Stillness

Peace Takes Courage

Abuse Survivor, bravery, contentment, courage, Faith, fear, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, hope, kindness, love, memoir, mercy, Peace, praise, Redemption, Stillness, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

The rain subsided enough to get a walk in.

I determined to pursue my daily unraveling.

The sky no longer threatening, the storm separating the colors and the background pale blue grew larger before me.

The grey only narrow stripes of color like paint laid down on a canvas, the palette knife technique.

Rain like water misted from the bottle kept to keep moist the canvas, the grey diffused.

God’s fingers like the biggest thick brush now blending, muting color.

At peace with the presentation.

The exhibit now open for my viewing.

The crepe myrtle petals are sopped like kitchen sponges and hanging low like bursting ripely fruits just waiting for my indulgence.

And it happened again.

What’s this lightness in my gait, the awareness of pep in my step and of belief I’ll take off running once I make it round the bend and just maybe take an extra hill?

Peace, I decided as I took the final home bound hill.

It’s peace that has taken the bricks from your feet.

Peace that says take your gifts and give them to whomever will listen, will read, will be curious over how you moved from burdened fighter to learner to victim no more.

A thought came clearly, I imagined myself confidently telling others.

I give God all the glory. Without God none of this would be possible for me.

Peace is possible.

Take courage.

“But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”

‭‭2 Chronicles‬ ‭15:7‬ ‭ESV

Continue and believe.

Linking up with others at Five Minute Friday, prompted by the word, “Take”.

Read more here: https://fiveminutefriday.com/2019/07/04/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-take/

See A Little Listening

Abuse Survivor, birds, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, fear, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, kindness, memoir, mercy, Peace, Redemption, rest, Stillness, surrender, Trust, Truth, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

I told myself feelings are not facts and I do believe it.

Add that little saying to all the others, Lisa Anne, over time your happy heart will override your frenzied mind.

Will cushion the knowing that’s gonna grow you, will soften the edges of you, will be a plump pillow for your head at day’s end, sweet rest for the soul.

I listen to a whole lot of stuff when I’m walking, wisdom and or lyrical voices.

I’m particular with my listening, not my favorite thing to learn from tones that are “chipper”.

Cut out the pretty words. I crave what I already know, just need a voice confirming on a firmer note.

I’m down to just a few now, podcasts that are good fits for me.

Yesterday, I silenced my phone.

I paused the voice that was the same as so many with a similar exhortation.

I already knew. I already know.

I’ve got extra blank space now. I’m not sure I’ve ever had so much room in my thoughts for things to grow.

I’m challenged to accept the void of activity. I resist the not knowing what may be next or not come at all.

I walked bored with others’ knowledge and I saw the geese behind their mama all swimming in a row.

But, first I heard them, the rhyme and rhythm of their following along.

I paused then walked on.

I turned the steep sharp corner carefully and hearing a rattling engine moved to the far edge of the high grass.

I was prepared; but, not to be startled, an old van, a bearded tank top man and a head down in the darkness passenger in his midst.

“I’m walking.” I answered when he asked if I needed a ride and then added, “I walk everyday.” wishing I hadn’t added that and hoping he didn’t hear.

He drove away.

I approached the place where the Labrador loved to sit and I heard the croak of a frog off someplace and I remembered the creek of my childhood and those simple and yet complex days.

We walked every day. We took off to our simple shady quiet place.

I turned towards home and saw the bright blooms of summer, found the hidden key, let myself in and then double locked the door.

Later, I told the neighbor, I’ll be walking a new way, find cut throughs through yards. She said okay, suggested I leave one ear without music.

I told my husband.

He listened and agreed on new ways to get to the cul de sacs, the neighborhood and finally the trail I love.

I mentally made a plan.

I expected to be afraid in my sleep, awakened by the encounter of the ones in the old tagless used and beat up van.

But I wasn’t.

I considered the possible intent of the man and I am responding accordingly, not afraid,

Just informed.

I’m changing, I’m listening. I’m learning.

Feelings do not write your stories.

Listen more to what you are seeing now.

Your story was written so very long ago by the one who knows you now and then and in all the days to come.

“O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭139:1-3‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Notice the one who takes unending notice of you.

