#fmf

31 Days, Freely – Moment

Abuse Survivor, Art, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, freedom, grace, memoir, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Stillness, Teaching, Trust, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

Prompted, on this day 26 of 31 to write briefly (I’ll do my best.) on the word “Moment”.

Sometimes I’ll take a moment to be sure I’m correct in my understanding of the meaning of a word, or look for the definition to broaden my perspective.

I took time just now to understand “abide” because I always lean towards it meaning something like living some place or staying put and settled somewhere.

It may be that I think it’s a relative to the word abode.

No idea.

a·bide
/əˈbīd/
verb

accordance with, uphold, heed, accept, go along with, acknowledge, respect, defer to

Yesterday, I met someone who began a conversation with questions of me from the other side of a table. The room was filled with women and the bustle of many conversations.

She asked me about my choice of the phrase “quiet confidence”, eventually moving to sit beside me. We talked. We laughed and we connected.

We were interested in each others’ stories from the moment we connected.

This morning, I’m remembering how I told her it can awkward for me to have an intimate and complimentary conversation, to receive positive and powerful feedback from another.

It’s as if it’s a challenge for me to agree with another’s words that are good if they’re about me.

She said something I loved when I told her I don’t like to introduce myself as an Executive Director, it sounds so lofty, so unappealing to me, doesn’t sound like who I ever wanted to be.

She smiled and told me to accept it, to be in agreement with God’s decision to place me in a place to lead.

This morning I’ll think of it as abiding with God in his decisions to bring me to a place of leading. I’ll abide in my executive role and demonstrate my confidence because of God’s confidence in me.

Moment by moment, I’ll abide, be in agreement with God as I carry out my role in His world.

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.”

‭‭John‬ ‭15:4‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I met someone yesterday who gave me an unexpected gift. I’ve decided to accept it, acknowledge her assessment of me.

Linking with others here:

FMF – Moment

31 Days, Freely – Capture

daughters, Faith, grace, memoir, Peace, Stillness, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

I’ve never seen such a pretty place as the porch that welcomed me this evening to my daughter’s home.

Now, I thought of taking a picture; but, it would be lost on most everyone.

A vignette of pumpkins resting on a bench, large lively fern and cushion sitting softly in big and sturdy rocking chair.

The way she can take a little something space and make it big something spectacular.

So pretty, my words fail and my description, to capture her ways, her simply splendid style.

I got the dogs all excited and situated and since I skipped boot camp I set out to make some laps around the big open farming field.

The dogs were confused, corralled and cavorting. I made another lap and rounded the corner to be met by the sky.

I’d decided beforehand it wouldn’t be so amazing, cloud cover and cold.

But, the sun found a low place and it decided I’ll settle down here.

“And God saw that it was good.”

‭‭Genesis‬ ‭1:18‬ ‭ESV‬‬

So, I forfeited the made up workout of cardio for the perch on the porch and I did my best to capture what’s too spectacular to know, to keep.

The sky, the sun, the stuff of me showing up in my child’s decorative ways.

More amazing than words, more beautiful than we can ever know.

31 Days, Freely – Brief

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, doubt, Faith, fear, freedom, grace, memoir, mercy, praise, Redemption, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, writing

No wonder I don’t want to leave, my morning time with God is always too brief.

This morning God told me,

Be brave.

It’s like He truly has me and He wants to keep me here, wants me to really know His keeping.

Yes, my morning time is too brief, I’m getting stronger at taking it longer into my day.

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭1:6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Because I slept well and long, my meet the day prayer today was brief.

The feeling followed me down the hall, the regret of my request.

I asked God for “opportunities” and chastised myself no sooner than the thought became a conversation. Thinking,

Oh, sorry let me take that back…I’ve already had enough and haven’t done so well with them.

I barely made it to the Keurig before I changed my perspective.

I remembered my pattern.

God reminded me.

When I don’t write or when my writing is rejected, I immediately believe it has nothing to do with my skills or my content; but, everything with my worthiness.

Viciously sensitive and cyclical is the dilemma of my endeavor. I will return once again, maybe this afternoon to the old desk where words have been written, pieces and parts and starts, because I heard God this morning.

His reply was quick.

Five words,

You have to write bravely.

Pointing me away from the obligatory or copycat attempts to be one of those women who write and towards Him and yes, back to me.

Back to brave.

Back to the story that won’t let go.

“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭1:12‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I bet you have a thing like that, a thing God told you was for you, the treasure you believed was there, slowly began to believe Him enough to dig it up.

Maybe you were afraid your treasure might not be treasured or that you’d be insufficient in your conveyance of just how glorious your God is for giving you the ability, the opportunity,

The unabashed bravery to pursue it!

Yeah, that’s the thing mostly. Something that God has told you is this huge a chance, a calling…oh, you don’t want to be responsible for it being any less.

I ramble, I get pitiful.

Forgive me. I’m surely no victim!

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3:12‬ ‭ESV‬‬

What we see as hard, God sees as worthy of our doing.

What we see as unlikely, God sees as possible.

What we see as unexpected of our accomplishing, God sees as brave and intentional daily, momentous surrender.

We must be brave or we’ll never be fully seen, He will never be fully seen through us!

We must tell whole stories, not just give hints or glimpses of our rescue and redemption.

Otherwise, how will others know the story behind the things we say, the little expressions we throw out?

Afraid of telling the entirety of before.

One I’m prone to declare quite often…

Not me, but you Lord.

Jesus in me, showing through me, inviting others to have to the same hope of glory.

Glory, as in eternal life, a heavenly home.

I only hint at what that means, fully surrendered and cooperative, obedient to His plan.

I’ve no idea why this seems scary, why I must be brave.

It should come as easy as breathing and last way longer than my morning coffee.

It must surely be the most perplexing thing an uncertain or nonbeliever sees,

The meandering missteps of a believer. We’re confident and then we’re not or we’re complete and then complacent.

Yet, it’s that reality that tells our story, the recognition that we struggle, we’re not able on our own.

It’s also His mercy that sets our stumbling back on track, is kind in the giving grace for our once again, beginnings to see.

That we’re good and close to God every morning and day by day that closeness and that light go longer and brighter through our days and into our nights.

We press on even though the fear remains, we hear the voices of doubt saying stop…don’t go.

But, we hear the other.

We become good listeners and we hear The Father saying,

Bravely, bravely.

Now, go!

We get up again and we, with Him, bravely go!

Some time ago, a speaker suggested we read from beginning to end and again and again, the Book of Philippians.

My Bible is evidence of the difference it made, Paul’s personal expressions of the importance of humility, of loving Christ fully, being lights in our world, being brave communicators of the life and death of Jesus, of our lives changed because of His.

“Only let us hold true to what we have attained.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3:16‬ ‭ESV‬‬

He’s not finished with me yet. Brandon Heath

31 Days, Freely – Common

confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, happy, memoir, mercy, Peace, praise, Redemption, Stillness, Teaching, Trust, Unity, Vulnerability, wonder, writing

4:30, 4:30, 4:30!!!!

The blaring bong of bell, he stops it and I want to say you could have gone without.

Your wife could have just told you so, quietly and matter of factly, it’s 4:30.

Last night, I prayed the ABC’s 3 times, 78 letters lined up, mostly spontaneously and my prayers had a bend towards gratitude.

Not the same old worry, the correspondence God knows so well of me.

My brain must have been overloaded in a good way because it had stories it refused to leave hanging and they continued all through the night.

Then, I woke up remembering what I wrote hurriedly and just let it be.

This 31 day thing feeling like obligation and nothing more. I could have trashed it, the one that was without flow and didn’t circle back around to make sense.

No matter really, I’m learning to grow.

Ironically, I wrote about not being “good” and the first thing that came to mind when my knees hit the floor in the darkness was.

I’m good, God. I’m good.

The reality of a sleepless night and a day that has the likelihood of stressful situations, wasn’t about to phase me, I felt sure.

