I hurried out to give my daughter her daughter’s forgotten water bottle.
“She wants to tell you something”, my daughter said.
And with a bit of timid and hopeful whisper of surprising me, she said
“I gave you something, a gumball and a frog.”
On the hood of my car in the mist of Monday morning, smack dab in the center, a tiny green frog for her baby brother and for me, a seed pod from a tree, “gumballs” we call them.
Gifts.
I brought them inside, laid them on the counter, gifts for keeping.
I have been given an abundance of many such treasures.
Feathers, pebbles, sketches, smiles, kisses and walks on October mornings.
“…Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint… Isaiah 7:4 ESV
Of all the seasons, Fall feels most like either a resistance to or a gentle walk with open hearts and hands into new.
Fresh wind, fresh chances to let things die (finally) and wait for new after the coming Winter, uncertainty of hard and cold.
Waiting requires hope and hope never disappoints. An open heart, hands opened to let God handle what you’ve been clenching way too long.
The leaves are loosened from the trees, their dance is light and free, letting go with glee. There’s a metaphor here, a message for me maybe you, indeed.
Open hands, open heart, thriving souls.
I plant tiny and tender violas, the most fragile of petals and yet they survive the change, the wind, the cooler and brittle air.
Precious flowers, every year planted to sort of honor my grandmother and to tangibly decide to believe,
Hope won’t put me to shame.
Hope never disappoints.
Hope is soft, a demeanor of belief, whereas as dread, fear, speculation or defeat offer nothing at all,
only take and tie up our precious souls, leave us to decide we’re worthless, discarded, without hope.
Choose to hope.
“Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.” Proverbs 23:18 ESV
This cross on canvas was added to my website on Monday. It’s 5×7, small enough for a shelf or side table. Beside it is an old ceramic rooster. I don’t know if I collected it or inherited it from my mama.
There’s a basket full of beach shells and a jar filled with goose feathers from “Aunt Boo’s”. The antique dry sink was Greg’s mama’s.
When I pass by in my coming or going, my eye meets the cross and I pause if only for a second. I am just passing by, passing through, heading to the laundry room or out the door for the day.
Yesterday, I looked through the verses I chose for the 2024 calendar. I found the one I’d pulled from the passage about the woman at the well.
I especially rested on a few words. “he had to pass through”.
“And he had to pass through Samaria.” John 4:4 ESV
Traveling alone, walking from Judea to Galilee, he sat down to rest beside a well.
And a woman with a sordid past met Him, He met her there.
I think that’s what this cross and all the crosses signify for me and I pray for the ones who have one for themselves or have gifted them.
When they pass by and glance for a second, I hope they know, sense, and remember, Jesus meeting them there.
Holy Spirit whispering, all will be well.
John included this brief story of lasting significance in his recordings of all of Jesus’s healing, all of his many experiences with Jesus. He included for, centuries later, women like me who are reminded and receive new mercies every moment because of its significance.
Your personal story of being met by Jesus matters. Treasure it. Cleave to it. Strengthen it.
But, don’t keep it to yourself. There are many people in need of it, of being quenched by living water, freely offered no matter the present or past.
Mingled in a dream that included family at the beach as well as unfamiliar children asking to play on a trampoline, I am recalling “Psalm 90”.
The Spirit of God interspersed just that in a dream that included my mama being a given a healing prognosis, “Now, you’ll have a chance to really live!”
Maybe it was the beautiful and educational sermon on Sunday on heaven.
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” Psalm 90:2 ESV
Maybe it was the call from “Aunt Boo” my mama’s sister. She talked about crocheting. Maybe I tucked away the visual of her teaching my mama, the memory of their back and to sister chatter.
Who knows? Around 3, I woke and tossed and then recited mentally, over and over, Psalm 23.
Imperfectly still, after all these years of using this chapter to calm me. For some reason, portions and not the entire Psalm linger longer than others and I drift off to sleep.
