“By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere.” Elisabeth Elliot
Morning Glories
I felt Fall wispy through the bordering trees on Monday morning.
August saying change is coming, change is coming, the kind that causes retrospect in the realization.
Small and sweet, the change.
God’s Hand The Strangest Bloom Early Color
The morning rain on Tuesday made the road a soft and sandy cushion under our feet.
We measured our bare feet and talked about the shape of them.
Walked towards the corner and remembered being brave and careful.
We stood still and saw the sunflower aurora against the blue sky border.
We climbed the little hill, twice the height of the two year old.
I’m thinking now of how careful she was, careful and brave.
I told her she was brave to climb the little hill to touch the flowers.
Told her I was brave too.
Later, I approached the room where I paint.
Brushes left soaking in murky water, a week’s worth of blue paint tinted water spilled as I chastised myself for being undisciplined, unsuccessful, “un” driven.
Cleaned up the mess and sat for a minute to add color to an acceptable but unfinished canvas.
Swirls, shapes, layers became a subtle oyster shell.
I left it, pleased in the satisfaction of enough.
A small thing.
Not a burden.
Rest for my soul.
Considered adding to the waiting in process angelic canvas.
Finish it. Share it, wait for the likes and notice.
No, not today.
Tonight, I chose small.
Gentle with myself.
Brave in small ways.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30 ESV
What are you carrying?
“Even angels must find their wings too heavy sometimes.” Helen Van Slyke
“Praise ‘n Worship” (prints available, comment to purchase)
I’ve missed the part about the shared yoke with Jesus being easy to carry, being light.
I read or heard the other day, a warning, don’t let your “quiet time” just be an empty habit or a trendy phrase. I thought about my mornings, my most treasured time of all, of waking up early just to be quiet and alone with God. I’m needy in that regard. I’m needy in a lot of ways.
I need this “need thee every hour” commitment.
I returned to one verse that feels like proof of God really knowing the me I am lately. The Passion translation of the Psalms is tender, brave and honest. I grab ahold of the words, hold them close.
“You keep every promise you’ve ever made to me! Since your love for me is constant and endless, I ask you, Lord, to finish every good thing that you’ve begun in me!” Psalms 138:8 TPT
I’ve long loved Psalm 139 and now I’m fixed on 138 too. Psalm 116 has a header “I’m saved.” I’ve been loving this too because most of all lately, I’m resting in the sweet reality of God’s love of me. Notice, I said “of” not for. God loves me, loves you.
“So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that his love will triumph over death, life’s troubles, fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love.” Romans 8:38 TPT
So, I’ll keep waking every morning God keeps me able. I’ll read. Not always everything and not always the same book or Bible. But, I’ll be quiet because I can’t make it on my own. I need to be reminded.
No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There’s no greater promise of unwavering love. To love others well, I need the reminder that I am loved. I need it every hour, every day,
Something in me longs to find a quiet old church with wooden pews and streams of sunlight in every hue laying down strips of color at my feet on old hardwood floors.
I’m listening, God.
To sit in the quiet. To listen to God.
I’m in the spot I call quiet in my home. It is very quiet, only the mockingbird mama’s protective song in the distance calling for my attention.
I woke thinking about being drawn to the wars others are warring as a distraction to what God knows needs my attention according to Him.
Yesterday, I grabbed a $5 pillow and dropped it in the cart. I sensed my daughter wondering where I’d put it. I’m not one to decorate my home with pillows adorned with trendy sayings. I think I mumbled.
I need to remember this.
See good in all things.
First on the loveseat, then between the bigger ones on the couch, then in my mama’s reupholstered chair, I centered it. It seemed too contrived, a pillow pointing out words I needed to remember, seriously silly.
So, I fluffed a pretty one woven with navy and added it as a background for my much needed words. I angled the pillow to meet my gaze from the place I sit in the evening, the place I begin my day.
The wisdom of a book of lamenting words lining up with mama’s and the embroidery threads on a pillow.
“The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.” Lamentations 3:25-26 KJV
Good comes from waiting, seeking quietly.
Listening.
Remember
Distracted by culture, conflict and confusion, it seems I have made lesser the most important things.
Grace, mercy, peace, surrender.
