Being Known

Written In Loving Memory of Shawn Webster

Hagar in Genesis 16:13 stated “You are the God who sees me.” This was significant for her because she was an outsider who never felt seen, much less known and loved. I love the story of Hagar because she is edgy, flawed, but wanted love so desperately. I can relate deeply to her. We all want to feel known.

I hated middle school. I mean I deeply, deeply hated it. I begged and begged my parents to send me to a different school. But they didn’t. I was bullied, teased, and tormented consistently. Then, we went to high school, and though it was a little better, I still hated it and wanted nothing more than to make new friends in a new place. But God knew better. He knew each of us better it turns out.

There was a period of about six years after high school that I moved away, but I eventually came back. I was out for a run one day and went into a gas station on Haynes Bridge Road, and there was this giant of a man in a Harley shirt and a chain hanging from his wallet getting PowerAde out of the drink cooler. I waited behind him as I needed to get in that same cooler, and when he turned, I saw his eyes. Everything else about him was different, but his eyes were unmistakable. “Shawn Webster” I said, more to myself in disbelief than to him.

“Molly Armstrong! Wow, how are you doing?” The childhood cliques dissolved as we shared about our new lives and what we were up to. I got a glimpse that day that being known by someone has a resonance to it that lengths of time can never break.

We continued to run into each other from time to time and always seemed to pick up where we left off. That was true for several others of our classmates that grew up together and either stayed or moved back to the area. As social media shrunk space between all of us, our graduating class started meeting up at different restaurants to catch up on a more regular basis. We all started getting together more and more and I started dating my husband Vince, also in our class that started out in sixth grade together. One night, we were all meeting up at Branchwater restaurant and as I came in, I saw Shawn sitting with his back to me at the bar. I walked up behind him, and he said “Hey Molly.” I asked him how he knew it was me before he even turned around and he responded turning to me with his smirky smile “Because I know you.”

Being known. I can’t even write about the feeling of it without my eyes brimming with tears. It is probably what I am the most grateful for in my relationships. Being known, being seen, and being loved. God knows me. He knows all of us. He knew each young, awkward sixth grader at Haynes Bridge Middle School in Alpharetta, Georgia over 40 years ago and knew that we would need each other decades later. That every different colored, frayed, ragged thread that he wove together all those years ago would make us feel even more seen, even more known, and even more loved. God truly does work all things (and people) together for good. Even in middle school.

Valleys

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Valleys are not short. It is said that the shortest valley in the world is Badwater Basin in California and that is seven and a half miles. Shorter than many I suppose, but if you are walking, and especially out of shape like myself— not really that short.

For a lot of Christians, Psalm 23 is their favorite passage. Admittedly, it was never mine. The imagery of walking through a valley of the shadow of death and someone preparing a table before me in the presence of my enemies kind of disqualified it as a favorite when I was young.

Recently though, the song “Still Waters” by Leanna Crawford presented this verse to me as an old acquaintance that I never really got to know the goodness of. And the words “…valley of the shadow of death” landed differently to me now.

Lately it feels like this valley of loss and heartache for me and several others that I love will never end. As a Christian, I crave and beg God for the still waters and the green pastures. I beg Him for me as well as for my friends. For the cup running over, for the restoring of all of our souls, and for goodness and mercy all the days of our lives. But just like when I was a child, I realize that I am disqualifying the chapter in its wholeness to edit out the parts that make me uncomfortable.

I learned how to draw shadows with charcoal when I was in art college my freshman year. We were taught essentially to coat our papers in the charcoal’s gritty darkness and coax images and shadows out by adding light with different types of blending sticks and erasers. After a while, even though I understood the process, it never ceased to amaze me how beautiful pieces of art with various gradients of light could come out of darkness that way.

As I have navigated my most recent experiences with grief, the process feels similar to me. The darkness feels enveloping, stifling, and endless, but just rubbing at the darkness and shadows makes light start to peek through. And that is where His restoration seems to take hold of my soul.