Note the commentary
All my days have been a meandering sort of trail. A pause to consider, I’ve been in the darkness, I’ve lived in the dread, I’ve found myself off course because of conflict or circumstance.
David knew. He did too.
And so, his words aren’t ones of a perfect follower. Instead, a perfect “returner” to the place where he and God dwell together safely.
I used to believe “all the days of my life” meant the actual dwelling place of Jesus…heaven.
Again, instead…David is acknowledging and giving us permission to acknowledge the beauty we can claim as our own here…
As long as my lungs are providing me with breath and my heart is beating…I am dwelling with God, and He with me.
We are together.
I am known. I am seen.
I am invited to keep returning to rest.
Why Psalm 90 mixed in with a captivating dream of life getting another chance for my mama?
Psalm 90 is one penned by Moses.
It opens with this.
“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” Psalm 90:1 ESV
There were other people in the big bright room with my mama, not just my brothers and sister. My children were there too.
Psalm 90 closes with an acknowledgement of what had not and has not been without affliction. Moses offers us his prayer back then as a promise and prayer we can choose today.
“Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!” Psalm 90:15-17 ESV
“Favor” here meaning “beauty”.
Return to beauty today.
Embrace grace. More than you expected, the grace you’ve been shown.
The grace that you know.
Continue and believe.
Dwell in peace.
“Now you can begin to live”, the words promised to my mama in my dream.
I had a dream that felt sort of silly. The blip of remembering was simple, I looked in the mirror and saw myself having a day of “good hair”.
My hair is super thin and greying. My hair and I have always had an unhappy relationship.
What an odd dream, likely birthed from two conversations.
The first, a fun exchange, the second an honest answer.
I arrived early for my appointment with the doctor. I had my information and privacy forms completed in advance. The receptionist sort of celebrated that and smiled.
“I need an insurance card and her I.D.” she added. I provided both and she said…
“Tell her to have a seat and we’ll call in a few minutes.” One last question,
“Does she have an emergency contact, is it you?”
I answered yes and sat back down.
In a minute or two, I went back to the counter and in a sort of hushed tone I said…
“I’m Lisa.” And she was clearly puzzled.
I added quietly still, “You said “she” and “her” and I’m just curious why…is this a new protocol?”
And then to my surprise, she raised her eyebrows and mouthed an “Oh”.
She didn’t think I was the patient, she did not think I was 63 years old.
We both smiled and continued to chat about age and wrinkles and I told her so excitedly, she had “made my day”.
To know that I had been seen in a different way was the sweetest thing.
The kindest conversation.
Not like one that questions your age in a flattering way; no, one with sincere surprise that I was the patient, not the companion to an elderly parent.
“Lisa” they called and I was escorted to the scales. I slipped my shoes off, had to step off and on twice, the nurse said the scales were “being difficult”.
Mismatch Socks
I acknowledged the seemingly unchangeable number was the same at home and casually said, “Good to know.”
And I had my check-up, scheduled another and went on with my day.
I bought a new bathing suit, one size smaller but seemed it may fit, lined in lavender and covered with painterly abstract flowers.
It was a bargain, really pretty.
Bought groceries, caught up with a friend and her husband who are grandparents to their second, a two-week old.
Then home to cook supper.
Decided to ask my husband a question, a sort of curiously brave wondering.
Not sure why, he’s super late to the game and needed a little education, but he decided to create a Facebook profile.
Now, he’s all in.
I warned him, it’ll draw you in. It seems he’s reviewed as far back as a few years ago, all of my posts, all of my content.
No worries, he’s often read this blog and he knows I can be a little deep, sometimes pitiful and I hope, always honest.
He mentioned a particular post of him recording a little song for one of our granddaughters on her little karaoke toy.
It was sweet. It was a few years ago.
Knowing he was familiar with my Facebook presence, I asked
“I post a lot about my faith, my struggles, my hopes, my learning to trust…The things I post are mostly about faith.
When you read those things, do you say to yourself, they don’t know the real Lisa, or she’s not really that way?”
Brave, right?
He answered, “No, not at all. It’s good that you’re that way. It’s good.”
Grace, right?
Just last night, I complained about something trivial and apologized for being “hateful” right away.
And last week, I came clean about my in general self-centeredness. The me that had become miserable and often, mean.
I’m learning to catch it quickly, see it for what it is, the enemy trying to taint the essence of me so that my light is too dim for others to see,
my story fading back to grim rather than walking towards the brilliance of light and living water worth sharing.
Healing from old mindsets is not a snap of the finger,
(I hope you know that)
It is a choice to choose the work of being a participant in healing, not a parader of our trauma as a reason to be hopeless or an excuse to be hateful, the darker side of you enveloping you.
A meal, a sort of gesture
When I bought groceries on the day my age was mistaken, I had in mind a gesture.
I cooked a meal for my daughter’s family, the meal (one of them) my mama was famous for.
My grandson and I sampled it.
It was lovely.
It was a small thing.
It came from that reservoir of grace God placed in my soul, the bubbling brook of mercy I don’t deserve, and the meandering path of my beautiful inheritance through salvation that I sometimes veer from because I get caught up in the before of me rather than the moment, the day.
And I find myself by the slightest ugly little pull, questioning the details of my life and I focus on what I don’t want to accept, the dark days of me and I’m prone to plop down in that dark dank place of not remembering good, only horrific
until I pray and count the gifts of today.
And I walk in the light, the place where my story, the lightness of it may give a little light to others on my way. And I notice and cherish unexpected light that came my way.
I felt old, a stranger blessed my day.
I felt hopelessly overweight, I was met by my own acceptance and a bathing suit that fit.
I felt ashamed of my self-centeredness. I apologized quickly and I cooked a meal with a nine-month old playing “drums” with a spoon at my feet.
All of my life, I have been loved.
I’ve often slipped and come close to falling.
I’ve been kept.
This is my story.
“The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.” Psalm 121:5 ESV
“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” Psalm 90:10 ESV
Changing Days
In the night, I’m awakened by deep pain in the upper right arm. I turn to the other side, feed my arm though the pillow, let my hand rest against the headboard.
For a few moments, who knows how long since sleeping either feels like a long long time or only just a minute.
The ache returns. I shift. I reposition.
I sleep.
My trainer says it’s likely the tendon that has some tearing. So I choose a lighter weight.
I don’t stop lifting.
She adds it’s likely the baby carrying and pauses and with no regard for my emotions, concludes…
Also, the painting, the steady and repetitive motion of the brushing of paint on a canvas.
And I’m startled in a serious way.
“Ohhhh…” I say.
Meaning, “Oh no!” but keeping that tinge of grief to myself.
Then the advisors advise.
“Rotator cuff”, “tough surgery”
“You don’t want to mess with that.”
“A supplement is what you need, CoQ10 is wonderful.”
So, yes. I’m now a supplement(s) consumer.
Talking About Leaves
Because I’m painting still and I’m still holding the baby.
I’m growing. I’m aging. My arms are past sixty years of good and meaningful use.
Moving towards 70.
Contemplatively beginning to number my days.
“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12 ESV
I’m walking with my grandson in the same morning way I walked with my four year old granddaughter. She loved and loves talking.
He likes music.
Soon, he’ll be running.
I’ll be teaching him about the “stay in the middle, middle, middle, middle.”
To keep his eyes on the road, to distinguish between a root and a snake.
Soon, he’ll be sprinting.
My legs will need to be able to keep up.
So, I keep moving.
I keep using what I got.
Around The Bend
And I’ll keep growing.
I’ll make sure the soil of my soul is fertile.
My arms connected like branches to the nourishment of the vine, my Savior.
Because like the worn out tendons, the much used bones, the hands and fingers used to hold and to create and to cherish the objects I’ve been gifted to make.
I must care for them.
I must nurture my growth.
Wisdom comes in knowing.
In knowing, God’s not finished with me yet.
