Lisa notes

When Anxiety Needs Words, I Memorize Scripture – Grace & Truth Link-Up

By LisaNotes March 27, 2020 Grace & Truth Link-Up, Memorization 12 Comments

Hit Reset

My mind can run away from me quickly. It darts through some dark alleys these days. When I read too many articles about the coronavirus or listen to too much news, my anxiety heightens. And my hope diminishes.

I need to hit the reset button.

One way I do that is through memorizing scripture. It gives me better words to focus on. It helps me remember the bigger picture, the bigger God, who knows everything going on around me and in me.

These are words I need to keep on repeat.

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
Psalm 91:1

and

I will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Psalm 91:2

So I’m going to memorize Psalm 91 over the next few weeks with the community at Do Not Depart.

If you want to memorize Psalm 91, too, get the details here.

Psalm 91 is a calming chapter about God’s deliverance, God’s covering, God’s faithfulness.

Sign up lasts another week and a half (now–April 5). We’ll start memorizing the Monday of Easter week, April 6. We’ll learn two verses a week for eight weeks, ending on Pentecost Sunday (May 31).

Our memory challenges are no pressure, no rules, just a fellowship of believers setting our minds on higher things.

Our Featured Post

Our featured post this week is also about overcoming anxiety. Bettie G shares her story of anxiety as she walked through the door to the Infusion Center.

Bettie reminds us that we’re not meant to carry our burdens alone. Not only is Jesus with us, he also wants us to be there for each other, too.

Read Bettie’s words here, “Sharing: Lifting Shame in Our Praying.” And if you pray, also lift her up as she walks through new medication infusions and their aftereffects. Bettie is a true champion in the fight for faith.

Thanks for sharing, Bettie! Here’s a button for your blog.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

We pray that Grace & Truth will point you to Jesus. Add your post to encourage others in the Christian blogging community.

1. Follow your hosts on their blogs and/or social media channels, if you’d like.

2. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.)

3. Visit and comment on 1 or 2 other links. Be an encourager. Please don’t link and run.

4. All links are randomly sorted. Link early or late. The playing field is even.

To Be Featured:

5. Post the button or link back to one of our hosts. It encourages new participants. (Not mandatory to participate, but required to be featured.)

6. Every host will feature and promote one blog every week.

Now Let’s Link Up!

How is your anxiety level? How do you reduce it? Please share your thoughts and concerns in the comments.

If you want to memorize Psalm 91 together, get details here.

Ways to Use Technology to Stay Socially Connected During Social Distancing

By LisaNotes March 25, 2020 Community 12 Comments

The old advice of “Stay off your phones!” has turned into “I’ll see you online!”

Just because we can’t gather face to face with our friends and family doesn’t mean we have to lose touch.

We can still stay socially connected during social distancing with help from the internet. Even if it means learning new tools that we didn’t know existed before COVID-19. (Has anyone used the Netflix Party extension to watch shows together?)

Our 5-member book club met together last Sunday. Not in person, but online. And it was so fun! None of us had drive time or had to clean up our living room or even had to get out of our pj’s if we didn’t want to.

Ways to Connect

Here are favorite ways I’m staying in contact with the outside world.

What are your favorites?

1. Facebook

The old standby Facebook has come back in vogue. It’s become a gathering hub again, with an explosion of hilarious memes as well as seriously scary articles about COVID-19.

One of my Facebook groups is going to memorize Psalm 91 together through Do Not Depart. I’ll share more later, but if that interests you, join our Hide His Word Facebook group now.

2. Video Calling on Facebook

This is like FaceTime, but for lots of people at once (like Zoom). You can see everyone on the screen at the same time. And if you already have Facebook messenger, you don’t need to download any special app for this. This is what we used for our book club discussion.

On your Messenger screen, click the video icon in the upper right corner. It works with both Android and iPhone. On your computer, you have to use Firefox or Chrome browsers; it won’t work with Safari yet.

3. Marco Polo App

This works like sending a text, except you record a video instead of typing or recording words. You can send your message to one person at a time or set up a group. It’s super easy to use; just start and stop. Your recipients can watch when it’s convenient for them, just like reading a text, and they can reply back with their own video.

One of my groups includes my siblings. Thanks to the app, my younger sister showed us her new house being built and my sister-in-law showed us her cherry tree in bloom, things I wouldn’t have seen even in normal times.

4. The Regulars . . .

Plus more: Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, texting, and actual talking on the phone (even though it’s so 20th century, I know).

For more ideas, see Gretchen Rubin’s article, “Coping with COVID-19: Ideas for Staying Connected in this Time of Social Distancing.”

Strong Bonds

Isn’t there something special about seeing a familiar face pop up on your screen and hearing a familiar voice in your ears? God made us this way. He designed us to connect with each other, just as he, Jesus, and Holy Spirit connect.

And when possible, he wants us to connect face to face. Even Jesus himself came down here in person, put on flesh like ours, and walked and talked among us. How blessed were those who got a physical hug from the Son of God.