I realize that all of the darkness of the loss and fear of loss that myself and so many of my friends are experiencing is blinding us of the light of the relationships etched within that valley of shadows. But the Artist has other plans. Valleys may not be short, but they don’t last forever. God is casting light into the darkness from the home in the heavens He has prepared for us. Where there are no more tears, no more sickness, and no more pain.

Our shepherd leadeth us there.

Lights (Written in Memory of Trevor)

I can remember my excitement as a child holding the candle in the darkened church on Christmas eve, waiting for my father to light my candle so that I could turn and light my sister’s. Staring intently at the flickering flame as my breath threatened to extinguish it, the thin circle of paper at the bottom protecting my hand from the dripping wax. 

And soon, every face in the church would be illuminated by the orange glow of each candle. All of us collectively were illuminating the sanctuary by our small light. 

Now, close to 50 years later, I watch from the choir loft on Christmas Eve as hundreds of candles held in each person’s hands are illuminated once again by the light from one candle at the front of the church. The only family member I have with me now is my grown son, and I watch from a distance as his face glows with the light from his own candle.  

One light into hundreds that illuminate an entire building. We take the light that is given to us and use our own light to light the space around us. The symbolism is obvious, but does it escape us the other 364 days of the year? 

A light. It seems so simple. Just a light. Not a tool to change, lecture, mold, or sculpt someone else. Just a light to light the way — the one way into Heaven. Each light that we choose to hold or not, that still has the purpose to be a direct reflection of the light given to us 2,000 years ago through a child in a manger.

It really is that simple.

Why Church Signs?

Today is Vince’s birthday. I want a church sign to send a dart of healing to my heart like it often does, but it seems you have to get out of the house to read church signs, and I am just not feeling it today.

Somebody asked me recently why I chose to write about church signs. As I have said before, church signs to me are the elevator speech of Christianity in the middle of God’s creation. When used well, it will reach readers right where they are, right when they need it. I have no doubt that God is as proud of the person who created church signs as he is in any missionary in a foreign land living out their ordained purpose to spread His message. The short, targeted messages that church signs provide are like Twitter on a metal sign without the added threads, convoluted comments, and retweets that often get out of control. If you want to make a comment on a church sign, I guess you just need to start a blog post.

The best thing about church signs is that they are outdoors. The sign may have barriers, but the platform doesn’t. One of the most beautiful things to me about the church signs are the color and depth of the landscape and little churches behind it. When I went to art school, they taught us that the artist had to concentrate as much on the background as they did on the foreground. The artist just has to work the design to pull the eye to what they want the viewer to see. The words and meaning of church signs pull me to the forefront, where the background is laced with the color and lines of trees, sky, steeple, and building.

Church signs are a reminder of God’s meaning and handiwork in the middle of what often seems to us as chaos. Words of truth in the middle of a broken world—our little biblical cheat sheets across a variety of landscapes in little towns and side roads. The most frustrating thing to me is that when I take the pictures I can’t fit everything I see into the images. Sometimes, just the scene of the sign on a hill, with a little country church behind it to me is the most breathtaking visual and even more of a reminder that God authored it through someone who was listening.

The last trip that Tommy and I went on last year during this time was out west to Arizona. (It was on that trip that my anxiety of traveling flew into overdrive, but that is another story.) We flew there and drove Route 66 and then sidetracked to Vegas, got back on Route 66 and then drove to the end in Santa Monica, California. I was so excited to get more pictures of church signs in front of churches scattered amongst the desert and western towns when I planned the trip.

We didn’t see ONE church sign. NOT ONE. All that opportunity and not one metal church sign with vinyl black letters. Sometimes I just want to scream and knock some Christians upside the head and say “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!” You have this GREAT opportunity to reach people’s hearts with meaningful, uplifting messages without seeming like judgmental, self-righteous jerks and you ARE MISSING IT. You are MISSING IT!” Church signs are disappearing. Uplifting messages are disappearing, so the chaos in the background is coming into the foreground of people’s hearts and no one is speaking truth into all the noise.