You, who God made fearfully and wonderfully well.

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand!”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭139:6‬ ‭NLT‬‬

The Clearing

Abuse Survivor, birds, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, curiousity, Faith, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, hope, memoir, mercy, obedience, Peace, praise, Prayer, Redemption, Stillness, Trust, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

Where are you going? Who are you becoming?

What scared you that is not so scary anymore?

Are you on the cusp of you, giving God the corner piece you held in your palm in your lap at the table, leaving your puzzle unfinished.

Were you afraid to give up the missing piece of your story because it’s been incomplete for so very long?

Being complete will be different, do you worry you won’t fit?

The unafraid puzzle of you?

Someone has trimmed the branches, removed the excess growth from the shrubbery.

The walking trail has clean borders, limbs and weeds are stacked in a corner on the curve pile.

I walk and hear the rustling, turn to see the bird.

Not like before, I’m not startled by the rustling, unable to know what was stirring in the brush.

I’d pick up my pace, oddly thinking I was being pursued and I walked as fast as I could from the source of the noise.

But, yesterday the clearing caused my turning, a small rabbit, baby bunny waiting to be seen and a trio of crows happy to have discovered a nest.

The squirrel in the undergrowth scurried up a tree, a cobalt blue butterfly fluttered past my cheek.

The elusive blue bird again made certain it had been seen.

I walked on towards the wide space grateful for the clearing.

In the evening I drove home later than I’d planned and the traffic was easy, the big trucks staying in their lanes.

I considered the wide sky, the 3/4 moon fuzzy from clouds to my left and drove straight into the place that kept me coming.

Beckoning me forward, causing me to want to call my daughter or anyone.

Have you seen this sky?

Knowing every person on earth should see it, the way God welcomes our notice.

The way He takes fear from our paths, the way He widens our walkways and calls us to see.

To see ourselves bravely and more clearly once we step into His clearing.

And continue.

Continue and believe.

“This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭91:2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

linking up with other writers who are writing about goals.

My goal?

Faithfulness to continue on brave new paths.

https://fiveminutefriday.com/2019/06/13/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-goal/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Ask for Awe

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, hope, memoir, mercy, Peace, praise, Prayer, Redemption, Stillness, surrender, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

I’m prone to exploration of words and their meaning. I read a word and wonder,

Do I really understand this?

I read the word “awe” in a devotional about asking God for what we need.

I proceeded to search and found to be awed means to have an experience that creates a reverential fear, amazement or a word that sounds pretty to me, “wonderment”.

An observation or encounter that prompts the sound, “Ah…”.

As if awe, the experience has a sound all its own.

On Friday as I dressed for dinner with friends and dabbed a scent on my wrist, I told my husband, “I need a lighter scent.”

Then added, “You’re fortunate, you know. Most women don’t go without these kind of things.”

He grunted and added his comparable going without things like boats and such.

I made a list of things that do matter but don’t. Better clothes, better hair, new paint on our dated walls.

A dog.

Less belly fat, better teeth, more art seen and sold, the courage to finish the book, the assurance that my children are okay.

Things on the periphery of my life, details of my days.

God pulled me close, caused me to ask to be closer.

I cried then prayed.

To acknowledge, I want a God experience, an occurrence with the Holy Spirit.

This morning, I asked for awe.

I asked God to show me His glory, like Moses who turned to the bush in the desert to be met by God in reply.

Moses who then told Joshua, keep telling the people to follow, to seek the Lord, to seek to be awed.

“the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”

‭‭Numbers‬ ‭6:25-26‬ ‭ESV‬‬

To have their countenance changed by grander things than food and water, to be aware of God.

Maybe discontent builds desire.

Maybe grander prayers bring my awareness of the grandeur of God.

I believe it to be so.

Lord, I want to be awed by your glory. I want to be drawn to notice you and to turn, my attention captured until I linger, I turn to see you longer enough to see myself through you.

Lord, show me your glory. I ask to be awed.

Because of mercy, Amen.

The hydrangeas are bluer this year. The blooms are so abundant that my house and my daughter’s are decorated by them.

The ground must be different this year somehow, the soil’s season somehow rich and new.

May I be new as well, may my soil hardened by hardship become more broken and opened to nutrition from you.

