There’s a little church down the road that’s got on its sign,
Bethesda Waters Service
Got me thinking of water, of long needed healing.
Free painted a bit, putting off the commissions and lost myself in blue water shapes and hints of sunshine’s warmth.
“Bethesda”, thick paint on old wood.
I’m curious whether musicians, singers, sculptors and dancers do the same.
Find little pockets of chance to create unhindered by the approval of audience or observer.
“Elizabeth’s First Autumn”
I walked with my baby grandchild and we talked about the leaves. Her eyes told me she was listening when I stopped to gaze on the brilliant color against the still spring like green.
I asked myself,
How does God decide which colors become the most brilliant and in what order and why do some take longer to turn.
I knew the answer, it’s how the sun lays down its warmth on the leaves, how they position themselves.
Same with us, same with me.
I’ll turn towards the light to become God’s idea of brilliant.
If not past years, this one, something is saying to me.
You’re coming into brilliance!
Take your time, keep exposing yourself to me.
Let the change in your colors come naturally and without force or calculation.
Nurture your creativity.
It is your treasure to be shared.
I find I’m painting/writing in this way.
I return to the place of ease and flow whether it be pencil and pad or canvas and easel.
This way, I’m not painting or writing and all along pondering the possibility of rejection.
It’s a practice, this non-demanding creativity.
A worthy practice. Pure abandonment in process and completion.
Unhindered.
I take it with me today as I complete three requests for art.
Today is an art day.
What is your creative expression?
Be unhindered, get it down on paper or hands messy in the clay or paint or across the keys or strings.
God made us to make beautiful things!
Not sure which is the source of more regret, sharing our sorrows and discontentment or pretending they don’t exist, that elation and contentment never ever wane as we walk with our Lord amongst others.
Rubbing shoulders with their successes, exposing our less.
The back of my mind wonders if others wonder,
Who is this God she mentions and then seems to regularly forget?
The God who calls her back because He knows her, knows her fully, knows she’s willing to listen again.
“If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.”
Proverbs 24:10 ESV
God who knows I’m learning, getting more comfortable with my strengths.
I saw Saturday morning beginning from a distance through the kitchen window.
I rose to see for myself the source of the glow making mosaics in the space of pine trees.
Sun coming up after a hard rain.
I pick the tiny bud realizing it’s been a bit since I brought one in.
Saturday beginning again to remind me not to despise small things.
Small things like regret over words painted by pity that longed for expression.
A sacrifice for others I guess, a place for their brave me too.
I’m happy for Saturday.
Lessons have settled, done their work and woke me with, although reluctant, a return to determination.
To get back with what is mine to do, gather myself up and submit all my efforts and energy to getting back on track.
God’s way.
Patient.
Oddly, “the Stones” are in agreement with scripture today.
I will get what I need.
Not always what I want.
If I try, sometimes.
How we live either stirs us up or settles us. Let your heart hold what’s in your hands right this very moment. Gently discipline yourself again and again and again…until there’s no frantic grasping for other things. You’ve become satisfied with only what is yours to seek, to gather, to make good things from, to hold a bit and then share with others. Your art. Your words.
Try sometime and then sometime again.
You’ll get what you need.
When your heart changes your mind and takes the lead.
Spreads down from your shoulders, your arms, your fingers.
Love you believe, love you release.
Art and words.
Continue and believe.
How do you continue in a pursuit, something you feel in your soul is yours God gave you, made you to do?
Vocation, talent, thing that when it “clicks” feels like your gift?
How do you keep going when whatever is taking you farther has hit a bump in the road, a stall?
You don’t think right away and resist the realization, God is intentional when He slows us, requires our acceptance of the shift, the limbo, other adjustments we resist.
We want to use what we know, learn from others, humanly input some change to eliminate the insecurities in the lull.
I do anyway.
Partly, y’all. I just turned 59, I waited a long time to believe I had what I call a share-worthy treasure.
My testimony. My story.
My art and my words.
I make lists every morning, both tasks and requests of God longing to be farther along, a little perplexed over do I continue or surrender the idea of possibility.
My mama always said,
It’s all in it!
And I knew it was true but I dreaded her truth, keep on or stop, just know some days you’re floating and others you fight to swim.
