I just asked the Lord, wrote him a morning note in my journal.
How is it that I feel so close to you Lord, every morning, yet, by day’s end I’m worn out and walking, looking for you in the sky? What draws me back to the middle, the hollow place between fervor and fading, between living and languishing?
And he answered me with the pencil in my hand. Lean in, listen more closely. Don’t stay in the background questioning your value. Don’t stand at a distance afraid of what might not come true. Lean in, Lisa, I see you believing. Don’t be like the skeptical and uncertain ones who rejected me in the synagogue of my place of birth.
Thinking there’s no way, his father is just a carpenter and aren’t his brothers just common men? They wouldn’t believe, maybe they were pompous or possibly just afraid, thinking themselves unworthy or incapable of what believing might bring.
So, Jesus carried on to draw near to ones with open minds and desperate hearts in need of a Savior.
May I not so grow so confident or accomplished that I neglect to lean in and believe.
May I not be afraid because of who I’m not, to be who Jesus knows I am.
And He did not do many works there, because of their unbelief. Matthew 13:58
Linking up with Kate at FMF http://katemotaung.com/2017/01/12/five-minute-friday-middle/
I’m updating this blog to share again a story of a gentle man who danced and prayed, a man who is loved by many and is sadly under hospice care. I’m not related. I have relatives who are. I imagine the legacy he will leave his family is immeasurable. His prayer about believing God sees us, hears us and even listens when we talk, and talks right back, it made a forever impression on me. I am grateful for that.
Join me if you will in praying for the family and friends who are surrounding this sweet prayerful dancer under the care of doctors who are saying, Soon his dance will be heavenly.
I am remembering this story from 2017.
I’m gonna tell this sweet story here because it’s just too precious not to be told. It’s all about dancing and desire and the way God listens and waits for our asking, God waits to dance with us. For our rhythm to be one of agreement, our desires to be fulfilled.
seeing, hearing, knowing, our Father who art in Heaven
Oh, he danced. We all danced at their wedding. I watched him for awhile, looking at the young people as they jumped up to dance, his face bearing a sweet smile as the couples made their spots on the floor their own. I watched as he shimmied his shoulders and tapped a little tune with his cane. Finally, he got up and he danced. And just like the first time I saw him, heard him pray, the whole room took notice and we all got the chance to see a life lived fully with wisdom and desire. I was glad to be in his presence again, the man who told me God listens.
Two weddings this year, my daughter and the love of her life, my niece and her’s…two chances to dance with the ones we love. Two chances to see the fulfilling of desires.
Sweet Dance of Desire – Heather and Benji
Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.
Psalm 37:4
I didn’t expect it. I don’t know if any of the others did.
Of course, I didn’t really know them, this family of sisters and cousins about to be my niece’s family.
We all sat semi-circle in pale floral upholstered chairs in the church parlor. It’s been a long time since I sat in a parlor, I thought.
We’d joined hands earlier, a stranger and I next to each other and the matriarch said grace as we sat ladylike. We filled ourselves with pineapple cheese ball on salty Ritz crackers, watermelon, little sandwiches and homemade cheesecake.
Where I’m from we call these foods “Nic-Nacs”. We talk about the recipes and we go back for thirds, not seconds on the tiny little plates. We look around to see who’s first to indulge. Southern ladies allowing themselves a little extra, smiling slightly towards one another, our lips lined brightly with corals and pinks.
Gifts were opened, names recorded by my daughter, oohs and ahhs were like lyrics, a pretty little melody, bouncin’ about the parlor.
Then, towards the end, the granddaddy walks in. A handsome sweet face, feeble but, determined and just glad to be with us. His walk was slow and uneven, one leg causing a struggle, he leaned on his cane, his body resting in a slanted way. Still, he had a confident swagger in step, sportin’ his dress pants and crisply ironed shirt.
I thought he must have just come alone, must live close by or had been waitin’ in the car for his mate. In the South, men don’t get to go to bridal showers, it’s pretty well known and understood.
He joined the circle for a bit then his daughter introduced him,
“Daddy wants to say a few words”.
He took his time as he stood, waiting for us all to stop our chatter. It was a treasure to him, I could tell, to just be with us and to “talk about the Lord with you ladies for a few minutes”.
