It occurred to me as I thought of today’s prompt, “trust”, that so many of the words we use may be less powerful, more pretty, even cliche.
Trust is a word I write every morning, some days God follows with a bold period and often underlined.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 KJV
Trust.
I start the day with this written commitment. Still, some days it’s nothing more than a pleasant hope, a halfhearted decision to remember God is my Father and I am His child.
I can trust Him.
Even if trusting humanly is a challenge for me, an established avoidance or cynical pattern.
I can decide to trust God.
Words like trust, faith, redemption, and salvation are powerful and unchanging words.
They are the fruit of our Creator’s character and intent for us.
They are God’s covenant.
“Promise”, another word we hold loosely when we consider it from human experience, is just as valuable, a weighty word.
Today, I will trust God. I will know and cherish words like trust, faith, mercy, grace, freedom, salvation, healing, and peace.
I’ll embrace these words tightly, held and certain like a child being cradled in the strong arms of a parent.
“I am carrying you.” God
He keeps His promises.
He gives joy, trust, patience.
We’re not able on our own to sustain these.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,” Galatians 5:22 KJV
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ESV
Every morning now, I open the back sliding door. Like a chef waving his hand over the skillet to invite the aroma upward, I invite the changing season in.
I step out and feel the change on my bare feet. The flowers drying to brittle fragile brown while others are vibrant still.
I read this morning about “Shalom”, an invitation to seeking peace.
Shalom, a greeting or a farewell in ancient days, “Peace”.
Day 9 of the 31 days of writing prompts caused me to groan.
Power.
I turned to weakness, my default or maybe not so much my fragility, but the preference not to lead, not to be involved in anything that requires power, assertion or influence of others.
Those days are done.
Afforded me time to take the blinders off, the struggles and strengths of others for way too long buffered what God needed and needs me to see in me.
It’s been long overdue and good.
Power?
Can we call it strength instead?
Then, I remembered my waking thoughts I framed with prayer.
Lord, help me know what those I love need from me.
The answer came eventually.
The strength I’ve been certain of going on a year.
Peace. I need to be peace. Not a peacemaker, interventionist or conflict resolver.
No, simply, I need to be at peace.
To be peace.
“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.” Matthew 5:9 KJV
I need to “make peace” in others’ lives by example.
With this comes strength. With this comes a power that enables me to do for those I love or simply encounter.
Surrender is a big requirement, but one that brings ease. Clear vision of your own issues leads to change.
Peace is not getting what I want or want for others. Peace is giving whatever perplexes me continuously to God.
I thought that was its intent, especially the Book of Revelation. Can you relate?
Angry preachers and their warnings with the intention of frightening me towards God.
My twenties changed to avoidance altogether, no chance I’d dare to believe that punishment for my behaviors might be met with a full measure of mercy. Thirties brought hope, a timid hope that perhaps I could chance trusting, believing in a different way.
Here I am at sixty plus a year.
Going on a decade or so of steadiness in my seeking even if my walk isn’t always steady.
That’s the thing.
Unwaveringly and simply, I keep deciding moment by moment to believe God.
In my quiet and confident way.
In God who created me, saw me through choices and troubles that were not his intent for me.
Still, His intention is that I know now,
He never left me, never will.
Like the wings of angel draped around my shoulders, surrounding me in love.
I’ve been cared for. The foundation of my faith is His provision, protection, wisdom, mercy and grace.
When my days are complete. I want it to be said of me.
She kept believing in Jesus. She wasn’t afraid tolive according to His Word.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:11 NIV
What did Jesus tell them, tells us through His recorded words?
Remain connected. Be a healthy and thriving branch of my goodness, mercy and love getting the nourishment to grow directly from me. (my paraphrase)
“…apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 NIV
Love everyone. Endure. Be found faithful.
Be met by God on your last day on earth this way.
Leave stories of your faith for your children and grandchildren. Live this way, Lisa.
Even when others drift away, make allowances for sin and avoid hard conversations.
Abide in me, stay.
You don’t have be a fighter, just be you, a gentle and steady believer,
A victor of the faith.
“Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.” Revelation 2:10 ESV
Lord, thank you for the changes you’ve brought in me and keep bringing as I continue and believe.
Suppose I post this little graphic on social media today, maybe add one word “please” in front of “pray”.
There may be a flurry of questions, curiosity over what in the world is wrong with Lisa?! (now).
Or maybe others would think…
there she goes again, talking about things she should keep to herself.