God’s message cannot ONLY live in churches. It needs to be painted across the landscape, with broad strokes of love and encouragement instead of judgement and the desire for vindication or punishment. Sadly, social media is only proving to steal people’s joy by comparisons between their own lives and others. It isn’t improving their lives. I have read church signs that made me laugh, made me think, and made me pull over and cry. But I have never read a church sign that made me feel like other people’s lives were better than mine.

Today is Vince’s birthday. I miss him. I miss him making fun of me for making too big of a deal out of birthdays. I miss him with every single breath I take. But I will write about church signs because it is a way for me to long and reach for where he is rather than focus on where he isn’t.

Gift Giving

Gifts. With the season of gift giving, it is on everyone’s minds. What do our loved ones and friends want? Will it be hard to get? What can we give them that will be more precious than any other gift that has been given to them before?

Last year around this time, my old high school chorus director reached out to me and explained that he had been invited to direct a choir at Carnegie Hall in June of 2024. He asked if I (along with some others he had contacted that he directed over the years) would be willing to participate and perform with him at Carnegie Hall. At the time, I couldn’t imagine saying no. But I hadn’t performed in decades—ions it seemed. I talked to my son about it, and he said “Well, it sounds like you need to join the choir at church. You have talked about it forever… Mom, this will be so good for you. You should definitely do this.” Though he was excited for me to have the opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall, I knew that wasn’t what he was talking about. He was talking about me joining the choir. He was worried about me, everyone was. Ironically, a friend of mine and Vince from high school begged me to sing again after Vince passed, but I thought he had lost his mind. Yes, I had done it in high school, but that was 30+ years ago. This friend had played baseball when we were in high school years ago too, surely, he wasn’t going to dust off his old cleats and hit the field. There was no way I could sing again. It had been way too long. But then soon after that, the note came in from my old music director. And even if your musician days have long been over, how do you say no to Carnegie Hall?

When you lose a spouse, it feels like there has been a massive earthquake where your foundation is just totally gone and unlike an earthquake where it shakes and sometimes breaks, your foundation never comes back. Your best friend is gone, the person who leveled you out is gone, the person who knew you better than anyone is gone. There is such a vast space of emptiness and silence that it seems difficult to navigate through the void and know how to function within the quiet. When Vince was alive, he was truly bigger in every sense of the word than anyone I’ve ever known. Even his voice filled every space within every room that he was in. Though we weren’t married nearly long enough, especially at the age we both were, Vince was the caulk that kept me together. Without him, the fractures in me became more visible where before they had been hidden. The exposure of being who I was now without Vince was crippling emotionally for me. I didn’t want to be the person I was before, I wanted to be the person I was with him because that was the best version there ever was of me. But I didn’t know how to be that person without him.

So, I auditioned for the choir at Mount Paran, the choir that had given me so much through my years of attendance (in person and online) at the church. Mount Paran is a gospel choir of so much talent that it is almost intimidating. Imposter syndrome was slamming me hard, but I practiced “Amazing Grace” over and over, trying to somehow hide my lack of breath control lost from age, my snow machine accident where my lung was punctured, and probably every episode I have had of pneumonia or bronchitis for the last twenty or thirty years. Even though my nerves were at skyscraper heights (which meant I was nervously babbling about things to the extent that they probably had no idea what I was talking about) they still let me in.  And when I say they “let me in” I mean, they welcomed me in. They included me. They even seemed to love me being there. Every broken piece of me.

My anxiety ramped up after the first of the year. Sometimes I could make it to rehearsal and church on Sundays, and sometimes I couldn’t. Sometimes I couldn’t get out of bed, and sometimes I made it all the way to the church and could barely get out of my car in the parking lot. I could do work without a problem, but social environments were crippling for me. But week after week I was greeted with open arms. Grace was given in abundance when I would send in emails that I couldn’t make it. Amazing, unyielding, and undeserving grace and love seemed to be all encompassing.

But when I did make it—I would focus on the crowd and pour my heart into delivering the song with enough power and love that God could reach every soul in the room with our blended voices. And I would pray, “Lord, let me be a vessel… let them feel the overwhelming love through our voices that you have shown to me.” And then I would see one stand… and then another… and then another. It fills me over and over again with the fact that I am able to give a message to them through the music that God blessed me with so many years ago. And unlike many gifts that fade, degrade, or rust over time, the God given gifts that He blesses us with remain in us despite the brokenness—because He is the creator of the gifts, and His gifts never expire.

 I decided a few months ago that I was not going to pursue the trip to Carnegie Hall. But I realized at the same time that God was just trying to get me to do what my sweet friend had tried to do over a year and a half ago. It was about joining the choir. It was never about Carnegie Hall.

 So now I miss less Sundays and practices and am there more and more. God has made the anxiety less and the comfort of sharing the message of Him even greater. It is the gift that I can give through the gift that I was given that keeps me coming back. I want to make more and more people stand when they hear our voices—and raise their hands with gratefulness to a God of the broken reminding them that they are whole in Him.

 I want Heaven to be crowded. What gift could possibly be greater than that?

God's Writing... Macedonia United Methodist Church, February 2023

This one made me mad when I first read it. “That’s dumb. That’s just a dumb sign. What choice did I have?”

We think that God speaks to us in subtleties that we miss if we don’t pay attention. But I don’t think that is true. I think He is pretty obvious. (At least He seems to be for me, probably because He knows how oblivious or obstinate I can be.) Because I drive by this sign what seems like 500 times a week, I knew that He wanted me to write about it… Okay, okay, okay… fine.

Writing something gives us a legacy, it contributes to something that survives long after we do. Emily Dickenson, one of the most famous poets of all time was pretty much unknown during her life. It was only because her sister had the forethought to not destroy the papers stuffed under her bed that her talent was discovered after her death. She never knew during her lifetime what an effect on people and literature that she would have.

My story hasn’t felt like my own this year. It is often said that God is not the author of chaos. And to be honest, I could attribute about every bad outcome that I have faced in my life up until this past year with some screw up on my end. So very often, I wrote my own story—and in turn, my own consequences and thus, my own chaos. Obviously, the death of other people that I also loved dearly was devastating and out of my control as well, but those didn’t alter my entire life path like this did. My dad’s death was shocking, heartbreaking, and I still miss him every day 27 years later, but I know that though there is a void in my life because he is gone, my pathway for life would probably be fairly similar if he were here. It would just have him in it.

My pathway and everything that I hoped the rest of my life would be has changed since we all lost Vince. Everything. When you get married, even later in life, all of your dreams and hopes mesh and interweave themselves together… we were going to do this, we were going to do that, we would see this together, we would hopefully be grandparents together, we would experience this stage of life, I would be there for him in this, and he would be there for me in that.

To be the author is in a sense, to be in control. So, when I read this sign, I thought—how could I have authored this? How could I have controlled it even if I wanted to? And then I realized that even though I couldn’t have authored the event itself, I could author the rest of my story. That is my free choice. That is the choice that He is giving me. I could lay in the fetal position in my bed and refuse to go to work or function at all, or I could outstretch my arms and say to God—"I can’t. I can’t do this without you, I don’t know the middle, the arc, or the ending. I am going to mess it up. Please, please write the rest of the story. I have nothing left within me to move forward without you showing me what to do.”