They were words of instruction and love and of his hopes for the soon to be wed. He was happy that his family is growing, he said. His words not just a platitude. He talked about prayer, and about desire.
We all sat quietly, my daughter across the room, glanced towards me, her face, sweet as if to say, “I know you love this, mama.” There was a sense of the significance of this time, his words, our chance to listen and hold on.
He talked about his life, his trials, his troubles, his God and his telling of stories to whomever he meets. A variety of people, I thought who have been captivated by his curiously wise dialogue.
Long pauses, between sentences, he was thinking, figuring, preparing what God had for him to say. His time in the church parlor he considered an opportunity, meaningful, worth something, I could tell. So, he paused a long pause before saying one thing clearly, his voice commanding our attention. He paused to make sure we all were captive in our seats.
“I can hear God. He talks to me all the time. I tell you one thing, people don’t believe me, that I hear him; but, I keep telling him how I feel, what I need. He answers me. If I had one of those contraptions that measured…what’s the word…decibels, I can assure you I hear him all the time. I’d have something to show the ones who don’t believe me, don’t need it, though, I hear him. It’s real clear, too”
“You can too and you can tell him anything.” He added.
“But, just make sure that if you desire something and you tell him, that you really, really desire it, because he will give you what you desire.”
Then I listened as he prayed for the soon to be married couple and for all of us ladies and I waited, still and attentive to his sweet voice.
I listened, longing to hear more.
I made sure to see him at the wedding, be sure my husband had a chance to meet him. My niece asked me to pray before the meal and I did my best, all the time wishing I’d been able to hear his prayer instead. I wish I’d suggested it, I thought, before the final plans had been made.
But, I prayed a prayer about love and family and looked over at the granddaddy after my “in Jesus’ name, Amen” to see his encouraging nod as if to say “You did fine, He heard, he knows the desire of your heart, remember? He just told me so.” And then a smile that felt like love with just the slightest wink of Southern gentleman.
And then, we dined and we danced knowing our desires were very known.
We lived in a cute apartment in a sort of upscale community, my baby brother and I. Our apartment was above a retired couple.
Their comings and goings always together, I’d glance down at them from the kitchen window, he gently helping her from the car and carrying one or two bags of groceries.
Occasionally,he looked up, his expression a contrast in wisdom and frustration.
Yet, they never complained of our late hours, our trash piling up or our completely haphazard life.
Both of us single, both of us sowing wild and hapless oats.
Every Sunday, they went to church. Sharply dressed and contentedly methodical were their steps back home.
On one particular evening, we ended up close enough for words. I asked the gentleman, “How can I know God’s will for me?”
Surprised by what he must have seen as a lost and careless young woman, he just stood there. “I’m sorry if we are loud up there sometimes.” I said, ashamed I’d asked the question.
Still, no words as we stood together in the shade of stairwell. Do I wait, do I leave him be? Should I not have invited his sermon? Will he rightly point out my sins?
He answered with a book. I’d love to say it lives on my shelf; unfortunately, the patterns of my life were not abruptly changed that day.
But, a seed planted, oh my goodness and I’m so glad God allowed me time enough for it to grow.
There are many who will not believe there are big portions of my life not well-lived.
Who may think I talk of redemption and wonder how on earth do I really think I needed to be redeemed.
Last night, a text came. I was painting and cleaning my art room. I’d walked the dog in the mist and fog, praying hard and quietly demanding as I walked.
The old heavy and annoying albatross of anxiety had begun to linger above my head.
It’s such a dull and cumbersome feeling, the one that cooks up chaos, confusion and confoundedness in the heart and mind.
I decided, after listing all my anxious taking of responsibility for plans gone awry to God, to head home, be quiet and paint. “I’ll paint. I’ll listen to Alison Krauss and I’ll just paint.”
So, I’m painting in silence because the air has cleared, my mind unfurled and open.
My painting, not furious, but an easy comfort.
My prayer was heard, my heart was made free.
I needed to answer her text; a young woman, mother of precious girls and one little boy is worried and has been crying for days, she said.
I’d given her a reference for a job. She didn’t know. She desperately needs one.
“I’ll pray for you, that a breakthrough will be soon.” I said. She answered with something like you are so great, I really appreciate it. I wish I had your faith.
I told her that the things I say to her are the things I say to myself quite regularly.
