Asked to write, I shared my story sparked by the memory of a fall and thoughts about the healing power of scars.
wisdom
Necessary To Grow
Angels, Art, bravery, Faith, mixed media painting, obedience, painting, Prayer, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom
My friend chastised me gently when I shared how I despise the money part of being an emerging artist. I underprice my work because in my mind at least I’m not giving it away.
Although I have before.
My friend, the same person who told me my gift is “mercy”, corrected me when I told her promoting my work felt uncomfortable, not godly.
She believes my art and writing are talents God gave me to impart hope to the kingdom. She told me my work is “kingdom work” and so it should be as big and impactful as possible.
I have battled big time the skills to build a website. WordPress is not the right platform, others overwhelm me.
“If you believe in a God who controls the big things, you have to believe in a God who controls the little things. It is we, of course, to whom things look ‘little’ or ‘big’.” Elisabeth Elliot
God has blessed me with many things. Paintings that touch lives and are sold, art on a gallery wall, art in a featured magazine article, art that is influenced by strength and hope.
Still, I have a hard time with some parts of it all and God tells me to just keeping creating even if your steps feel bogged down, incapable or slow.
Crawl before you walk kind of thinking. I need a website but before I take that step, I need more of a business perspective on my Instagram… So follow my art page on Instagram if you haven’t already. Numbers of followers and prices that represent the hours of work are a thing and as my dear friend told me, if you’re doing kingdom work, you want to touch a big wide kingdom with your work!
For now, I’m inviting others to follow my art page on Instagram. lisa_anneart
Happy Monday, Memorial Day, another week towards better, y’all!
A Gift, Wonder
Angels, birds, birthday, Children, contentment, curiousity, daughters, Faith, family, grandchildren, happy, hope, love, Motherhood, Peace, Stillness, Uncategorized, wisdom, wonderHere’s a granddaughter inspired post about “wonder” I wrote a few weeks ago.
Today is her 1st birthday. I call her “morning glory” among other little things. A baby who changes a day from gray to blue, a baby girl who has changed our world. Happy Birthday, sweet little curious thinker, “ELB”. We thank you for making us so much more sure of every single thing. You cause me to rest. You increase my joy. You are a gift. You are the embodiment of certain hope. You are silly, you are wise.
What We See
The hearing ear and the seeing eye, the Lord has made them both. Proverbs 20:12 ESV
As if our bodies were synchronized, our necks craned and faces tilted towards heaven, we stared through the sheer drapery and we tried to find the opening. We wondered if it was as tiny as the point of a pin. We longed to see and were left questioning, “What is up there, what is causing the lingering of her stare?” We were fascinated. We were perplexed.
The baby was tiny then. We decided the veil must surely be thinner between babies and heaven. Occasionally, as her mama cradled her after feeding and before sleep, she raised her tiny arm towards the ceiling in a newborn hello wave. Something was there, someone, a presence only baby girl was capable of seeing. We were captivated by her vision. We researched angelic explanations and discovered mystical and somewhat biblical explanation. My daughter and I agreed, she is in awe of her new world, she sees either angel, God or we hoped, her great-grandma.
Then, she began to grow and curiosity for other was all about what she could touch, feel, manipulate, and discover. We noticed her looking towards heaven less often. She became more fascinated with the cool earth beneath her knees and feet.
Her longing for understanding seemed to be bigger than simply seeing. I watched as she discovered discovering.
I began to discover again.
We sat together in the cool grass of Spring. I watched her fascination with leaves, pine straw, and the big dog.
We sat together.
So serene. I braided the pinestraw in a way I may braid her soft hair one day. She watched me and her chubby fingers tried the same.
“Bird”, I said and she looked at me and then towards the sky. For a moment or two she was enthralled, we looked up together. I held her hand and we sat still.
I am thinking now, posing a question, sermon to self-type evaluation, “Where will you see God today, Lisa?” because it has been something I’ve been wondering in this pandemic. I have taken stock of the things God has not stopped. Babies are born. Birds are cavorting. Even the wind seems more melodic. The flowers are brilliant. The clouds are puffed and fully inflated. I find it confusing these spectacular symbols of living in a time of speculation and dread of death.
How is there such splendor in such a time of fear? How is my wonder over such beauty so fulfilling? What is God’s intention in this juxtaposition of grief and beauty? Are we to hold both, one hand clutching uncertainty and the other, splendor? Possibly, I believe. Perhaps wonder is simply faith we see only through childlike eyes.
