“Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us…” Hosea 6:3 ESV
One of the surest ways to finding yourself back in what I call that “deep hole” of feeling aloneness or burn out over things you thought you could control and learned that you couldn’t is this…
You don’t have to tell anyone. Just tell God alone. You may be surprised over all you’ve been holding in either because it seems trivial or you believe you should’ve long let it go.
Sit in silence. Let your disappointments come to the surface. Be honest with God.
If tears come, let them. Actually, be glad they did.
Don’t hide your disappointments, express them so they don’t keep you hidden.
Seconds after my dream was of lying in bed with a grandchild close by, my phone let me know I had a message.
I didn’t respond immediately because the dream was so real.
A small cardinal, bright red had flitted into the room and rested in the hollow place of my neck.
In my dream I got the attention of my granddaughter and then “ding!” I was awakened.
In Progress
“For this reason the Lord is still waiting to show his favor to you so he can show you his marvelous love. He waits to be gracious to you….Overwhelmed with bliss are all who will entwine their hearts in him, waiting for him to help them.” Isaiah 30:18 TPT
I answered the text, a long hoped for desire was decided would come true for a child today.
She’s been longing, hoping and waiting.
It’s exciting, the planned surprise!
A memory will be made.
There will be more “waited so long for” ones to come.
What have you longed for that’s already been given and yet, led you to long for something bigger or simply just left you wanting?
I sat in my “art room” with someone I love. What a mess, papers everywhere, started and stops and pauses, the evidence of where my art journey has come from and where gone
Is hoping to go.
Fascinated by a box full of artwork, I invited her to choose as many as she wanted.
Uncertainty
We went through the stack together. I loved the ones she chose and the reasons she shared.
I told her of my certain belief that it’s God who kept me for art and kept it safely waiting for me to enjoy it, to share it as a part of my faith.
I have surely achieved more, been afforded more opportunities than I ever thought, given my history.
That’s why I know it’s true, I told her.
This is what God made me for.
What began with the timid tagline “quiet confidence” has become more brave.
Now, “always hope” coupled with my truth that “art offers hope”.
Hopeful
This morning, I wrote “hopeful” under the date, the gift of the cardinal on my pillow invited the tone longing to be expressed.
And I wrote myself a note that’s as true as my very breath.
Whatever and whomever (other than Jesus) you make your everything, your tipping point to measure worthless or worthiness, will continue to frustrate you with its dependability as far as not beingenough.
So, wait for the one who is always and unchangingly enough. Be amazed by what comes with that commitment to will yourself to wait.
Success shifts.
People change.
Excitement is powerful and yet, it wanes. It’s supposed to.
God makes life this way so that we remember the only “enoughness” that never changes
Is Him, our Sovereign and often mysterious Maker.
Self-Portrait
Not since the world was made, Jacob was told in a dream of protection and little girls like me became women who waited even if imperfectly to recognize the providence, protection and promises of God…
has the gift of waiting been more an unchanging promise.
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Genesis 28:15 ESV
It took three trips in and out of the Art Center to retrieve and load my unsold paintings yesterday.
It was hot. They were heavy.
I won’t deny the emotion I fought to deny. It was difficult.
Still, it was beautiful, the experience and the exhibition.
“Believer”, “In Every Season”, “Mercy Remembers”, “Secure” were a few of the unsold pieces.
Now they’re safely waiting to be found.
“It’s all in it, Lisa” my mama
This artist journey is a teacher. I’m still like a child learning.
For this reason,
I have hope.
Always hope.
“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Psalm 131:2 ESV
(P.S. I’m meandering my way back to writing from both losing the desire and I believe a bit of ability. I hope you’ll be forgiving as I decide to learn to write again.)
“It is possible to see the will of God in everything, and to find it, as one has said, no longer a sigh, but a song.”
Handley C.G. Moule
“Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’? Everything is possible for the one who believes.” Mark 9:23
Yesterday, I thought about the promise of “possibilities” and this morning one bird woke me up early. I remembered being drawn to read about the Samaritan woman at the well over and over, really drawn in by Jesus’s offer in just one verse.
That life could be different for her if she’d understand and accept His offer despite her history or her confusion and questions.
