writing

Time and Turnarounds

Abuse Survivor, Angels, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, eating disorder, Faith, freedom, memoir, Peace, praise, Redemption, Stillness, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, writing

I wish there was another word for broken, I thought.

I’ve had my heart broken, had my collarbone broken and I’ve been broke, close to destitute quite a long time ago.

You’ll hear speakers talk about it, writers write about it, how we must be “broken” to be whole, to truly be who with and through God we are supposed to be.

Women, broken and beautiful.

I prefer words like surrender, words like committed, words like fully aware that I ain’t able own my own.

I need God every hour.

I prefer to believe if I’m a vessel that I don’t have to be cracked open, broken to be used.

Broken seems so physical, to me so much more body than soul.

My tendency to circle back to old ways because I’m not fully broken still rears its ugly secretive ways.

Yesterday evening, the house was mine alone. Just as quick as I could get in the door, my hand reached for the refrigerator door.

Eyeing the savory tarragon chicken salad with almonds so creamy and heavy on the flavor, I grabbed the container and a spoon and dug in.

Standing with the refrigerator door open thinking just a taste, I went for more and then thought, so salty, I need sweet, need so much more.

The apple pie was going to waste, I decided. Just as quickly as before, I dipped out a chunk not a slice and dug around in the pan deciding I’d just have the apples but, then adding the buttered up crumbles.

Popped open the microwave, turned and opened the freezer for ice cream and my timing was synchronicity, the beep beep saying “it’s warm”.

So, I sat with my pretty little bowl and I enjoyed the dessert I decided must come although there’d been no meal.

I thought I’ve been here before but it has been a good long while.

I could go for more, take advantage of the indulgence opening up an opportunity to eat more, even more, to go over the edge like I used to before.

Empty house, pie and ice cream and salty, savory, sublimely good things, they could be all mine.

It could be just like before, I could simply go back for more and more.

All in my control, this at least I know.

Instead, I paid attention to my body’s reaction and my mind caught on. Was I allowing the breaking? I know, at least there was a slight bend, not so unwelcome an idea as before.

I went for my walk/run, returned to shower and spent two hours doing something tangible, demonstrative and intentionally in control of my part with my writing.

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I organized what I could imagine coming together as chapters, moved the art covering the cork board and planned it all out, quietly, visually, assuredly.

For me, this was a new thing, a turning in my road, a smoother stretch than ever before.

When we don’t go back to the place of before, the struggles that harmed us but feel so very much like rewards, could it be we’re being broken?

When we reject our default responses, the self-medicating maneuvers to avoid the unpleasantries of our days, could it be we’re accepting the tiny opening of cracks in our tightly sealed vessels?

When we anticipate the good stretches, don’t get off kilter by the interruptions of uncertain or not as good as before, could it be we’re broken more than ever, we’re believing in our God of so much more?

We worry less about the wilderness of unknowing while waiting and we don’t fill ourselves up with all our hungry hearts can hold, no need to hoard the good. We don’t have to do that anymore.

I made a turnaround last night.

I embraced the frantic fringe of my almost choosing to binge, to fill up my empty spaces and be in control. Instead, I recognized the misery of me, did what I could to pour my mind and body into the alternative, filled myself up with intention, followed it up with action and had a moment or two when the pieces fell together.

It caused a chill up my spine, my breaking,  and a pause that said,

Yes, Lord you are bringing all of this together now, you are leading my writing way.  You’ve broken me of myself, it had to happen to make room for so much more.

“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey,”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭8:7-8‬ ESV

Like Moses reminded the Israelites, God reminded me of the horrible places he’d delivered me from and promised me that with His help my turnaround was leading me to so very much more.

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Broken, surrendered, open to new directions, to making space for Him, clarity for my making known of Him.

Just as sovereignty and providence would have it, I heard a pretty song this morning that made being broken feel quite lovely and welcoming and well, just exactly what and who I should be because of who I was before.

A rebel, a prodigal, imperfect and scarred.

I suppose I’m quite beautiful after all, broken.

 

 

If it’s true you use broken things, then here I am, Lord, I’m all yours.

