Lisa notes

Romans 8:38 – Memory Verse for July 17-23, 2022

By LisaNotes July 17, 2022 Memorization No Comments

This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:38.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
Romans 8:38

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SCHEDULE
June 5-11, Romans 8:1
June 12-18, Romans 8:15
June 19-25, Romans 8:26
June 26-July 2, Romans 8:28
July 3-9, Romans 8:31
July 10-16, Romans 8:37
July 17-23, Romans 8:38
July 24-30, Romans 8:39

When You Turn On the Lights
—Grace & Truth Linkup

By LisaNotes July 15, 2022 Encouragement, Grace & Truth Link-Up 12 Comments

We earthlings have been fascinated this week with new images coming to us from outer space.

Who knew this is what we would find in the dark?

Cosmic Cliffs

Cosmic Cliffs. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI


Stephan's Quintet

Stephan’s Quintet. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

But this is what can happen when we turn on the lights.

We discover new things. We see things we’ve never seen before. We glimpse the vastness of our universe in profound ways.

Southern Ring Nebula

Southern Ring Nebula. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The telescope itself is as tall as a three-story building and as long as a tennis court. To fit into the rocket for launch, it had to be folded like origami.

Although it took 30 years to build (not to mention cost $10 billion), I’m still fascinated with the speed we’re getting photos from its journey 1.5 million kilometers away from Earth.

The James Edwin Space Telescope only left our planet Earth last Christmas, December 25, 2021!

james-webb-space-telescope

The telescope works by “seeing” distant stars on its mirrors, which collect and focus light. Its infrared cameras actually see light invisible to human eyes through the dust in our universe.

It is inside those dust clouds that stars and planets first form.

Turning on the lights in our own homes, our own hearts, also reveals things invisible to our naked eyes in the dark…dirt under the couch, dust bunnies under the bed, chaos in the closets.

But even so, light is beneficial. It shows us what is present, things to work on, things we need to do next.

I am grateful for the amazing images that Jesus as Light reveals to me too. He uncovers love for me…

  • in places I didn’t know existed,
  • in people I didn’t know cared,
  • in experiences I never had felt.
Webb's First Deep Field

Webb’s First Deep Field. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

May Jesus—and NASA—keep the lights on.

Show us even more!

Grace & Truth Featured Post

Whether you call them fireflies or lightning bugs, these insects flash their lights to communicate.

Donna encourages us with lessons from the fireflies. We, too, can allow Jesus’s light to shine in and through us to communicate hope and truth to those around us.

Read all of Donna’s post here at her blog, then link up your own blog posts below.

“Shining a Light in the Darkest of Times”

Has Light revealed fascinating things to you too this week? Share your thoughts in the comments.

I’m linking at these blog parties

Review the rules here about adding your most recent Christian Living posts and how to be the Featured Post. Visit all four hosts social media here or websites here: Maree Dee, Lisa notes, Lauren Sparks, Tammy Kennington.

Now Let’s Link Up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Sometimes You Do Nothing

By LisaNotes July 13, 2022 Homeless, My stories 67 Comments

You can count on this: If it’s a horribly hot day—or a bitter cold day—our public library will fill up. With people who are unhoused. With those who have nowhere cool (or warm) to escape to.

That Wednesday was our most extreme weather day yet. I stopped by the library to grab a book, eat some chocolate, and drink a Diet Coke in between errands in town. You have to go to the lounge on the 2nd floor for that.

I’ll tell you what to expect on the 2nd floor of the library: the unexpected.

God was already up there. I knew that. (Where people are, God is.) All manner of people were gathered around the wooden tables sitting in the plastic chairs.

The only person in the room that you’d label conventional was the Coke machine guy doing his restocking.

