” becoming the woman not needing to be “known”, just me being me.
I’m not sure what prompted the thought, the realization.
I’m sort of okay with this new “imageless” image. Maybe all the other roles, women I tried hard to be were actually in a way
Imaginary.
This morning, I read a review by Michele Morin of a book by Christine Caine, “Don’t Look Back”.
Caine writes of the ways we can get stuck in our tracks (turn to an immovable block of salt like Lot’s wife) when we continue to look back.
Maybe looking back is good if we use it as a choice to decide.
To look back and see the distance you’ve gotten in your healing from hurt, to look back and think for a minute before reacting, I’m better, stronger, wiser on this forward facing side of that person’s hurt.
To look back, not stuck and staring but to look back and confidently reposition our gaze, to view the harm of our pasts as a reflection of our empowered decisions…
What was meant to harm us will not destroy us.
What was bad is on its way to more very good.
Decide to believe in the good you’ve already seen. Choose a sort of self-assessing.
Quietly measure the sense in your soul that keeps saying to you
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” John 14:26 ESV
Homemade Moments
I stood in the pool, one foot in shallow, the other in the slant towards deep.
An audience of one, my granddaughter putting on a performance, her very own synchronized swimming dances from the edge into the water. Again and again, with happy pirouettes, she demonstrated the newly formed lessons with commitment.
I paused in between each repetition. I noticed her noticing me as I waited with gazing eyes to sense heaven again.
To find the Holy Spirit in my backyard.
And I did. It was a minute or less.
I sought quietly and I found the breath of heaven, the sense of the Holy Spirit in my chest, the warmth of the passing for just a second breeze on my cheek.
Willing myself to a state of “distractionless”.
In the auditorium, I sort of coaxed my mind to be where I was, to not think of things to do, to wonder less about home a couple of hours away and to practice presence, to be receptive.
I repositioned myself. I set my intentions, I reset my mind from racing to attentiveness.
I wept in worship. I raised my hand, opened my heart. Not unnatural, simply unable to resist.
A woman behind me prayed in unison with the one praying. I sat when “Amen” came, my cheeks lined, rivulets.
I wiped my face and reached behind to thank her, tapped her on the leg to say “thank you”. I noticed the touch of my hand, wet and she touched my hand, received it, my gratitude.
I was away for two days, my granddaughter said two weeks. I called to ask about Saturday’s plans and quickly they were decided, I’d be going to pick her up.
Distant Thunder
We dodged the storms. I taught her to measure the distance of thunder.
We listened. She understood.
She talked on and on and I read with incessant interruptions the book she chose.
Then the storm stopped and she slept like a 14 not 4 year old girl.
I slipped out of bed for coffee and returned to read quietly, turned by mistake to the wrong date of my devotional.
“I have no home, until I am in the presence of God. This holy presence is my inward home, and until I experience it, I am a homeless wanderer, a straying sheep in a waste howling wilderness.” Anonymous 1841 “Joy & Strength”
And moved to cherish, to hold closely the reality of God’s Spirit in me. I am a seeker of solace now, of pausing long for all other things to experience God.
Storms Pass
I completed a survey of the experience, the conference “She Speaks” for women.
I added my takeaway, my thoughtful remembrance of weeping in worship (this is not my normal), of joining hands with other women and of feeling a belonging that was without typical female comparison or judgment.
I slept softly with a girl, four years old, who dreamt something only she knows.
Coffee in Bed
Thinking, I pray she continues to be receptive to what’s not earthly…for that’s where the gift is, the seeking that must be practiced.
When she was a baby we stood at the window and she gazed fixated, seeing heaven in a way I’m incapable.
It doesn’t come naturally. We must remember to long for it with intention.
we run away from our discomfort... but it doesn't leave us. to heal we need to turn around and face it, experience it and once we truly do we are out of it. We heal and we grow.
2 Timothy 1:7-8 For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. This blog is about my Christian walk. Join me for the adventure.
Lisa Anne Tindal 