I guess bravery keeps swimming, doubt watches from the shore.
I journal little exhortations to myself I hope I may remember an hour later.
Why are we uncomfortable with the state of limbo, I wonder.
Just now, I’ve explored website options for my art and whether I should bring all my pieces home from where I’ve consigned them, lay them down for new photographs and then create a presence, a polished website.
I dream of being selected by a gallery as an artist but I’m not ready or respected without a website.
I’ve just stood with my feet on the rain soaked grass and pondered my day, my ways.
What about the book idea? What about the proposal out there, the query?
I’d rather be an artist. If I’m honest, that’s what I’ve dreamt to be, meant to be?
I’ll finish the remaining seven chapters and then I’ll edit too much me out and then I’ll mail the perspective chapter’s inspiration to each of the women who I’ve set out to honor, to write of their being Jesus to me.
Then, I won’t hold my head down in regret or humiliation over thinking publication might be possible.
I’ll rest in acceptance and I’ll close that door.
Limbo is miserable, waiting is an invitation to toss everything and permission to be satisfied with that discarding.
Then the thought, but your story is for others handicapped by traumatic experiences who need your voice, your choice to seek hope over remorse.
That’s what I’ve always felt God said when He told me this was my treasure.
So, today I will continue. I’ll do one thing at a time.
I will pray and the thing I’m to continue will come naturally.
Naturally, when I don’t look too far ahead and I let God, not me, lead.
I don’t really understand this thing called a calling or being “called” or following a “call”
I told God so this morning.
Is my pursuit to be less about a pursuit guided by a list every morning?
Maybe.
Maybe so and maybe that’s the reason I’m increasingly captivated by His sky?
How silly and such a waste of time would it be for me to stare up towards heaven, backyard, walking trail, parking lot at the mall?
Me, oblivious to anything or one, being pulled upward, seeking, finding, being better, stronger and more suited for His plan?
There has to be a reason my head keeps tilting skyward.
“I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:14 ESV
My birthday card from my daughter, her hubby, their baby daughter was a treasure this year!
It wished me, “a rare bird” a happy day. Then the puppy somehow finagled it loose from its frame, found a hidden spot and began at the corner, chewing at the pretty paper.
I was upset. I overthought it. I called the puppy a demon dog with evil intent. I put it away in a drawer, nothing could fix it.
I told my daughter and she allowed my pitiful story. Said she’d get me another and later told me to frame it, what a memory, what a good story!
I told her no, not funny.
Then I did, I framed it, the card with the little birds and the perfect sentiment and the bottom corner imperfect and chewed.
I asked God this morning to bless my writing and to bless my art.
I’m not sure I’ve asked that of Him before. Asked for redirection where I need it, for His gentle push to persevere and a sense of gentle settling when anxiety asks what is coming.
And I asked him to be my editor, to edit me and my story and to help me to know
Am I being led another way or am I running scared? Are you changing my course or am I jumping ship? Am I stubborn child or a patient learner?
Lord, I want to honor you with my life, my words. Help me to edit my story.
“ Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10 ESV
It’s raining now, no sky captivated staring today.
Maybe later. Yes, later.
And more and more, less list obsession and more seeing, knowing, being pursued by God.
I’m linking up at Tell His Story, a community of writers led by Mary Geisen.
https://marygeisen.com/how-to-learn-from-an-arctic-tern/
A new abstract.
A friend compared it to the works of Kline.
I feel complimented.
Since I’ve changed my blog site up just a tad…naively and fantastically I think I may add three or four more chapters.
And hey, someone may look, may be curious, is her brand hope, is this her message?
Does her presence match her proposal?
Is her connection the hope of redemption?
Do enough people read her?
In the book idea that lingers, a memoir, stories of women who loved me like Jesus despite the disaster of me.
One about redemption I’ve received, finally.
No, maybe today actually it’s more eventually I’ll believe it was and is for me.
I read yesterday that doubt shouldn’t be disguised by incessant quote of scripture.
It’s better to be real about your occasional disbelief than to hide your dismay and eventually implode.
The heart can only hold so much.
We all gotta get quiet sometimes, tell God what it is we need to know.
Oh, Magnolia
I won’t despise the day of discontent because I know the content will return in a quiet and almost out of nowhere whisper.
What I’m not finished may be complete, I’ll have an entire manuscript and what if, what if nothing happens when the “piece” is done?
Perhaps, I buy several big envelopes and I mail the pages stapled together to quite a few people, maybe some family.
Or, I don’t because wouldn’t it be a shame to know they probably wouldn’t read it anyway?
This, I have decided is why I paint and get closer and closer to no longer writing.
I’m alone in my room, my canvas, the puppy satisfied at my feet and I dab the brushes on my apron, I wipe the excess color from my fingers.
I paint.
I don’t write, I fear returning to what I’m quite scared to death I might give up.
It’s actually a little incapacitating ridiculousness, that I continue.
Yet, I do.
I continue and maybe a tiny bit believe.
Or I paint little brush shaped squares in varying texture and width and length and
I think.
And I add color with no set plan.
And before I know it, I decide.
“Oh, Magnolia”.
And I’m satiated, satisfied, singularly successful.
Just me.
And I can’t think of a biblical reference other than waiting doesn’t mean quitting, maybe just means reprieve from me being all about me and back to quietly trusting
In who and what I believe.
Eventually.
We shall see.
Two pages of print so fine I resort to going without my glasses. My vision is aging, my prescription apparently needs changing.
Side note, 49 got me worse than 50 did and I’m thinking 59’s gonna hit me hard the same.
Still, oh mercy me…I’ve come along way in my most recent ten years!
Thank you Jesus!
At first I thought I might just focus on Ephesians, the second chapter.
I’ll take just a few words and I linger in my absorption of their meaning being just a tad different.
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,”
Ephesians 2:4 ESV
I felt the emotion of remembrance and I let it set in
But God.
Yesterday, I listened to a podcast that always welcomes the discussion of hard things.
A pastor, raised by his grandmother talked about his struggles and I won’t attempt to quote him, it’d be better if you listen in.
I’m out walking.
Fooled by the morning temps now hot, achy for some reason. I pressed on if for no other reason than to get back home.
And I listened.
At the end of this podcast, Lisa Whittle asks her guests an every episode question.
What’s the last thing you’d say about Jesus? Lisa Whittle
When Derrick Hawkins answered, I said “Oh” out loud and again “Oh, my.”
I’ll remember that like a Bible story, I’ll consider it significant.
When the woman at the house of the leper in Bethany poured out expensive ointment from her alabaster flask over Jesus’ head the disciples were indignant.
I guess they were maybe vying for his approval. Perhaps, they thought he’d find her behavior flamboyant or ridiculous.
They were haughty in their pointing out her behavior to him. I love it.
[bctt tweet=”Jesus said basically, let her love me. Let her be. ” username=””]
That she’d take it upon herself to worship Jesus unprompted and unexpectedly, she simply did what her heart led her to do.
She walked up behind the reclining Jesus and she honored him by giving away what was seen as precious, costly, not to be wasted.
She couldn’t imagine a better use for it.
The best of her given so unabashedly.
The best of what she’d acquired or been given, given away in a sense for the sake of worship, of remembrance of him, of believing what he’d been telling the others was about to occur.
Like a farewell offering, a worthy gift to a deserving recipient.
Maybe the disciples doubted the doom of his death. Maybe the woman at Bethany believed and was ready.
Because of her lack of concern for the disciples opinion, she will be remembered.
“Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her.”
Matthew 26:13 ESV
Here in South Carolina on a balmy nothing spectacular morning, I turn to this story.
On the day I decide to open my Bible after two days of just phone found scripture, I sit and let my eyes fill with tears.
I am connected with her story as I was with the one of Derrick Hawkins.
In the mornings I go out barefooted and stand in the cool wet grass for a minute.
I look up usually.
Sometimes down, at the level place God has me now and I know clearly I cannot discount his mercy.
I made a list this morning of all things of me.
Changed artist to painter and writer to blogger, added roles most important, wife, mother, grandmother, disciple.
Told myself, let’s be honest Lisa Anne and celebrate that honesty being enough in your Father’s eyes and hands.
No need to demand my attention I feel God’s been saying.
[bctt tweet=”Stay aligned with Jesus, be unconcerned with who may be watching.” username=””]
I pray I’d not have been the disciple who said thousands of years ago, I don’t know Him or the one who couldn’t stay awake or the one who kissed his cheek as a way to show the killers who to take.
But I am some days, I falter.
He finds me.
Says come back now, your unique worship is welcome, nothing is wasted.
Give me what is you.
How will I be remembered?
Will it be in ways of significance or simply small by our culture of comparison and cutesy competition and Instagram celebrity standards?
I don’t believe this satisfies Jesus and I’m beginning to believe it doesn’t satisfy me.
My seeking of recognition.
Not my anxious counting of followers, rather my calm obedience to my content consistently representing my hope of causing curiosity over Jesus, my possible never knowing how my story might change another.
And that being okay, the not knowing that one day a grand or a great-grand or even a stranger might say oh, I love the way she wrote about life and love and Jesus or I love the way she laid down color on canvas.
Letting Jesus decide the direction of my blog, the worth of my story.
The image and images I leave.
Time is not a factor in the impact of our stories and our brave acts of sharing.
The alabaster flask anointing story of Jesus causes me to be certain of my mercy story.
Causes me to know I’m a child of God and that Jesus will always be my defender.
The story of Derrick Hawkins and his last comment about Jesus got me good.
I’m sure he didn’t plan it, my connecting with him.
But God did.
Got me thinking I understand mercy more now.
Mercy that’s rich.
That doesn’t chastise or refute me.
[bctt tweet=”Mercy finds me and says, that was then, this is now.” username=””]
My Heavenly Father saying
Yes, I know Lisa Anne but, Jesus.
And me in agreement saying, I’ll continue.
Continue.
Continue and believe.
“For we are his workmanship…”
Ephesians 2:10 ESV
Here’s how it goes around here. I paint abstract landscapes or girls angelic, occasionally a flower and a couple of days ago, 3 peaches. I have pencil sketches of a nude figure with a slightly askew bun. It’s beautiful, graceful and free, a departure for me.
Me: What does this painting make me you think of?
GT: Uhmmmm….A sky? Water? A woman? Sunflowers?
Me: Did you notice the peaches painting?
GT: Yeah, I saw the big peach, it was big.
Me: No, there are 3.
I suppose it’s a good thing he doesn’t get too much into the sanctuary of my “business” and that whatever I paint, yeah that’s good.
Like the time I spent a week trying to paint the likeness of Jimi Hendrix only to consistently find myself staring at James Brown.
He swore it was Jimi. It for sure wasn’t.
That piece was covered over with freedom and resulted in a woodsy set of illuminated pines.
I love the peaches, the three of them.
Sigh.
“Three Sweet Peaches” is available now. Other art can be purchased at Artisan Market and Decor in Aiken or at the award winning spot with Chef Brandon Velie, Juniper in Ridge Spring, SC. Y’all, you must dine there!
Have you ever known a leaf to sprout from a tiny brand new planted seed?
A seed like the ones we planted in paper Dixie cups and watched to see the bright tiny green come up from the black dirt?
The butter bean plant would sprout and then we’d watch granddaddy put it in the ground to wait expectantly for the beans.
Waiting back then was so sweet, shellin’ peas and beans and pulling up dirt covered peanuts to pluck them from the green stems as we sat in the back of an old truck.
And later with dirty hands and bliss, we’d eat huge bowls of briny deliciousness.
Maybe children understand process, maybe waiting was learned through simple participation.
Anticipation was not anxious, it was more moving a little closer to what we’d grown to know.
On Monday, God offered an option, pointed me towards a reprieve from my incessant seeking to hurry up and become what I had yet to see.
Pending needs were not being met by responses from others.
Getting things done meant waiting for others to deliver on their part to me.
Then Tuesday came like a gift of a day and I accepted it like the joy it was indeed.
I let unfinished business lie in the places I’d left it, the tasks, the obligations, my initiations towards finishes.
I stood in my morning kitchen and stared at my feet.
Fascinated by the calm colors, the image of me, steady and still, planted.
Told myself, today is for the baby, baby Elizabeth and your girl.
It was a good day for sure!
And now, here’s half a day gone, middle of the week Wednesday.
I’m at a standstill, a snail’s pace, dependent on others.
My to do list with no new strikethroughs!