But just as we now stay connected with Jesus without seeing his physical body, we can also stay connected with each other.

Online may not feel as intimate as in-person. But it’s far better than nothing at all.

So connect online. Don’t worry about how you look. Or how you sound. Or whether you’ve got something interesting to say or are boring.

Your loved ones won’t care. They just want to see you and hear you. Just like you want to see and hear them.

Our bonds are stronger than our distance. Let’s stay connected.

How are you staying connected during social distancing? Please share in the comments.

Here’s to the Healers

By LisaNotes March 23, 2020 Compassion, Hope, Pain 31 Comments

We passed the year anniversary of Stan’s death on March 15, 2020. It was one of the last days we could enter a restaurant to eat together, and the first day that in-person church was canceled.

We again wore Auburn colors, went to the cemetery after lunch, and celebrated Stan’s life.

We also remembered the lives of those who worked to spare his life.

And now in this deadly era of COVID-19, these nurses and doctors are again foremost in our minds.

May God bless those of you who are the healers in the wake of this new coronavirus. You are our heroes. You are God’s special servants.

And to the families of the healers? You deserve special blessings, too, for the sacrifices you are making. May God keep you all safe.

Why I’m Sad

I’m sad.

I didn’t like seeing Stan connected by tubes to bags on IV poles. I didn’t like that he needed round-the-clock care in ICU for week after long week. I didn’t like that the lights always needed to be on, that the machines always needed to beep, that the nurses always had to stick and measure.

I drove home from the hospital that last Friday morning, March 15, 2019, one final time of leaving Stan’s now quiet and empty Room 11 that he’d occupied for so long.

I opened my Lent prayer app to the prayer-of-the-day.

This is what God had planted for March 15.

We Still Need People

Stan died in the early hours that Friday morning. Monday was his visitation. Tuesday was his funeral. Stan was the husband of Kathy, one of the Four Corners, one of my life-long best friends.

I’ve known Stan forever. First as my big brother’s friend, then as my own friend.

Those previous few months, I watched Stan breathe through one machine and watched his blood circulate through another. Modern medicine can seem quite miraculous.

But technological improvements alone still aren’t enough.

We still need people.

So now, even though I’m sad, I’m also grateful.

Here’s to the Healers

I applaud you who work with the sick and dying, you who are strong for the weak, you who stay up late and get up early so patients can have 24-hour medical attention.

The 6th floor medical staff in the Cardiac Care ICU at our hospital that took care of Stan (Anna, Taylor, Will, Des, Brandie, Leslie, Mallory, +) are more than phenomenal workers, they are phenomenal souls.

They know what to do with their school learning: they adjust levels and change out lines and read x-rays.

But they also know what to do with their emotional instincts: they offer genuine hope and they give generous care and they cry real tears.

They have more than skill. They have heart.

So here’s to the nurses, the doctors, the assistants, the caregivers: Keep doing what you do. Keep nurturing and protecting and tending to us when we’re sick, when we get better, and even when we die.

We need you. We pray for you. We love you.

Thank you for how you took care of Stan. And thank you for how you took care of us.

* * *

Do you work in the medical field? Thank you! Have you had a good experience with your medical caregivers? Please share in the comments.

revised from the archives

Do You Need More? Or Less? Grace & Truth Link-Up

By LisaNotes March 20, 2020 Grace & Truth Link-Up 6 Comments

More or Less

I’m not hoarding. I promise.

But yesterday I bought more Tylenol. More chicken. More bread.

But more isn’t always what I need.

As Joanne points out in our featured post this week, we need less of these things:

Less anxiety
Less hoarding
Less news

And more of these things:

More peace
More generosity
More Truth

Ultimately, Joanne reminds us that “We need less doubt and more confidence—confidence in the One.“

Our Featured Post

I encourage you to read Joanne’s entire post, “Less.” It’s short, but it’s rich.

Thanks for sharing, Joanne! Here’s a button for your blog.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

HEATHER HART & VALERIE RIESE – Candidly Christian
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

We pray that Grace & Truth will point you to Jesus. Add your post to encourage others in the Christian blogging community.

1. Follow your hosts on their blogs and/or social media channels, if you’d like.

2. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.)

3. Visit and comment on 1 or 2 other links. Be an encourager. Please don’t link and run.

4. All links are randomly sorted. Link early or late. The playing field is even.

To Be Featured:

5. Post the button or link back to one of our hosts. It encourages new participants. (Not mandatory to participate, but required to be featured.)

6. Every host will feature and promote one blog every week.

Now Let’s Link Up!

What do you need more of? Less of? Please share your thoughts and concerns in the comments.

When Plans Are a Tossup, Live in Grace

By LisaNotes March 18, 2020 Book reviews 14 Comments

As an introvert, I admit I’m happy some of my events are cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns, even though I hate that’s the reason.

It’s just that I love being at home.