The baby will be here momentarily. I’ll spread an old quilt on the grass in the back corner. All the toys will be toted out and she’ll play until she is bored with blocks and colors. Then she and I will look and listen. We will mimic the crow. We will toss the ball to the dog and we may sing her favorite song, “Deep and Wide”. She’ll guide my hands because she knows the words now. She’ll remember long ago when her grandma opened her arms, deep and then wide and sang to her over and over about the fountain flowing, one full of love for her and me.
We will look together. We will listen and then have a lunch of sweet potato. I’ll be attentive to her seeing and she will be to mine. We will look in wonder for God today, the sweet baby girl, and I will remember our creator, the one who gave us our eyes and our ears and our favorite thing of all, our wonder.
Where will you see God today?
May your seeing be as mysteriously clear as a baby’s.
Happy 1st birthday, Elizabeth Lettie, we love you more than any words can express. We love you for changing our seeing. We love you for increasing our wonder.
Logic and Learning
Abuse Survivor, bravery, coronavirus, courage, curiousity, doubt, fear, memoir, mercy, Redemption, rest, Stillness, surrender, Teaching, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, writing
What have you learned about yourself since March whenever when you were scared to death by being told to wash your hands, don’t touch your face?
I’ve learned I can’t blame lack of time for my lack of effort. I’ve learned to understand my resistance to taking chances is for fear of something not happening.
If you’ve read my blog, you may be thinking well, that’s no secret.
I learned that God made me to be merciful and that I have what is called a mercy gift, that this is my redemptive gift. The day after a very wise person told me this, thinking surely I already knew, I received this In Touch publication, their final issue. The issue’s focus?
Mercy.
I’ve learned there is a reader for stories born of trauma. There are authors who are honest and long for their readers to be changed by our stories.
One such author is Jake Owensby, the author of “A Resurrection Shaped Life, Dying and Rising on Planet Earth”.
Jake is a blogger and a minister. He also grew up exposed to violence. He developed a fear reaction. He cowered when he felt that was the only way to feel safe. He grew up being told he was worthless in so many ways. His book is written to convince the reader, God made you for different. You can believe you are valued.
I haven’t even finished the book and I’ve not been asked to review or mention it. It’s just a part of my learning during pandemic.
I admitted a big hard and better understood truth about myself.
I am a blamer. I look for places to lay blame for the trauma of my past, the way it has and continues to stymie my living.
Jake Owensby defines it this way, a way I am embracing,
You see, I’m a blamer. Or, more accurately, I’m a recovering blamer given to occasional relapses.
Jake Owensby
On the bottom page of this chapter’s second page are almost unreadable notes left by me, the truth of them so true, I had to hurry and leave it recorded.
If you can blame someone or someones for the hurt you felt, the fear unresolved and the physical harm that went unprevented…you won’t have to feel the deep heartache of not wanting to have to blame God.
Me
Mr. Owensby led me to this, it is valuable like a revelation long needed.
I’m only half through the book. The chapter after blame and shame has other underlined and margin notes. One more that lingers is the retelling of an English teacher who believed in him and convinced him to write competitively. His fear and comparison of himself led to failure. However, he writes of the redemptive value of the instructor seeing that in him, seeing him measuring his lack against another’s arrogance.
She yearned for me to see things, to see the world and myself in a different light. In retrospect, I realize that it was my dread of failure that undid me that day. Failure, even perceived failure, would set loose in me an avalanche of shame.
Jake Owensby
I’m remembering now how Jake Owensby and I connected through writing. I remember the time he offered me prayer. I believe he prayed.
Prayer is yet another thing I’m learning more deeply.
Last weekend, I sat with my mama’s sister on her patio. She told a sweet story about how my mama was a teenager when she first heard my daddy singing in a tiny little country bar. She was a high schooler and he had come home from Korea.
I asked her to retell the story. How had I never known it? Then we turned the discussion from life to death. My uncle and my aunt asking me to remind them how old my parents were when they met death. The perspective changed along with the mood when I compared my upcoming 60th birthday with the corresponding too soon years of their dying.
I thought about the scribbles in my Bible, a book I gave my ailing mama entitled “What God Can Do”. I thought about how I believed she would live, that God would do what the Book of Luke records, she would live if I would believe. I thought of how I never prayed that way for my daddy, felt I was not eligible to pray, not equipped back then.
Now, on this Tuesday morning I’m listing answers to prayer because I am still praying and I will pray, continue unrelentingly.
So, why pray when people die anyway, when abuse continues for some and if it ends at last, the deep pain often comes back to visit?
I pray because I know God is far too big for me to know why and why not.
I pray because I know His love and power and knowledge in increments when I continue.
