wisdom

Expectant

Abuse Survivor, aging, Angels, Art, bravery, courage, hope, memoir, painting, Peace, Redemption, surrender, Trust, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder, writing
Hope

I barely missed a couple of deer. Now that morning is coming sooner, I was less observant, less cautious.

Less expectant.

The couple ran together to my left in the harvested corn field. Flying through the air it seemed.

Yes, like dusty brown doves, not deer.

When the timing was right, they danced over the road in front of me just as the curve turned right to my daughter’s home.

Then, I watched expectantly for them to run back the other way, to cross the lane to the more wooded field.

But, they didn’t. They must’ve decided to continue to a better place, maybe one that felt safer.

Possibly down in the corner, the valley near the creek.

The spot I’ve set my gaze on from the kitchen window.

The place where just one tall tree in the mix of many beckons me to be still.

To notice the vivid gold.

When I understand the meaning of hope without knowing, simply hoping.

I can live expectantly.

Not expectant of celebratory good nor of sorrowful negative or even tragic.

I can understand hope as being a promise that will be kept because the Spirit of God knows.

Knows my longings. Knows me.

Knows all.

“But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called

according to his purpose.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭25‬-‭28‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Often, I’ve remembered the words that instruct, that compel me to believe that no matter what, God brings good from all circumstances.

I’m afraid I’ve embraced this as a sort of consolation prize, a fourth runner up in a pageant who gets no crown or announcement.

A decision that all is always well for others, just not for me.

But, that’s so very distant from the truth.

The truth is, I just do not know it all, all the secrets I’ve been shielded from, all the recalculating of my directions and choices simply because that accurate and oh so loving Spirit inside me

Has said, this is the way.

It may seem wrong or not for you.

It may resemble hurt.

But, keep going.

Keep being you listening to me.

Keep being surprised by me.

In progress, I have 22 paintings commissioned that will be gifted to women, a reminder to me of something I never set out to do.

In 2015, I was given a Bible at Christmas. It was designed with space for thoughts and color in the margin.

This Bible began my journey into being an artist and it started with women from the passages who felt like women like me.

Sketches, simply sketches.

It’s now falling apart, the pages are more thin than makes sense. I should, I suppose put it away for safekeeping, stop using it.

This Bible led to painting angels for people who were grieving or needed encouragement and then to painting other subjects.

Not angels, but landscapes, abstracts, animals and trees.

And figuratively strong women standing, leaning, postured in a position that conveys battles won, grace remembered and mostly, I hope,

A decision to live with expectant hope.

To hope.

Their gazes fixed on hope.

Hope we can’t see; but, fully known because of God’s Spirit in us.

And along with all the nudges and the pauses.

The changes and questions.

I’m seeing the purpose of the visible pain and the invisible questions I’ve carried.

I’m finding my way to be guided by hope and endurance rather than questions of why and a constant looking back to a decision (even if feeble) to live “now” not then.

Knowing I have no idea what is coming only that what comes to me through my Father is always good.

Always has purpose.

We’ve come a far distance, those of us harmed by the uncertainties over why it seemed life chose to hurt us.

Keep going.

Keep hope.

You are loved.

31 days of good things

aging, anxiety, bravery, courage, Faith, family, grace, jubilee, Redemption, Stillness, Vulnerability, wisdom

Day 31 – Trying

If I could’ve driven on up the circular driveway and felt confident I hadn’t been seen on the Ring camera, I would’ve just timidly left.

I sat in church on Sunday next to a woman who invited me to join her women’s small group. The time of their gathering would work for me. The leader of the group, the host called me on Sunday afternoon just as I roused from a nap.

I have a history of not belonging, of being the poor girl in the too tight pants, of being the one longing to stay hidden.

I said yes.

And I sat in the dining room with other women discussing the study of the week.

I spoke up when I felt I had thoughts to contribute. I suppose it was okay.

We don’t talk much about this thing between “women of faith”, this thing of sizing one another up and being curious over what secrets the others hold.

I was welcomed.

And I will find the courage to believe I’ll be welcomed again next week.

Trying is a good thing.

A hard thing.

A brave thing. Women of faith, I’m afraid can be intimidatingly perfect in a sometimes beautiful, sometimes not so beautiful way.

I’ll keep trying.

I won’t hide the colors of my Bible.

I’ll be tender and careful over who sees them.

Happy November tomorrow.

I likely won’t be writing every day.

31 days of good things

Angels, Children, Faith, family, hope, memoir, Peace, Redemption, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder

Day 30 – Walking With the Baby

The Monday morning fog grew thicker once the sun came up. The baby laid down for his morning nap and was sweet like an angel.

So, we shifted the routine.

We walked close to 11.

The breeze was pleasant.

The light through the trees was not at all blinding, only inviting.

Artist me, blogger and wanna be memoirist cherishes a bumpy walk with a baby boy making baby sounds and the absolute simplicity of God being close.

Close to me on a morning walk.

Morning Walk

Also, a yellow butterfly hovered over us.

Baby Henry looked up in a curious search.

I’m not sure who’s spirit it was.

But, I’m leaning towards my mama.

31 days of good things

Children, contentment, courage, Peace, Redemption, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder

Day 28 – Friendship

“You sit here, Grandma, while I play.” Elizabeth

The little park at the County library and just the two of us and then a family arrives.

We guessed the little girl’s age, five I decided and she thought four.

They connected at a distance and then the one grew closer to the other.

One announced, after telling her parents,

“I’m gonna make a new friend.”

And even though Elizabeth said “I’ll just play with you, Grandma.”

Within moments names were exchanged in a seesaw game of tag and follow each other.

Then they drifted back to the ones they’d known longer, her to her parents and Elizabeth to me.

And I sat in the spot she said was just right for me, the wide bottom of the cool silver slide.

And I remembered my friend saying about she and I, “Oh, we hit it off immediately.” to someone who asked about our relationship.

There’s something about the bravery of befriending a stranger.

Becoming the friend neither of you expected.

Vulnerably deciding, here’s someone I can give my story to and know it’ll be safe.

And someone who can share with me her own collection of sorrow and joy.

Of laughter, of likeminded observations of others.

All because we decided it would be okay to strike up a conversation and let it grow.

Like strangers on a playground, one four year old and one five, who decided we can play together, I can tell you my name and you can do the same.

31 days of good things

aging, Art, bravery, courage, doubt, Faith, hope, kindness, memoir, patience, Prayer, Redemption, Stillness, Trust, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder, writing

Day 26 – Early Morning Acceptance

Before bed, I read a verse about being cared for. I read that the shepherd takes care of his sheep overnight. Sheep don’t have to worry about being fed, of waking rested and ready.

I woke too early on an “off” and open day. The moment I sat with coffee, a thought came.

I’ll share it here as the “good thing” today.

Morning Thoughts

“What are you building and why when I’ve already established your dwelling place?”

I wrote underneath 10/26/23 and my children’s names in a thick circle, is this question.

I pause to consider why, I question the significance of “dwelling” and I imagine eye rolls and even laughter over the “depth of me”.

The more I thought of this question God gave me, I compared this world we live in, these lives we lead of striving and comparing ourselves just to stay “caught up”.

We don’t have to build ourselves up.

We may topple under the weight of the hurried addition to our first or second floor. We neglect the foundation and we envision mansions that represent our lives, when we’d be better as a quaint little three bedroom with a porch.

After all the building for appearance and to comfort ourselves in being enough, we just might find we don’t want to live here anymore, it’s just too much.

And that’s good

That’s a kindness of God to be shown that you are enough, more than and that although you feel worn thin and the structure of the dwelling of you is feeble and tired, there’s still a little corner that’s waiting for you to find yourself acknowledging the exhaustion.

You matter.

The condition of your body and soul, the place where God dwells even when we can’t find Him in the clutter.

Surprisingly, that’s a sweet place, the most beautiful place you’ve known all along.

Maybe, its name is acceptance.

I think so.

God gave me this today. He wants us both to know. We are enough in our dwelling with Him, we don’t have to wear ourselves out in building, renovating or leveling ourselves in destructive manners because we don’t think our “dwelling” measures up.

God has more than we can fathom in the place of us He long ago established.

“I will give you hidden treasures, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, who summons you by name.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭45‬:‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

You are loved.

Continue and believe.

31 days of good things

Abuse Survivor, aging, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, family, grandchildren, memoir, patience, Redemption, Stillness, Vulnerability, waiting, wisdom, wonder

Day 24 – Bravery

Last night, I responded to a question,

Can you explain what you meant by that?

A sentence in my post about “Listening” that was all jumbled up sounding like wisdom but really only just a pretty forming of a sentence.

I answered her.

After rereading the blog post over again.

I’m not sure what I meant…

some sort of metaphor about editing a painting and redeeming the mess(es) you make because you rushed ahead or you were led to doubt because of comparison.