Attentiveness to God’s purpose for me.
Remembering the gift of redemption.
Living freely.
So that I can be a presence inviting question rather than spewing comments.
Understanding we all have wars within, we are all pulled astray by the personal battles and patterns that deter the transformation that is a witness to the light of God within.
A compelling cause for others to seek salvation.
The salvation that can never be taken from us; but, must be treasured with every breath of our body so that we don’t fall back into warring.
So that we don’t miss the glory of the quiet voice of God in the quiet places.
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” Romans 3:23-24 ESV
May my quiet confidence in God be more evident than my constant questioning over what is not mine to understand, only be available when called to offer peace in the knowledge of my Savior.
Linking up prompted by FMF, Quiet (smile, Kate likes pillows too).
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV
Before the eggplant, there are tiny purple flowers and day by day you can watch to see the transformation. Sometimes I say to myself simply. “Something good is coming.” It’s not that I’m just that confident, it’s that I can look back on my life and see this pattern. I worry about not seeing and knowing the evidence of good and then I decide to let whatever it is alone and unexpectedness of good surprises me. (again)
I made a list of ten questions this morning. I’m made this way, need to know if, when, how, why. I got to number 10, got choked up over the honesty of “How can I know God really knows me?” Sat with my own vulnerability for a minute and then looked over my list. I let God give me the answers. They came naturally.
Moments like this are personal. Like a hydrangea turning from white to lavender to purple or an eggplant blossom falling from the stem once the vegetable is full grown.
Transformation is a quiet process. It’s inner work of our God who knows our inner workings.
Make your list of questions, things you’ve been waiting and wondering over along with your raw questions of God.
Sit with them. The veil between you and God will be gently pulled back and you’ll see His perspective on your longings and you’ll have peace even if you don’t yet have answers.
Maybe, like me, you’ll realize you already knew the answer, you just needed to be reminded. I can be pitiful. I can be stubborn and envious. That’s my nature, God gently reminds me I am seen, fully known and loved regardless.
Faithfulness to each moment keeps me whole and humble.
You can be sure I prayed on my first flight. There were many things I found odd and being a “noticer” of people, longing to exchange stories, clearly I was out of my element.
The woman next to me seemed flustered. I let her have the armrest the entire three plus hours. She, dressed in a tie dye hoodie with Colorado across her chest, made a low mumbling sound upon takeoff.
I closed my eyes, opened my palm and I said a prayer for us both.
She “played possum” or was sleeping.
The expectation of turbulence was announced and again an audible groan followed by a few more from the woman beside me.
I can’t tell you how close I came to offering my hand.
It was very difficult not to. Me, an empath deciding she was in need of kindness.
Instead, I read. “The Dutch House” is a captivating read about siblings, dysfunctional families and children who continued moving towards reconciliation and making sense of that dysfunction.
I read until I couldn’t stop my fear.
The plane seemed to be slowing. I raised the shade on the window to see we were on top of the clouds.
This didn’t calm me. Nor was I captivated by the beautiful reality.
I was surprised.
Me, the lover of noticing God in the splendor of His creation, not at all taken by the view.
I expected to be in awe. Instead, I clearly thought, “This is not natural. You don’t belong up here.”
That thought fed my fear and so I opened my tattered devotional, “Joy and Strength”.
I did a thing I sometimes do, see how dates or numbers might line up to send a good message from God to me.
I turned to page 327. The passages and commentary were about life and about death, about the reality of both.
“It may mean sickness as well as health; death as well as life; loss as well as gain; peril as well as safety; shipwreck by sea and accident on land…” Anthony W. Thorold
Okay.
I paused.
I thought, okay, okay and then thought maybe there are things I should have said to my family that I didn’t.
I sat calmly.
My eyes returned to the sweat crumpled boarding pass, Flight 372, Gate A53, Seat 12A (close to the emergency exit, close to the engine, next to someone who kept silent).
Not Flight 327, no it was 372 and this number had no relevance other than being the index page in the back of my book!
I settled, it was settled.
God is in the clouds.
With me.
All is well.
“Through you I’m saved—rescued from every trouble…Psalm 54:7
I’ll most likely fly again.
I’ll understand better that it’s a means to a destination,
settle in,
be still,
say your prayers,
clinch your fist upon landing,
be quietly cordial as you exit.