Lost keys found, an old car that started, a baby protected in a storm, a heart condition healed, a softer tone from the heart of one that used to be harder, an opportunity to write about redemption from trauma for others, waking up well, tiny twins a little early yet, healthy, little answers to questions and requests not really life altering but good offering ups of yes”, the bravery to send photos of paintings to a gallery.
Knowing God so much more than before, so much that it’s unimportant the reactions of others when you say you still believe in miracles.
God is not logical. We can’t use a chart like a logic model to list our prayers and our acts of mercy and kindness and line them up in a flow chart kind of way towards a corresponding list of outcomes.
God’s ways are not ours to fully understand.
Only fully believe.
So, what have you learned during this time called unprecedented?
Maybe it’s just that, all of our times are in the hands of a God who promises unprecedented miracles, unprecedented new mercies, unimaginable grace.
Fix your mind on that, not your missteps, the prayers you prayed that left you questioning, or the long held fear of failure and shame that holds you back.
Learn of God in tiny grasps; but, keep longing for steady learning. There is more than enough time to get closer to grasping the truth of Him, the truth not made for us to wrap our minds around completely, simple to be drawn closer every moment to the possibility of it.
The immeasurably confounding and generous love of God.
“from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:15-19 ESV
Like the prayers God answers, I’m enlightened by the possibility of them, not the end result. The book about a Resurrection Shaped Life, written from the perspective of someone hampered by shame was not written specifically for me and its author had no preconceived takeaway for me. I’m simply a reader as I am simply one who is praying. The revelation, redemption and peace in response are God’s answers.
I encourage you to follow the writing of Jake Owensby and to order this book if you’re stuck in your past or if you are prone to shame as a handicap. You can learn more here: Jake Owensby
Continue and believe.
Order the redemptive book here:
A Resurrection Shaped Life https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501870815/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_J1aXEbAKSYSBC
Others Too
Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, curiousity, fear, memoir, mercy, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Truth, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, wonder, writingLast week I read about the longing for resonance. At least this was my interpretation, we long for resonance and for whatever we choose and how we use it, to resonate with others.
This idea made an impression.
Told me to write about the sky, the tiny roses, the way the baby laughs over a shared popsicle time.
God doesn’t want us to feel small, simply know we are smaller than Him.
me
Yesterday morning, I woke with a longing to understand the “stuck in the middle” me.
So, I prayed about it, scribbled a sleepy question in my journal.
What is a calling and how do you know?
Me
It felt serious, the question like risk analysis of quitting or resuming. It was a question about why ideas feel so tangibly possible only to be set aside because of fear.
I’m thinking art again, and I’m thinking manuscripts. I’m asking God is this calling or is it just something good I love to do?
There seems to be (at least to me) a whole lot of pressure to call out to the world our callings.
Maybe, the calling is simply to be attentive to the call towards God and to keep getting closer.
Perhaps any other pursuit of calling can’t help but be tainted by selfish endeavor.
Maybe the call is to continue and I suppose see what develops. Crazy we can’t be content with that, we need to feel pressure in our pursuit I guess.
Unexpectedly, I received a request to contribute to a writing community. Out of the blue it would seem.
But, I know better.
Something about my Instagram resonated and this leader of the community sent an invitation.
The sky last evening told me stories, the sort of story I told long ago and had stopped sharing.
The quest for bigger calling made my sky stories seem odd and irrelevant.
The sky with the heart shaped window, the brilliant moon that saw me growing and the bend in the road that said, God is calling.
Continue.
Continue and believe.
A new question today, a prayer.
God, how can I resonate with others? Help me to see the calling as a calling towards you.
me
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Jesus
Matthew 7:7 ESV
April Newsletter
Art, contentment, coronavirus, Faith, hope, memoir, painting, rest, Teaching, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wisdomI’m a stickler for continuing things I begin. Oh, wait that’s not true. I’m scared to death to get back at rewriting that manuscript, the one that felt too honest and now not honest enough. A wise friend named Ray reminded me this idea was born eight years ago!
For now, here’s the link to my April Newsletter, a much easier write and read.
Happy Tuesday!
Love Remains
Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, coronavirus, courage, Faith, hope, Peace, Prayer, rest, Serving, surrender, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, wonder, writing“There was a believer in Joppa named Tabitha (which in Greek is Dorcas ). She was always doing kind things for others and helping the poor.”
Acts of the Apostles 9:36 NLT
Last night, I saw the writing prompt, “Now” and thought there’s so much that word could inspire in this time, this time that feels like now is an open-ended question or complex algebraic word problem I’d likely give up on. So, I thought to write about the difficulty of now, the tough realization that we’re running out of distractions to fill up the time called now that feels so far away from “then” and even farther from “when”.
