I committed to a monthly newsletter and am learning as I go. Here’s an excerpt of September’s and an invitation to subscribe if you’d like to share in my imperfect, yet continued writing journey.
Zacchaeus came down from a tree and Jesus followed him home and in that home, if there’d been a confused, conflicted and peace seeking sister, she could have been me.
Feel free to share.
LT
Before I saw them, before we began our regular thing.
A morning walk.
Morning glories everywhere!
In the beginning, I cupped her in the crook of my arm, turned her face to where we were going
Talked to God
And she listened.
She looked up curiously towards the wide sky.
Every day she’s so learning.
I’m walking stronger, she’s moved from my arms to the independence of her stroller.
Too soon, no…she’s sweetly ready.
Happy there, more free to turn and notice, stretch her arms toward heaven.
Glory!
So am I.
I call her “morning glory” because of the way as a newborn she greeted the day with a smile.
I call her “morning glory” because she’s a teacher of good, she illuminates my world, causes me to cherish morning and walks and her round rosy cheek on my shoulder.
The morning glories on the country path are spread wider every morning.
Pops of tender blue increasing on their vines, crawling up the edges of the deep overgrown ditches.
Looking up.
Looking up, curious for God.
Certain of new morning glories tomorrow and beyond.
I call her “morning glory”, she causes my heart’s new bloom.
…now we thank you, praise your glorious name.
I Chronicles 29:13
Out walking, I prayed.
Lord, I’m in need of some sort of confirmation, small something to say, keep waiting for it or keep writing or no.
Big things attempted, proposal and query, how embarrassing to walk away…
Decide it’s okay to stop or to persist?
A story came through scripture about the little boy with the little bit of bread and what Jesus told the disciples to tell the thousands.
“Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.”
John 6:10 ESV
Then he multiplied the loaf, a miraculous sight.
The people were well fed.
Before the panic began, Jesus assured their need was met.
I’ve stopped tracking my followers and I’ve stopped asking for subscribers to my newsletter.
I’ve never been great at asking for things, I’m content with slipping back into my safe place.
The place that says find me if you need something, I’m always willing to listen and to help if I’m able.
I can pray.
This is not effective according to many in the community called writing. Not effective or conducive to being published, to being read.
To being valid, being noticed.
I get that. I understand and yet, small feels safe now.
Being okay with small seems a significant decision for me.
If one person reads a blogpost or an early morning relatable “sermon to self” that I share and feels more at peace or intrigued.
Isn’t that ministry?
Isn’t that me?
Wherever your life touches another life, there you have opportunity. George S. Merriam
Out of the blue, a friend asked for prayer, said she feels dismissed, sort of lost and empty.
I sent her a message back, a prayer.
We long for significance.
We look to outsiders and we long to belong somewhere, to be amongst the fancy others we decide have more purpose, are fulfilling theirs.
I’m thinking now about a woman in the Bible who has no name.
She is a widow.
She walks through the crowd to deposit two copper coins, amounted to a penny.
I’m thinking the others all around were comparing their donations and maybe some were humble or all were haughty.
They probably didn’t hear the coins as they fell from her hand into the place called the treasury.
I imagine the widow quietly turning to go her way, back to her solitary home.
Jesus saw her.
He saw that she gave what she could.
All she had.
“Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”
Luke 21:1-4 ESV
I’m more emotional now.
My throat is tight inside as I type and think of the worth of these words, the gift of what Jesus did.
We don’t know her name. We only know what she gave.
So small.
Yet, so significant.
I will check in with my friend later, hope she’s found some rest from her seeking to fill the emptiness.
Because I pondered whether we’re even supposed to believe we’re significant. I mean aren’t we supposed to be servants, meek and lowly
Humble?
I learned a while back, a young preacher who called me a hero called out my idea of staying humble, staying hidden, not drawing attention.
Told me that was false humility, not God’s idea.
And I didn’t tell him then because it has taken me a while to believe it.