And that is where I am. I am in the midst of that process of surrender. But He still reminds me that He is the author and that chaos is not. One example is this house where I am living. Moving here was such a blessing to me overall, but it was also really, really hard to do. A huge part of me wanted to stay right where I was in Jasper and keep his hat, his keys, his shoes, his coat, and everything else exactly where he left it. When I was having his house in Alpharetta remodeled for my move, I was having one particularly awful day. A thousand doubts were rushing through my mind, and I constantly questioned whether I was making the right decision—whether I was doing what Vince would have wanted me to do. I went over to the house to meet the remodeler to see the progress. He was building a pantry out of the old master closet making it so that the space would open to the kitchen instead of the living room. I turned the corner into the master bedroom and stopped in my tracks. There was a board exposed from under the paneling and drywall that wouldn’t have been exposed unless that one change was being made to the closet—and there it was. Vince had signed his name on that one exposed board. His parents and I figured out that when they had remodeled that house themselves as a family when they moved from next door before the kids started high school, that Vince, probably bored as he waited to do something, had scrawled out his name on that board. And of all the boards that they added when they added a new living room and master closet changing the old living room to a master bedroom, that one board that only God could have known that I would see in the worst phase of my life, was the one that Vince had written his name on. Vince was about 13 when he wrote his name on that board. He wrote it more than 34 years before we got married and 37 years before he died.

So in that case, Vince was the writer, but God was still the author.

Relationships… Taken in Jasper, Georgia (Unsure of the Date)

If I had written this sign, I think I would have said: “We shouldn’t define the relationship, the relationship should define us.”

Relationships are hard. I am not a psychologist, but I still feel completely qualified to state that relationships are hard, because they are.

We want our relationship—be it familial, parental, marital, friendship, or whatever, to be what we think it should be to fit our needs. We don’t want to admit that, but it’s true. We want the other person to show us they care. We want them to give us what we need. We want the relationship to be perfect naturally, and we don’t want to put a lot of work into it (unless we just want to at that moment and feel that it will be well received). But we want that person to be there for us when we need them, and not when we don’t. And we want them to know the difference, so it doesn’t get uncomfortable. Because being uncomfortable is well… uncomfortable.

But more than anything, we want to be wanted. And we want to be appreciated for all we do, the sacrifices we make, and the extra things that we do to show the other person we care. And if all of that isn’t working smoothly, (which unfortunately sometimes means to our liking) we sometimes think that we should walk away from the relationship.

I have done a deeper dive into my thought processes on relationships in the last ten plus months than I would ever have cared to. Especially my relationship with Jesus. Painful and humbling thoughts about myself and my own expectations and I keep coming to the same foundational thought: relationships are hard, and my relationship with Jesus has a lot more similarities to my other relationship struggles than I would like to admit.

Here is the honest truth that is difficult for me to admit: I want Him to give me what I want when I want it. When I am knocking on the door, I really, REALLY want it to open. And I want it to open in the way that I want it to. And when that doesn’t happen, I don’t understand why. For example, I don’t understand why God gave me Vince and then took him away even though I prayed and prayed that would never happen.

I want Jesus to love me unconditionally, but sometimes in my life, my love for Him has been conditional. (For example: I like this verse, but this other verse makes me a little uncomfortable, so I am just going to keep flipping the pages and read what fits my narrative and not what doesn’t.)

I want Him to reward me for the sacrifices that I make to show my love for Him, but I don’t always want to be reminded of the sacrifice He made to show his love for me. It makes me uncomfortable.

I don’t want Him to have any rules for me, but I have rules for Him. Such as: I love Him, and agree to follow Him, but I don’t want to talk about it too much because I don’t want to make others feel uncomfortable. (There is that word again. It keeps coming up, doesn’t it?)

Here is where I give the disclaimer that not only am I not a psychologist, but I am also not a theologian. I am sure some theologians would have deep issues with me comparing a relationship with Jesus to a relationship with a parent, a spouse, or a friend. But I do think if we look at the way we are with our earthly relationships and our expectations around those relationships—and sometimes unfortunately our own double standards, we will possibly see an important parallel. I think very often we expect Jesus not to have any rules for us—but we have rules for Him. I guess that is why He gave us a choice on whether we would follow Him or not. He knew it wouldn’t be easy. And He wants to be wanted. He wants to be appreciated for the sacrifice he made for us, and He doesn’t want to be taken for granted. He wants us to notice the things He does for us to show us that He cares. He doesn’t want a one-sided relationship where we take His love for us for granted and only choose Him when it is convenient and comfortable.

