I sketched a woman with a thoughtful gaze and a posture of certainty. Soon after, I added abstract shapes, soft colors and scattered words.
With ease and my normal messy pace, I added twelve watercolor sketches, deciding this is the 2022 calendar.
The calendar is 11×17 on high quality matte paper. The artwork is sized for later framing. It can be hung on a wall or positioned in an easel for your desk or counter.
You can purchase the calendar here. Use the promo code, 2022CALENDAR for a big discount on 5 or more!
The orchid, delicately teasing me with the buds barely visible, has been nothing other than knotty branches since I (read the instructions) shook the dust off the gnarled roots and repotted it.
God will help her when morning dawns.
While the dollar store Christmas cactus is popping out fuchsia shoots.
Left alone, barely watered since a Christmas last year with no blooms even hinting.
I thought “cease striving” last week, worried over the decision to order an extra 100 calendars from the printer.
I told myself, based on your history, forget about it, let it go, it’ll come back around, the interest in the calendar with your art.
Today, I woke at 5:00 and thought again, “cease striving”.
Let come what may.
Let things grow in their own time and way, not yours.
These are words I tell myself with regularity.
I opened my Bible to find Psalm 46:10 to read the psalmist’s same recommendation.
It wasn’t there. Instead, the words are “be still” in every translation I searched for comparison.
Somewhere I, and I believe others decided we may need a tone more disciplined, more direct.
“Cease striving”…with perhaps, once and for all added for emphasis, at least for me.
Psalm 46 is about rest. It is an exhortation to remember the strengths of God, his handiwork and plans.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.
Selah
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Selah
Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. “Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
What we allow to be influenced by Jesus, by love, by vulnerable secret places exposed to light, lends itself to our stories being rewritten.
We begin to believe the vastness of God’s grace is for us, not just for others.
We loosen the bitter, cynical ropes that tether us to making sense of past wrongs and in a gradual epiphany type way, we see hope as more than a sweet little word.
We may wonder why it took so long and we may fear falling back into the questioning pattern tattooed on our soul by trauma.
We may wonder over this change causing glimpses of heaven.
Or we might decide to embrace it.
We may just move this Christmas season from believing and accepting Christ Jesus
To fully embracing Him.
We’ll be easy on our fragile human hearts when they try to grow stiff again.
We’ll pivot towards the soft light of love, we will reset our hearts on hope again.
We will say to ourselves, maybe on little post-its or with pen on our wrists.
“healed”
…by his wounds, I am healed.
We’ll continue seeing God. We’ll be amazed where He is.
“having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might” Ephesians 1:18-19 ESV
I wonder if I’m more observant of the light because of darkness so early or if it’s a needy seeking of quietness with myself leading to peace with God.
I found a feather next to the pretty bottle we store our found feathers, my granddaughter’s sweet solution I adore.
Left for Finding Light of the World Known
“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:4-5 NIV
And God said, “Let there be light.” and there was light. Genesis 1:3 ESV
Thinking of light and darkness like knowledge vs. mystery or questions vs. answers, certainty vs. doubt, I found John 1 and had a quiet little cry.
We don’t know it all, but we do know light, love and hope.
Light is trust.
“We are conformed to Him in proportion as our lives grow in quietness, His peace spreading within our souls.” T.T. Carter, Joy & Strength devotional
In quiet confidence is your strength. (Isaiah 30:15)
“You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.” Psalm 139:3 ESV
I lost my glasses on Monday, the cute ones, the ones a little bolder than my typical tortoise or black. Like most people my age, there are spare pairs everywhere. But, not on Monday.
We drove down the pretty road bordered with deeply rooted trees. Her mama had left a forgotten treat in the mailbox.
So early in the day, my readers must have slipped from my pocket or fell from my lap.
It’s an interesting dependence I now have on them, like a security blanket for a baby.
I catch myself thinking I have a pair like a headband only to pat the top of my head to be sure they’re there and find only hair.
On Monday, I was without them. I warned people I responded to in text. They were unbothered by my typos.
By the end of the day I was managing just fine. My daughter didn’t find them on the road and I decided, oh well they’re just gone.
I gathered my things in the passenger seat once I was at home. Glanced down in the space between seat and console and saw a strange sight. I decided my husband had left some stuff in my car.
A little glass case, black with faux fancy logo with a pair of readers in the color peridot, my birthday stone.
I lost them so long ago.
Not as fancy as the blue, but I loved them and missed them.
Why am I writing about finding reading glasses?
It’s the thought that came.
The thought about good in God’s time and God’s way, about the way answers come when we accept we don’t know.
The way God is the very best at the “art of surprising”.
On Tuesday, my granddaughter wanted another treat. It was close to lunchtime and she had a slight runny nose, but would never tell her grandma she was feeling bad.