Just like the widow with only two cents,
I am significant.
So are you.
For a long time, very long time, we all remembered and talked about the time.
I’ve never been to New York City nor D.C.. I’ve never travelled by plane although I’m beginning to entertain the possibility, romanticize the big “6-0”.
I do remember the morning of 9/11. I remember I was at DFCS in my little square office with a window on a hallway with other “welfare” workers who I considered friends.
I loved working with these people. I did.
My mama called, the children were in school an hour away and I cannot remember whether we closed the office and all of us went home.
Eventually, I was with them, home and safe with my husband.
Changed, not because I knew anyone there nor remotely understood their trauma, fear, tragedy. I had no idea.
I have no idea.
Yesterday evening, social media informed me of the death of a popular young pastor and mental health pioneer,
By suicide.
I felt afraid because of his story, suicide and its occurrence is to me “scary”.
Because it’s happening more and because I’ve been with those who have been knocked down by the tragic reality.
I find it scary.
I’m following the journey of a child named Eva, in an induced coma now and it all started with a tumble to the ground, a simple fall.
Her mama wrote about hope this morning in her Instagram.
I began to think about life and hope.
About tragedy interspersed with triumph because it seems to me this is life in this world, in most of our worlds.
I remember my mama calling on 9/11.
I remember the morning my brother called to tell me my mama was gone.
The loud moan that came up from my belly that morning must have frightened my admin, the others in the office next door.
She was gone.
I had prayed so very hard she’d be healed. I had talked with her about faith and hope, brand new and uncomfortable things for me.
Things I thought were real, my mama’s death like a test I failed, my hope was either wrong or not enough.
I stopped believing.
Because, she was gone.
Mornings like that, losses and tragedies linger.
Tragedy is interspersed with triumph though.
This is life.
I believe it.
So, how did I continue, they continue…the ones for whom today brings fatal remembrances?
I believe we must choose as best we can with God’s help.
To be well.
Be the one who is able to say.
It is well. Even so, it is well. Even though, it is well. Although and even if, it is well.
I have this hope in God, in Christ Jesus.
It is evident.
Hope that says despite the very worst scenarios…
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:”
Lamentations 3:21 ESV
Not a vacant or mystical hope, there are reasons for my hope.
A baby I call “morning glory” because it fits, evidence of long and woeful answered prayers and a new sense of God being near me, of Jesus being personally acquainted with me, in spite of tragedy and triumph and every mistake , silly or serious misstep in between.
It is well.
Be well.
Decide to fight for yourself, to believe without the full understanding of why.
That God is sovereign.
And so.
It is well.
It is well with you.
And me.
All of us often out of rhythm, rocked by loss of life, out of kilter because of uncertain outcomes,
We are dwelling between two spaces, tragedy and triumph.
Reality.
But, glory, new glory comes every morning and often if you notice, it’s interspersed in the midst of moments.
Continue.
Continue and believe.
Does not wisdom call?
Does not understanding raise her voice? Proverbs 8:1
I heard them off in the distance and decided they were traversing through the warm fog towards the expected pond down the road.
I stood as the puppy followed his pattern, checking out the corner shrub, sniffing at the dirt; he is so slow in the mornings to do “his business”.
The sound of the geese came closer and I expected to see them fly over the four homes down subdivision.
Instead they were sounding very close.
I stood as the sound approached and there they were, two sets of geese perfectly positioned over me. So very close, I could see the pattern of their feathers and their soft curved bellies, their beaks breaking up the fog.
Two sets of seven or eight or so in their arrow design making their way to must be a new destination, course change, following new directions today.
The puppy scurried towards me and was startled, his little face looking up towards the sky as he hurried.
This is new for him, I thought; he has to figure out if he should run away or be okay, trusting their kind and sweetly patterned arrival.
Being safe and simply noticing.
Noticing God.
Like the random occurrence of the dragonfly perched on my cup poolside, it rested until I noticed and because I noticed, I captured it on my phone.