That part sounds very relatable, doesn’t it?

But unlike us, He will leave the 99 to seek out just one of us because He desires a relationship with us that much. That is where our understanding and concept of relationships (I believe) falls very short. God’s intensity to seek those of us out who are broken is immeasurable and difficult to explain for those who haven’t felt it or opened themselves up to feel it. Because that is really what it takes— opening yourself up. Receiving it. We all want to be loved. And the only one whose love and relationship skills are perfect, we sometimes turn away from.

How ironic is that?

Planting seeds... The New Beginning Baptist Church, taken in July, 2022

One of the reasons that writing prompts are such a great tool for writers to fight the fear of the blank page is that very often the prompt causes a spark—a reminder of something else that takes the brain in a train of thought sometimes in a continued direction, a parallel direction, or a completely sharp turn where the writer presents their own angle of a varying degree.

Our niece and nephew sent me this sign they saw on one of their drives a few weeks ago. This church sign reminded them of me, and in turn, its message reminded me of Vince— his perspective on keeping life fun and full of animals, humor, laughter, plants, friendships, and other things that he could watch grow.

Most people know that Vince was a successful landscaper. If you asked him what he did for a living, he would call himself a “landscraper” but not in the literal sense of scraping off the virtues of the land, because he lived in just the opposite of that ideal. He loved watching the vitality that came with nature and its growth. (His answer was just another display of him never being serious and answering a question about what he did for a living wasn’t any exception to that rule.) Vince could grow anything. Due to his horticulture degree at UGA, he knew anything and pretty much everything about plants. Most often he could rattle off the scientific name for a plant before he would tell you the known name. What he grew, he grew in large quantities, and in very healthy, fruitful varieties. He had a following of people that would stop by his house in Alpharetta year after year for his blueberries, blackberries (the biggest you’ve probably ever seen), and sometimes strawberries and pumpkins. He was always about planting seeds and being fascinated with their growth.

The seeds he planted, I realized especially in his absence, have been of many different varieties. One of those varieties is the seeds he planted for the two of us here in Jasper, with the initial building of the pond and dock, the fences, his love for the animals, for me, and the vision of this place overall. I had my own visions for the inside, but his vision for the outside of our home and the property was all his. And I still see it every day I walk out our door. One of the other seeds he planted was his friendships. I have come to the realization that even he did not recognize the strength in what he planted years ago when he was young, or how those friendships would eventually hold the rest of us together after he left.

Yesterday I went to the wedding of one of his best friends, Shawn. Vince laid claim to Shawn being one of his best friends for much longer than I can. But Shawn was one of the first people I turned to on the worst day of my life and despite getting the word out and helping to organize the extra support that I would need when I got home, he was also somehow able to manage putting his own devastation aside to talk me home on the rest of my eight hour drive. Vince planted that seed of friendship decades before without having known what fruit it would bear. Even with the gratefulness I have for Shawn and the bond of friendship we have now more than ever, I still struggled for months on whether I was going to be able to go to Shawn’s wedding without Vince there with me. But the reward of the happiness of the occasion, the hugs and the swapping of stories with countless friends whose ties went all the way back to elementary, middle, or high school with Vince and I made missing him being there sting a little less. And I was again reminded me of the community of strength and support that we were raised in. Those seeds are strong—that community of growth, love and friendship is even stronger.

Many of his friends know that several of us are forming a group in honor of him called the “Good Neighbors.” We are going to keep the love and support going for this amazing community of people (Milton alumni and their families) that we grew up with by doing service acts for each other and our families much like the projects that were done for me after his passing. Because life unfortunately can knock us down sometimes. But those friendships and “family” vines that grew over the years have more strength than we realize to hold us up when it does.