I’m not who I was, still not all I should be. Closer every time I surrender, a thankful trusting heart at rest.
Told her I get the blues too. I have to pray, get quiet and trust.
I hope she knows it’s true, that the mess I am is not nearly as much a mess as before.
That, the will of God is for her a good and settled mind; but, we have to seek it.
That’s what he said back then twenty plus years or so, the kind and patient gentleman who gave me the book.
“You have to seek God’s will and keep seeking it in the quiet place of prayer. ”
This morning, I’m reading scripture from II Samuel. A devotional about setting goals for fruitful living, talks about spending time alone with God.
The passage is called “David’s Prayer of Gratitude”. It was written after he was the least likely to be chosen, after he defeated a giant with a stone and before he strayed haphazardly distracted again by lusts of life.
“Then King David went in and sat before the LORD and prayed, “Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?”
2 Samuel 7:18
He’s the good shepherd; he kept his shepherd boy who he chose to be a king.
He keeps us too, reminds us where he found us and where he’d like to help us go.
Acknowledge what I’ve been given instead of longing for what I lost, felt I lost out on.
re·solve
NOUN
firm determination to do something:
“she received information that strengthened her resolve”
Pray more.
Trust more.
Love more.
Learn more about God and me.
Keep them all.
“Keep the faith, finish the course. ” 2 Timothy 4:7
Thank you, Paul, for your part in the story.
Sometimes I think I’m either the most simple minded of people on earth or the most complicated of minds incapable of rest.
I’m a contrast of contentment in the gift of lamplight on morning devotion; I yearn for solitude, rarely am I lonely.
Yet, the thoughts I conjure up, I’m unable to contain. Been called “deep”, been thanked for my deep thoughts.
On this day, the last of 2016, there’s a loud huffy sigh, bemoaning the disdain of its days. I don’t think I’ve ever lived a year that many feel as if we’ve all walked around either on eggshells or avoiding land mines. Negativity, pessimism and a tendency to grieve people we’ve never known, to align ourselves with the distress that we’ve never experienced and probably never will.
Tomorrow, not an unveiling of newness, other than number, a new set of hours making a day. But, there is a trend towards thinking it might be good, might be better.
My only aspiration is to step towards the things I’ve let fade, linger too long.
The treasure, closer and closer to the place of boxing up and storing on the top shelf of my closet, nothing more than idea and season.
This morning I read of Paul and his encounter with a rich man, a man whose possessions meant more than his days.
Measured his wealth, decided it was too risky to trade in for his soul.
I have never known wealth, have lived an unexpectant life. I’ve coveted the lives of others, longed for their pretty things.
Wasteful times and thoughts those have been.
Finally, I’m beginning to cherish the beautiful enough.
I’m thrilled by the smallest of unvalued and the immeasurably valuable things.
Lessons, memories, stories, connections.
Seeing, feeling, knowing Gods hand on the course my life.
Dogs, I learned to love them in 2016.
Life, I learned to accept it, daily.
My people, I learned to love them with open hands, not tightly clutched grasp of apprehension.
Thank you, God.
Crazy chances taken, wasted saving graces and Lord knows I’m beginning to see why I made it through.
I’m finally finishing a book I should’ve never set aside. I’m rereading it now, underlining bedside.
Paul and Jesus, themes of wealth, struggle, integrity, times living “on fire”, times of dull flame, finally, more times of staying the mental course that brings good to days. The little book ends with “Ten Vows of Success”
“He who suffers, remembers.” Og Mandino
“I will bathe my days in the golden glow of enthusiasm. In that bright glow will I be able to see, for the first time, all the good things in life that were concealed from me during those years of futility.
Just as a young lover has a finer sense and more acute vision and sees, in the object of his affection, a hundred virtues and charms invisible to all other eyes, so will I, imbued with enthusiasm, have my power of perception heightened and my vision magnified until I can see the beauty and charm others cannot discern which can compensate for large loads of drudgery, deprivation, hardship, and even persecution.
With enthusiasm I can make the best of any situation and should I stumble now and then, as even the most talented will do on occasions, I will pick myself up and go on with my life.
Always will I bathe my days in the golden glow of enthusiasm.” Part II The End of the Story, The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino
This little book, a recommended read from my son and a very wise friend, Ray Visotski.