Someone asked, “You’re taking a picture of a dragonfly?”
I don’t believe I responded.
Because I had no idea the symbolism and I didn’t know how beautiful it and its traditional meaning would be.
Until this morning.
Until the meaning lined up with my prayer.
The Dragonfly normally lives most of its life as a nymph or an immature. It flies only for a fraction of its life. This symbolizes and exemplifies the virtue of living in the moment and living life to the fullest.
I’m back to bedside prayers in the morning. To be honest it’s sometimes more like a long low downward dog pose, hoping for relief in the ache of low back.
I tumble from my bed to the floor determined to at the very least start well.
Start surrendered.
I think of the invalid who’d been so very close to healing waters but waited over half his life for someone to help him get well, help him from the ground into the water.
He waited to be noticed, for maybe someone to care and he used the excuses that well everyone else is beating me there, the line’s too long or perhaps, he felt the waters had lost their strength because of all the help they’d given everyone else…
Could there still be healing enough left in the water for me?
After all those years, he was paralyzed, not only his limbs but his mind and his soul.
Oh, man! I understand.
Stay where you are, settle in your place of thinking you can but never will.
“One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.”
John 5:5-9 ESV
It’s no coincidence, the geese flying over, the visiting dragonfly and my different prayer this morning.
Lord, can my life truly be different? Help me live today in pursuit of the difference in me that only you know. Help me to be moment by moment today instead of rushing towards this evening, tomorrow or even next year. Can my life really be different? I’m willing to see.
I don’t think we know at all, even an ounce of what God might have planned if we are patient, persistent and willing.
I don’t think we see the magic and power of getting up from our “mats”… our places on the ground or the floor and embracing the change and changes God says are possible when we forget all the barriers, the doubts, the distractions and the pull of life backward or in unhealthy directions.
It may be slow. I’ll try to be steady.
I’ll go slow.
I’ll follow unknown paths perhaps.
Moment by moment, change will come and I’ll find myself in small yet surrendered places.
Positioned with Him because I moved from my worn out tattered and sad place and into the healing water.
Continue.
Continue and believe.
Changed.
My husband described it as a “testament”, my description of my day.
And I didn’t correct him. I knew he meant testimony. Hey, that’s progress for me, the not correcting of word mistake.
He wasn’t there on Sunday, he had been called to work. I shared with him once I settled in back home standing in the kitchen.
He was at a loss for words.
If I’m honest, he and others sometimes are surprised by me and so, I leave them with a task, figuring out what it is that Lisa wants them to say. (Enneagram 4 indeed, me) 😊
So, I texted him the copied post from my Instagram, expressing the joy of my “beautiful day”.
Here you go:
So, today was baptism Sunday at True North. I’d forgotten about it. I usually try to prepare myself for the emotions it stirs. I watched people publicly professing their Savior, Jesus and my gut began to stir, asking myself when, why not already? Did that this morning and then actually “took my thoughts captive”, thinking it hasn’t been the right time yet, you don’t need to know the reason. I’d told my family, I’m going to get baptized, I am…the first time I was a little girl, scared to death of God, knew who Jesus was, didn’t know Jesus!
Thank God for mercy and a country preacher, I gave my life to Jesus when my children were little. My path hasn’t always been straight; but, I’ve known him beside me. Grace has kept me and grown me beyond all expectations based on my past and the human in me.
So, today I knew I’d be baptized soon, I would and because of God’s great kindness it would be the right time. I was at peace.
The pastor surprised the church today at the end, the baptism waters welcomed me and close to twenty others. I, as you might know, love words. But, words failed me other than “beautiful day” “can’t even express it”…God’s powerful timing.
I don’t anticipate anything now other than God’s continued provision of His plans for my life. I’m no more perfect because I was baptized today, I’m still a learner. I’m still a listener. But, oh my goodness thank God I’m not who I was, not last year, last month or even…before church this morning.
