My fingers hurt

Sitting in silence after listening to part of Brennan Manning’s book ABBA’s CHILD, I am called to write. My fingers are numb, they hurt from this morning’s walk with Bailey. My mind flashes back to toeless, house less people in the hospital and my fingers ache all the more. I touched his toes without gloves and asked about his situation. My fingers are warm now and I have nothing more to say.

Art Your heart

“In the beginning, God - “CREATED (the students shouted)!”

“So, what does that make God? An artist (the students shouted again)!”

“AND we were created in His image, so what does that make us? Artists! (Their final shout and we were off to the races with questions and creating)”

The students were very literal and it was fun to use the CPE wheel to take the two opportunities I felt missed with them and reincorporate, integrate, affirm, and try again today. My soul is longing to see what they will create today. I cannot wait. If you get a chance - Art Your Heart today… if you don’t know what that means? It’s really just an invitation to make some marks on a page. Ask yourself, what color is my heart today and invite God in to mend or praise or… art your heart.

Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, ask public as a city on a hill.- Matthew 5:13-16

Friend

Woke up with the word friend on my mind/heart.

There are different kind of friends, acquaintances, friends, best friends, soul sisters…

There are possessive friends, argumentative friends, loud friends, quiet friends, impatient friends -

I think within us all - are all the things to some degree…

The loving friend is the best kind. The friend that considers others first. Jesus thought of us first and on this stage may we find a friend in Jesus aka love.

ANXIETY

ANXIETY unfortunately it’s the word of the afternoon! Ick. Clouds rolled in and doubts, projections, and fear of the future. Guess where I went to displace? IG or FB, but when I went to type it in my app search bar to find on my Home Screen - it wasn’t there. Crazy how deep that pathway must be that I reach for my device to displace the unease in my gut. So here now I am writing about it on day 6/28. Found my way into my cozy bed and am giving myself grace for bit. The enemy of our soul knows when we are onto something that is supposed to set us free. He won’t have the last say and I am thankful for that today.

Epigenetics

Epigenetics is the study of how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes, epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change your DNA sequence, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence.

Every wonder and think our sins and the sins of our forefathers changed the way we operate? I think there’s something there. The Body Keeps The Score - all intentions to get through that book, but couldn’t it was too meaty! I am setting my mind to read more these days - no more IG or FB means more IRL.

Obedience in surrender?

3am I awoke with the song More by Red Rock Worship and a song called Surrender rolling in my head. The prompting? It’s time to delete FB and IG. My accounts had been hacked back in October. They are all linked, its been tricky. They’ve been a detriment to me for a while. I walked into the office and began to try and figure out in the middle of the night how to delete these accounts, not easy! Looks like they are due to be gone on an anniversary date of which I won’t go into right now. There’s only love in the heart of God. I feel I am being called to surrender and I believe there’s an aspect of obedience in that process? I want to explore this more. Laying down old chains and taking up my new name.

Criticism.

Pin your vulnerable layout or artwork up on the board - the class, the coworkers - ready to give feedback.

Constructive, corrosive, counterintuitive… where does your mind naturally go to? This question reminds me that I easily get sucked into negativity. Reminders to rise above are always good, yes? By all means I am not perfect at this task, always a WIP. I long to be the type of person that can take any sort of criticism and instead of being defensive - dissect, differentiate, divide, and discuss. Not sure I have a story with this one today, but am promising myself to write for 28 days and it’s day 3/28. A reminder that we must do the work to look in, If something rubs us the wrong way… there is a reason for that. Let’s start asking ourselves questions. Are we still teachable???

Conditioning

Woke up thinking about conditioning and probably should be on the peloton treadmill right now, but wanted to get words on a the page. Here’s more of the story…

What does the word conditioning mean in the context I am going to write about? Conditioning in terms of psychology - The process of training or accustoming a person or animal to behave in a certain way or to accept certain circumstances. You know like Pavlov’s dog experiment thing? I think? I don’t really remember the experiment too well.

One of my earliest memories as a child is at my maternal grandparents house. It was Christmas Day. I was kneeling in front of a big wrapped box. Next to me sat one of my cousins with the exact same box. She was much more excited than me, chomping at the bit to rip the paper and tear into what would be our new famous Rainbow Bright Dolls. Now, I smile at her joy as she squealed and ripped open the paper as FAST as she could. I feel sad for the little girl next to her who was embarrassed to display her excitement and emotion because she thought it was bad behavior.

I sat hands folded, waiting and knowing in my five-year-old mind that showing that emotion was not ok. Conditioned at a young age to be in control, conditioned into “Good Kandyce.” I’ve cried for that little girl. She stuffed a lot of emotions. So much so it contributed to more explosive outbursts of emotions when I would go through my first manic/psychotic episode at twenty-nine years old. And that little girl would be so embarrassed and ashamed because she knew showing excitement, joyfulness was seen as judgement or being out of control of her emotions. What does this have to do with anything? I am not a parent, but if someone happens to stumble upon this - I think conditioning needs to be looked at. I’m not parental expert, I am not psychologist, I am not a scientist - but I do know social conditioning is a thing. Be careful about how your speaking about your child and the other children that they interact with. Judgement and conditioning form neuropathways. Judgement of others should never be a neuropath we condition into our children. With grace I say… look in, look up and start uncovering where it’s coming from. If we are still living and breathing, we can conform to a new Way, a new neuropath.

Romans 12:2

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will."

Where Does the story Begin???

Where does the story begin? I think that’s the hardest part. High school? My motto was “Smile Always.” But no, this morning the word psychosomatic has been placed on my mind. Do you know what the word means?

Psychosomatic is a physical illness or other condition exaggerated by a mental factor such as internal stress or conflict.

Conflict, stress. It’s all relative, right?

We are unique beings living in the same time period with systematic and singular storms. The vessels that carry us through our different experiences are unique.

Maybe some of us have luxurious yachts where we can hunker down in fear in the bottom of the vessel while the captain takes on the views of the wild ocean. Maybe some of us have a dingy and we are courageous and excited to take the ocean salt spray right to the face - the storm exhilarates us and we have hope that the storm will pass. Maybe some of us are in a tug boat… I mean this metaphor could go on for a while - if you’re a boat person… choose one.

The storm hit in the summer of 2022. My wild mind was back. Jesus likes to teach me lessons through experiences.

Oregon Coast a short getaway when the chaos our world feels too much. A quick two hour drive and we arrived at one of our favorite beaches. The sunny hot day was a warm welcome as summer had arrived later than normal.

Lots of layers to the story, but on this particular day on the toasty beach while I waited for my handsome surfer, I was getting frustrated. We’d forgotten the snacks, water, and shade tent. Thankfully, there was sunscreen - delirious from lack of sleep, I opened the blue bottle and the contents poured out everywhere - tears started to roll. Our dog was barking, I needed shade, water, I needed comfort. The thing about mania is sometimes you can start to distrust everyone. The mind plays tricks and paranoia sets in. Feelings are so intense, I can almost reach out and touch them. The brain makes connections too. With sunscreen a mess all over, I started thinking about every mom I ever knew that took her kids to the beach. I thought about every time I had passed judgement on parents that I perceived didn’t have it together. I sobbed, snot and all. Conclusion? I was a bad person. I leashed our dog and the two of us found our way to a shade tree, laid against the strong base, and I cried. Bystanders walked by and didn’t stop. Another lesson which I already knew, but was reinforced - tears - stop, be the comfort.

So what does this have to do with the word psychosomatic? How can I tie it up neatly in a bow? I can’t… yet - but hang with me.

DEUTERONOMY 31:8

"Do not be afraid, or discouraged. The Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; He will never fail or abandon you.”

The cloud that goes before

Captured on a night beach walk. Lights from a distant city illuminating a cloud. Reminds me of God and His promise to go before us - also remind me of the parable of Jesus’ city on a hill. Let’s be the light in the dark, the cloud of grace that shows people the way.

SPRING

plush tricky clouds
wide canvas skies

renaissance hues
dark humorous hail
crisp sunny smiles

lacerations of light
claps of anger
droves of tears

watch me
weep with me
shift with me

I’ll keep you
guessing

SPRING

Walla walla

a Sunflower lined field
a suspender lined back

a checkered blue and white shirt
a bucket and baggy jeans

sweet meat cantaloupes
fuzzy poised peaches 
pine green watermelons 

a trunk full, every trip home 
“Sissy, they’ll keep in the ice box.” 

the red havens intoxicating the car ride west…
away from our home home we go

Remain



feed me 
the anger
grows

grace is lost 
love is
hidden

wild minds
can’t be
cracked

wastelands left
hearts
harmed 

find the way 
back
to me 

recover me

adjust the way
and
we will 

makes amends 

treasure time
it is
short-lived

faith, hope, love 
remain