Unfinished tasks on my mind and underfoot and uncertainty over the current vagueness of my vocation.
Paint, write, assist, consult…which way, which road?
Dropping hints about my skills and being available, my multiple seeds.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus
John 12:24
Have you ever considered “waiting and trusting” a sacrifice?
The sacrifice God wants is my trust, for me not to meander away from who He says I am in futile attempts to hurry up and be a better version of me.
Have you let God plant you in the soil He intends to grow you or do you resist what seems like nothing, impatient and worried?
Has your identity changed, what you were known for been taken, now different?
Does it feel as if your thing you thought was yours has been stolen?
Is it hard to see that God has better for you because you’re so attached to before?
To accomplishing much?
My mama used to say “Turn the page.”
God is saying, I think to me, “Plant new seeds.”
He knows you, knows me. His ways are deeper and higher. His soil is richer.
Know Him, know the best version of you.
Also on Monday, I discovered I have 820 blog posts out in the world.
I have no desire to perform any sort of comparative analysis of me when I began and the me I am now.
I sure hope I’ve stayed honest through them all, that if I leaned toward know it all or cutesy commentary that the handful of readers gave me mercy back then.
And the ones who hung around when I wrote about loving the sky and the sounds of the birds.
No worries, that Lisa Anne is still here.
Here on this Wednesday when I’m at a loss over what to do for an income.
No set vocation and it’s noon and my husband just stood in the doorway to say…”You’re still in your pajamas…”
He smiled when I answered “Yes, things are not coming together again today.”
Strangely for him, he offered no suggestion. He let it rest.
And as he left the room to cut grass or hedges I reminded myself the third day in a row, you’ve done your part, just wait for God to take it wherever it is meant to go.
To grow.
We choose where we stay.
We get back and we see.
Why did I not return sooner?
Why did I flee?
“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling, and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift.”
Isaiah 30:15-16 ESV
Pursued by everything others say you need, promising it will turn your door’s key to peace causing confusion, exhaustion until you return.
Return to the place that simply lets you be.
The place God says this is you.
This is yours.
The places with no parameters, expectation or restraint.
I stood in front of my new easel for three hours last night. I, thanks to the newlyweds, have a proper easel.
It stands tall to accommodate large pieces.
I painted a piece in a newly free way of layering. Colors in little prism like squares creating ideas of form and figure.
I’ll layer a little more later.
This morning I pondered the biblical idea of abiding.
Of remaining confident when there’s no reason to be sure simply because you know you are close to God.
You slow down long enough, briefly at first until you discover, I am okay, I’ve been at peace a little while now.
Of being where you are even though you can’t see clearly where you’re going.
“For we live by faith, not by sight.”
2 Corinthians 5:7
Of starting and allowing God to lead, much like a blank canvas you approach and begin with a certain color to continue with sweet consolation.
I like what this is saying. I am content with what I’ve conveyed here.
I’m so glad I began again, taking away what was planned and letting another idea develop.
Stripping away the too many perfect layers to leave the impression of a beauty, imperfect and spontaneous.
Yes. I cannot wait to be back there.
Abiding is simply staying in the place you feel most safe.
The place of the little corner room, soft songs about grace and love blending blue-grassy vibe with truth about staying here.
Where you belong, the place God made you for, the place of quiet confidence.
Present with God.
The place you sense most clearly that you are known, your longings have been observed by God, the place you believe you matter, you are a part of God’s story.
The morning story that reminds you, mercies are new all the time and His faithfulness has surely been great every moment.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” John 15:9
Where do you go that causes you to wonder why your return was delayed?
Do you sit with your fingers on keys finding soft notes at first becoming clearly stronger as time passes, you and the piano, maybe a guitar or a horn?
Do you put your hands deep into the soil and seed of flora or bright vibrant leaves?
Do you allow them to linger when you realize your hands are mingling with growth, God’s glory?
Do you sit with no agenda watching the anticipated rain come in?
Linger longer in the places that mean abiding for you.
Rest for our souls, maybe long overdue.
Space enough to remember.
You are strong.
Stronger than you know.
Continue and believe.
This piece is a mixed media collage using acrylic, paper and oil pastel. It is 20 x 38. Comment if interested.
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.
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