Instead, after making a very good to do list to help me feel a purpose, I lingered over a quote on my “In Touch Ministries” devotion, knowing this was pressed prior to Co-Vid and meant to turn us towards Easter.
“In loving with His whole heart, Jesus was willing to be turned down.” Dr. Charles Stanley
I turned back to my daily Bible guide and returned to Acts. The story of Tabitha, I missed before. She became ill and died and was surrounded by friends who wore garments she had sewn for them. Peter prayed and she was healed and because of her healing, many others believed.
But, I couldn’t stop thinking about the women who surrounded her, the lives that would remain in the room and that many would carry with them, wearing tunics made by their friend and remembering her acts of charity, her love for them.
I thought of the quilts my grandma and aunt made that lie folded across our beds. I thought of women everywhere who’ve learned to make masks for medical workers and others.
Love remains. The love we give, the love we’ve given. The love we decide to give today, regardless of it being well-received or going unnoticed. Jesus is our example of love giving, love that will remain.
We’re beneficiaries of His choice to love mankind through dying not knowing who or when or if we would receive it.
So, the prompt called “now” that caused me to be frustrated over its lack of borders led me to a story of a creative and what she left for others, love and beautiful garments.
Her love remains even today because of my discovery of her “story” and the way it made me feel worthy, feel hopeful, inspired.
What’s your story? How have you loved others, how can you continue elaborately even unknowingly in this time of openness in time despite closed doors?
Love now, knowing it will remain.
Linking up with other encouragers at FMF. You can read here: https://fiveminutefriday.com/2020/04/02/fmf-writing-prompt-link-up-now-a-gift-for-you/
Hold Hands
coronavirus, courage, Faith, family, grace, marriage, Peace, praise, Trust, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonderWisdom from my aunt. I’ve written about her before. We call her “Aunt Boo”. Her name is Sue Nell when it truly should be Grace or Vivian or maybe Jacquelyn she’s so timeless in beauty.
When she calls, I need an hour and it’s the best hour I’ll ever spend.
This morning, my phone rang and I talked to “Aunt Boo” who said I was heavy on her heart and asked me how I was feeling. When I told her I wasn’t having a good morning, she said, Oh, Lisa…me neither and then we took turns telling how this time is scaring us. By the end of the call, she said she felt better. I did too. Even though she didn’t once say “prayer and patience”, she said plenty even better.
She said, “I’m not a psychologist and I don’t read books; but, I just think God made some hearts to feel things much harder than others and that’s me and you.” 💕
She talked about family and the way my granddaddy was so rowdy and yet, had the heart of a baby, he cried over lots of things. He did some things he shouldn’t have, she told me, but oh he had a tender heart.
We talked about wisdom, how things you don’t think you can survive are meant to show you that you can and are meant to make you trust God forever. We talked about my cousin and how long it had been since she passed away but how everybody in the family still remembers her from her “good days” not her bad times. She reminded me, family forgets the hard, holds on to the good.
She told me “Women are just different than men, the way we react to life and hard times.” Keep moving, she shared her solution or anxiety will put you down.
Then she told me to do something for her.
She said, “I want you and Greg to sit and hold hands.” I laughed. She was quiet. I forgot about it until I went outside. “Aunt Boo wants me to hold your hand and send her a picture.”
“Okay” he said.
And it didn’t really hit me until I looked back at the photo, the wisdom in this one small thing. In a time of isolation and talking to friends from a distance, sterilizing everything AND the kitchen sink. Whose hand can you hold? Who will be with you because they’re already here?
So, thanks Aunt Boo for the possible handholding you’re gonna inspire.
Get yourself an Aunt Boo, someone who’s just enough gentle faith, honest commentary and wisdom, enough for generations.
Most of All, Loved
Abuse Survivor, bravery, contentment, courage, curiousity, Faith, freedom, heaven, Peace, praise, Redemption, Salvation, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, wonder
It’s not new, my fascination with the sky. The clouds on Tuesday looked like fat pillows against clear blue and situated as if a pillow fluffing designer had been busy all morning setting up the shop.
Then Wednesday morning not too many, cloud cover interspersed very flatly, blank canvas space.
But, in the afternoon we spotted the big crow. My granddaughter smiled and then giggled when her clearly adult grandma sang a song she made up and then over and over added “Ca Caw! Ca Caw!”
My sky is different, I thought yesterday evening walking. I’m not as sullen or driven to staring at the blankness as if looking for inspiration or looking for anything else. Maybe it’s not necessary I decided.