Maybe redemption over our mistakes as well as our challenges comes when we are brave in our approach to life in general.

Acknowledgement of God

When I scurry out to my daughter’s porch to see the morning, I say “Let’s tell God, Good Morning!”

The grandchildren listen, go along, unbeknownst to them, a seed (even if silly in memory) will pop up for them on occasion, maybe as adults, maybe today.

Today, I woke up and thought of bravery, a good thing.

This old dictionary I like says bravery is “the quality of being brave; fearlessness…magnificence.”

Magnificence seemed odd.

I flipped to the “M’s” to see that magnificence is another word for splendor.

Bravery, less than and at the same time so much more than a jaw-clenching choice, a splendid way of living, an opportunity to really believe this life you’re living,

have been given is splendid.

Bravery is accepting slow progress as better than rushing an outcome based on others around you. To be brave is to decide the acknowledgement you need comes every morning when you open your eyes to find the morning.

Bravery is knowing yourself, body and soul, good and not so great and choosing what helps you maintain it over what threatens to wear it down.

Saying no to that second glass of red wine, so pretty in the settling down evening place, end of the day.

Bravery is not having the chocolate pudding topped with salty pecans in your daughter’s pantry…adding crumbled cookies atop a peak of whipped cream.

Bravery is knowing that this innocent indulgence felt like rebellion and subtle self-destruction and that it may not feel the same for others; but, for you it was something other than a treat.

Bravery is attentiveness to the nudge from God’s Spirit inside you that says

“You’re getting too close to the edge, be careful, be still…don’t go on without me.”

Bravery is conversations with others in which you speak your peace and truth, not turn your cheek, close your mouth with just a timid nod, “It’s okay.”

Bravery is delaying good for better.

Bravery is expressing a tender observation to someone you love, knowing they need to hear it. Most often, I’m learning, this is to the adults I cherish, my children.

Bravery is saying,

“I love you.”

And bravery is believing in God, the Creator who chose to give up His Son, Jesus so that we’d spend eternity in what Eden was supposed to be.

Bravery is asking yourself (and others if you have opportunity)

Why are you afraid to believe?

“God always makes his grace visible in Christ, who includes us as partners of his endless triumph. Through our yielded lives he spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere we go.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭2‬:‭14‬ ‭TPT‬‬

Bravery is telling your redemption story, often rambling and more often grammatically errant.

Bravery is keeping on anyway.

Continuing to believe.

To triumph over whatever defines your fear.

31 days of good things

Abuse Survivor, aging, bravery, contentment, courage, Faith, hope, memoir, painting, Prayer, Redemption, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder, writing

Day 22 – Joy Found and Remembered

I saw the copper color on the carpet and thought, “penny on heads, yay!”

Instead, it was a piece of cereal, a circle shaped flake.

When I read the parable of the lost coin, I can see myself as the widow. She’s searching every corner, maybe like me had to find her glasses or maybe she resorted to rubbing her hand along the floors, the corners, the spaces where the coin may have landed.

“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”


‭‭Luke‬ ‭15‬:‭8‬-‭10‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I’ve lost many things. I’m sad because a pair of earrings disappeared (twice, one time I found them) and I can’t find the one charm for my bracelet. It’s long lost.

More than those treasures though is the mystery that many events and interactions in my life, I have no recall.

No memory.

Someone told me after all these years, willing myself to remember, sitting in silence trying to recalibrate my brain,

That complex PTSD often results in memory loss. A chronology of hurt has this result.

Now, you may think this is heavy, sad, upsetting, even depressing.

No, it’s a gift, a joy to know that life is an invitation to simply cling to the joyful and to make more joy, if you can.

So, what is joy?

What is found treasure?

It’s found in listening.

Acceptance of every tiny moment.

It’s found in observing. It’s the evidence that who you are now is so much more important than who you were or what hard things happened to steal chunks of remembering.

The widow in the parable rejoiced.

Was it because she was poor?

Was it because she simply celebrated her not giving up her search?

Or even more, because she realized the essence of the truth of Jesus.

She mattered.

She was not one who’d ever be given up on.

Nor am I.

Nor are you.

I know the parable is about Jesus caring about every single lost soul.

To me it’s about joy.

About never giving up on being found by it and by it finding you.

I’m 63 years old with a timeline of trauma. But, not until today did someone say to me, the memory loss is because of what happened to you, it’s really just brain chemistry, neuroscience.