(Memories of her strong mama here, rarely voicing a need or trouble.)
I let her lay on the floor, not flailing but fussing. Let her let her mood play out, allowed her to reconcile what she wanted with what her person in charge decided was best.
From the kitchen, I heard her whine change to elation.
“I found Gamma’s cross! Grandma, I found Gamma’s cross!”
She ran over and handed me the tiny gold cross, the one Gamma lost months ago and we all searched until we settled on not finding and stopped searching.
I called Gamma. Told her, “Guess what?” and quoted our precious granddaughter.
She found the cross.
Under the couch, found when a little toddler tantrum decided to get quiet and lift the fabric of the couch to think. How she spotted it is really nothing short of a miracle.
Yesterday, we had a sweet day together. The back seat of my car strewn with a used pull-up, tiny books, little cards and juicy cups, and “guess what?”
My fancy blue glasses.
God is good always. Always present, always waiting for us to find Him.
I had a thought yesterday as I listened to the words of a popular song “My Jesus”.
I thought “I don’t feel the nearness of Jesus now.”
An honest admission that confirms feelings aren’t always the most accurate assessments of our joy or our pain.
To admit a lack opens our hearts to a closer examination of whether we’ve been working too hard to find God and forgetting He’s never left us.
Like the glasses, appearing when I decided I’d never find them, they were waiting for my discovering.
How does it make you feel to know that God is sovereign, knows everything?
David understood.
His sinful choices, his wandering away always led to an unrelenting confession,
God you never left me, I once again lost my way.
Choosing to know God knows everything about me is either scary and vulnerable or it is surprisingly and steadily comforting.
It’s our choice.
Either way God never misplaces us, forgets where he left us or refuses our finding when we go on our own way.
There’s a tiny mustard seed charm lying somewhere that came unglued from my bracelet.
It’s been lost so long I’ve stopped searching.
Gamma and I are hoping our angel finds it. Boy, that would be some surprise!
But, if not all is good with my faith.
With God and I
It is well with my soul and God is close.
Prone to wonder and wander.
My Father certainly knows my way.
“God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares.
See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting way— the path that brings me back to you.” Psalms 139:23-24 TPT
I lost my glasses on Monday, the cute ones, the ones a little bolder than my typical tortoise or black. Like most people my age, there are spare pairs everywhere. But, not on Monday.
We drove down the pretty road bordered with deeply rooted trees. Her mama had left a forgotten treat in the mailbox.
So early in the day, my readers must have slipped from my pocket or fell from my lap.
It’s an interesting dependence I now have on them, like a security blanket for a baby.
I catch myself thinking I have a pair like a headband only to pat the top of my head to be sure they’re there and find only hair.
On Monday, I was without them. I warned people I responded to in texts. They were unbothered by my typos.
By the end of the day I was managing just fine. My daughter didn’t find them on the road and I decided, oh well they’re just gone.
I gathered my things in the passenger seat once I was at home. Glanced down in the space between seat and console and saw a strange sight. I decided my husband had left some stuff in my car.
A little glass case, black with faux fancy logo with a pair of readers in the color peridot. I lost them so long ago.
Not as fancy as the blue, but I loved them and missed them.
Why am I writing about finding reading glasses?
It’s the thought that came after, the clarity in a sweet message from God.
About good in God’s time and God’s way, about the way answers come when we accept we don’t know, can’t be in control of everything.
The way God is the very best at the “art of surprising”.
On Tuesday, my granddaughter wanted another treat. It was close to lunchtime and she had a slight runny nose, but would never tell her grandma she was feeling bad.
(Memories of her strong mama here, rarely voicing a need or trouble.)
I let her lay on the floor, not flailing but fussing. Let her let her mood play out, allowed her to reconcile what she wanted with what her person in charge decided was best.
From the kitchen, I heard her whine change to elation.
“I found Gamma’s cross! Grandma, I found Gamma’s cross!”
She ran over and handed me the tiny gold cross, the one Gamma lost months ago and we all searched until we settled on not finding and stopped searching.
I called Gamma. Told her “Guess what?” and quoted our precious granddaughter.
She found the cross.
Under the couch, found when a little toddler tantrum decided to get quiet and lift the fabric of the couch to hide underneath. How she spotted it is really nothing short of a miracle.
No one else would’ve looked there.
Yesterday, we had a sweet day together. The back seat of my car strewn with a used pull-up, tiny books, little cards and juicy cups, and “guess what?”
My fancy blue glasses.
Hmmm, a surprise.
I had a thought yesterday as I listened to the words of a popular song “My Jesus”.
I thought “I don’t feel the nearness of Jesus now.”
I told God that very thing, asked Him to help me see what’s blocking my view or maybe, just to show me it’s okay to not always be searching, rather to wait for his revealing.