  • At the closest table to the door were two loud Black brothers talking random things—“Yeah, he tries too hard to be ghetto.”
  • Another table held a disheveled white guy with a tiny Black woman, maybe 19. I’ve seen her around, usually with a different guy each time. As hard as it is be an unhoused man on the streets, it’s even harder to be a woman. Women sometimes find a guy to be their covering, but I’d seen and heard stories of how “helpful” that could be. My heart went out to this girl.
  • A third table held a man in his 40s with a half loaf of bread. He was making a sandwich, muttering under this breath all the while. I could tell he was agitated.

Finally the man making the sandwich could take no more.

“Excuse me,” he started talking with an edge to the Coke machine guy. “There are some people here using crass language and they need to stop. Will you handle that?”

I looked up. What would the Coke guy do? The two men by the door just laughed. I assumed they were the ones being accused of the language.

The poor Coke guy.

He glanced up, barely, and muttered some response. Not much. He sped up his work and got out of there fast.

It crossed my mind to leave, too. I didn’t mind hanging out there, but I didn’t want to get caught in the midst of a brawl. Not prepared for that. Ever. But I stuck around anyway.

What happened next?

Nothing.

The white guy with the girl stood up and stretched. The Black men kept talking, laughing. The sandwich guy kept eating.

I finished my Coke, folded up the other half of my Dove bar for tomorrow, and walked back into the world of books.

Just as God had gone in first, I knew God would stay to the last. That’s what God does. God is always present.

And God likes it when we are present too. If God needs us to do more, God will let us know. And if we’re paying attention, we’ll act on that knowing.

So why had I been at the library that afternoon? No idea. Maybe just to observe. Maybe for someone else to observe. Like many other places I’ve found myself the past few years, I’m just showing up. Once I’m in, if God wants more from me, I’ll find out about it then.

And if not, so be it.

I’m finding contentment in just showing up with God. Stopping my overanalyzing. Releasing my hyper-responsibility to figure things out.

We don’t have to understand all we see. We don’t have to actively achieve something in all we witness.

Sometimes the most important thing we can do is just be present. Trust God to be present, too.

Presence was enough that day in the library.

Image: Sometimes you do nothing

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When have you found doing “nothing” was the right thing to do? Please share in the comments.

revised from the archives

Read More:

sharing at these linkups

Are You Uncomfortable Filling Your Calendar with Empty Spaces?

By LisaNotes July 11, 2022 Encouragement, Now, Release: One Word 2022 33 Comments

The Book on Boundaries

It sounds like a great book. On boundaries. A great subject.

So I pick up a copy at my library.

But the book is boring. It’s repetitive. It’s unhelpful.

Don’t I already know this stuff?

But if I do already know this material—on honoring boundaries—why am I still reading this book, thus ignoring my own boundaries?

What Buffett Said

There is a popular interview between Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Gates is asked what he’s learned from Buffett.

Gates replies that Buffett taught him to “fill his calendar with spaces.”

As Buffett listens, he reaches for his small paper calendar. He opens it to reveal all the empty spaces.

Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, says, “Time is the one thing no one can buy.”

Image: Are you uncomfortable filling your calendar with empty spaces?

Open Your Calendar

If you opened your calendar right now, would you see an overflowing of events, or lots of empty spaces?

If the pandemic taught us anything (and hopefully it taught us a lot of things!), it’s that we can manage with more empty spaces. That we actually need more empty spaces.

There’s a sweet spot between doing too much and not doing enough.

Have you found it?

Prioritize the Empty Spaces

For me, the sweet spot between too much and not enough is a moving target.

While I crave stillness, I still create an impossibly heavy to-do list every day.

So if I truly value empty space like I claim I do, why don’t I prioritize it more often?

Perhaps I don’t schedule more empty spaces because I value productivity more. I value efficiency more.

But in the end, which is really more important?

Practice Being Uncomfortable

So this week, I promise to add more X’s on my daily calendar to indicate open spaces.

It will make me uncomfortable. I will miss out on doing some things that I want to get done.

But learning to live with the discomfort of the unfinished is a valuable skill, too.

For people like me who feel compelled to finish projects, even when they are no longer worth finishing, practicing the skill of walking away—of releasing—may be more valuable than the skill of persevering to the end.