I’m still growing.
The majestic oak that cushions the curve is sheddingits bark. Brownish grey paper size pieces of bark are scattered in the weeds. The thick and arm like branches from the hefty trunk are now a pristine color.
“Favorite” Tree
I told myself last week
“Your branches are brittle, your reaching has distanced you from the vine.”
I’m less than seven years from seventy.
My mama was buried the day before her 70th.
Hers and my health are not close to the same but our stories are marked by similar trauma, a similar tenacity and I believe, a comparable hope and a love for living.
I thought of her in the fog of today’s morning. I have things I want to say.
“It’s unfair”, I said to no one within hearing.
“Yes, it is.” I answered and continued into my day.
Knowing she’d say “Choose life today, Lisa. Choose life. Keep turning the page.”
Keep growing.
Continue being brave.
Walking
The pains you’re noticing are proof.
Proof of your choosing life despite pain, despite unfairness and in the midst of necessary change.
Keep returning.
Returning to rest in me.
“This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved.
In quietness and confidence is your strength.” Isaiah 30:15 NLT
When my children were babies, we walked to the creek, the clay road with deep ditches, one holding my hand or running fast ahead, the other held tightly in my arms…one hand under the booty and the other around the chest.
Holding tightly.
Holding on.
Without limits or conditions.
Love keeps us strong, letting go while embracing new.
“Why do you use/love weird words?” one or both of my children.
In some form or fashion, the question often came. And I’d say what was true.
“I love words. If we’ve got ‘em we need to use them.”
I have an old dictionary, 1962 Webster’s. The pages are the color of clay and smelly.
But, I love words. I just do. God woke me with the question again of why I have a pattern of making myself small, why small feels safe. A word came, do I try to “diminish” my worth? Alone and small feels safe. And yet, I am certain there’s only a tiny bit I know of all who might be influenced by my story, by my creative expression.
There’s safety in being diminished. I looked the word up in the old dictionary and it’s just what I thought, “to make less, weaken, impair”.
God led me to Exodus. The people were discontent with the bountiful provision. Most translations say they were “grumbling” and yet, the more appropriate and earlier translated word was “murmuring”.
Dancing Leaves, one of 3
Again, I go to Webster. To murmur is to “utter complaints in a low doleful sound”. And “doleful” is a sound that someone makes when they are sorrowful or in dismay.
The whole congregation of Israel was “grumbling”. In the ESV version, the word is used eight times in Chapter 16.
I’m the KJV, the word is “murmurings”.
“I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God.” Exodus 16:12 KJV
Yesterday, I saw faces of grocery store shoppers. I saw a dullness, an apathy, a less than attentive glance to those around them. I saw “doleful” expressions.
Why does one word matter? Murmuring comes from dismay. Grumbling is well just more of a selfish grouchiness.
It matters because of the invitation to know that God sees you, hears your quiet complaint. God is provision. Your woeful or questioning wilderness is being noticed.
And just as the Lord told the Israelites even in their hopeless state…I cared for you. He is caring for me.
For you.
For the generations that are here and to come because of you.
“And Moses said, This is the thing which the LORD commandeth, Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.” Exodus 16:32 KJV
With a tiny bit of trepidation and the need to refresh my memory, I’ve just searched to find a short devotion I submitted for publication that was rejected.
I often am met with puzzled expressions or worse, a squinty eyed and wrinkled forehead over the things I say, the things I think.
I responded to a poll by an author who is studying brain science, how the science of the brain is effected by relational trauma.
I typed…
“I’d love to know if memories of trauma can ever completely go away?”
Once, in a conversation with a clinician friend who is an expert in all things amygdala related, I proposed
One day, what if one day, scientists discover how to surgically remove traumatic memories from the brain?
My friend looked at me, knowing I was serious and it seemed, she was deeply moved by such an imaginative hope.
I realize I’m sometimes too much for some people.