Gamma and Grandma both wear crosses, I suppose it’s one of our granddaughter, Elizabeth’s favorite things, our necklaces.
And our bracelets.
Yesterday, she sat in my lap and asked about every charm on my bracelet, the tiny artist palette, the little girl and boy silhouettes, her mommy and her uncle. She spotted the tiny angel, a gift from my husband prior to her birth. She said “That’s like my angel”, an angel her mama’s grandma gave her when she was just a baby.
One charm she skipped over is the circle with the missing charm, a tiny mustard seed enclosed in glass. Lost so long ago, I stopped searching.
When I called Gamma, teary with excitement, she called our granddaughter “my angel” and I agreed.
She added, “Now, let’s wait for her to find your mustard seed!”
“That would be something!” I said.
The sketches on the thin pages of my Bible often overlap with faded color, the Psalms especially.
After the sleepover, I discovered my granddaughter had placed the little heart in the little hand.
I remember being captivated by my grandmother’s things, wanting to hold them.
Longing to understand their worth, her little trinkets, her jewelry, her talcum powder and Jergen’s cherry lotion.
They were her.
I woke this morning with a few words
“Choose this day, choose life or death.”
Incline Your Heart
I found the passage in the Old Testament, the historical account of Joshua’s life.
The battle of Jericho, the passage telling us to be strong and courageous, God is with us.
And this one, with the last few words you may find in a home, often a gift for newly married.
“And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15 ESV
These are strong exhortations to people in battle, to choose God’s way or the other gods of their history.
For me, they mean simply “choose life” today.
Choose love or fear. Choose trust over doubt. Choose bravery over insecurity.
Choose to not forfeit your day to anxiety or depression over uncontrollable circumstances.
Choose to be light rather than heavy.
To let be what will be with a satisfied spirit.
Grace is enough. The grace you’ve known and the overflow that is promised.
Choose forgiveness over fretting.
Choose Today
…incline your heart to the Lord. Joshua 24:33
The little heart still rests in the hand.
The heart left on my doorstep by my pastor as a love offering in sympathy of my mama’s passing tells me
Love goes on.
I notice my orchid, revived and repotted has tiny tissue paper buds this morning.
I opened the tattered devotional to the pages marked Day 4 and found the list in faded blue ink. There are names of people here who aren’t here any longer.
The name of my pastor back then, other family, friends and I think a friend of my son from his middle school years, Will.
There’s the name of the little boy, Noah who was pretending to drive and put the SUV into reverse. He ran over and killed his mama.
There’s the prayer of surrender to and acceptance of outcomes. There is the word “thanks” for my home and husband.
There is the tender request for my children still children back then, I asked God to give them joy.
That prayer is recorded. My request is unending, no expiration.
Joy for them, joy unexpected.
“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” Psalm 56:8 ESV
Recalling my restlessness last night I decide if there was something fearful to have play out in a series of dreams like short films, last night I dreamt an entire season.
No cause known, nothing unsettled, I decide it’s because I gave my mind no rest yesterday. I was on overdrive towards organizing all the tasks to come.
My second evening of adding running to walking, I came home to discover we had no hot water. So, no shower to help unravel the day.
All of this hurried unexpectedness led to no rest.
All is well. I am fully known and loved.
I shall move now into Thursday.
Remembering God.
He steadies me. I don’t have to take control.
The way ahead is safe as are my thoughts, questions and prayers.
Safe and sound.
Settled already.
“Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path.” Proverbs 4:25-26 NLT
I think of my education, my experiences and opportunities I pursued bravely or with naivety. I think of little expressions I use to keep myself grounded and at the same time a risk taker. Scripture like all things are possible with God often lead me to think any and everything is worth trying.
But, that leads to half-heartedness or worse, failure because of a lack of knowledge.
Then the decision to stay on the path set for me, the one I know.
Today, I’ll paint thick crosses gilded gold on small canvases to be Christmas ornaments.
I thought of venturing into something new, but crosses are what I know, what I do.
Did I sense God saying “stay simple, Lisa”? Yes, I did. Some call that wisdom, gut feeling, intuition.
I know it’s His Spirit.
A favorite bit of advice I give to friends and family in a new challenge, a scary opportunity for which they doubt their ability is this.
Write “trust” on the place in your palm just below the base of your thumb. Imagine holding hands with Jesus. Imagine his thumb wrapped gently in a loving handhold. Imagine Him beside you.
Trust what you can’t physically feel. Trust that whatever your assignment, God will equip you. Trust that whatever burden or hardship you are carrying, the load is easier when shared.
“Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 NLT
Lord, help us to remember today that it is you who equips us for life. Help us quietly seek you in private and personal ways so that we can imagine the friendship of you, our helper, our strong defender and guide.
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 