Put the Book Away

So the book on boundaries? I stopped reading it. Right there around page 32.

I removed my bookmark, closed the book, and placed it in the return basket.

To NOT finish a book I start always feels like a small victory for me.

It’s a practice of valuing my own boundaries. Boundaries of interest, of time, of worth.

Perhaps I can learn a lesson from Warren Buffett, too. Including filling my calendar with more spaces.

Creating more empty spaces coincides with my One Word for 2022, Release. 

Read more about time:

I err on finishing even when it’s not necessary, but others err on NOT finishing even when they want to. Which side do you lean toward? What helps you find your sweet spot?

Share in the comments.

sharing at these linkups

Romans 8:37 – Memory Verse for July 10-16, 2022

By LisaNotes July 10, 2022 Memorization No Comments

This week’s memory verse for the 8-8-8 Bible Memory Challenge is Romans 8:37.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:37

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SCHEDULE
June 5-11, Romans 8:1
June 12-18, Romans 8:15
June 19-25, Romans 8:26
June 26-July 2, Romans 8:28
July 3-9, Romans 8:31
July 10-16, Romans 8:37
July 17-23, Romans 8:38
July 24-30, Romans 8:39

I Had to Change My Morning Blessing
—Grace & Truth Linkup

By LisaNotes July 8, 2022 Grace & Truth Link-Up, Prayer 23 Comments

The Morning Blessing

Most mornings I say it aloud.

I put my hands together, point in the direction of their homes, and say this blessing over my daughters, two of my favorite people in the world:

May you be seen.
May you be healed.
May you be loved.

Then I place my hand on my heart. And pray it over myself, too.

These are three things—to be seen, to be healed, to be loved—that everyone needs as they journey through life, both on easy roads and through hard turns.

But does this prayer work?

Image: I Had to Change My Morning Blessing

God Doesn’t Wait on Me

I can’t explain how God does or doesn’t work.

But I do believe God doesn’t wait on my request to send out love. I trust God is always busy loving, always actively working good in people, because that is who God is.

God’s very nature is love and goodness. With or without my request.

But I like to talk with God anyway about what’s on my heart, to let God know I want to be a companion in the work.

Yet lately the blessing I pray has felt incomplete.

It’s Our Business Too

Not as a failure on God’s part. God’s business is constantly seeing, healing, loving.

But this is supposed to be my business, too.

So I’ve expanded my morning blessing over my family and myself to include giving as well as receiving:

May you see.
May you be seen.

May you heal.
May you be healed.

May you love.
May you be loved.

Because often it’s in the doing that we’re most radically transformed.

In the seeing, the healing, and the loving of others, we feel most seen, healed, and loved.

In the giving we learn how to receive.

The One Who Needs It Most . . .

I know my girls are already doing these three things.
My girls don’t need my prayer.

And I know God is already doing these things.
God doesn’t need my prompting.

I am the one who needs to hear it most.
I am the one who needs to say it most.

It is my heart that God works on when I ask for clear alignment each morning for purity and wholeness.

Perhaps I’ll need to alter this morning blessing again as time goes on.

But for today, it feels just right.

Featured Post

In today’s featured post for the Grace & Truth Linkup, Ashley bravely shares what she wish she’d done differently when she felt suicidal, as well as gives us 11 reminders for anyone struggling now with suicidal thoughts.

We all know someone who has either committed suicide or has contemplated suicide. It affects every family to some degree at some point.

It’s a quite complicated and usually misunderstood thing.

Read all of Ashley’s post here at her blog, then link up your own blog posts below.

“Suicidal Thoughts: What I Wish I’d Done Differently”

Share your thoughts in the comments.

I’m linking at these blog parties

Review the rules here about adding your most recent Christian Living posts and how to be the Featured Post. Visit all four hosts social media here or websites here: Maree Dee, Lisa notes, Lauren Sparks, Tammy Kennington.

Now Let’s Link Up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter