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
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.
I say that on the regular and I know it. I need to shield myself from the worrisome realities of this world. I need a safe buffer, I need to do what I can to help my own “hemming in” a mindset that says no to fear.
I don’t know any country songs anymore; no more singing songs about good times, lost loves or even reminiscing with some Eagles, Clapton or Stevie.
I do keep my Phillip Phillips handy because his voice makes me happy and soulful when I need it.
But, I worship on Sunday.
I need it and it’s an answer to a kind calling of me to return, to rest.
I cling to my quiet spaces that welcome big or tiny thinking. I pray and I listen to songs about believing in God, redemption, beginning again, courage and the assurance of God. I do all of these things because I know I need them.
I’m not able on my own.
On my own I write scary stories, I anticipate the bad news by the ringtone. I observe the reactions of others, stand prone to defend my tender self. I “armor up” I suppose in a not always healthy way. When I’m not trusting I feel my breath in a knot in the center of my chest.
To trust without knowing feels like risk for me. To go one step farther not knowing the location of the sudden ledge is not comfortable for me.
To only know what I am to know in the story of another makes me uneasy. I squirm in my seat wanting to see how I can prepare for the ending.
I sometimes need to know what isn’t mine to know and if I’m honest, it’s more about my lack of understanding than it is concern for another.
I don’t like not knowing. It feels like risk for me.
Trusting God feels risky.
Then I remember to consider the ravens, the way He made them. He tells us we are worth more.
“Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” Luke 12:24-25 ESV
Last week, my granddaughter and I were cooped up from the rain and cold. We went window to window to get an idea of outdoors. I spied a big bird, black as coal and shiny and we tracked it together from front yard to open field to sky.
“Bird.” I said to the baby.
And then, she replied in a sweet soft utter…
“Bird”. I smiled and held her close.
Childlike observation, trust not yet tainted by fear.
Consider the bird through a baby’s discovery.
Trust like a baby. Faith like a child, fearlessness because of belief in Jesus.
Risk like the ravens. Confidence like a happy sparrow. Peace like a lily in an open green field. Plenty like a pauper with more than enough for breakfast.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 NLT
When God gave this word to Solomon, He was thinking of Mary, of Martha. He was thinking of Peter, of Paul, of John, of the Woman caught in adultery….too many to tell. He was thinking of me, Lisa and of you, of you as well.
I believe this.
I missed the part about the meeting of their faces until I read the passage. A familiar passage, I remembered the telltale rooster crow and skimmed over the way Jesus saw it all. Jesus saw it all.
I can’t stop thinking how Peter must have felt the next morning. Did he experience a hangover of sorts? Here I am again letting doubt takeover? Maybe not because these hours were the deadly ones, the tortured crucifixion. Sorrow over self had no place then. Only the reality of sacrificial and loving death.
Peter, a man who was the brother of John, the one who was able to step from a stormy boat to walk on the top of the ocean because he trusted God, was sure of Jesus.
His denial to others of his belief is a captivating story.
Jesus told him as he prepared them all at the Last Supper and before. Jesus told Peter, you will deny me.
“Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”” Luke 22:34 ESV
Peter was adamant that he wouldn’t.
But he finds himself sitting around a fire outside a high priest’s house that held the captured Jesus. Peter has followed the throng at a distance from Jesus. Not so far that he didn’t appear to be associated with the Savior. Just far enough to avoid the reactions of the ones who’d be making the crucifixion decision.
The onlookers build a fire, like concert-goers in line for a sell out I suppose. Fireside conversation begins and three separate people spread the word, this man here, hey you, we saw you with him. As if to say, why are you sitting here when you’re known to be a friend of Jesus?
Peter told all three, “not me”.
“And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” Luke 22:58 ESV
Then a rooster crowed three times. Peter met the eyes of the watching Jesus. He wept. He wept at the realization of a Savior who knew him so very well.
“And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.” Luke 22:61-62 ESV
Peter’s story doesn’t end here. He encountered the resurrected Jesus and he continued his life proclaiming all he had learned from his experiences with Jesus.
I’m thinking about the fireside scene. How in the world did Peter succumb to peer pressure? Why was it so hard for him to believe without being afraid of consequence or opinion?
I believe it may have been just a fear in general in believing good things could actually come true.
But, this is probably just my takeaway. That we believe what we can count on based on our histories to be true, to be certain, to be what we can count on.
Our humanity causes our hearts to draw the map for our minds to follow. I don’t think Peter was unsure of Jesus. More than that, he was unsure of himself. So, he placed himself with the accusers, the deniers, the cynics and the intellects.
He felt more at home that night with the ones who chose to believe a sure thing, not life changing, miraculous or unseeable.
Jesus knew he would. Peter’s behavior was forgiven. The account of Peter tells the undeniable truth for me and you.
Jesus knows we’re prone to doubt, afraid to speak out, that we dumb ourselves down at times when it comes to our faith.
Jesus knows we’re afraid to be bold on occasion. Knows we’re quite tentative in stepping into his promise of better, of complete.
Yesterday, I heard a statement.
You will be as safe from sin as you are close to Jesus.
What I believe and whether I believe completely is fully known by God. Jesus knew Peter would deny Him. His denial leaves a compelling story for us all.
The regret of Peter over distancing himself from Jesus. The realization and tender repentance when met with the gaze of Jesus.
A repentance, loving and open because of mercy we all can know.
Again and again.
What we believe makes the difference. Believing with an uncertainly over God or believing with all our hearts.
“The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:9 NLT
I’m standing in the kitchen and thinking go snap another picture.
Instead I settle on the view, a room filled with tall windows and panorama, a telephone doesn’t suffice, for the glory and purpose of me saying to me.
You are here.
“He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalms 23:2-6 ESV
You get to experience this time.
This place. This grace.
This momentary hand of God that tells you, stop rushing. Stop trying to capture any more clearly than what I’m revealing gradually. The sunrise in the country with clouds sweeping up to the places you can’t see.
But you know are there.
Eternity is possible for those who believe. Life is more than earth and heaven more beautiful than we can conceive.
Stand still. Let that heart of yours rest easy. Now, the baby is rising. Open wide eyes and smile and exploration of every single crevice of her sweet life and pretty place.
Ready yourself! Life is worth discovering! You get to be an observer!
Now the grand sky has changed to pink. The window above the plant, the cookbook, the big letter of their last name offers me peace.
The color of love and peace.
I look down, look away and well, I could go on forever.
I’ll stop lest I start telling you about the birds, the trees, the wide open field shifting from brown to green.
The geese that are communicating.
Wherever you are today, I hope something captures your attention, something you can’t really capture, only believe.
It occurred to me just now as I decided I love the Book of James, the gospels are essentially memoir, perspectives provided of what the writers knew and know of Jesus.
Hmmm, just like us. Our life stories left in piles of journals thought to be too personal for the perusal of others. Lord knows my journals tell all kinds of stories, my life stories. Some admittedly hard to reread, the coming to terms with life events, questions, agonizing hashing out of major decisions.
Thankfully, truly really, those days are over; they’re over because I finally learned to filter my days through the lens of redemption, not regret.
Still authentic, still honest but more gentle, more wise.
This is why the Book of James is calling my name. James, the brother of Jesus wasn’t quite sure of the truth of Him until He saw for himself the death, the resurrection. It became real then and the Book that bears the name of James is worth reading and reading again.
“Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” James 1:2-4 MSG
I love this so much, my faith life being forced into the open showing I’ve endured some struggle and I’ve kept on believing.
Life is just that, continuous belief and knowing that faith is our preserver, our kind companion, our rescue in every storm.
The display of our many colors.
What’s your life looking like today? It’s cold and rainy outside my window. My house has me home alone and quiet. I’ll take my time reading, a half hour maybe and read the Book of James. Remembering, at one time it was believed he was uncertain.
