Peace

31 days of good things

Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, creativity, Faith, hope, kindness, mixed media painting, painting, patience, Peace, Redemption, Stillness, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder, writing

Day 21 – Listening

It’s helps that it’s catchy, the wise words for remembering.

Listen, Lisa

Works I Love

I stepped lightly to assess where I may have gone wrong, rushed to edit, didn’t leave “well enough for now and maybe always” alone.

Now, I see.

I should’ve listened to that pull, the voice that said.

This is you.

This is good. Let it rest. Let it be.

There’s no need for a rush to redo. There is no expectation for anything other than that you listened.

Listened attentively.

Listened with no plan of action or scheme.

Listened for the opening that never comes like a bursting, more like an invitation.

Listen and learn.

Contribute to the redemption of where your listen wasn’t necessary at all or steered you wrong.

Remembering, you can’t hear the gentle tone of directions spoken if you’re thinking you got it on your own.

Listen and then, welcome your role in the redemption that made a mess and muddied your message.

Always a good one, led by patience and surrender.

“From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭64‬:‭4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Continue and believe.

Listen for the love.

31 days of good things

Art, artist calendar, confidence, contentment, creativity, eating disorder, hope, Peace, Redemption, Trust, Vulnerability

Day 19 – Quiche

My talents as a cook are hit or miss. I’m not a follower of recipes and so, sometimes what I think might be a good combination is actually not.

My husband will comment, “That was good, can you remember how you made it?”

I smile to myself, knowing only a few dishes are close to guaranteed goodness.

Spaghetti is one, quiche another.

Spinach and Sausage Quiche

Warm and cheesy.

Delicious before I begin today’s list of promised art things, some a tiny bit anxiety causing.

You can do hard things, Lisa.

It’s gonna be alright. You just enjoyed breakfast with extra cheesy creamy goodness and allowed yourself the nutrition, the comfort. You’re not consumed by your consumption.

You’re gonna be alright.

In quietness and confidence is your strength. Isaiah 30:15 NLT

(Today is processing calendar orders day. You can visit my website and click on the “Smaller Things” page to order one or a few and their on sale through October.)

Lisa Anne Tindal Art

31 days of good

Abuse Survivor, aging, anxiety, bravery, Children, courage, Faith, hope, memoir, Peace, Redemption, Stillness, Vulnerability, wonder

Day 16 – Hard Things (to me)

I wrote in my journal, “Ask for help.”

“Do hard things.” a long time ago.

What feels hard to you?

Hard to acknowledge, a secret reluctance for you?

It’s hard for me to drive in the dark, mostly the early morning darkness on back roads.

There’s no reason other than me deciding this is hard.

The congested four lane before the interstate, the winding two lane road to the country

Me, traveling out to the wide open space and all the others “goin’ to town” for work.

The headlights that approach, the obnoxious ones, I decide don’t care enough about me to change to dim.

It makes no sense to feel sort of stalked, sort of threatened, sort of unable to be sure of being safe; headlights coming in a way that feels like force always scares me, tells me I’m in danger.

The place that marks the “almost there” this morning beckoned me to glance forward.

A fence with overgrown weeds as borders made the perfect shape of a cross in one section.

My headlights landed there.

I’d never noticed before.

Morning Came

The grey blue sky showing no sign of morning until it suddenly, surprisingly did.

And there I was, safely cradling a baby safely as we stood steady on the porch with lingering love you’s to sister and mama.

And I thought, how sweetly I’ve been guided all my life.

I can do hard things.

I can ask my God for help.

31 days of good

contentment, Faith, hope, memoir, Peace, Stillness, wonder

Day 15 – Morning Quiet

I don’t mind the morning when morning slips in softly through the gauzy fan fluffed sheers.

I mind the mornings that say 3:00 a.m. and not 7 and I don’t particularly like the startle of the alarm.

I like morning that eases in, gives a moment to accept the day’s invitation.