Either could be the case.
But, it is encouragement.
Pray.
The tattered book I’m revisiting has no dates beside the entries of my thoughts. There’s a smiley face beside a verse, dog-eared corners from not sure when. There are prayers, quite personal on the pages.
Prayers that have been heard, met with either answer or with growth, changes in me and situations.
Peace in the form of acceptance.
My prayers were heard.
They will be today.
Whether they’re the confident gratitude that thanks God for knowing or
The bewildered surrender that finds me face down and allowing tears. No words, just flow.
Or simply, again.
Thank you for today. I woke up well.
Recently someone likened “thinking about it” to “praying about it”.
Said it’s the same, just semantics.
I can say with certainty it is not. We can not know everything and so our thoughts are incapable of changing our conditions.
I’ll be careful here. I’m not a theologian and I’ve begged God for things I’ve yet to see.
But, oh the things I have been shown. It astounds me all the times I’ve prayed and resisted the urge to take action.
God has sweetly surprised me.
A phone call longed for that pops up, a request for Jesus to put his healing hands on a family, a plea for knowing more clearly than ever His nearness and protection.
Three very recent answered prayers.
A pleading soul is the soul at peace, at peace with its position in this universe.
“I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears. Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy; no shadow of shame will darken their faces. In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened; he saved me from all my troubles. For the angel of the Lord is a guard; he surrounds and defends all who fear him.” Psalms 34:4-7 NLT
Lord, thank you for changing my understanding of prayer, of bringing me to here, a place to boldly say to others, “my encouragement to you is that you make prayer a priority.” Help me to help others see the powerfully available connection to you, the one who fully knows us.
Lord, keep teaching me to pray. In Jesus Name and because of your great mercy, I say
“He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and received my sight.” John 9:11 ESV
Growing
Two passages have held my interest in August, my writing sparse because of a desperate longing to correctly understand one and to linger in the hope of the other. Plus, my brain’s been a bit fuzzy, like a dull swirling of what next.
Anyone else?
The passage about the man blind from childhood whose parents were interrogated by the Pharisees about the cause and the remedy has captivated me.
“His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind.” John 9:20 ESV
The other is the passage that contains the words to “carry your cross” used often in sermons or songs. It always intrigues me. More so now because I believe I’ve been believing it wrongly.
“And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” Matthew 10:38 ESV
Once I heard a woman sing a song she wrote about her cross. Her voice was strong as she began and then wilted in weepiness towards the end. The lyrics told of her personal battles, her depression. These burdens she told us she had decided were her’s to carry, they were “her cross”.
I caught myself now thinking, “albatross”.
Mercy
I remember how hopeless it left me, her disclosure, and how I pondered the weight I’d be expected to lay across one shoulder for the rest of my life.
I’d be bent permanently by the burden of my traumas.
If my past was my cross I’d be like the aged and decrepit beggar on a back street barely carrying on.
Oh.
The road I often travel passes by the County jail. Men and women are leaving to walk towards town with paperwork in hand or they’re sitting at the exit, heads bent towards their laps, hoping soon their ride will be there.
I pray.
“Change their life for better, God, today.”
Last week, a young man I guessed to be in his late twenties stood on the corner waiting. He was dressed in clothes that didn’t seem to match a night spent in jail. He stood and then paced and I watched in my rear view mirror until watching was no longer possible.
I noticed something different. I sensed his deep contemplation and so I opened my hand to heaven and prayed, “Lord, let today be his turnaround day. Be near him in a new way.”
When Jesus passed the man who’d been blind from birth, the disciples asked him, whose fault is this?
Is he blind as a punishment for his wrongs or is he blind and it’s his parents’ fault?
Jesus told them no, it is because God wants others to see the possibility of hope, of healing.
“Jesus answered, “Neither. It happened to him so that you could watch him experience God’s miracle.” John 9:3 TPT
And I See
Now I see.
“The healed man replied, “I have no idea what kind of man he is. All I know is that I was blind and now I can see for the first time in my life!” John 9:25 TPT
And now I see, the cross I carry is not the cross of my past wrongs or wrongs done towards me. My cross is not a burdensome visible and invisible reminder of what Jesus healed me of and from.
My cross is the very cross Jesus died on, the sacrifice of surrender to His Father’s plan, the hope of eternity for all of us who would say like the blind man.
It was “the man called Jesus”. (John 9:11)
Who said , I can’t comprehend it all, I just know what I experienced and I won’t debate with anyone on how or why or if.
I’ll carry on healed and I’ll carry the cross that made possible my healing, the good shepherd’s brutal cross.
I will follow.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11 ESV
I most likely won’t know what happens in the lives of the prisoners who’ve been set free.
I know hope is possible.
Healing is a moment away for any and everyone. Jesus is still near and miracles are still the evidence and purpose of the cross, the cross waiting for us to carry in exchange for every weighty sin, shame or trauma.
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1 ESV
In the summer months, my husband questions my robe with pajamas.
I tell him I love it, I just like to wear it. I feel pulled together.
Before daylight, I’ve left home, left it hanging with soft pajamas on the hook.
Monday morning morning views are back. The sunrise to the right of me leads me on. I turn to see it developing, the new and glorious day.
The road towards small town has me meeting headlights and remembering a time the lights sparked caution.
Remembering today that’s better, the lights, the road, the earliness of day.
Everything an adjustment bringing acceptance.
This time last year I wrote a book I thought was for children.
It was God’s promise posed in a way of “maybe she’ll get it this way” kind of thing.
I matter to God.
You matter to God no matter what.
You’re seen, known and loved.
When I worked with women trying to decide whether to believe life was worth living and whether they could change life stealing patterns,
I’d say,
“Look in the mirror, look for more than a minute, you’ll be able to see how you’re doing.”
I’m not talking full length that helps you decide if you can walk on the beach without your shorts or whether the pants are too tight from behind, whether the dress fits good or is too matronly.
No, just the bathroom mirror.
Wash your face and gaze. Consider the condition of your soul through the look in your eyes.
You’ll see. You will know.
Look again, again and again.
Check yourself.
Are you wearing your righteousness? Are you dressed in the covenant of peace?
Your eyes will know and they will tell you so.
You’ll see restoration, you’ll be excited to keep seeing it.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Become friends with the morning mirror. Carry on. Remember how yesterday was different.
Your faith more certain, your chasing misplaced trust became an acceptance of it.
A robe embraced you, rested on your shoulders and covered your questions,
The robe of righteousness, the blanket of salvation.
Continue and believe.
Be faithful in your belief.
Faithfulness is God’s character and that same character is in you.
“He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” Psalm 23:3 ESV
“The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” Psalm 16:6 ESV
I wonder if anyone on a summer morning would pause there as well. Or just me, my eye drawn to nature, the way an old bent root is exposed through what once was the ground, now eroding to give way for the road.
For our morning walking.
We noticed the pillowy green moss covering the border and we’d never not touch it, the invitation to see new life juxtaposed with trees barren because of age.
We stopped and cupped the evidence of life in the palm of our hands, caressed the smooth earthen wall.
It was a small thing, gloriously small.
Like clouds thickly shifting, my thoughts are of the majesty of God’s hands swooping down to stir them up.
I am convinced of this actually and often.
Majesty
I’m in a group of women called “The Alabaster Girls”.
I joined this group of others I don’t personally know because I wanted to be one, one with other women who would if given the chance, pour out all I’d been saving up in my own vessel or jar and in the face of resistance, express my relationship with Jesus.
“…what she has done will also be told in memory of her.” Matthew 26:13 ESV
Today, the leader suggested members of this group share our testimony. I paused like I’ve paused many times before.
My testimony of deciding to believe in Jesus is really small, sort of private, sort of “not sure it took” because my path forward has been imperfect.
So, I typed it in the comments and I saw my salvation in the truest way.
I thanked the group’s moderator for asking me to tell the story of my salvation, the one I sometimes felt was too small.
The story of my quiet day, quiet choice and quietly steady faith.
Jesus came to me gently and I welcomed Him in, in a quiet way.
I sat alone in my home, a single mother with two children. My Sunday morning thing became watching Charles Stanley, In Touch. I decided to believe what I still believe, Jesus died for me so that I could have life. It wasn’t a whole lot of fanfare and so, many times I’ve questioned the simplicity of it…now, I know that’s the greatest gift and truth, the decision to believe in Jesus can happen anywhere and I should never discount my testimony…deciding to follow Jesus, alone on a Sunday morning with a journal in my lap. God knew me even when I was so lonely and lost and He met me the most gentle way, knowing I was afraid of “being pushed around”. Wow. I’ve never actually written this out until today. God is using you, sweet Nan Trammell Jones.
The seed was planted way back then although not always meticulously tended or consistently fertilized by choices, prayer and worship.