RememberIng in words I especially love that he knew enduring, believing and not doubting wasn’t a given. Still, James reminds us that this is the way to sacred and true living.
We all stumble in many ways. We all get beat up and tossed around in life’s storms. (James 3:-4)
But, we hold on tight to what we believe is ours for the asking in faith.
We continue and believe. Our colors are beginning to show.
This thought, my waking one on a free Friday morning.
The Bible says we’re worth more than sparrows and that God knows the number of hairs on our heads.
Still, I find myself wanting to keep it all under control, worry over what I need to do to become what I’m not yet.
A trio of black crows gathered out by the woodpile on Thursday.
I pointed them out to my granddaughter, acknowledging their being so close, not flying above us anymore.
We talk about the birds as we watch from the windows cold to the touch of our hands.
Foggy mornings cold to southern girls like us, cooped up and positioned for curiosity.
We had three days like that.
Then the sun came.
I woke this morning thinking about the sovereignty of God, of peace and of that being a relief.
About realizing that every moment holds peace if we accept that in every circumstance, every craziness or every seemingly unfair lull in meaningful activity, God is in it with us.
Be at peace.
What a relief to accept every single moment as God’s orchestration.
Either of needed rest or of unexpected yet longed for relief.
I’ve often found myself on the edge of a forlorn cliff deciding to sit and be at peace or to jump for relief, either running from my anxiety or demanding evidence of God knowing me, finding me worth knowing.
Truth is found over and over in the quiet place. His Spirit is relief.
Yesterday, I was escorted back home from the winding roads bordered by overgrown splendid trees, bright moss clinging to clay ditches and a wide sky with soft brushstrokes of clouds like meringue.
I noticed the birds.
I decided they were the ones from Tuesday.
A trio of hawks led me back to the main road and I held up my phone thinking this is for you from God.
Saying good, see you’re seeing me, Lisa.
I wanted to remember the threesome, the hawks swooping and swaying above me as I turned from my third grandma day back home to paint.
I am learning to live aware of all my moments.
To live peacefully, momentarily.
To remember the things God is saying about His will being found by me.
Be where you are.
Notice God there.
I saw that the grass my daughter picked from the pond had faded and told her I loved it more, the softer color.
She paused, maybe she saw it.
Peace as a centerpiece.
The will of God is found when we accept ourselves in the places He places us, changes us.
When we give fully to every calling, each one of value.
Not anxious over what is unfinished or not even begun yet.
Be where you are.
Life and peace, this is your life and this will be your finding peace.
Life and peace.
Singing “Deep and Wide” to an eight month old and watching her eyes, seeing her awareness of love, her noticing God.
Allowing this captivating exchange.
Treasuring it.
Standing in front of the easel, taking time to nourish this calling. Creating from a closeness with my Creator, not worried over whether someone will want it.
God’s work through your hands, think of it this way and be sweetly, simply amazed to be an artist.
Writing without seeking acceptance, writing your one and only story.
Writing for those God knows need your words. Don’t consider that small, never see that as a small calling.
Listening to my husband who loves lyrics like not passing this way again. He’s so subtle. Aging is a melody, it is best done together.
Be what God has shown me to be for my adult children, available and unrelenting in my belief and God’s in them.
There’s no need for analysis or expert advice.
Keep being their mama!
There’s a peace here, it’s a heart and mind decision, sacred in relationship.
Be who God knows you’re on the cusp of becoming and look for His assurance, not others’.
Be who you are.
Relieved in that acceptance and aligned with the one who made you.
Soar.
See, you are loved.
“So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open, drinking in your strength and glory. In your generous love I am really living at last! My lips brim praises like fountains. I bless you every time I take a breath; My arms wave like banners of praise to you.”
I should become educated on birds and their differences.
Birds I decide are hawks because I think of my daddy are usually buzzards.
My husband or daughter will tell me and I’ll cling to the hawk story because I like it better.
Still, they interest me. I notice.
I am fascinated by what looks like freedom to go and to be and to live with beautiful ease.
Three birds in the distance careening in a weave.
They were funneled through the foggy sky.
Flying together for me to see and then dipping down in the valley behind the tall pines for a minute then showing themselves again.
Then, the sound, the “ca-caw” told me they were crows which I only recently learned are different than the raven.
The raven, a little more special I have learned.
Still, I watched and I wondered where are they going, are these even the same three birds as before?
Then the fog began to let blue and sunlight through and three birds played, the same or maybe another trio danced a waltz of synchronicity just for me.
“The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.”
Ecclesiastes 1:6-8 ESV
And I didn’t wonder as much as before where they’d been
Or how they chose to go where they go or how they know anything at all.
About flying, about existing with no worry.
They just know.
They just know
whether I know anything for sure at all.
Like chasing after the wind or trying to measure the depth of the ocean with my toes.
Like trying to stroke the ebony feather of a beautiful bird, a crow.
Not a hawk, an eagle or raven.
But splendid in the sky, fantastic just for me and my stories all my own.
Like Solomon, I’m convinced it’s all complexity and it’s all worth ponder.
Brave and beautiful and curiously compelling.
Life and knowing.
Like a bird.
Knowing as they go.
Some things are worth knowing only a little or really nothing at all.
Like flying in the fog, it surely must be just knowing all is well, the wide sky is wider than they know.
“For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.”
Ecclesiastes 1:18 ESV
Tomorrow I’ll consider the raven, the sparrow, the birds playing in the wintry shrubs.
And I’ll be satisfied in knowing the so little I know.
Daddy had a garden several years, in the big back yard of the nicest home we lived in, in the narrow yard of the old house in the sketchy neighborhood, the westside of town.
And in the country, the furrowed rows could be seen from my window in the place where my children and I lived next to them, my mama and daddy.
All around us were other bigger fields.
My cousin worked them every year.
Soybeans, corn, peanuts, the rotation.
And wheat, the swaying stalks the place where my little girl loved to escape.
Just in front, sandy dirt, easily bogged down road that required us to memorize the ruts, there was cold and quiet digging at the end of the day, old bent silver spoons stirred up cakes and castles for both of my children back then.
We were never farmers but we saw the life.
We learned from the living.
We knew that the rain could ruin a crop and the lack of it, the same.
2019 was a year of breaking up my land, fine deep uprooting of long decayed seeds that needed to be give up on.
Crops that were meaningful but not so beneficial saw my surrender to possible new yields.
New seeds were planted and I was faithful even if my faith like a worried farmer sat and cynically muddled over what wasn’t growing.
Waited and accepted the harvest that came and set the mind on plowing down what didn’t produce and waiting til the season said yes to make new furrowed places and drop new seed.
I grew in new ways in 2019, struggle, surrender, stubborn decisions to live differently.
Differently as in not giving up on the possibility of new thoughts, new ways.
Rejecting the idea that nothing could ever grow strong through the work of my words and my hands.
Deciding not to let my fields become a wasteland, instead allow the painful turning over of my ground, the destruction of old roots making space for new planting.
“reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.”
Hosea 10:12 KJV
Months ago, I heard someone recite this verse and it simply would not let me go.
I began to grow slowly then.
Slowly being okay with waiting.
Surrender is a strong decision not a flag markinga quitter.
Surrendered ones keep going.
Taking in the nourishment given to me by songs, sermons, scripture.
Quiet, underneath like the soil.
My soul began and is still growing towards the embrace of the truth of the mercy and love of Jesus.
I wondered this morning if rushing towards Jesus, of standing up and saying I believe and not realizing it takes time to grow is a deterrent.
Do we decide not to believe fully because we expect to have a burst of understanding, an all of a sudden plentiful harvest of walking by faith in glorious fields?
I wonder if that causes us to doubt Jesus.
Nothing growing, we quit planting, we stop watering.
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.
I should become educated on birds and their differences.
Lisa Anne Tindal 