You got this, God is with you, the God of earth and sky.
“You perceive every movement of my heart and soul, and you understand my every thought before it even enters my mind.” Psalms 139:2 TPT
Kansas City Angel
On Thursday, I woke with the weight of a rock on my chest and acknowledged it by lying silently. I shifted the blanket and thought of the questionable source, the concern that I felt was my fault, realizing it was something other than me, the reason I had reason to worry.
I stayed with the revelation and accepted that it was not mine to change.
The change would come in a healing God may bring or in acceptance of the thing I named unmanageable becoming not best, but okay.
I thought of prayer, of prayer when worries are best left secret.
I read Psalm 139 again, the Passion translation, the confidence of David that God is love, that God is listening.
Because of travel, my mornings are different, only pockets of alone time, no journal, no books, just quiet finding me when it knows I need to be found.
I wrote the morning’s thoughts and shared them on Instagram. I was better then, hoped someone else was as well.
How often do you keep your feelings to yourself? Is there wisdom you have for others that might be better left unsaid?
Prayer is the place made for secrets.
God knows everything about us, our fears, our nagging worries, our catastrophic endings we write to stories based on fear’s perception.
Fear may be valid. Fear is not helpful. Fear forces one of two choices. Join in a conversation with God. Pray and tell him the secrets you keep from others that He already knows, just wants us to be open in sharing. Or let fear strangle your thoughts and hope.
Tell God where your faith is feeling shaky. He will rekindle your hope and He will increase your quiet courage.
Everyone has a secret sorrow waiting to be changed to trust and joy when brought to God in the quietness of prayer.
God knows and loves us so well.
David understood. He strayed, struggled and was deeply honest. He never stopped returning to the place he knew and was known, the presence of our sovereign God.
The morning became purposeful.
I walked a couple of blocks for our coffee and returned to a load of laundry, my clothes would be straightened and organized, this would be better.
I walked down the narrow stairs to the basement. Quietly, I passed the door of another tenant and turned to hear the washer still rumbling.
Five minutes left in the cycle according to the little green light on the old coin fed washer.
I stood facing the dryer.
I waited.
I prayed, the freely coming names and needs of others and I passed the time by passing them one by one to the ear of my Father.
Five minutes, unselfishly motivated, my attention completely turned to others who God brought up.
Thankyou, God, for reminding me that you are more than enough when I feel I am incapable. Thank you for turning my thoughts to others to say to me your grace towards me is enough.
Is still enough.
Tree in City Park, Denver
The small suitcase is lying open on the floor of my son’s new home, the one he decided has “soul” and I smile now, happy that my tendency towards loving words that are fitting, is a part of him too.
My friend and counselor talked me through the airport in this big city.
She prayed for me and is praying.
I am borrowing her carry-on even though I had one already.
I am confident because of her and others and because I’ve kept my promise to my son.
There’s been no crying.
There have been photos. He’s kept his part of the promise.
Fear is such an angry emotion, so disproportionate to faith when the enemy takes over.
Fear likes to get a head start, likes to overtake you when you’re groggy, tired or lonely.
It has you siding with thoughts that destroy you, causing you to think you’re simply preparing your defense.
Fear is not pretty.
Life fully embraced is.
I’m researching trees in the quiet this morning, fascinated by the one in the park and the similar one anchoring my son’s new home.
I want to call them cedars because of what God says about those. I want them to be special, memorable, like a charm God kept secret knowing I’d be here to be captivated.
Comforted.
But, I think they may be spruce or a particular pine not known to southerners.
Either way, their beauty is peace and their standing is strength.
Strong by the Water
“He will be standing firm like a flourishing tree planted by God’s design, deeply rooted by the brooks of bliss, bearing fruit in every season of life. He is never dry, never fainting, ever blessed, ever prosperous.” Psalms 1:3 TPT
Early morning Tennessee rain has changed to an aura of grey as we move towards another state.
Yesterday’s drive was different, big city construction on roads and a sense oh how and when will the traffic ease.
But, we made it and were welcomed by the quaint little house in the city known for music.
We didn’t venture towards the fame. We had quesadillas seated under walls with screens of baseball games.
