memoir

Deciding Against It

bravery, confidence, contentment, coronavirus, courage, Faith, fear, freedom, hope, memoir, Redemption, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

I intentionally leave the blinds open now. The morning light and the shift of the sheers is my gentle waking alarm.

I’ve been thinking about fear and the contradiction of such beautiful occurrences as light through the window and when will this fear inducing pandemic uncertainty end.

But, I talked about fear the other day with my friend as we sorted out the hurtful and inappropriate behavior of another. I told my friend

At the core, it’s fear. Every unwanted behavior spills over from the fear brought on by something the other person has kept and is fighting to keep secret.

Since then, I’ve been contemplating fear. How so many of us are allowing our fear to go unacknowledged. We are afraid of things we can’t name on top of our already debilitating fears.

We are justified in our fear.

After all, there is no page in this book we’re all currently reading to tell us which chapter we are in.

Are we still reading the introduction? Have we moved into the mix of characters’ conflict, resolution and either an ending that leaves us unfulfilled and angry over giving time to its finishing or the final chapter in a really honest memoir that leads us to feel satisfied in the reconciliation of the author’s story?

We know little about this epic story called Co-Vid. I suppose we keep reading the book of it.

As needed. Only.

Otherwise, there are too many plot twists and too many arguments to make it pleasing or informative, to get pulled in, sleepless night reading birthing crazy night terrors.

I bet you can tell, I’m unschooled when it comes to this pandemic or anything else global or political.

This is by choice. Knowing everything is potentially harmful to catastrophic story writing me.

Today, I opened my Bible and decided to focus on fear.

Then I journaled each of them, as if taking notes for an upcoming test.

The section in my Bible that is called “What the Bible says about…” lists seven scriptures on fear. I googled “how many times is fear mentioned in the Bible?” The answer was “over 500” with a little more about the statement “do not fear” being in the Bible 365 times.

Many of us already know this cool fact. Many of us know God does not want us to be afraid, reminds us He is our strength and any fear we feel is from man not Him.

The greatest gift of reading my Bible is reading a verse I’ve read before but it being different, God being intentional in my receiving of it. Today, it’s 4 words from Isaiah 41:13

I am your God.

God is not just the God I believe, the Heavenly Father who desires eternity for me and so He gave His only Son. He is of course, those things.

But, He is my God. Yours too, as if we could be the one and only and He belongs to each of us with the same amount of love, of power, of protection, of fighting for us in a gentle way…as if to say, know this love I have for you more fully, better.

I am yours. God

The other verses are just as good. This thing called fear in this time called Corona has me thinking. Fear is complicated now. We can’t name the reasons for it because we’re overwhelmed with questions and information and a non ending to this chapter and book.

I do know God says don’t fear.

So, I’m sure fear must be coming from somewhere I’m not supposed to be seeing, hearing, absorbing into my thoughts. Maybe if there is one teaching and promise we can all wrap our minds around, it is this.

Do not fear.

Maybe it’s our heart and mind’s stubborn and faithful incomprehensible to others decision not to live in fear.

I’m deciding to be against fear.

To continue albeit naive.

To continue and believe.

Others Too

Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, curiousity, fear, memoir, mercy, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Truth, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, wonder, writing

Last week I read about the longing for resonance. At least this was my interpretation, we long for resonance and for whatever we choose and how we use it, to resonate with others.

This idea made an impression.

Told me to write about the sky, the tiny roses, the way the baby laughs over a shared popsicle time.

God doesn’t want us to feel small, simply know we are smaller than Him.

me

You are loved.

You are seen.

You are not finished.

Yesterday morning, I woke with a longing to understand the “stuck in the middle” me.

So, I prayed about it, scribbled a sleepy question in my journal.



What is a calling and how do you know?

Me

It felt serious, the question like risk analysis of quitting or resuming. It was a question about why ideas feel so tangibly possible only to be set aside because of fear.

I’m thinking art again, and I’m thinking manuscripts. I’m asking God is this calling or is it just something good I love to do?

There seems to be (at least to me) a whole lot of pressure to call out to the world our callings.

Maybe, the calling is simply to be attentive to the call towards God and to keep getting closer.

Perhaps any other pursuit of calling can’t help but be tainted by selfish endeavor.

Maybe the call is to continue and I suppose see what develops. Crazy we can’t be content with that, we need to feel pressure in our pursuit I guess.

Unexpectedly, I received a request to contribute to a writing community. Out of the blue it would seem.

But, I know better.

Something about my Instagram resonated and this leader of the community sent an invitation.

The sky last evening told me stories, the sort of story I told long ago and had stopped sharing.

The quest for bigger calling made my sky stories seem odd and irrelevant.

The sky with the heart shaped window, the brilliant moon that saw me growing and the bend in the road that said, God is calling.

Continue.

Continue and believe.

A new question today, a prayer.

God, how can I resonate with others? Help me to see the calling as a calling towards you.

me

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Jesus
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7:7‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Perspective, the Secret

Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, coronavirus, courage, curiousity, doubt, Faith, hope, memoir, painting, Peace, Redemption, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

I caught a glimpse of one of the last pink camellias. The bushes that border our home and the ones along the driveway had been spectacularly brilliant.

Then with the temperatures and rain were suddenly bloom-less. The grass wore a skirt of decaying flowers, their edges rusty with color and the petals limp and fading.

I paused when returning from walking and a glint of pink popped out from the deep green. One camellia was tucked away. I picked it.

I brought the flower inside and filled the vase with water. This was three days ago. The color remains and the bloom is strong on the stem. I can’t decide what I love the most about looking over to see the simple flower.

From every perspective.

Up close, the underlayer of petals are changing from pink to shriveled golden brown. Standing over it, I am drawn to the fragile innards, the bright yellow heart of it. From a distance, I love the contrast in color against our brick.

Why this one camellia caught my eye feels like a sweet secret, something God knew I needed.

I see beauty.

Lately, I’ve thought of how distinctly different every individual’s perspective is in this coronavirus crisis. It is based on their views, their experiences, their current emotional and physical as well as spiritual state.

I’m reminded of a long held truth. No one truly knows how another feels.

Secrets are our truth.

They are tender. They are hard. They are transparent.

I like the definition of perspective that is synonymous with “outlook”. I believe this.

Before we see, we feel and what we feel inwardly leads to our outward view, our perspective.

I asked myself this morning, How can I be more intentional and sure of the way God wants to use me, to continue rather than decide, oh, you must’ve been wrong?

It all begins with and comes back to belief.

“I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭27:13‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Believing is the perspective changer, the perspective keeper, the level ground during doubtful times, confusing ones like these.

God’s perspective of us, His creation?

He believes we are able.

He made us this way.

But, what about your secrets that tell you otherwise, ones that say to your soul, don’t try, don’t be sure, don’t step out in faith…you never know, you may discover you were wrong?

What if deep down you’re afraid you will learn, you were wrong about God’s believing in you, you were wrong about trying?

What a shameful secret this is. The one that hinders, the one that feels safer to be the same not take any more steps believing.

I may be wrong, I don’t think I’m alone in this occasional and yet, so overwhelming feeling.

This is why I own it, call it out, really look closely at its defeatist agenda! I speak to it! I tell it otherwise.

“God created me to be creative. God believes in me.”

Believe.

Continue and believe. Your heart will find truth when you confront your secrets. You perspective will follow.

Linking up with others on the prompt, “perspective”

FMF Writing Prompt Link-up :: Perspective

April Newsletter

Art, contentment, coronavirus, Faith, hope, memoir, painting, rest, Teaching, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wisdom

I’m a stickler for continuing things I begin. Oh, wait that’s not true. I’m scared to death to get back at rewriting that manuscript, the one that felt too honest and now not honest enough. A wise friend named Ray reminded me this idea was born eight years ago!

For now, here’s the link to my April Newsletter, a much easier write and read.

http://eepurl.com/g0vKQ5

Happy Tuesday!

Faithful To Tell

Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, courage, Faith, hope, memoir, mixed media painting, painting, Redemption, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

A friend commented that I followed through on a painting idea, a still life with pears, an avocado and an orange.

I delivered this painting, acrylic on old wood, to a young buyer today.

No Stones

She said she loved the way the rocks were all around her body but, not a one caused her harm.

I smiled.

Me too.

We talked about “The Scarlet Letter” and I told this young woman who could be my daughter, that this is when in college, oh my goodness decades ago, that I finally knew others had felt called out and misfit.

Then, now, and even tomorrow the red letter novel will be important to me. Now, the account of the woman caught in adultery and facing them all, standing tall, her would be stoners, this story matters even more.