Happy New Day tomorrow…that just happens to be the first of a New Year!
Acknowledge what you’ve been given instead of what you’ve lost or lack, Lisa.
On the first day of new, I wrote a prayer and called it “Winter”, knowing that what I write, I might retain.
I found it beautiful then. It was descriptive and true.
Grace found
Pausing to look it over, gray lines and loops on thin white paper, I pondered the seven days since I’d already begun to fear.
Welcome, Winter.
May your arrival bring new things.
May I be unafraid of your truth
and of mine.
May I hold fast to a promise uttered for others and for me,
a breakthrough is coming, it’s about to be time.
This morning I sat in a dim space. The morning faded by moist and thick fog led me to linger. I read and wrote, three or four lines at most. The quiet of the morning, too much of a calm nothingness for me to move.
I listened and heard a dove in the distance. Its coo was quiet, then more clear, then quiet again. The notes of its song danced like black squiggly shapes on sheets of music.
I listened and thought of grace.
Grace, manifested, making itself evident, the only other sound the tick of the clock on kitchen wall.
The cooing of the bird becoming conversation, for me, I decide.
I waited. It continued.
It quietens, so I move, unfolding the quilt from my bare feet.
I think of seeking the sound, the sight of grace.
For months, I walked almost daily with lens pointed towards the sky. Random shots of clouds that called me to notice. The sky, like dove song, I’m certain was always for me.
Grace, manifested. Grace, rediscovered.
Had never moved, not been removed nor withdrawn, I’d just stopped looking. Maybe I’d become comfortable in the apathy of apprehensive unknown.
Sometimes we do these little things like “quiet time” and journaling and they’re nothing short of cliched habit, practicing a trendy social sharing, searching for a word to declare will carry us through the day…like wearing our badges of honor to mark our fading faith.
Then, we see grace.
We feel it. We hear it because it was not of our making, we got silent and still enough to see God.
I’m looking again. I’m noticing again. It’s a quiet and private practice.
Earlier today, I was captivated by a presentation. Watch and listen:
A video created by a photographer, the intent to capture the emotion of 2016. It’s hard to watch. Hard not to watch. The voice of the narrator is reminiscent of the sweetest teacher a Southern girl may have ever known. It’s a voice that is somber in its serious tone, broken in its cadence.
If voices were visible emotion, her’s would be the drawn face of sorrowful acceptance.
It was hard to watch, such an accurate commentary of our time, our distress.
Hard to watch, yet, impossible not to take notice.
I watched and still, I thought of grace.
I thought of Job and his refusal to give up on God, his dismay, his defeat and his holding out and holding on to see grace again when they all told him it was not to be found.
No more grace for you, curse what you’ve decided to count on for good and accept that your doubts have come true. His wife, his friends, the bodies of his children cried out. Job 2:9
I thought of the sky that I turned to notice once the fog had cleared.
The open spot where the blue came in.
That’s the place that reminded me of my Winter prayer
and eventually, again, of grace.
Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. Psalm 86:6
Linking up with Jennifer Dukes Lee to Tell His Story.
I’m writing for five minutes with thoughts on “Now”.
Linking up with Kate Motaung on this chilly Friday morning in South Carolina.
I’m driving five hours or so today. My companion and I will talk, some of it will be nervous chatter, filling up awkward empty spots. Some of it will be weather, season or world.
Some of our conversation might be about our children or maybe even our shoes. I woke, refreshed and said “Thank you, Lord, for I slept without tossing.”
Today Now
I prayed, “Help me to see my opportunities to help today, to speak the things I know.”
I heard a sweet lady yesterday tell me of her husband’s abusive childhood. He’s a kind and distinguished man, I was not alarmed; but, surprised.
She says he carries it with him. It’s a blessing and a curse, she said.
More curse, but, the blessing is he’s kind to others because of it.
“Yes” I said.
I drive today to help a woman who felt she deserved nothing. I will not speak for her. I doubt I’ll be allowed.
I will speak to her if opportunity presents. Ill tell her that moving forward is scary, that looking back and living in the place another placed you is more comfortable, makes more sense and lessens the fear.
Ill tell her maybe about Esther…The one who stood with grace and spoke for life.
I’ll tell her maybe this is her time.
Ill think, maybe it’s mine.