Early morning, it felt like an odd prayer, I asked God to help me understand obedience. He answered in my Utmost devotion. Obedience is simply knowing we were created to live a life in pursuit of God, to choose holy every time the choice is ours. Today, I told HB when the surprising opportunity to be baptized was given “I got to do this.” I believe she said “I knew you would.” I can’t be sure. My emotions were high, the Holy Spirit was powerful, it was to be honest, overwhelming.
Thank you to those who came to greet me, who smiled from your seat, called from Charleston when you heard.
Thank you, Jesus.
#beautifulday #madenew #faithful19
A “Testament” he said,
Wow, what a testament.
I’m googling testament, curious over its meaning.
I find he may have been correct.
I was wrong.
…something that serves as a sign or evidence of a specified fact, event…
Yes, my testimony of last Sunday is indeed a testament.
A story worth retelling.
The Five Minute Friday prompt today is “testimony“, so many stories, one loving God.
https://fiveminutefriday.com/2019/09/05/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-testimony/
I watched the shifting sky, the colors filtered and spread wide.
I’m with my granddaughter on our morning walk, earlier this time.
The sky beckoning her gaze.
I capture her profile, her mama and daddy’s home in the background.
Her cheeks are full and full of joy and their blush is the same as what God has mixed in with the sky.
We walk.
I hold tight, shift her weight, careful not to have my arms press in to her tiny frame.
She welcomes my hold.
She regularly tilts her sweet face in awe of the trees, the sky.
I pray out loud, sing songs that include her name and other crazy things.
I love her. What a sweet thing.
Someone from the coast asked for my thoughts yesterday,
What do you say to your storms? DH
I answered.
I tell the storm, “I’m protected.”
This morning, I think of my children, my family and I have a moment of new and needed clarity.
If I’m protected, are not my children protected as well?
I journal my thoughts on a morning that God woke me at 4 and I decided, get up anyway.
I thought about God’s all encompassing immense and protective love.
How he loves them even more than I ever could be able.
God, you’re their protector just as you are mine.
I don’t have to “stay on top of things”.
I don’t have to anxiously remind you in my prayers to keep things under control.
Ha! Wow!
Me, reminding you of your role?!
I don’t have to watch from a distance so far that I squint to hope to see what’s going on, strain to hear, concentrate or calculate the endings of stories of their books when they are barely a chapter in.
And that you, not I, have already written.
I can set aside my book, my syllabus of reading between the lines, leaning toward tragic stories over beautiful and memorable autobiographies.
Like mine.
Yes.
I can know they are protected.
“No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.”
1 John 4:12 NLT
I can love more fully than I’ve ever loved.
Point more clearly towards hope.
Be strong so that my strength is what they admire.
Yes, love.
Love is the protection, mine to freely give.
Best I can offer.
Protection is yours.
Has your path left a long shadow behind you of late?
When you look back at before do you see only the grey, the narrow thinning of your best days?
This is not the case.
We rarely see the places our light remains. This, I believe is always always God’s intent, we don’t have to see it, see Him to know the light in us is never dimmed.
We don’t have to know the places the light he gave us remains.
Maybe that’s grace that says this is humility.
Maybe it’s mercy that says there’s new every morning, let’s move forward.
Some days I skip the Old Testament passage my guide tells me is for today.
Not today.
Job 29 and 30 is Job’s defense, his argument with God. I suppose you might say it’s sad.
But, it’s honest.
Job is recalling his standing amongst others, the way people responded to his walking by, the commitments he made to others and followed through. Maybe you’ve been in a similar place. Yesterday, God positioned me with a woman of faith, we caught up and she assured me she’d sensed some recent changes had been uneasy.
We were in agreement, God grows us up in those seasons, helps us not fight for our reputations, to sit in silence and let Him lead.
While I’d never compare my life to Job’s, I learn something new each time I turn to his book. Today, it wasn’t the inventory of all his good he reminds God of in these chapters. It was to me a couple of verses I think may have been his lasting peace.