Because I woke refreshed, unbelievably so and assured.

All is well.

I’m good.

God is so that way.

Oh, how I love His subtle ways.

All will be good.

All is well.

At the close of a meeting of minds trying to be correctly succinct and with draft three or four of some set of bylaws, there was a lull in the banter.

I looked down towards the gentleman who is in charge of the weekly soup kitchen.

Asked Jim, “How’s your friend?” He smiled and told me he saw him on Saturday, they all celebrated his 70th over soup.

“I still have the ring he made me.” I added, happily.

Remembering the day we were charged with counting the homeless and a pleasant man on a bike met us in the park to talk. He magically, meticulously folded a dollar bill and presented it to me, a ring!

Give me times like that Lord, more of these moments that set me back on track.

That remind me trials are common to us all, that we’re not different ever in your sight.

That your goodness is common to us all.

“The poor and the oppressor have this in common: The Lord gives sight to the eyes of both.”

‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭29:13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

31 Days, Freely – Start

Art, birds, bravery, contentment, Faith, family, Forgiveness, grace, happy, memoir, mercy, painting, Peace, Prayer, rest, Vulnerability, waiting, wonder, writing

I’m good at neither rushing nor resting.

I concoct purposeful and passionate scenarios of diligent sticking to something and going long and hard without a break.

I imagine myself contentedly uninterrupted, a book in my lap.

But, both elude me.

Both take practice, commitment, a chance to see the benefit.

Going ahead without allowing hesitation or giving myself reprieve, permission to chill.

I’m sitting home alone, it’s Sunday and it’s sunny. The cool air of the night before has the rooms faintly fresher and the shift of the season quite clear.

Captivated by the book in my lap, “Becoming Mrs. Lewis” by Patti Callahan and tea in a pretty cup, I told myself read a chapter and then go, write a chapter.

Seemed like a good plan, inspirational, my content might flow more freely.

But, I’m three chapters in and still reading. This is a gift, this is a pleasure I’d long thought gone, being pulled in and unable to set a thick book aside.

Now, I’m rethinking the ambition of writing new chapters or layering abstracted thick color on a new something I started.

Instead, I’ll keep reading and when my eyes get heavy, I might dose or I may rise to walk the trail before the sneaking up of sunset.

I may look for them again, the tiny blackbirds up high in an old oak or the surprise sighting of seven or so cardinals all gathered together, red dots bouncing and bobbing against the green.

What I have started I will finish, I’ll come back and I’ll continue.

Fearlessly, faithfully what has begun will continue.

“Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.”

‭‭Jude‬ ‭1:2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Giving myself a little mercy, peace and love on a sunny Sunday.

31 Days, Freely – Audience

Angels, Art, confidence, Faith, grace, memoir, painting, Peace, praise, Stillness, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting

Today was a series of exchanges and conversations.

Late last night, I loaded up my artwork and joined today, the morning marketers of creations, all of us gathered on the lawn.

Tell your story. Sing your song.

Questions came with interest, with pause and silent studious stares from steps back as if my paintings displayed against an ivy covered oak were as grand as a gallery opening, big city style, formal and fancy.

Ooh’s and Ah’s.

How did you get started?

What are you writing?

What have you written?

Will you write a book?

Why do you think artists love to paint the pear, most of all?

“Come and hear, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me.”

‭‭Psalm‬ ‭66:16‬ ‭NIV‬‬

I sat with a woman visiting a friend and we compared most everything, why the work we do is “heart work”, that church people can be mean

and that we do find God when we look for Him and then we share what little or large we really know, the God we truly know.

In the sanctuary or on the square.

We share.

Why do some angels have faces and others just an idea or sort of blank slate?

When did you begin painting and why do you call them girls?

And they listened, a mother and a daughter, a widow and an old friend.

My daughter and her husband gave me a Bible with wide margins. I began sketching female figures in long flowing gowns as I let sink in the truth or the grace of each passage until the “girls” moved from the thin sheets in my Bible to canvas layered with lyrics.

The ones with no features leave open the idea, more relatable, emoting grace or joy or what each eye may see for itself.

I call them girls because I consider them sweet, humble, and I guess eternal, ever youths.

“Thank you for telling me your story.” she said, the one who didn’t buy my art; but, declared me an artist.

And I smiled.

I smiled today.

31 Days, Freely – Search

Angels, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, Forgiveness, freedom, Peace, praise, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Trust, Uncategorized, waiting, wonder

And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭4:29‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Why do we wake up committed to seeking God? Because it is necessary to know Him, to sense Him.

Only through knowing Him are we able to know ourselves.

Distractions, obligations, the incessant in our faces knowledge of conflict and confusion.

Comments and contributions to subjects that pull us to jump in and join the fight.

It’s so hard to keep the peace.

To keep our peace.

So, I begin today before dawn remembering how I’ve found Him before.

And asking, real early and real honestly.

Help me to find you, Father, in my day!

And oh, I’m so excited to see what good in which places will come my way.

God is everywhere. Don’t forget to notice. me

I want to see you God, because I want to fully see me.

31 Days, Freely – Pause

Abuse Survivor, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, doubt, Faith, grace, memoir, Peace, Prayer, Redemption, rest, Teaching, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, waiting, writing

“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭30:18‬

My “life verse” is bordered before by caution and consequence of stubborn rushing ahead and after, with gracious reminder of what good comes from waiting, from being attentive to God.

“Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine…”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭30:1‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Beware the place you arrive without pause. me

It wasn’t a life-changing yes or no. I’d done my research, asked for input from another.

A nominal purchase, was my pull towards jumping in to the opportunity because of the way it was marketed as invaluable, making possible my impossible success as a writer or

was it fear of missing chances,

not being able ever at all?

So, I paused. I gave the decision space and an honest self examination.

I chose not to make what was touted as essential, a sure path, success in my creative goals.

I let it be, left it alone.

God revealed another way, something I already own.

At my fingertips, the tools and in my thoughts, deeply planted abilities are gradually peeping through towards the light.

I was reminded in my pause.

Can’t believe sometimes, I continue this writing not much more than a journal. So many bloggers, I’m just one and my readership is oh, so small.

Yet, this daily thing is practice and it flows steady, gently from my daily morning pause.

Uncontrived.

I pause, I’m reminded.

Lord, help me not to flee frantically from the quiet place with you, the place where you keep me, continue to make me strong.

Keep me from the need for acclaim. Keep me in the quiet places where I hear you clearly saying, don’t go after that, I have equipped you, see me, see you. You are able, Lisa Anne; but, never, on your own. Let me lead you in the way you know so very well and let it show.

The way of quiet confidence, be willing.

Believe.

Because of mercy, Amen

“For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling,”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭30:15‬ ‭ESV‬‬

31 Days, Freely – When

Angels, bravery, confidence, contentment, courage, Faith, fear, Forgiveness, freedom, love, memoir, Redemption, Salvation, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability, wonder

“The monarchs are migrating.” I offered as if I knew anything at all about butterfly migration or Fall.

“It’s amazing how far they travel, they’re on the way now,” he added a foreign place I can’t remember and told me how he had read of their journey, how they were created to become beautiful and then to fly.

I know nothing about such things, I’ve only heard about this, I realize.

I sit with my feet in the sand in the place that was clear for us, a wide space, no other people in our space.

They kept flying near along with the dragonfly, landing or flirting with the possibility of resting near my chair.

I tried to capture the image, they only captured my fascination.

Walking, the next day before leaving, I saw another one there. This one, in the rubble of raked debris, just lying there.

The Lab was distracted as I bent to collect it, a small one, I kept it in my hand.

Knowing that it was landed there softly for my finding.

Knowing every little thing on my path is significant to my story.

Yesterday, we gave $5 to a woman with a sign. She reached through my window and I avoided her eyes, “God bless you today for this.” she said and then the light changed and I led us on our way towards food in the hungry and impatient line of cars.