And while I don’t love morning that’s not yet light.

I do love mornings.

And I love my morning thinking quiet spot.

31 days of good things

Angels, birds, bravery, contentment, courage, Faith, family, grace, grandchildren, happy, hope, Peace, praise, Redemption, rest, Vulnerability, wonder, worship

Day 13 – Geese and Scones

Talk is swirling, bad things are coming, violence and threats and better be prepared warnings.

Friday the 13th. A day I used to dread for other reasons, a few of them evidence of crises that in looking back weren’t just on a day with a horror movie predictability.

Horrible things don’t only happen on days called 13.

So, I avoid the warnings.

I pay attention to other occurrences.

The geese just flew over. My mind went to my mama’s voice, no more and no less than a simple acknowledgement to me as a girl and later my children,

“Here they come.”

So, day 13 of the 31 days of taking account of good things is celebrated not with an egg, no bread. Instead, a cranberry orange scone, buttery.

Yesterday, I listened to a conversation about worship music, more about worship than songs.

I learned that worship is not me standing side by side in an auditorium with a stage lit by changing colored lights.

Worship is not necessarily outward celebratory gratitude or praise.

It can be quite the opposite.

Worship is the tears that come when someone shared a kindness or the tears that come when someone is honest about their fears and their eyes begin to glisten, a mirror of mine.

Worship is me sitting in my mamas chair and honoring her and my God by settling my self for barely a few seconds to simply listen.

The geese noticed.

Noticing God.

And worship is me opening my hand, always the right one and saying countless times a day,

I surrender all and all is well.

And worship is the allowance of good things, rather than constant critical condemnation.

A cranberry orange scone for breakfast.

How will you worship in small ways today?

Yesterday, I was surprised by generosity. Someone purchasing art as gifts for others.

Twice in a day this happened.

I gave the giver of gifts a hug, got in my car and she in hers and I sat for a second and I smiled and shook my head in a questioning of such goodness kind of way.

And I said tenderly in a worshipful whisper,

“What a day, all this goodness, thank you, thank you God.

Once again, you’ve surprised me, wow.”

Continue and believe.

“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭16‬ ‭ESV‬‬

God is near. He knows you so very well.

God is good.

May you fully know this.

31 days of good

Abuse Survivor, Art, confidence, contentment, courage, creativity, Faith, grace, hope, jubilee, memoir, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Salvation, self-portrait, testimony, Trust, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder, writing

Day 12 – Doodling

Most of my life I’ve been nurtured by the pencil in hand, a piece of paper, a margin that invites.

Art sustains me.

A wise Dr. and author, Curt Thompson reminds often of attachment that we as children needed to be “seen, safe, soothed and secure” and that need is innate. We will always be in pursuit.

Embraced By Grace

Interestingly, adding color to paper and hinting at an emotion are when I feel these needs are known most and met.

How about you?

Is it art?

Music?

Prayer?

or something else.

I hope you know this “withness with God” often.

You are loved.

Even if the child in you lacked one of the “s”’s.

She’s still there, self-aware, surrendered and seeking solace in the sweet places she’s found herself

Seen, soothed, safe and secure.

Continue and believe.

31 days of good

book review, contentment, creativity, family, Peace, Redemption, wisdom, wonder, writing

Day 8 – Books

I’m nearing the end of a 300 plus page book, “Jewel”, by Bret Lott. I likely would’ve never heard of it had I not heard him describe his journey to writing in an interview on “The Habit” podcast.

Writers of fiction fascinate me.

I once wrote an essay I thought was a short story. It was short, that’s all. It was a love story inspired by my grandparents’ relationship. I don’t remember the title. I remember describing my grandmother and the angst of she and my grandfather’s marriage.

It was sweet. It was honest.

So, why are books good?

Other than the escape they invite or the lull into sleep, I’m saying books are good for another reason.

Books require commitment, relationship, partnership to travel all the way to a destination.