May my life yield awesome beauty, healed and healthy because of you.

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”

‭‭Hosea‬ ‭10:12‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Happy Sunday, ya’ll!

God is everywhere. Don’t forget to notice.

Where You Stay

Abuse Survivor, Angels, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, freedom, grace, mercy, painting, Peace, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

We choose where we stay.

We get back and we see.

Why did I not return sooner?

Why did I flee?

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling, and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭30:15-16‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Pursued by everything others say you need, promising it will turn your door’s key to peace causing confusion, exhaustion until you return.

Return to the place that simply lets you be.

The place God says this is you.

This is yours.

The places with no parameters, expectation or restraint.

I stood in front of my new easel for three hours last night. I, thanks to the newlyweds, have a proper easel.

It stands tall to accommodate large pieces.

I painted a piece in a newly free way of layering. Colors in little prism like squares creating ideas of form and figure.

I’ll layer a little more later.

This morning I pondered the biblical idea of abiding.

Of remaining confident when there’s no reason to be sure simply because you know you are close to God.

You slow down long enough, briefly at first until you discover, I am okay, I’ve been at peace a little while now.

Of being where you are even though you can’t see clearly where you’re going.

“For we live by faith, not by sight.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5:7‬ ‭

Of starting and allowing God to lead, much like a blank canvas you approach and begin with a certain color to continue with sweet consolation.

I like what this is saying. I am content with what I’ve conveyed here.

I’m so glad I began again, taking away what was planned and letting another idea develop.

Mercy Mornings

Stripping away the too many perfect layers to leave the impression of a beauty, imperfect and spontaneous.

Yes. I cannot wait to be back there.

Abiding is simply staying in the place you feel most safe.

The place of the little corner room, soft songs about grace and love blending blue-grassy vibe with truth about staying here.

Where you belong, the place God made you for, the place of quiet confidence.

Present with God.

The place you sense most clearly that you are known, your longings have been observed by God, the place you believe you matter, you are a part of God’s story.

The morning story that reminds you, mercies are new all the time and His faithfulness has surely been great every moment.

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.” John 15:9

‭‭

Where do you go that causes you to wonder why your return was delayed?

Do you sit with your fingers on keys finding soft notes at first becoming clearly stronger as time passes, you and the piano, maybe a guitar or a horn?

Do you put your hands deep into the soil and seed of flora or bright vibrant leaves?

Do you allow them to linger when you realize your hands are mingling with growth, God’s glory?

Do you sit with no agenda watching the anticipated rain come in?

Linger longer in the places that mean abiding for you.

Rest for our souls, maybe long overdue.

Space enough to remember.

You are strong.

Stronger than you know.

Continue and believe.

This piece is a mixed media collage using acrylic, paper and oil pastel. It is 20 x 38. Comment if interested.

The Road Blurry

Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, curiousity, daughters, Faith, fear, grace, memoir, painting, Prayer, rest, Stillness, Teaching, Trust, Truth, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, writing

Maybe knowing God is better than knowing me.

I found this accidental photo just now.

Funny how it happens, happenstance making sense.

Last night the air cooled slightly after just a showering of a misty rain.

I walked, listening again to informative content on the number of me, the Enneagram 4.

I finished up my walk, showered, ate, settled on the sofa and with nothing else worth my time, watched college softball’s big game.

I’d seen a young woman earlier, she made it to collegiate level and now she tells me she’s expecting her third baby.

She continues to ask how I’m doing, what I’m doing,

how I’m feeling in my new role, “#goingbygrandmanow”

I tell her it has been an adjustment, some things not easy.

I add when I see baby Elizabeth all of my anxiety fades.

She smiles. “Oh, I forgot something!” she says in her excited and bubbly way.

We are standing in the crowded post office and she begins to talk about church.

She tells me about their sermon series and how it was suggested everyone find a “spiritual mentor”.

She has chosen me, says I was her first choice.

Of course I said yes and I’d call her for coffee and yes, we can talk about Jesus.

I was not prepared at all.

Should I have answered no, I wonder?

Should I have said “Oh, I’m not the one, you just don’t know!”?

Because I’m not feeling so suitable for such a place in another’s life now.

I walked and thought again about validation, understanding my tendencies a little more and thinking I should ask a professional…

Is this a breakthrough for me? Have I figured out something transformative and new?

Do I seek not only the validation of the positive of me but, also habitually choose the patterns I know that sustain the negative of me?

Thereby destroying any possibility that life can be different, can be better?

Is this typical I wonder, for anyone approaching 59, knowing 60 is just up ahead?

I believe we’re inundated with advisors and we are at a loss over whose truth to soak in.

Someone wants to edit my website, has a proposal she wants to present, claims she can make me more visible, increase sales, build my numbers.

A creative has seen my art, beckons me to join her next series of marketing courses. I consider, almost jumping in, signing up for yet another hope that feels false after a bit.

They’re a business after all, I tell myself.

I unjoined a writing community, yet the content continues to come.

And yet, writing and painting don’t hold the same place in my heart as before.

Have become like a chore.

This morning I made a list of concerns lined up with contentment, two columns, thing is nothing was listed under contentment at all.

Yesterday, I heard a mom talk of her little girl’s big girl dreams and goals. I smiled as I listened to how she was schooling her own mama in teaching her marketing strategy.

This child already knowing the value in believing she is capable and she can do anything when she combines her confidence with her courageous talent and selling of her self.

But, maybe it’s different for some.

Maybe I’m one of the some.

Maybe nothing more than now is the best place for me. Maybe I’ve blinded myself of the goodness of God by seeking what everyone else says is better.

What if we overwhelm ourselves with so many virtual mentors we lose ourselves in their midst?

God spoke to me this morning saying it is okay to consider the wisdom of others but you must never forget the wisdom you’ve found of me.

Your one story is now shelved because you have filled your mind with the details of so many others’.

Your fear has unintentionally buffered your courage.

So, there comes a choice to be made, slow down and take a breath.

Eliminate the unnecessary content.

Listen to God more than anything or anyone else.

It happens when you don’t deny the evidence of that.

A friend of your daughter says be my spiritual mentor and unknowingly prompts your return the place you had left.

The place where one person in this great big world sees you face to face and says I want to know the Jesus you know.

“Is that possible, do you think?” she asks.

And I answer, “Yes.”

It is possible.

I’m thinking of my grandmother this morning who was industrious and talented but rarely talked about her craft.

She created intricate Christmas ornaments from discarded jewelry. She boxed her creations up in big flat boxes and her work room was a dresser and a bed.

She made deliveries to people who paid her and I suppose she was known for her creations.

But, I never remember anyone encouraging her to go bigger, maybe put a sign up in the IGA or even an ad in the Statesboro Herald.

She provided what was requested of her. She was compensated, yes; but, only enough for what she needed.

She was content in the act of creating, it was her independent venture that I saw, that instilled in me the truth of possibility.

My grandmother taught me that being yourself is all you need.

Is there a book in me?

Will a gallery be inclined to display my art?

Will I be a better me or finally decide I’m enough as I am?

Content in the waiting as I rest in what comes not forced or rushed and be amazed by paths crossing and opportunities that unfold unexpectedly.

Next week or the next I’ll have an iced coffee with “Sam”.

I may tell her what a mess I was when I saw her or I won’t.

I may just tell her what I was learning on that and any other day.

Learning that the advice I need is found in the quiet place beside my bed or in the wide sky, the bending road or in the palms of my beautiful granddaughter’s hands.

God is everywhere, I will tell her.

Continue and believe, I might add.

Knowing God is better than better knowing me.

Learn as you go.

I’m on the morning road to my daughter’s, her husband’s, Elizabeth’s home.

The fog is lifting.

Remembering the thing that God just told me, an awakening of sorts and how one day I may tell Elizabeth or not.

How her grandma began to come into her own…

Maybe just live it intentionally for her to see.

Rest in this self awareness you’ve so keenly acquired and continue now easily into the you God has always known.

Discard all calculations to change your course or set new direction.

Become who you were becoming the very day you were born, God’s unique and capable child.

It is well with your soul.

It is well.

Grace Awaits

confidence, contentment, courage, curiousity, Faith, family, grace, hope, Labradors, memoir, mercy, obedience, Stillness, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting

We walked in the heat and kept going until we found shade.