“Jesus replied, “If you only knew who I am and the gift that God wants to give you, you’d ask me for a drink, and I would give you living water.” John 4:10 TPT
I sit in the quiet, books all around me and coffee in my cup and just like yesterday, I find a promise in one verse I could “live with” all day.
And I, like the daddy of the boy in need ask…
I believe, help my unbelief. (Mark 9:24)
Can you imagine all the things that may change if you’d be brave and a bit innocent enough to simply believe God for the possibilities and breakthroughs He’s waiting to bring?
It’s a simple little shift really. Just decide to believe all things are possible when we ask God,
Is this your will for me? And then take the next steps onto the path of unexpected possibilities.
Or wait quietly when the answer is no, not now, not for you.
Possibility is born in the heart of one who believes. God’s will becomes a song, not a sigh.
“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
Solitary Watcher
I’ll likely forget it but I chose “healed” on a reset of yet another password forgotten.
Such is life.
Such is the life of one grandmother on the beach walking, eyes to the crannies and nooks created by the rocky barrier.
Deciding I found the perfect golden conch yesterday.
Announcing to my daughter “I’ve never found one like this before”.
No need for new discoveries today, I just whispered to myself.
That one, a reply to a choice to “find the joy today” on yesterday morning needs nothing more.
Not a grander discovery.
No comparisons.
I’m on the beach alone under the tent erected by my kind son in law. Chairs waiting to be plopped down on remain bottomless.
Surveying all the people. Older ones strolling, younger ones strutting.
Noticing
I consider their lives, curious over their stories.
I remember my self-defensive anger so many years ago when a woman who was struggling and angry over expectations of a program I oversaw,
Shouted at me,
“You don’t understand! You’ve got a picture perfect life!”
And I replied not with shouting but more of a how dare you to presume I’ve never had a “bad life”, I assure you I have not!
Today, walking along the edge of the ocean, glancing up towards our umbrella to greet my family’s arrival,
I realized a new thing.
Discoveries
I paused to pray for healing for typical childhood ailments, for others undergoing treatment and for pending resolutions to questions.
I thanked God for the good things already.
And I felt my breath catch in my chest and stood still to really acknowledge
The realization that maybe thinking of others, praying for others, offering open-handed surrender of others to heaven, rather than prayers and longings for self…
Might just be the evidence of one who is
Healed.
On the way to there, at least.
Farther along.
Because maybe, just maybe my life is not perfect but very
Close to the picture of what is closer and closer than I’d ever imagined.
Because of a heart that’s surrendered to softening, has opened all the locked windows and flung open the doors to hurts hidden, held onto for far too long.
“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:” Ecclesiastes 3:1 ESV
Before sleep, I rethought the day. All the places and things squeezed in, the storms, the back country roads to my people, my childhood territory.
My aunt caring for my uncle, prone now to suddenly falling. His sweet conversation comparing himself to his soon to be ninety year old brother who “falls more.”
My aunt with her pink soft shirt, leopard print loafers and nice coral colored lipstick lips
I remembered my daughter describing my grandson’s tumble off the porch.
I remembered her saying he cried and was scared but wasn’t hurt.
He likely will fall again.
Likely, my uncle will too,
Unfortunately.
I remembered my granddaughter’s sweet smile. I recalled her intuition.
I drifted to sleep knowing I’d need to decide on an artist trip, an adventure I could learn from the anticipated mostly younger artists.
I thought of the wavering of my feelings.
I remembered a word I read early in the morning.
“There comes a moment when you throw caution to the wind. There comes a moment when you need to go all in.” Mark Batterson
I strangely thought of resilience, of being strong and sure in “my walking” while there’s time.
Because life is so wrought with fragility, likely to include falling and deciding to remember,
Disclaimer: There’s honest mention of eating disordered behaviors in this post. My intent is always, offer hope, not remind of harm. I pray so.
A large painting in progress leans against the fireplace. A practice of mine is to gaze over at an in progress piece or a finished one to decide if “I like what it says”.
This one began subdued and starkly pure in tones, white, ivory, subtle gold and the strong dark grey.