“Yes”, I told the young woman, I had to paint her gown red.

“The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.”
‭‭John‬ ‭8:3-4‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I love that part too. The boldness of her brave acknowledgement of wrong. She never expected to walk away unpelted.

I love the way we face the ones who’d have reason to stone us and Jesus tells them, tells us all…if you’re without sin, go ahead, you get the first throw.

And nothing. No stones.

Yet another redemption story waiting to be told.

I’ll be faithful to the telling of mine as well as the ones I treasure.

“No Stones” prints are available. Comment to inquire.

God Only Knows

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, coronavirus, courage, depression, doubt, fear, Forgiveness, freedom, memoir, mercy, Peace, Prayer, rest, Salvation, Trust, Truth, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

The bystanders recognized the beggar up walking around. All of a sudden he could see and they began to dispute the truth of Jesus, they began to argue over the day of the week and were certain the beggar was mistaken in some way.

I’m wondering how he became a discarded one at all. Scriptures say he had parents. Had they given up on being his support system? He was an adult after all, he’d have to fend for himself.

Or was he so downtrodden by his lifelong blindness, he just grew tired of being their burden? He could beg others for money instead of his parents.

I love the Gospels, the Books of encounters with Jesus. There are many people who stir empathy in me. There are relatable stories to my healing by Jesus.

Jesus came along and he noticed the man blind from birth. The disciples, always looking to learn from Jesus, asked what had caused the blindness, were his parents neglectful, had they been bad people before they became parents, or was the little boy born with some sort of predicted worthlessness that led to him being born blind?

They wanted to know who or what was to blame.

Jesus told them it was God’s plan. The blind man would be an instrument for God’s glory to be real, for the mysterious to be memorable.

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

Jesus made a paste of mud and his own spit, pressed it against the blind beggar’s eyes and then said go down to the water and wash it all off. The man did and he could see.

Everyone asked how, the man said I did what Jesus said and that’s really all I know.

His vision restored, the interrogations continued. The parents were questioned, they confirmed their son’s blindness as well as his current condition. Told all the skeptics to ask him, not us, he will tell you! According to scripture, the parents were keeping their distance because they were Jews and they would be disallowed from the synagogue if they acknowledged Jesus, if they acknowledged their own child’s healing.

These were the times I suppose even a parent of a son who was healed was careful about boldly agreeing and believing in Jesus.

Seems it was safer to be a skeptic, to know there are people who believe in Jesus because of their own healing; but, they were not ready to believe for themselves.

Maybe it seemed too impossible, too unattainable, too supernaturally “magical”.

Same as today really.

The man who could see could only speak for himself, hope with all his heart that his testimony mattered.

“So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
‭‭John‬ ‭9:24-26 ESV‬‬

Centuries later, I sit in my mama’s covered chair with my Bible, the margin on the page has a pen and pencil resemblance of me, my face turned towards the words and a slight listening tilt.

I understand the blind man. I can relate to his dismay over Jesus initially. I can sit with my Bible and know beyond doubt that I too have been healed when many for valid reasons discarded me, left me to fend for myself.

And like the blind man who couldn’t explain mud and spit restoring his vision, I often wonder how me simply believing in a cross, the likeness of which I now add to my wrist could have altered my life so very significantly.

It is not my place to understand it all, to know every how or why God found me worthy of healing. It is mine to believe. To be able to rest in this:

But, you do know, God, You do.

We’re all in a state of not knowing now. On Sunday, I knelt in the place by my mama’s chair. I was distracted, I admit. Still, I joined in the prayer of Pastor Steve Davis with many others. I prayed and am praying in agreement with him that this time will bring people who don’t really understand God, maybe just hope in the possibility of Him being real closer to believing. The prayer closed with that very request of our Heavenly Father, that during this pandemic stirring panic, countless people will come to know God, will believe in Jesus as their healer.

I pray this as well. I know healing that saved not just my soul but my very life from risky, dangerous, threatening to kill me situations.

Like the blind man, I believe in Jesus.

“Jesus heard that they had cast him out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.” He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.”
‭‭John‬ ‭9:35-38‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Continue and believe, moment by moment if necessary.

Acknowledge/Admit you were born a sinner. Believe in Jesus, God’s plan for us to be with Him in heaven. Confess your sin and begin to live healed.

My prayer for my not knowing readers.