I reread my submitted devotion, maybe too heavy or even “far fetched” over the possibility that Jesus might have a mind like mine. Or maybe, the tone was wrong, less than perfect grammar or perhaps, it was not a fit for a book of 40 days to a stronger, more courageous mind I suppose.
Rejection doesn’t bother me as much as before. I love writing. I’m owning my voice, honesty and all.
So here’s what I wrote:
A Mind Like Mine, Is it Possible?
Lisa Anne Tindal
Key Verse: “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” ‘ But we have the mind of Christ.” I Corinthians 2:16 ESV
Countless days I have felt the unwelcome weight on my chest, the creeping up of vice-like unrest brought on by my thoughts.The recurring nuisance of anxiety for no reason that feels like entrapment.
I pause and question the cause. I say private prayers, take long walks and do something creative with my hands. I clean. I rearrange shelves or entire rooms. I do some stretches. I put my legs against the wall and my hands on my chest.
I remind myself of the most important, although not instantaneous response.
I remind myself that my loving Father would never desire or cause me to feel this way. I recall the promise in II Timothy, written by Paul, a prisoner awaiting execution. I say to myself, “This feeling is not from God.”.
“…for God gave us not a spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.” II Timothy 1:7 ESV
I also remind myself of Paul’s words that assert we are able to understand our Father God because we have the mind of Christ. Our minds are changed, comforted, informed by the Holy Spirit in us when we accept Jesus as our Savior.
“For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” ‘ But we have the mind of Christ.” I Corinthians 2:16 ESV
The thought of having the mind of Christ captivates me and stirs curiosity over the characteristics that would define such a mind.
So, I created a poll on Instagram, added a little note saying “doin’ some research”. I asked my followers to give me a word to describe the mind of Jesus. There was nary an answer, lots of hearts and likes, but no participation in the poll.
Could it be the question was beyond actually believing that our minds could be “Jesus-like”?
Just last week, questions over a decision prompted questions of God.
“Why the resistance to your call on my life?”
“Have I ever felt that I knew your will without question, or have I spent my whole life making iffy choices that you’ve redeemed?”
“What is your will for me God?” I opened my Bible to search for a verse in Micah. Instead, my eyes met a sketch I’d created on the pages of Joshua.
A woman with a posture of listening and my handwriting reminding, “Incline your heart to the Lord.” ( Joshua 24:23 ESV) and boldly circled verses with the words,sincerity, faithfulness.
Sincerity and faithfulness,
I would insert in the IG poll because I have known my Savior to be sincere in His faithfulness to me.
I wonder how my fear, anxiety and resistance might fade if I dared to believe that because I have the mind of Christ, with humble grace I could say in time, “His mind is like mine.”
What a beautiful thought worth embracing.
I can be sincere, and I can choose faithfulness. My mind can be without torment.
My mind can be changed by my heart’s position. My mind can be gently faithful and with sincerity, become more content, less shaken.
Confidently, “more me”.
A Prayer:
Lord, you understand our minds unrelentingly. You lead us to be questioners in your Will. You answer. You calm. You strengthen our minds. You help us see ourselves from your perspective. You help our minds to connect with our hearts and to be still, to know what is good, acceptable and perfect according to you.Incline us to your heart, Lord. We will trust that our minds will follow.
I’m not sure I’m a devotion writer. I’m not sure about writing at all. I’m only sure that as I write, as I grow.
I’m less bothered by this “enigmatic” mind of mine.
Continue and believe.
With sincerity and faithfulness, you are deeply loved.
I wonder if it’s a common feeling, the juxtaposition of two pursuits when you become a certain age…
A collector and cherisher of “small things” or an avid “go-after-er” of “limitless”, of all the longings of your heart you’d thought might not be for you, possibilities.
Maybe it’s both in a gentle and knowing of yourself as your Maker made you.
I bought myself two gifts yesterday on my 63rd birthday, a pear shaped candle and a bangle the rich color of jade, the same shade in the “Restoration” collection now available.
There was nothing I needed, I said with ease.
I just wanted those two things.