And talked.
This morning the interstate is a soft ribbon through a border of trees leading us towards an arbor of even more.
I’ve just turned to notice horses in a field and a newly plowed place for seeds.
I told my son how I love how he loves good music.
Serenaded together, we are.
The Labrador door is sleeping well.
“We have become his poetry, a re-created people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it!” Ephesians 2:10 TPT
Last night, we turned in early. Me earliest, allowing my son his own time. I paused a podcast at the place of it becoming annoying chatter. I closed my eyes and prayed myself to sleep as I heard the jet it seemed very close overhead.
I thought of flying. I thought of the comfort I felt and I slept.
Thinking I believe God’s promises. I believe the writers of the promises they saw come true too.
I believe God knew I’d be traveling across the country with my son and his dog and I believe He knew there’d be an Air BnB an exit away from the Nashville airport.
And that I wouldn’t hear the airplane until I’d finished praying.
The space was filled with exquisite ideas for design, paintings covered every wall. Artisan made coffee tables and rich leather chairs draped in soft throws over the arms. I arrived with art as a prospective newly represented artist and departed with my paintings and a tiny bit of hope.
Big hopes were thwarted.
A happy voice greeted me and then asked to hear “my artist” story and then I heard hers. She loves working with graphite, she told me, and practices in portraiture. Her iPad with the shattered screen was her gallery that day.
With every sketch or painting, she asked. “Do you see where this went wrong, do you see the error?”
Then she told me. One watercolor she’d entered into an exhibit was of elephants, a mother and baby.
I was drawn to the painting and she explained she’d given it to her mother. As she explained her technique, again telling me where she botched the color and had to fix it and then decided to let the mistake of the pale blue remain, I was captivated by the wrinkles.
I told her so, the detail in the trunks, the layering of pencil and color, the beautiful wrinkles were perfect, touchable.
Last week, I prepared for an interview. I arranged myself and my laptop in a corner and having curled my hair and found a blouse with bright color, I turned my phone to selfie mode to get a glimpse of how I’d be appearing on screen.
I’m horrible at selfies. Do you smile? Do you pretend you don’t know you’re taking your own photo? Do you look at the ceiling? What’s that angle that’s said to be becoming?
I stared at the several shots. I hurried to the closet to change from one blouse to others.
The neckline of the first one accentuated the crepes in the stretchy place on my neck. It was unavoidable and too late to be concerned, too evident to be remedied.
The wrinkles could not be erased.
I sat and prayed and there was peace in my expression, peace with the production manager, the interview and in my responses to kind and unexpected questions.
God was with me.
“You formed my innermost being, shaping my delicate inside and my intricate outside, and wove them all together in my mother’s womb. I thank you, God, for making me so mysteriously complex! Everything you do is marvelously breathtaking. It simply amazes me to think about it! How thoroughly you know me, Lord!” Psalms 139:13-14 TPT
I thought of the elephant artist, the way she discounted the work her hands created.
I wondered if God felt that way. If God sees and saw me despising my appearance, expressing self-hatred over my weight, my sparse eyelashes, the intricate texture on the place where my necklace rests.
The necklace that has a small gold cross, the one a tiny girl reaches for to say, “I love your necklace, Grandma,
I love your cross.”
The magnolia leaves my daughter uses for decor will soon be replaced.
The verdant green is drying to a darker tone. The underside is curling and the veins are more evident, magnolia leave wrinkles now.
But, still a regal sort of beauty, a strength as a table display.
I’ve returned to the practice of the “Pause” app after growing bored with it.
I was required to start over because of a new phone. The old phone charted my listening and I had listened over 700 minutes.
As of yesterday, I’m at 11.
I listened again and the words of the prayer are now resonating new and different.
“I was created for union with you.” The Pause app prayer
God, my creator longs to be united with me, with us.
United in thought, in decision, in praying and in listening, God waits so close he could reach out His hand to mine, possibly soothe the wrinkles that now cover my hands, the hands of an artist, a creative who gets carried away by color and ideas.
The complexity of me, He knows completely.
Says keep learning, keep learning and discovering you according to Me.
The beauty and value of wrinkles, a display of me in you and you with me.