But one event in particular that I do NOT want to be cancelled is A Night of Harmony with Bob Goff in a town near me in late April.

Words of Love from Bob

If you’ve ever listened to Bob Goff in person or a podcast, or read through his books, you already know what a treasure he is. We especially need his enthusiasm, optimism, and faith in this time of fear.

But in any season, his words ring true and bring hope.

Listen to these quotes from his new 365-day devotion, Live in Grace, Walk in Love:

“Make your life about people and you won’t regret it.”

“It’s so much easier to love people with our intentions than to love them in real life.”

“We forget Jesus didn’t ask us to have all the answers. He also doesn’t need us to be the hall monitors of other people’s conduct. He had a few strong words for the people who appointed themselves as protectors of truth. Jesus simply asked us to follow Him, not to monitor who everyone else is.”

“Love isn’t something we do, like a job. It’s someone we become, like Jesus.“

“Loving God started to make more sense when I realized loving a God I couldn’t see was a lot like loving the people He made and put all around me.”

Plan to Love

My husband Jeff and I heard Bob Goff in person a year ago, also at A Night of Harmony. He radiated love and joy the second he walked out on the stage to speak. And that love and joy stuck with us for a long time afterwards.

I hope we don’t have to miss the opportunity to repeat that experience this year.

But even if the event gets canceled (it seems likely) and I can’t hear Bob Goff in person, I’m grateful to be reading Bob Goff’s words every day this year. Live in Grace, Walk in Love is a beautiful testament to what God wants each of us to do, wherever we are, whenever it is:

Commit to love. That is the best plan.

Have your read either of Bob Goff’s other books, Love Does or Everybody, Always (one of my Top 10 Books of 2018)? I highly recommend them, too!

What events have you had cancelled in this time of coronavirus? Please share your thoughts in the comments.

My thanks to Net Galley and Nelson Books
for the review copy of this book

Is It Okay to Complain If It’s Only in My Head?

By LisaNotes March 16, 2020 Linger 26 Comments

Twitter/@SugarMichael

“Whether you complain aloud or only in thought makes no difference.”
– Eckhart Tolle

I sometimes play mind tricks with myself. Such as, it’s okay to complain about somebody as long as it’s only to Jeff.

Or this one: it’s okay to complain, as long as I don’t say it out loud.

But is it? Really?

When You Express It

We can’t help certain thoughts that pop into our head about someone else’s attitude or actions. And maybe it’s for a legitimate reason because they truly are irritating and egotistical.

But complaining is more than just having the thought. Complaining is expressing an attitude about it.

In this anxious time of coronavirus panic, complaining has come easier to me. I’m verbalizing my annoyance more frequently.

In the best of times, I think I’m doing good if I keep these thoughts only to myself. And granted, that is better than saying every one of these thoughts out loud.

But should I even indulge them in my head? Are they doing me any good?

All Complaints Hurt Us

My inside-only complaints cause trouble, too.

(An exclusion is the “complaint” that states a wrong that needs to be addressed: “There’s a fly in my soup.” That’s okay. What’s not good is: “How dare you let a fly get in my soup!”)

The kind of complaining I’ve been doing is this: “What is wrong with these people buying up all the toilet paper at Publix? Don’t they know other people need some, too?”

It is labeling other people as greedy and selfish when I don’t know what their motivations are. Only God knows hearts. Maybe they actually are greedy and selfish (aren’t we all at times?).

But maybe they are just scared and panicked (again, aren’t we all at times?).

Either way, it doesn’t serve them OR me to judge them for it. Even if I’m quiet about it.

I don’t have to take personal offense to their words or actions. I don’t have to set up an “I am right; they are wrong” mentality. I don’t have to defend my strong opinion on everything.

As Tricia Goyer says in The Grumble-Free Year,

“It’s easy to see grumbling as a bad habit. It’s harder to see that it is an actual offense against God. Even if we don’t think so, it’s saying, God, you’ve failed me.”

I can remember that God’s favor is on me. He is for me. That is what I need.

Accepting a situation (or a person) as is, without criticizing and complaining, is a strength, not a weakness. It doesn’t mean you approve. You still might need to act to make the situation better.

But stop the complaining.

Linger in Silence

My one word of the year is Linger. For the month of March, my Linger action step is Silence, i.e., Linger in the Silence. I’ve been choosing silence more instead of automatically turning on a podcast or even picking up a book as often (aghast!).

But I also need to choose lingering in the silence instead of complaining out loud.

And instead of complaining in my head.

Both are toxic. Both can lead to resentment and bitterness and grievances of “I can’t believe she did that to me!” outrage.

I still can’t control everything (anything?) that pops into my head, including negative people and annoying situations that cause me angst. But I can choose to be aware of these thoughts and stop feeding them.

By choosing to quiet them instead of encouraging them, I’ll create more peace in the world.

Not just peace on the outside, but peace inside my head, too.

Do you complain more when you’re tired and anxious, too? How do you stop it? Please share in the comments.