I came home to birthday cards and there were flower deliveries on the porch that were surprises and only found because my daughter asked “Is there something for you on the porch?”
And there sat two of the most boldly happy arrangements you can imagine, the colors complements of each other.
My son, my daughter ordered flowers, neither knowing the other hoped to brighten my day, yellow roses, lilies and sunflowers.
Patient, on my porch while I piddled around my solitary home, added touches to a canvas I’ll soon take away because they’re too contrived, too hard, not gentle; curled up with an actual book under my quilt and then moved with small and slow steps for the arrival of my daughter and her family.
For birthday swimming.
Dinner and cheesecake with cherries on top.
Later, I sat and lit the candle, knowing it wouldn’t be the same, the waxy drips changing the shape no longer to pear but possibly just a blob.
No telling.
My sister called, the last of my siblings to wish me a Happy Day and we talked past my husband going to bed.
About life, about children, about books, about hope.
About knowing we can never know how our lives or the lives of our children will unfold.
But we can know that to teach them not to expect to always know, only to confidently and gently continue on.
And we can live from that knowing for ourselves and we can carry on, enlightened by life in all the ways hard and soft.
So that we can be our truest selves…mamas, sisters, wives, friends, grandmothers, aunts and whatever our hope without limits leaves on our doorsteps.
We can be where we are because of all we’ve come from and all we now know.
We can love small things and we can believe in the limitless beauty of brave pursuits too.
I saw the man again on Monday but, yesterday I wasn’t paying attention. I neglected to glance over to find the front yard of the trailer hidden in a shady hollow place.
Overgrown it was the day I saw the pair standing so far apart they would need to raise their voices.
The grass was high like wheat and a man with a flock of blonde hair all crazy stood with his hands crossed and a positioning of his torso saying “I ain’t staying much longer.”
Facing him was another man, his head tilted to one side in a way that said sincerity.
I wondered about the relationship.
Father, step-father, mama’s friend, uncle or older brother.
I wondered who had caused the crack in relationship and who was resisting more the reconciliation of it.
I also wonder why I wonder. Why I see humans in conditions that are fragile and why God made me to want those conditions to be better.
I know God made me this way and somehow I know the intervening is not for me to accomplish, only God.
So, I pray for strangers. I just do.
And I think about them. I still pause to consider.
“What’s their story?”
I woke with thoughts about love this morning, about the importance of “for my part” demonstrating love.
Love that doesn’t put us in danger of emotional harm is just a positioning of our hearts and mind, we can stay safe in showing love when it’s hard by just deciding we want restoration for someone, we want them to know they are loved by their Creator and if they’ll allow it, by others too.
“Relationship, especially family, requires a commitment to relationship despite differences, dysfunction, and most importantly delays in the other person longing in the same way for relationship.”
I laid still in the place of very good and needed rest and questioned why these words came.
I figured it must be that I’m still curious about the family in the overgrown yard.
I saw the older man a second time. Tall and skinny, a bearded man with baggy britches and an oddly colored pipe dangling from his mouth.
He was swaying in a rhythm with a weed eater as he cleared and cleaned the high grass and weeds.
He was making the situation better.
There was contentment in his movements.
Maybe in the knowledge that he tried and is trying. So, I’ll drive past the place of these two people again next week and I’ll believe the best is being done to restore what’s been neglected or wronged.
And I’ll believe more strongly in the truth of love being demonstrated in small ways to invite change (even if we don’t get to see it).
Because, it’s not about us anyway, it’s about the one who’s messed up and in need of love believing it may be possible…
Restoration.
“God is a restorative God. He is restoring all losses.” John Eldredge, author of “Get Your Life Back”
Continue and believe.
“Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:8 ESV
I discovered yesterday that 2023 marks a “Jubilee” year for me as I approach my birthday. It’s surprisingly tender, this discovery…almost too difficult to put into words. Maybe I will, maybe I’ll just rest in the discovery of a year symbolic of release and restoration.
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 