Matthew West, Broken Things

Linking up with the Tell His Story community and a post today about Jennifer Dukes Lee’s new book, It’s all Under Control. Timely for me and I’m thinking lots of others. Visit here:

https://marygeisen.com/you-have-more-control-than-you-think-and-a-giveaway/

 

Happy Way of Life #17

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, courage, Faith, fear, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, happy, kindness, memoir, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Teaching, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, writing

I made it to the top of the hill and the rain showered my cheeks in a whipping wash.

The storm brought rain mostly and a time to wait, and trust, and to stop depending on the weather or the man to begin, or to stay, to go.

Go, go with the flow. Go slow if you struggle, still go.

So, today the wind said no use for that hat and I set out to walk, to run into the wind with Alison Krauss singing of maybe one day maybe and a simple love like that and please read the letter that I wrote.

Tiny leaves all around, torn from the trees still green and one large maple between two pines is sparsely scattered with yellow now amongst the still lively greens.

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Saying time is changing, you are changing. It is time.

So, I passed a couple walking separate but together, moved uphill running to the opposite and not even a nod did I offer.

For I was moving steady and thinking now about the times against the wind and how that song used to slow me but, now feels quite fine.

Like a letter you write that needs new correspondence because this is now and that was then.  You open the mail to find an invitation to enter a literary competition, to submit again like last year before and you tuck it away knowing already the story, the one about changing names.

 

Being Taught

Angels, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, doubt, Faith, freedom, grace, happy, heaven, Homeless, memoir, Peace, Prayer, rest, Stillness, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

There’s just something about God’s ways that cause the constant return to quiet.

“Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭25:4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

When you’ve had and have so many irons in the fire and you’re persisting, persisting, persisting because you believe not persisting would be giving up and well giving up might be quitting altogether once and for all.

And then you’d have to fake being fine with the oh, well I tried and it wasn’t meant to be for me facade.

I’ve been creating like crazy, so much that there’s no more space for my pieces and a crazy little children’s table I’m determined I’m gonna be stuck with because, no one thinks it’s worth what I’ve put into it and oh,

Well, you’re not really an artist, Lisa. You have talent but you don’t have what it takes to take you anywhere.

And you’re not really a writer except that people actually like your words and you like sharing them and a few people take something with them from their reading. And they tell you and you smile, thinking oh that’s kind of you but I wish I could be more, more, more.

Because you’ve got five or six possible places and ideas and they’re absolutely all over the place and all overdue soon.

You fathom a community changing idea for suicide prevention but you’re naive to believe you can do it your own and you know that so that knowledge joins in the conversation and question of them all.

Give up or try?

Then you realize, just stop.

Just stop for a day or maybe two.

Stop and remember your why that got crowded out by your what if and why not me or the big one for me, “How can I, How should I and mostly How could I not?

Because there’s always the place inside that won’t let you forget God told you these things are your purpose, He made you for these.

Landscapes were painted because the angels seemed less charming, amateurish, I discerned.

Others wanted color, I adjusted my technique and my brushes.

I wrote bravely and hurriedly to comply with a deadline and four days later reread the folded and put away copy and found a sentence that made no sense, a whole paragraph that had no flow.

Obsessively checking emails to see if they chose to publish it anyway. Crazy!

Crazy ever seeking more for me.

Too much, Lisa. Too much Lisa.

Grace upon Grace

You lost your why again.

Art had become a chore, my quiet space an obligation, counting down time ’til I was done with one and then finish three more to be complete, a series I called “Spirit”.

I suppose such is life when you’re teetering over deciding your worth from what you create instead of from your creator.

The things that have always been your sweet spot of comfort become a frantic and frazzled focus, an ever futile challenge.

It is miserable when you veer off the path of what had become your peaceable and pretty place.

So, you take a break, maybe just an hour, a day or two and you ask God to speak before you close your eyes.

You wake and there’s barely light outside, the soft and gradual I’m not gonna overwhelm you revelation of day.

Feels like God saying,

Come now, let’s begin again.

This time be disciplined. Be disciplined not in your doing.

But, be disciplined in your believing.

Make things of beauty because I’ve given you the ability, the hands, the thoughts, the words.

Make them for me, allow me to take them where they belong.

I’ve begun a new piece, returned to my beginning place, the quiet pieces resting on lyrics from old hymnal pages. The works I call “my girls” and some have called my ministry.

I’m at peace again.

Back to my soul.

I’m linking up with the Tell His Story community along with Mary Geisen and this beautiful story: https://marygeisen.com/there-goes-my-heart/