Heavenly Father, thank you for mornings and quiet rediscovering of you. You are with me. You spare me from harm. You give me courage. You calm me when I notice and you strengthen me when I feel belittled or unable. You’re the lifter of my head and the lover of my soul. You give me songs to celebrate my growing. When I feel cornered, you join me in that dimly lit place, you tell me “I am here.”
The interview went well. There was talk of art and there was talk of God.
A song stayed with me that afternoon.
Oh! Christ be magnified Let His praise arise Christ be magnified in me Oh! Christ be magnified From the altar of my life Christ be magnified in me
Twice I saw the man with the cross. Once on the southern part of town, the busy places, the reckless and impatient drivers, the scurrying about grocery shoppers in the days before Easter Sunday.
Then again downtown, on the northern side, blocks from the pretty shops, the sidewalk strollers, he was at an intersection.
The first time, he walked with the wooden cross, a display of his allegiance. He carried the beams joined together and he’d decorated the center with Easter colored florals. I seem to remember he himself was dressed in a jacket and was intentionally put together in a way that seemed to be his best.
At an intersection, two days later, he stood next to a bicycle. The bike, the big cross and this man.
I’d never seen him before.
I waited at the light and glanced to my left. Waiting as well to cross was a man in shorts, unshaven and gazing down at his work-boot clad feet, a faded backpack slipping down from his shoulder.
I didn’t recognize him either. In my years of homeless work I’d seen many like these two, just not them. I thought of their condition, I assumed mental illness and addiction.
I woke with regret over that supposed reason for their condition, their behavior and decision.
I drove downtown and across town yesterday hoping to see one or both.
I didn’t.
The Book of Mark’s introduction in the back of my Bible tells me that the writer is possibly anonymous, theological experts say he wrote his gospel based on Peter’s teaching. I love the tone in Mark’s words. I’m certain I would have been fixed on the words of Peter preaching too.
I read Mark’s description of John the Baptist and I immediately thought of the man on the bike with the flower adorned cross.
“Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.”Mark 1:6-7 ESV
John the Baptist, the son of Elizabeth, the unborn child who was moved by the presence of Jesus while in his mother’s womb.
It was his purpose to go first and then point to the one others like me should follow.
Maybe the man with the cross and the man crossing the intersection began a conversation as I drove home.
Maybe the assumed “crazy” countenance of the one honoring Jesus that day led to questions and then to answers.
Maybe the one I assumed would speak of Jesus was all wrong, maybe the man without the cross was the giver.
Maybe the man worn and weary, walking alone from somewhere had a story to tell.
Maybe the two shared their affection for Jesus.
Andrew Peterson has a voice of comfort, a call to consider love and understanding in most of his songs. Honestly, he beckons us to understand ourselves and then better understand others.
This song, this morning beckons me to consider the ways I don’t understand Jesus’ love for me and then to decide it’s not for me to understand completely, only to accept and believe it.
“And even in the days when I was young There seemed to be a song beyond the silence The feeling in my bones was much too strong To just deny it. I can’t deny this. I’ve been seized by the power of a great affection Seized by the power of a great affection.” Andrew Peterson
I took time to listen this morning, the song Pandora plays for me often. I remembered telling my first real boss that I chose to work in careers that helped others because of a little girl decision. I remembered being certain that I understood the burdens of other children and as a little girl, I knew I’d be called to help them.
I had no idea back then, that was Jesus calling me tenderly towards today, the notice of other tender hearts, the prayers for people as I see them on the street or downcast in the grocery aisle. The sharing of a book filled with birds for children that closes with the assurance of Jesus.
Not just for children.
I hadn’t thought of that shy little girl that I was for a very long time until I listened.
The azalea bush up against the red cedar fence is still “spectacular”, the word I used with my Master Gardener cousin last week to describe the awe of the bloom.
The below thirty degrees last night didn’t harm it.
The tender white luminescent flowers are lively in the morning sun. Easily, they could have folded their petals over themselves
Hoping to survive, safe and warm, undamaged by the circumstances of the weather.
“Be gentle with yourself.”
I said this to more people than I can remember when I hosted a survivor group for those who were bereaved because of suicide.
I meant what I said although I couldn’t truly understand the challenges they faced. It was what felt honest, my hope for them in their sorrow.
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 