Books invite rest, suggest we’ve not been completely controlled by our phones.

Books are gifts that beckon.

Settle. Enjoy. Stick with it.

I’m about 50 pages to being finished. I’ve stuck with it, this book about family in the South with some language that’s a bit unsettling.

Characters who are true.

Southern women who are strong, strong-willed and wise, children who are dreamers and men who are mostly seeking to be known.

I love the honesty of Lott’s characters.

Next, I’m reading Ann Patchett’s latest, “Tom Lake” mostly because I’m not sure I’ve read a book that captures sibling relationship in the way Patchett did in “The Dutch House”.

What are you reading?

Not self-help or educational.

Give it a try. It’s a departure worth the discipline.

Now, I’m thinking I’ll find my little “short” story and I just might share it with whoever.

31 days of good

Abuse Survivor, Angels, Art, Faith, grandchildren, heaven, mixed media painting, painting, Peace, Redemption, Trust, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder

Day 7 – Sovereignty

Baby Henry slept over last night.

Sweet boy startled for some reason around 8 and began to cry.

Really cry.

Upset.

Grandma tried to let him have the infant resolve to resolve his fear or big emotion.

I caved.

We sat together after the sweetness of a sway that became a firm embrace and he was awake and it seemed thinking until I laid his little body back down.

Sleep continued until 6:13.

He woke happy, ready for the day.

Still dark outside, we walked about the house, down the hall, to the kitchen and with one hand clutching coffee and the other balancing baby, we decided to say good morning to the day.

I walked into the twilight, looked up and said, “Look, Henry, a morning moon just for us.”

Soft peaks of clouds broken and scattered and in the center filtered through the shifting, a very bright little moon.

And I was awed in a sort of tiny way when I thought about the serendipity type occurrence.

Sovereign God knows me so very well.

Knew the baby and I would walk into the dark of a Saturday morning and I would glance up and stand still until my glancing became a soul tending gaze.

Henry mirroring my face towards heaven.

This 31 days of good is I’m afraid not keeping its promise for light and “less, Lisa”.

Still, today very, very early, there was this moon and because I believe in a God who is very near, not at all far away.

My good thing today is the miraculously unable to comprehend, only celebrate.

Sovereignty,

the God who designed the riddle of me, being sovereign over me.

Singing like a whisper.

I painted today, covered over another abstract and just let it be and not be until it told the story I was holding.

Singing Over Us (detail)

Singing over me, singing over you.

God is.

Continue and believe.

31 days of good

contentment, courage, Faith, grace, hope, love, patience, Peace, Redemption, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder

Day 6 – Sunrise

Surprised by a sky striped pink on an unnecessarily early rising morning.

Coffee in hand, I tiptoed out into the misty air and watched it change, go away, fade just as quickly as I glimpsed it and decided to chase it, keep it somehow longer.

Just a moment, a moment later and I’d have missed it completely.

Cherish some small quickly fading thing today.

Like the splendor of a sunrise, the wisdom of an ancient “preacher”, the author of Ecclesiastes.

“Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.”
‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭9‬:‭11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

31 days of good

aging, confidence, contentment, kindness, Peace, Redemption, Trust, Vulnerability, wisdom

Day 3 : a smile

She walked poised and steady in the center of the corridor. She must’ve been done with the testing.

I sat in the in between solo waiting space with just one chair. I heard her steps, anticipated my name being called.

Instead, her eyes met mine.

“Good Morning”, she told me and and I answered her in the same greeting.

She smiled.

Smiled and kept walking.

Carried on.

And I remembered a word that came in reply on a quiet walking prayer.

“It’s gonna be alright.”

The promise, very same promise as this morning in the confident smile of a woman in a corridor, a place for tests.

It’s gonna be alright.

😊

“Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.”
‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭31‬:‭25‬-‭26‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Day 3 – a smile from a kind stranger, good things