Maybe, as my friend answered yesterday when we talked of trauma’s inability to be anything less than honest with us. Maybe it’s just now a representation of clarity, of sweet truth despite storms.
She answered my question.
”Do you think it’s possible not to be affected by trauma?”
Were the people who were healed in the Bible really going in peace or did they get drawn back by their pasts? We decided the scriptures are true and if there had been a “rest of the story” about the women Jesus made well, God would’ve included it.
Instead, the stories have a certainty. An encounter with Jesus that brings certain healing.
My friend told me the way to believe in our very own healing is simple.
We become certain of God’s love. I loved her reply because I see it. It’s a slow coming to terms; but, it is becoming certain and it is making the difference.
I am certain of my healing.
So the sky is now different. It’s not a place I’m looking towards to ponder possibility and wait for some answer aching heart turned in an upward skeptical way.
No, now the sky is my solid confirmation. I see its steady changing and its transformations daily. Same sky, steady and at the same time changing.
God. God and I, the sky above me reminds me of His knowledge of me, of His delight in what delights me.
“That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.”
Ephesians 3:17-19 KJV
How can we truly believe all the promises we’ve read, heard from pulpits, been enthralled by testimonies? How can we embrace “daughter, you are healed” or like the prodigal who returned know it wasn’t just a fluke, God was waiting, He ran out to meet us and we were welcomed. How can we believe God planned our meeting Jesus just like the woman at the well, a prostitute who was surprised to see Him, even more surprised by His intentional kindness?
We can decide to be certain of His love more than anything. We can be as certain of God as we are of the sky.
Look up today.
Be reminded, God’s love is vast and wide and deeply unchanging.
Be certain. It is for you.
Continue and believe.
Be certain.
Wisdom Stories
Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, daughters, depression, family, grief, hope, memoir, Peace, Redemption, rest, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, wonder
I watched the soloist in worship, saw timidity in a way that led to her being brave. Fairly new to the stage, I’ve been attentive to her growing. I long to know her story.
Has she always sang so bravely, was it a thing she knew she’d always do? Was it a path that opened before her and at last she agreed she was able?
I watched as her hand held the microphone in its stand. I listened as she told me it’s God’s breath in me that led and leads to my breathing. She opened both hands towards the ceiling as her voice was elevated, “Great are you Lord!” I joined in agreement.
I’d still love to know her faith story. I’d like to know her journey as a woman.
I sat in the white chair later, the chair that was yellow when my mama got it. She had it in her den and I don’t recall her ever sitting there. It was positioned in front of her place for sitting, a place she could simply see it.
It faced the wide windows that opened the view to the field, the skinny lane that announced visitors. My mama lived alone for a bit and her yellow chair is only one of a few things she gave me. The others, ceramic roosters and a bracelet, now broken and not really jewelry, “costume” the jeweler said, “not worth anything”.
The yellow chair now recushioned and covered white, the little roosters and the bracelet, all yard sale discoveries.
My mama had very little.
Her legacy is wisdom. Wisdom and spontaneity, gifting herself with an occasional treat!
I thought of her as I drifted into a nap on Sunday. The yellow chair now creamy white facing my own wide windows.
I found solace in the soft chair, curled like a baby in my mama’s not made for sleeping chair.
I rested in the certainty of her joy when she found the fancy to her yellow chair. I celebrated her deciding she was worth it, something her life had never told her.
No wonder I find comfort in my mama’s yard sale chair.
It’s a side of her story she really didn’t tell. Her story of strength, of being worth something other than what life had shown her. A story of the bravery in believing, to wake to your very own beauty.
To believe in yourself because of God’s plan. I sit in my mama’s humble chair and feel the softness of her wisdom, I feel able to keep believing I am more than what my hard years have told me.
Continue.
Continue and believe.
There is wisdom in quiet joy. There is wisdom in pursuits that are tentative.
There is safety in remembering another’s very own wise path, as far back as when the writer of Proverbs called wisdom a “her”.
“When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble. Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.”
Proverbs 4:12-13 ESV
I hope to ask her one day, the new solo singer in worship, “How did you get to this place of using your voice to strengthen my faith?” There is wisdom in her journey I’m certain. I long to know why.
Who are the wise women in your life? The humble ones, the overcomers, the singers, the confident business owners, the young mamas, the elderly still with us, the teachers, the artists, the singers?
Life makes us either hard or wise. Stay soft if you can, wisdom comes not from hardening.
What’s your wisdom story?
Lisa Anne Tindal 