Quietly, quietly and persistently I have grown and in my often “quiet about it” way, the way God made me, He is using my story.
Glorious Things
I am growing and others see Jesus in me in the very way God made me.
Quietly like the persistent beauty of green moss covering the ground, the evidence of goodness, of peace, of quiet confidence in God, the earth and all things knowing Him made more glorious.
Decide to accept Jesus. You will never regret what can never be taken away.
“Here he stands! The Commander! The mighty Lord of Angel Armies is on our side! The God of Jacob fights for us!
Pause in his presence” Psalms 46:11 TPT
I woke to a pleasant voice on my phone and then a message that alarmed me and led to surprise then chills followed by a pause.
It’s almost noon and I’m numbed and lazy by the absorption of the truth of someone’s passing.
Sadly surprised.
I hear the hum of yard work in the back and front yard of the neighbor. Curious, I step outside.
a shower overnight abundanceeverything passes
Last night I looked from the window and thought how happy it made me, the limelight hydrangeas my husband decided to plant in a new place.
Twenty years married tomorrow and we have our first legitimate garden. Our granddaughter helped plant the tomatoes. The growth of zucchini has been outrageous.
I check it every day, a rectangular space near the fence.
Full of growth
And still growing.
I haven’t told my husband of the friend’s passing. They were close in a way I don’t know, seems he saw strength in him and I believe it was mutual, most likely unspoken.
Strength, yes.
Strength.
We’re not able on our own. The tiny plants become tiny tomatoes. The transplanted hydrangea dug up from my husband’s mama’s home is flourishing. The butterflies on the porch that enthrall us don’t last long.
Leave reminders though, reminders of the joy of their presence and the flutter of their wings.
A beautiful song.
“The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.” Psalm 118:14 ESV
I woke with a worry that made no sense really, quickly setting the tone for what was fighting to be a heavy day.
I have been referring to these type things as “the enemy”, thoughts that fight to sway my faith the other way.
I’m becoming accustomed to the strange looks or pauses that seem to say, “Did she say enemy?
Is she really talking about Satan? Is she buying into the talk of the tactics of the evil one, the liar, the conniving thief of peace?”
Yes.
I am.
It’s no different though than the responses of some when you begin to say “Jesus”, begin to call him your friend, begin to believe the truth of his gruesome sacrifice and live and breathe with the purpose of knowing this Savior intimately, personally,
realistically.
The Son of God, the God who created me, created you.
“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” Psalms 139:16 NLT
God sees you growing in wisdom and bravery. The enemy does too.
Yesterday evening, I walked the neighborhood trail, talk in my ear about a book, “Gentle and Lowly” by Dane Ortlund
I rounded the curve, alone on the trail, a distant dog barking and a teenager puttering with a putter in a backyard. I waved and continued.
The stretch of smooth bordering the wildflowers caused me to turn and look.
On the edge of the woods, standing in the overgrowth, I saw it staring.
I stood still.
A fox was fixated on me, staring me down. Its old eyes considering me, I looked back.
It never moved and I was captivated.
Not threatened, simply moved.
Its body seemed old and exhausted, the copper color of its coat mostly overtaken by grey.
It seemed intent on making a statement although its presence felt met by a resistance it didn’t quite understand.
As if it had no strength to harm me, only make me know it was still there.
watching one
Dane Ortlund describes a loving Jesus who longs for us to remember He is with us, for us, we can stop striving to be good enough.
We can stop condemning ourselves, anticipating punishment for our behaviors. We can rest.
We can calm down.
The worry that woke me went away as quickly as I raised my weary body from beside my bed.
I prayed and my prayers were heard by my advocate, the one who came and lifted my head to say today is another new day.
You will see.
I searched for the symbolism of the fox. Found words like sly and conniving and some that reframed those words to skilled and thoughtful, able to get itself out of dangerous places.
Jesus used the word when he referred to Herod who was trying to halt his mission.
“Jesus replied, “Go tell that fox that I will keep on casting out demons and healing people today and tomorrow; and the third day I will accomplish my purpose.” Luke 13:32 NLT
Words in red in my Bible, relevant still today.
Jesus saying to us.
Tell that fox you still have a purpose.
The strange waking worry found relief. I saw a photo of a painting, the one above. As it happens on occasion, I saw shapes that weren’t intentional. Today, I stare at the painting in peace. Brushstrokes and blending it seems led to angels hovering near, protection and peace.
All things come together, the fox, the special painting that came with angst in completing.
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 