Now, it’s in a different in progress stage, almost done and more strong in color.
A Corner Detail
Years ago, I wrote a blog post chronicling an encounter with a man who was a splendid storyteller. He was very much a fan of the word “nevertheless”.
He shared his life story in incremental pauses introduced by the word.
I’ve since learned to love the word.
Last week, I stared at my unnamed painting. I knew its story was unfinished and I’d need to be intentional; nevertheless, not force its completion.
As I pondered the piece, a thought and words came.
“You’re worth fighting for, Lisa. You may have never heard those words, but you are and you’ve been ‘worth fighting for’ for all of your life.” Journal entry 5/10/24
So serious. Yes, I know.
Too serious to write about has been my thought.
Nevertheless, there was a new clarity in those never before uttered words.
And I saw the figures in the painting, two angelic and others onlooking in strength and love and that’s what I saw in the little brown-haired girl.
Me.
Her sweet and shy acceptance of that truth she’d made progress in believing but still had a ways to go,
To keep believing, nevertheless.
To keep believing so that she could overcome even more.
Not overcome to be bold or brave or boastful but because overcoming symbolized more.
Led and leads to more.
You are worth overcoming whatever is trying to overcome you.
Worthy of Overcoming
A few weeks ago I had my first physical with all the bloodwork in several years. A new physician, one recommended by two trusted friends, asked me a question I’d not been asked in decades.
She asked “How is your eating disorder?”
And I sat quietly, I looked intently into her kind face and I answered.
“So good, I am doing so good. It’s been close to 35 years since I’ve had any of those patterns. I’m so glad.”
She nodded.
And waited and I added,
“But there was a moment a few weeks ago. I was home alone. I was feeling less than, feeling the rejection that comes sometimes when we are vulnerable in life and art. I was standing in my kitchen and thought, eat all the butter pecan ice cream and balance it with a bag of burgers and then just throw it all up.”
She listened.
And I added,
“But, I didn’t even though for a moment…not more, I could feel in control, I could punish myself and I could treat food like the love I felt was missing.”
I thanked her for asking. I meant it.
For believing I was worth the question.
And for the way the question led to the remembrance of this realization.
You’re worth fighting for.
Another Corner (in progress)
What are you battling that requires the lasting embrace of this truth that God has never given up on you?
Don’t give up on yourself.
Get back in there and fight to be aligned with His sweet and sovereign idea of you.
Because I’m convinced this is the key that will unlock the door and that the big deadbolt that keeps the door barred to wellness in our bodies and souls is this…
Insecurity
Insecurity is the voice of your foe. Insecurity blocks the door. Insecurity says “You’re not worth fighting for.”
And insecurity hides in depression, loneliness, hides in a careless attitude about our unhealthy choices,
It hides in the belief that to advocate for oneself is prideful and not humble, is haughty, not meek.
Insecurity says God’s tired of me, tired of listening to me battle this thing,
Insecurity says maybe God doesn’t care anymore, why should I?
“As long as I live I’ll keep praying to him, for he stoops down to listen to my heart’s cry.” Psalms 116:2 TPT
I promise you, I’d not be sharing these words if God would’ve let me forget them by now.
Nevertheless, I sat in my morning spot, quiet and a little sullen and I heard deep in my soul, the words I’d never heard…
You’re worth fighting for, Lisa
And I answered, wrote him a note with a little girl tone, like a bedtime prayer.
“Thank you, God for helping me be stronger now, to decide I’m worth fighting for.”
You are too.
Believe it.
Continue and believe.
(Sermon to self always first because I stumble too. We all stumble in many ways and most every day.)
Surrender.
“The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me.” Psalm 116:6 ESV
I pulled her book from the shelf with the others, dusty and turned with the red spine toward the wall, because I like simplicity, only the ivory color exposed.
How do I know which books are there?
I have to be a seeker.
On the first page is the author’s signature and a note from when we met years ago,
“God 1st!”
This morning, well rested, I glanced over and saw the book waiting for my devotion of seemingly wasteful time to sit still and read. There’s so many other things to do.
Coffee first and journaling then I turned to Colossians and a familiar few verses.