Wisdom Stories

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, daughters, depression, family, grief, hope, memoir, Peace, Redemption, rest, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, wonder
For she is your life. Proverbs 4:13

I watched the soloist in worship, saw timidity in a way that led to her being brave. Fairly new to the stage, I’ve been attentive to her growing. I long to know her story.

Has she always sang so bravely, was it a thing she knew she’d always do? Was it a path that opened before her and at last she agreed she was able?

I watched as her hand held the microphone in its stand. I listened as she told me it’s God’s breath in me that led and leads to my breathing. She opened both hands towards the ceiling as her voice was elevated, “Great are you Lord!” I joined in agreement.

I’d still love to know her faith story. I’d like to know her journey as a woman.

I sat in the white chair later, the chair that was yellow when my mama got it. She had it in her den and I don’t recall her ever sitting there. It was positioned in front of her place for sitting, a place she could simply see it.

It faced the wide windows that opened the view to the field, the skinny lane that announced visitors. My mama lived alone for a bit and her yellow chair is only one of a few things she gave me. The others, ceramic roosters and a bracelet, now broken and not really jewelry, “costume” the jeweler said, “not worth anything”.

The yellow chair now recushioned and covered white, the little roosters and the bracelet, all yard sale discoveries.

My mama had very little.

Her legacy is wisdom. Wisdom and spontaneity, gifting herself with an occasional treat!

I thought of her as I drifted into a nap on Sunday. The yellow chair now creamy white facing my own wide windows.

I found solace in the soft chair, curled like a baby in my mama’s not made for sleeping chair.

I rested in the certainty of her joy when she found the fancy to her yellow chair. I celebrated her deciding she was worth it, something her life had never told her.

No wonder I find comfort in my mama’s yard sale chair.

It’s a side of her story she really didn’t tell. Her story of strength, of being worth something other than what life had shown her. A story of the bravery in believing, to wake to your very own beauty.

To believe in yourself because of God’s plan. I sit in my mama’s humble chair and feel the softness of her wisdom, I feel able to keep believing I am more than what my hard years have told me.

Continue.

Continue and believe.

There is wisdom in quiet joy. There is wisdom in pursuits that are tentative.

There is safety in remembering another’s very own wise path, as far back as when the writer of Proverbs called wisdom a “her”.

“When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭4:12-13‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I hope to ask her one day, the new solo singer in worship, “How did you get to this place of using your voice to strengthen my faith?” There is wisdom in her journey I’m certain. I long to know why.

Who are the wise women in your life? The humble ones, the overcomers, the singers, the confident business owners, the young mamas, the elderly still with us, the teachers, the artists, the singers?

Life makes us either hard or wise. Stay soft if you can, wisdom comes not from hardening.

What’s your wisdom story?

Say So

Abuse Survivor, bravery, courage, Faith, fear, memoir, Peace, Redemption, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, writing

The sky opened in the distant corner.

No podcast this morning.

Music.

A lyric.

You are not a taker, You are only ever
Giving and drawing, seeking and calling. “Over us”

It only took words unsolicited for my fear over words to make sense.

I did not use my words as a little timid girl.

As a middle child buffering the childhood fights. Staying quiet, not adding to the noise. Only one person has ever given a word to my existence back then. She remembers me as “bewildered”. What relief that was when she told me, to find out after so long, someone had noticed.

As the teen who discovered her body and then lost it with food.

As a young woman who just didn’t tell because it seemed no one would listen.

And an older woman who continued not to tell and then found permission but got all kinds of bogged down in not telling because that’s what she knew.

Yesterday I read something I should quote but won’t because it’s so rich I fear I’d dishonor the writer, water down her revelations

Lessen the gift of it being shared by a blogger who calls my writing “gentle”.

Because the article led to a realization, this is why you don’t step out in the faith you now have.

You still do not think there will be listeners.

It takes a bit, has taken a bit.

You begin to believe differently.

You believe you have listeners and you may have actually had them back then, you just weren’t certain so you chose the safer solution, don’t tell, don’t need, stay quiet.

But your stories remain.

As do your listeners.

Continue. Continue and believe.

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭107:2‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Oddities, Faith and Birds

Abuse Survivor, birds, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, depression, Faith, fear, hope, memoir, mercy, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, Stillness, surrender, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder

A few days in a row I fixated on the idea of a bluebird landing in my palm. I imagined being able to get close enough before it flew away.