And the truth of that felt like a coin I’d been crawling around on my knees, scouring the floor to see

For a very long time.

Trying to squeeze the memories from the layers of my brain and all for naught.

Except the realization of the present and the chance to add to memories.

God is so good to me.

I surely don’t deserve it.

There are countless things I’ve agonized over not being able to remember.

I’ll never find those memories.

Maybe, though I can feel deeply the way those crises and celebrations made me feel and I can honor those times and myself by feeling all the feelings now.

Found, not lost at all.

31 days of good things

Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, creativity, Faith, hope, kindness, mixed media painting, painting, patience, Peace, Redemption, Stillness, Vulnerability, wisdom, wonder, writing

Day 21 – Listening

It’s helps that it’s catchy, the wise words for remembering.

Listen, Lisa

Works I Love

I stepped lightly to assess where I may have gone wrong, rushed to edit, didn’t leave “well enough for now and maybe always” alone.

Now, I see.

I should’ve listened to that pull, the voice that said.

This is you.

This is good. Let it rest. Let it be.

There’s no need for a rush to redo. There is no expectation for anything other than that you listened.

Listened attentively.

Listened with no plan of action or scheme.

Listened for the opening that never comes like a bursting, more like an invitation.

Listen and learn.

Contribute to the redemption of where your listen wasn’t necessary at all or steered you wrong.

Remembering, you can’t hear the gentle tone of directions spoken if you’re thinking you got it on your own.

Listen and then, welcome your role in the redemption that made a mess and muddied your message.

Always a good one, led by patience and surrender.

“From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭64‬:‭4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Continue and believe.

Listen for the love.

31 days of good things

Abuse Survivor, aging, bravery, contentment, courage, Faith, family, hope, memoir, Vulnerability, wisdom

Day 18 – Wisdom Found and Acquiring

What a difference two days makes!

On Monday, baby Henry was a tiny bit heartbreaking. He’s getting new teeth. He wanted me, wanted to be held.

Our morning walk required holding.

Today, he bounced his little feet and nodded his head. He was very happy in the stroller.

The news broke through regular shows because the President was about to speak in Israel.

I didn’t want Henry to hear it, sense it, see it.

I turned the television off.

Baby settled, we took off strolling.

And he was so very content, I began to filter recent conversations, a wide and varied assortment.

A strange thought came, I embraced it, a question…

If I were to talk as in TedTalk fashion, what could I contribute?

I made a mental list. You should too.

I could talk about:

How to supervise employees with helpful attention and kindness

How not to because you work best alone

How to forgive those who harmed you even though forgetting the wrong is not possible

How to recover from disordered eating and why the recovery is a constant decision not to seek comfort or self-destruction through food. Why it’s complex and invites patience with oneself

Why it’s important to be brave in your conversations with your children, adults or babies or teenagers. Why it’s good to be silent, allow them to throw their words like darts towards you as you sit still,

bravely listening, receiving.

How to look in the mirror, full on when suddenly your eyes are tiny and your body is dramatically shifting

Why rest is golden, why it’s okay to lie down in the middle of the day, why it’s peace

What children have taught me about prayer, always thank you’s, never give me now and hurry

Why I believe in Jesus and how I wonder why others are afraid to just believe.

How I know God is acquainted with every facet of me and the true occurrences that surprised me to say “See, I see.”

How to be brave.

How childhood poverty always makes you feel like you’re dressed in old dresses or too tight pants, inappropriate shoes

I’ve spoken in public on occasion. Honestly, without notes…only my heart for the cause for which I spoke.

It would seem I might be able to speak for and of myself.

Instead, I choose writing and I pray writing keeps choosing me.

What would your TedTalk share?

31 days of good things

Children, contentment, family, Motherhood, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Trust, Vulnerability, wisdom

Day 14 – Pasta With My Son

Lunch was at a favorite spot of my son’s. There are many fabulous restaurants in Charlotte.

I thought to have the broiled chicken club salad and told him to order, I needed to go the restroom,

His pause said, “Really, a salad?” so I asked what he’d recommend.

And I chose his recommendation, penne with spicy tomato vodka sauce.

He had lasagna. I had a glass of Cabernet and he chose Pinot Noir.

He insisted I have coffee when I mentioned the carbohydrate “coma” and so I did and we split a slice of cheesecake topped with peaches.

Mama Ricotta’s…go there.

Mama Ricotta’s

Goodness it’s good.

Thanks, son.