“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:2-3
A resigned and contemplative shape of a woman in the left margin and notes to self on the edges about how to love others, how to think, how to live.
Now I’m just thinking about the thinking part, about setting my mind on things above.
And the page I could fill of all the things I want here on earth more than I want God.
Naturally, I made a list because I so love a list.
Then summed up what I believe these verses are saying and what this book waiting to be read again, adding new underlines and “oh’s”.
We want “bestness”
To be our very best
and so we look for the path to being best. We look everywhere for evidence of such “bestness” and we don’t really have to look for long.
A screen will pop up with suggestions for pros to help you with being your best. Your inbox will give you instructions from someone who’s an expert on what is the measure of your best and they’re ready to bring you along.
A podcast will guide you in understanding your “number”, your personal markers of trauma and will offer to help you erase that mark in time.
These are helpful, they are valuable and yet, not givers of that certain and essential quiet hopethat feels like a tender and sweet secret.
Seems we’re all aching, yearning, researching, and striving for “bestness” and maybe in our quests we drown out or subtly buffer the expert voice within, the quiet unwavering, not “in your face”, unchanging, uncomplicated voice of God, our Creator, the very author of our unfinished book.
We have a bend towards not being needy, of believing we should be far enough along to not need and absolutely not to ask for help.
We (maybe just me) are timid in acknowledging we still struggle, we still look for evidence of our value in many things, we still wish we were farther along in our walk with with God, after all.
We resist circling back and beginning yet again which is crazy because it’s in the necessity of just us and God knowing this that we can have a sweet and private revival.
It’s a simple Sunday. The birds are singing. It’s a stay home day.
Later, I’ll open the book with my name inside and I’ll begin again, the wisdom in the admission of the need for revival.
Because I’m sixty-three years old and in my life, I’ve done a whole lot of growing and am a pretty good “knower” of me.
But, God knows me better.
Knows me more.
You too.
We are loved.
Continue and believe.
God knows you more, loves you with a merciful call every day.
“When you turn to the right or turn to the left, you will hear his voice behind you to guide you, saying, “This is the right path; follow it.” Isaiah 30:21 TPT
On the mornings I’m awakened by the birds early, just a couple or three singing outside my window, I sense the key in the door of hope gently turning.
Reminding me I’m never without grace and a decision to privately proclaim,
Today’s a new day!
Birds that dance on the country porch, rest on the arm of the rocker and quickly fly upward when the baby and I decide to get closer.
Their intent it seems is for me to be content in the sighting, not the pursuit.
There’s a verse in my Bible, in the right margin there lives a very faint sketch.
A little country house, yellow with one window and a slight slope of roof, pencil colored gray.
The lines of ink are thin and intentional.
On the roof, there’s a teeny tiny bird.
There are lots of sketches in my Bible that are a bit tender, there are added notes to self that are even more tender.
Someone told me once,
“Your Bible could be in a museum one day.” Drake
This kind soul was not employing flattery, he was and is brave and so very intentional in his observations of life and us as we live it.
Honestly like the psalmist whose words are a juxtaposition of praise and peril, of despair and hope, of beseeching and blessing our God.
The little bird drawing born of timidity in the acknowledgment of loneliness?
“I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.” Psalm 102:7 ESV
Oh, how I love a beautiful and brave word.
Months ago, I was gifted a book of Declarations, a compilation of poetic prayers much like the language of the Psalmist.
“Declarations in the Desert – Life Changing Decrees for the Dry and Dusty Valleys of Life” by Tara Sierra Moseley
It’s a book, I’ve read slowly, taking in small doses and then slowly increasing my “treatment”.
It’s a book and a practice in the beginning I decided
I’m not quite there yet spiritually to pray this way, not qualified in the field of faith to pray in such a confident way.
No surprise, this has long been my way of thinking.
Unforced and with ease (the best way for me) I began to pray, to records my words with God as declarations not timid asks or complaints.
Loneliness is a state I’m familiar with. Loneliness, or being alone is a response and a place I’ve often decided is safest for me.
I flee to hide.
I run as fast as I can to avoid conflict or triggers of fears and pain I’ve known.