I set out with the plan that if I asked God to let that bird make a nest in my palm, I’d believe even more strongly in a God I can’t see.

I would see faith in a whole new way.

The fencepost is marked by a blue ribbon! Trickery to my vision even today.

If I clutched that resting bird, I’d go back home or sit on the front steps and I’d make a call. “Cousin!” I’d say with a loud happy voice, to my cousin who believes bluebirds mean hope.

“Cousin, you’ll never believe it! I have just held a little bluebird in my hand!” And she’d reply in her southern strong voice with either,

“What???? …Get outta here, no way!!!”

I love the way she always gets excited over my revelations.

Or, she’d say “Oh, Lisa, I can’t believe it, isn’t God so good?”

She might find my behavior odd, that I long to see a bluebird sit still in my hand.

That this crazy idea born of seeing a bird near the fence for me is a metaphor for faith, for sustaining it.

For me to be honest with me. Holding a bird in my hand would just lead to me longing for more. I’d love the way God answered my crazy request; but, what next?

Would I ask God to bring a cardinal indoors to live next to my bed? Would I have no fear of flying and ask to soar on an eagle’s wing?

Outlandish thoughts! Really elaborate tales I write in my intricately woven head.

God made me this way.

Last month I was more focused on the birds than ever. Crows all over the country field and a gathering of blue birds in the yard. Several cardinals seem to time it just right and I am turning my face towards the sky and they unravel themselves from the branches and hover over my walk on the trail. Bright red, soft and luminous blue, even the omenous charcoal black buzzard sitting atop the falling down house.

I noticed them. I thought about how God made them all. Thought about God telling us we mean more to Him than birds, than sparrows.

We are more intricately made. A blessing and a worrisome thing is a mind, a complex and compromised by life on earth brain.

Maybe that’s why I love the birds, love the idea of flying from place to place with my little flock. Being able to simply know my nest will be strong and safe if even for just a season.

Knowing there’s a pattern to life, there is a path for safe transition to Heaven.

Birds stay in that pattern undaunted by earth.

The coldest and most wet winter and I still hear the new bird in the tall pine singing its newly acquired noisy song. It sounds like anguish to me. Who am I to say? It’s most likely excitement.

It is a birdsong of faith.

As I type, the sound of a bouncing off the tall window has occurred. I don’t look up soon enough to see it, to know its color, brown, blue or rich red.

I know it may have been off course or maybe, just maybe it felt my longing and it thought it could come inside. Most likely not land in my hand, only let me truly see up close.

That’s faith that accepts our complexities. It’s faith in the God who made me who makes me unconcerned over writing this post, a crazy essay type story about how a bird not in my hand is leading me to deeper faith.

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭139:13‬ ‭ESV‬‬

My thoughts are known and they are unique, one of a kind wonderings and at times quite woeful.

I am thankful I am loved completely by a God who knows me so well, who knows me because He knew me.

Who’s watching over and is satisfied by my longings over bluebirds.

Who is satisfied that I am coming into me as a work of His hand. A God who sees me testing Him to give me a bird as a measure of faith and is understanding of my ways and compels me deeper, deeper into His view of me.

God is okay with my oddities.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭139:23-24‬ ‭NLT‬‬

None of us are the same.

We don’t see one another’s inward parts. For me to write about birds is a risk; a risk I pray gets others thinking. We can never understand the mind of another. We can only accept that as truth. We all have hidden vulnerabilities. Some of us overcome them. Others show and then regret showing because they’re met by the very different thoughts of another. Some brains have fought back with resilience.

Others still have little corners and crevices that have stored up fear. Some hearts don’t appear to be broken but are quite broken. They are not beyond repair. No, not at all beyond resilience sustained by faith. Some are not healed yet; but, they are closer to believing they will be, closer to the possibility of coming into God’s own. The place of rest.

So, from the perspective of one who ponders birds and skies, let’s all join together, separately and yet wonderfully made and believe together.

Faith makes us well, may we not need earthly evidence to believe it.

I don’t think Jesus would have told us to look at the birds if we couldn’t grow by looking. So look up today. Look for the birds, imagine if you like, being allowed to hold one gently for a minute.

“Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6:26‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Heavenly Father, thank you for making us so individually well and reminding us that we are so very fragile. It is you that makes us strong. Help us remember you through a flash of blue against a winter field. Because of mercy, in Jesus name, Amen.