My husband wondered about her worthiness and we both decided his observation might be right.

Then we chose to let go of our judgment, to let be what will be with her intentions, only feel sure ours were good and hopeful and done in love we certainly didn’t consider ever having for her at all.

Not her, nor the shaken young woman, mistaken somehow in her driving, causing our accident. It is best to love her although it makes no sense at all.

I woke this morning deciding not to judge her, nor the others who may have been off track, trying to get back on.

Deciding love is better, costs so very little at all.

When we choose love, people get the best of us, they get to see Jesus coming through because there’s no way we’d ever be so consistent with mercy at all.

“We love because he first loved us.”

‭‭1 John‬ ‭4:19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I’m not able own my own.

When we love, we aren’t able to judge. When we really love, there’s no sense or room for judgment, at all.

31 Days, Freely – Ask

bravery, Children, courage, doubt, Forgiveness, freedom, grace, mercy, Peace, praise, Prayer, Stillness, Trust, Uncategorized, Vulnerability

“Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.”

‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭9:11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

We decided against the campus tour when we realized we’d most likely not make it in time.

It was the day after the unexpected, the unavoidable interruption of our day.

The journey and itinerary was wrought with unexpectedness, hurry, and hassle.

We were traveling for a special tradition, beyond excited in a nervous way, an unease that I thought was because of the getting to all the places on time, staying in step with regimented flow.

My son attends a military college. He is a Senior (thank you, Lord) and there would be the ring on his finger by the end of the day. Campus overwhelmed with scurrying excited and prideful parents for Parents Weekend.

We’d wear our fancy dresses, his sister and I, his escorts. He would wear full dress uniform. Two events in one day, we were on track it was gonna be stressful I told my husband, neither of us known for our “go with the flow”.

Pretty day and cool blue skies, we travel the back roads before the busy interstate, a well known path, an oft taken road.

I noticed in my approach, it seemed the driver was considering whether to go. The old sedan eased forward and rested and then, it seems the driver just decided to go.

I screamed, I believe. My foot found the brake and I made my car turn to try and get away, safely away and it pounded to a halt, stopped suddenly in the softness of a deep ditch. The front, the side, the tires splattered black and mangled. I sat and I cried, a scary moan of a cry.

I was afraid and because I couldn’t define just why, decide it’s the fear of missing my son’s big day and I cry and I can’t stop crying.

It seems an irrational thing but I feel irrational, I feel unable to define my fear over the intersection of possible loss of life and life.

My daughter on the same path but a different route finds us with her husband and they help us and it’s a discombobulated mess; but, we make it on through.

We are problem solvers, we make it work.

That’s how we roll!

We make the ceremony. We wear the fancy dresses, he gives us roses and we are good. We are fine.

We fill up the coastal weekend with other, good fancy breakfast, the ambience of dinner and the beach and the dog and shells, big unbroken shells we find.

Home now, I ask the question I asked before.

Why was she stopping, was she easing forward just to see for sure, or did she look once and not again and then, too late, her car crashes into my side?

Why was she tentative or was she distracted or was it as she told us, she never saw me at all?

I ask myself how and why and I’m curious how to measure a split second because it seems that could have made all the difference.

Whether she’d have waited

or continued on.

I hear the words to a song that remind me there’s no reason I shouldn’t now continue on.

It is entirely up to us whether we notice our chances and take them. It’s personal, after all, the believing we can or not believing at all. No one might ever know, whether we believe and take chances, whether we decide still to go, to try, to not simply say no.

Carry on calmly, LT.

There are more things to see, more places to be.

There are chances not to miss the way you have have missed them before, focus flitting towards future and making your every day present a blur.

Slow, steady now. You don’t have to be strong to be able. You don’t have to be wealthy to be willing.

Time and chance, pausing or going forward faithfully, these are encounters, opportunities and interchanges that will happen for us all.

Pace yourself, now.

Continue, carry on easily more aware.

Chance and time are in God’s hands.

Our hope endures.

Our hope endures the worst of conditions.