Running and hiding lead to desperation, not safety, I am beginning to see.
“One thousand will flee at the threat of one, at the threat of five you will flee,
until you alone remain like a solitary pole on a mountaintop or a banner on a hill.” Isaiah 30:17 HCSB
Alone, on a hill
a tree
stripped of its branches.
And still, I’m gently called like a bird in the morning after a night of nightmares, realizing it was loneliness I saw in the eyes of others at a gathering that led to fitful sleep.
Glad that the birds woke me to invite newness.
Return. This is the way.
Let’s walk together.
Let this be your declaration.
A Declaration
Today is a new day. I declare that you’ve never abandoned me. I declare that Your strength allows me to choose strength and that Your strength is always available.
I declare that you’ve never left me on my own and that you’ve not once been unavailable to me.
I declare my bend towards fleeing and freezing is seen and understood by you and You, Lord are still so confident in the future you’ve made for me.
I declare trust and quiet confidence in this becoming increasingly my every moment hope.
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you hope in your latter end.” Jeremiah 29:11 RV1885
In the asking of brave questions, faith is given power to grow.
To give ourselves and others permission to hope. To look up and outward from wise or sorrowful inward reflection to be ignited by newness in thought.
Light Transcends
I have a friend who suggested an exercise she’d had suggested to her. As soon as you wake each morning, make a list of all the things you like about yourself (and I suppose, your life).
It’s an exercise akin to my intentional looking for color, for small glimpses of God in nature, a centerpiece on a table.
Yesterday, I thought of all the babies and children and kept circling around the question of how this world now will be then for them.
Then, upstairs with the baby, the song “What a Wonderful World” popped up.
I recognized that there will be wonder still in the world for them to discover. Wonder like plants considered “invasive” that I find spectacular.
A Wonderful Place
I haven’t done the wake up and like things about me thing yet.
I’m still thinking about our conversation that day and all the others I’ve been an invited listener to be changed by.
Honesty that’s been opening doors of my heart.
I’m remembering one offering in particular, an admission of messes made in life, wild times likely at least a part of causing.
Romans 8:28-29 is a passage sort of laid in our laps often in hard times by well-meaning friends or acquaintances.
Or it’s a subtle warning to know God is in control, better not question!
Just accept that bad happens and square your shoulders, pick up your head and carry on towards the good that’s promised.
Often, scripture is offered up and ordered to be accepted, no question.
Maybe not intentional, still there’s no healing in that.
There’s no hope, really.
Noticing Beauty
It must be quietly absorbed and eventually understood personally and deeply and with sweet humility.
This morning, I read this passage again.
“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” Romans 8:28-29 NLT
I let my thoughts land on the pages of my journal.
Redemption in Process
God doesn’t cause but sometimes allows. God allows so that we will know He is still with us. He saw.
He sees.
He was and is with us. It’s impossible for Him not to be.
His Sovereign intent is one of persistent and patient pursuit.
He is still with us as we wrestle with the allowance of the crisis, the trauma, the grief, the ugly outcome.
He is still with us and if we will learn to lean into and on Him
we will changed by this leaning.
We will be changed by the hard.
We will, in the leaning, absorb His wisdom and strength.
So that we are changed (made stronger) and that change will better us and make us better carriers of faith to those we encounter.
You must ask yourself bravely what’s so hard to fathom about a God you know as love…
God, did you see, did you allow ___________?
And then you do what’s even more brave.
You look at the allowance of bad and you honestly consider how you in your woundedness, innocence, or ill-equipped for life humanity may have contributed to the eventual disaster or despair.
Then you begin to live more freely as you move closer with transparency to the redemption meant to change you, to offer new hope,
so that your hope and redemptive honesty may be influential in the lives of others.
Maybe, that’s what faith is for.
To be shared in vulnerable and unexpected conversations that change the trajectory of another’s journey.
Often, by surprise.
Just for Joy
Yes, I believe that’s what faith is for.
To bring all things together for good and for us to be more like the one who formed us with certain intention that our likeness to Him will beckon others toward a life of hope, a life of influential love and faith.
Continue and believe.
He’s got the whole world in His hands, always has, always will.
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 