And who knows whether maybe you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Esther 4:14
Day 11, Advent
Uphold me in your promise that I may live and let me not be put to shame in my hope! Psalm 119:116
How we feel about God, about His part in our plans and how we give him a role in our lives, our faith, dependence, trust…our unwavering acceptance of his unwavering grace is the image and message we convey.
It can’t be hidden, won’t be hidden. With God, there’s no masking, no faking, no playing of holy part. Our lives are not scenes from a grand play for which we’ve auditioned and are chosen to be the star follower or the longing reject hoping to be picked to follow Jesus.
There’s no need for acting. There’s no need for striving to maintain appearance of never being afraid or feeling condemned, yet again because of negative conversations with self.
If we try to cover our doubts about grace in the day to day, how will we ever convey God’s saving grace to the doubters of us and of life and love, all around us and in our lives?
We end up exhausted from the farce of it all…going through life only sporadically believing in grace.
Grace is daily.
It is our bread, our sustenance.
It’s what we know we lack and circle back to remember.
The very same grace we accepted as ours when we surrendered our wandering, questioning hearts and believed is the grace that is ours every second of the day.
So, I let my insecurities show and some might be repelled by my lack of discretion, of not covering up. By the grace of God and my discernment of right people, they show less day by day.
In time one of two things surely happens:
It will, my insecurity, show more or struggle to stay hidden. Insecurity is relevant and relatable. It is beautiful for us to be brave enough to be less than strong enough or as we might be expected to be.
The more we remember grace, the less glaringly we’ll obstruct its beauty by the wearing of our masks of can’t be known.
Heather said she’s ready for the leaves to all fall away, the trees should be wintry now, it’s Christmas.
I agree. There’s beauty in barren. There’s beauty in exposed and clinging to what means life.
Can a winter branch shield itself from cold, wet and harsh season?
I think not, still it’s a beautiful thing to see resting in the strength of roots and even more clearly visible unadorned with leaf against wide blue sky.
#graceupongrace #quietconfidence #birthofjesusday
Sketches in the margins of my Bible moved onto canvas with thick, layered color, white flowing fabric from empire waists.
The head may tilt or the arms rest, tucked with fingers laced and resting in small of back.
Waiting and satisfied.
Content in the waiting.
I’d always hoped to be an artist.
I’d always hoped I might capture emotion on canvas. I’m selling art and longing to know the place my angels call home.
I have a new favorite, this one with humble and patient expression, hair bobbed with bangs…this one, looking towards the place where faith waits, sure of hope in time.
I pray Lord, and I thank you that I’m satisfied with me, finally.
I pray, Lord for the two desires you know tonight,the ones I prayed when I prayed, believing… the weighty desires of my heart.
They matter much, the desires of my quiet heart.
Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
This morning, I considered the idea of assurance and prayed,
“Dear Lord, I want to live assured.”
I thought how it may be to move through my day with a countenance of being sure.
How it might be to wear assurance as my jacket, to walk with the cadence of happy rhythmic step, and to speak in a way so sure I’d radiate belief, my cheeks ‘ablush from the knowledge of enough.
My countenance, sure and assured.
I looked towards the memories on my wall, the tiny angel with her book and a jelly jar full of feathers.
The beauty of it all, so much more than enough, I sit quietly in a settled place with sunsine stripes on the wall.
Yet, none of this is significant or of measurable value.
I could sell angel paintings, their shapes thick with paint and poised with grace and hope. I could hear of the way they spoke to the buyer. I could publish the book God told me is my “treasure”, the one I’ve been brave enough to title. I could do these things and more and I’d be nothing more than accomplished without the assurance of a good, true and faithful God.
I’d rather be known by my faith. I’d rather be content in such a way I’d intrigue others to know how, why and could I?
My countenance, one of sure enough assurance and my expression so true, all will understand,
She means it when she says… it’s not me, but, God and it’s grace I don’t deserve but, I’m sure of.
There’s only one left, it’s bright green with fern-like stems. The spindly arms reach across vacant space like a long sighing stretch across an empty morning bed.
The tiny little succulents I planted in my mama’s broken pot were pretty, fragile and spongy little blooms living all together on a cushion of soil.
I’d placed them in a spot easy to glance toward in the pauses of my morning. The sun just creeping in, warm and soft seeping in of light.
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 