We didn’t stop to rest.

Colt, my “grand dog”

We kept going because we know the pattern. We know where there is sun there will be shade.

We kept walking because the grassy field borders the man made trail, the one where the strong roots are revealing their tenacity.

They’ve broken through as if knowing it will cause our steps to favor the earth, the grass.

To remind us, it is hard here; nevertheless, the soft places remain.

“For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

‭‭John‬ ‭1:16‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The old hymn with the sway in its notes

Reminds me of an old chair moaning as I rock.

I’m sitting on a big back porch and the breeze although warm too early this year is steady and sweeps softly on my cheek.

The chair is old.

I want to repair it, have it dressed in new fabric, have someone who knows how make the seat and back not so noisy from the pressure of its sitter.

Still, it allows my sitting, it allows me to settle there and it tests my tolerance for the noise unpleasantly necessary.

I could sit still, I could not encourage the back push and the forward pull of the place behind my knees that leads to the rocking.

But, I don’t.

I sit in my aunt’s old hand me down chair and I rock.

And it allows me to continue there.

Grace is that way.

Grace knows we might be annoyed by things and others that we keep responding to in the way that causes even more annoyance.

Grace waits for us to settle down, stop the thing we do that brings frustrations we could so easily let go.

Or accept them and notice less the noise and more the joy.

Grace awaits.

It never leaves us.

Grace stays.

Continue and believe.

Linking up with other story tellers here:

https://marygeisen.com/lights-out-when-fear-is-like-a-switch/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lights-out-when-fear-is-like-a-switch

These thoughts on fear are so very true!

Peace and Water

Art, contentment, Faith, grace, painting, Peace, Stillness, Vulnerability, wonder

Art

The owner of the shop that sells my art said,

“Landscapes, Lisa…more landscapes.”

I answered, “Okay, I’ll bring a new one every day!”

Then commenced to continue, the serene scene of sea.

Too dark, too gloomy, too dismal.

Reworked it for three hours,

Then color, just got happy with shape and color

And

Peace and Water, 22 x 24 mixed media

Peace and water.

Magnolia Muse

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, Faith, freedom, hope, memoir, Peace, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Trust, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder

Shall I attempt to paint you or no, simply rest in what you told?

Walking by with repetition and only glancing

yesterday stopping to see you

Up close.

To listen, draw near?

Sense your saying,

You are

More than enough.

Give from what is necessary,

your surrender.

Do away with what is not needed.

Sacrifice, give up the convenient empty fillers for fullness you only cautiously believe.

Empty yourself of excess.

To believe in more.

You have settled so long.

Believe now and join in

the cycle, the circle, the life lived in light of regeneration.

Bad to good, hope despite harm, trauma recalled only footnotes for mercy, references of grace.

Begin and begin again.

Like the petal cupping useful fallen carpels,

proof.

Continue.

Believe.

Promised Plans

Angels, Art, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, heaven, memoir, mercy, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, Salvation, Stillness, surrender, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder

I’m writing prompted by FMF and the word “promise”.

Not originally thinking of Jeremiah, I was reading from the Book of John, Thomas the one called the doubter asking why should we believe in a place we don’t know.

Jesus replied essentially, because you know me and thus you know my Father, God,

and you can be certain.

I don’t really think Thomas doubted as much as he was just intrigued. Heaven and God are intriguing, after all.

So much to know!

Believing, according to Jesus was all they needed to know.

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”

‭‭John‬ ‭14:1‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I flipped to Jeremiah on my way to the day’s Psalm and started touching up and coloring in a place I’d been before.

I added the female form in the other margin and I found the familiar words about plan and purpose.

Then I found the promise.

The unwaveringly certain promise.

I will always find God.

There’s not a promise more significant.

I look for God in confusing times, I wait and clarity comes.

I look for God, seek Him by interrupting my day to kneel down to pray.

Momentarily or much later, I find Him.

My circumstances change.

Here’s the promise.

We are seen by a God who loves us. He waits to be found again and again.

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord…”

‭‭Jeremiah‬ ‭29:13-14‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Linking up with others here: https://fiveminutefriday.com/2019/05/16/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-promise/