His memories of the way he was with others. This cherished. What Job remembered being, doing, believing it was good.
“I smiled on them when they had no confidence, and the light of my face they did not cast down.”
Job 29:24 ESV
What a beautiful thing, to have changed the environment or lessened someone’s pain by being near.
Yes, this is enough.
More than.
My friend and I talked about the enemy yesterday too.
How revelations like the one above will try to be dulled by gossipers, questioners, disputers and even our own doubts about your heart and soul’s intentions.
We are human, we get drawn towards bitterness and hurt. We learn as we go, hard times increase our faith.
It’s the soft light of our faith that will remain in the same way it did in other former places.
God’s light is ever slow to dull.
I am so thankful for Job. He teaches me every single time. God is always good.
Always.
Always faithful as we endure for the sake of His plans not our own.
Linking up with other FMF bloggers on the prompt of BACK
#thecolorsofmybible #butforhisgrace #faithful19
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!
At 5:30 this morning the moon was just to the left of the big dipper. The crescent base was like a cupped up saucer holding a scoop of vanilla, round and resting.
The stars were scattered. The air was pleasant. I’m the keeper of the puppy’s potty schedule.
I’m the middle of the nighter.
My husband asked me when he’d be like “Colt” the beloved chocolate lab who became impossible not to love, impossible not to miss.
I told him it would be a while, at least a year.
We didn’t forget, but it mattered so much less. How he destroyed the back porch door, ate the arm off the new couch and once ate an entire plate of marinating pork.
We somehow don’t remember.
I wondered this morning how the moon got back to my favorite, the crescent. I wondered not in a way that I’d search for astronomy books.
I just thought of the pace of its changes and how the circle and cycle is remembered.
I told my daughter, a new mother that with her and her brother, I know there was labor in their deliveries but I don’t really remember the details.
I remember how she as a baby lit up when I came near. I don’t remember not sleeping. I remember singing “You are my Sunshine” and making up new verses just for her.
I remember my son hated back seat car rides and so I drove one hand on the wheel and the other holding his. I remember how he’d turn upon my arrival, his little Keds filled with dirt, he greeted his working mama and ran with chubby legs to find my arms.
I remember my daughter laughing and unfolding all the laundry as we sat together in the middle of the tiny living room floor.
We lived in a single wide that was so old, there was plywood for the floor and her first room was a closet.
We loved there.
I remember the love, not the struggle.
By 7:00 this morning, the grass is still damp and chilly and the little crescent is barely visible above the halo over the pines created by the sun.
Today I read about comfort and sorrow, how we can expect to be somewhere on the continuum of the circle.
Same with progress and stagnation, a cycle, a circle.
The passage in II Corinthians, the very beginning reads this way.
“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 KJV
Tribulations and comforts, life and longings.
This from my “Joy and Strength” devotion today:
He is ever ready to increase His grace in our hearts, that as we live and act among all the sorrows of the world we may learn by slow degrees the skill and mastery of consolation. Francis Paget
Yesterday, I talked with someone about the creeping back in of anxiety and depression, situational. I mentioned I’m learning to fight against it, to get back to where I need to be, not drifting too far from my peace.
Self awareness that doesn’t get stuck, doesn’t defer to pity,
Remembers God and His ever ready rescue and mercy.
One sentence, a verse gave me remembrance of this, a mental picture not of my rambling, damaged and tormented life before I sought peace daily.
An image of my significance from God’s perspective.
And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. Luke 15:5 ESV
The parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd Jesus, not remembering our bad behaviors or our losing our ways, only overjoyed that we are found again!
Like the full moon remembering how to return to crescent or the parent literally forgetting the struggles, only remembering the bliss, God longs for us to know the circle, the coming back with ease to Him.
Back to peace.
Consolation and comfort never waning, always waiting.
Jesus, our constant.
Continue and believe.
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