Here's to you Vinny.

Broken pieces...Macedonia United Methodist Church, Alpharetta, Georgia August 1st, 2022

Broken pieces.

Legend tells of Ernest Hemingway writing the shortest short story or “flash fiction” to win a bet. “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” I say legend, because it is surmised that he did not in fact write it. But really, it doesn’t matter who the writer was because it was written. The story still exists and even now continues to resonate the deepest pain that anyone can imagine because of the imagery it evokes. The story lives on—all because someone felt it and then wrote it and readers found it relatable due to some emotional chord deep within them that may have existed way before the words were ever written down.

Writing is only words on a page (or this case, a church sign) if it isn’t relatable to the reader. Without meaning that strikes a chord of relatability, there is no purpose in writing. In a commentary written in 2009 by Al Filreis, he stated that Americans read or hear upwards of 100,000 words in a day. If that is true, we are deluged by words (probably more so now than in 2009 with social media) so much that it makes the words that we remember, those words that shake or stir our emotions or even change our mindset, fewer and further between. But when it does happen, it makes the reader’s mind cast a scene in which they witness the events unfold. And very often, more often than not, it is because those words are relatable to the heart of the reader in some way. For example, most people that are shaken by the story Baby Shoes, have either witnessed or experienced grief firsthand, or hold it as their worst fear. Which is probably most everyone.

This sign, “Bring your broken pieces to God” evokes that same type of imagery, don’t you think? What person can’t relate to being broken and injured, feeling that even their broken pieces are so damaged that nothing makes sense anymore, that nothing can fix them? When I read these words the other day, I was grateful for the horseshoe entrance at the church, because I had to pull over. It sparked that imagery reel in my mind of laying the shards and jagged edges of my brokenness at Jesus’s feet. “Here I am Lord, broken. I have nothing left. Nothing but my brokenness, but I lay it all, all of it at your feet.”

What a humbling prayer. In a world where image means so much, no one wants to show their true brokenness. That just isn’t an attractive quality. The friendships and relationships that are the treasured rarity are the ones where we feel that we can truly be ourselves without the feeling of being judged as not enough or unworthy of the love we are shown. But those are so rare. Some of us would like to think we have experienced them, either by our parents, our friends, or our “person,” but have we truly? Are we truly always enough for those people no matter how we act or what we do? Is there never, ever, any judgement in even those relationships? I would venture to say that there probably still is to some degree, at some point, even in the strongest of bonds. Everyone has a weak moment. One where our patience or love is tested. But that is because we are human.

God isn’t human. He wants us to reveal our brokenness to Him, because it shows our closeness and trust in Him. He creates us as a whole vessel, but through our free will and the free will of others, our vessel breaks. Sometimes even shatters. He is okay with taking all the pieces in submission to Him even if we are the ones responsible for the breaking. Those pieces are valuable to Him because He loves us. Broken pieces and all. And somehow, in some way, He puts those pieces back together, showing His glory in the process so that everyone knows how to receive that type of healing. And the receiver feels it. Feels that healing, feels the jagged edges smooth out again and writes about it. And in this case, the writer put it on a church sign so that someone who could relate to the feeling of being broken could find healing and maybe even tell others about it.

Words are powerful.

Be Still... Gospel Way Baptist Church, Dahlonega Georgia July 17th, 2022

My dad’s last words were: “BE STILL Molly!”

I was in a full panic because I knew deep down that I was losing him. The nurses were rushing him into the ICU because he was unresponsive. I said “NO!! I will get him to respond!!” And I proceeded to block the path of his bed in the hallway and scream at him to wake up. And that’s when he said it. Or mumbled it actually. But they took him anyway and left me crying there.

It wasn’t until several years later that I came to realize that the phrase “Be Still” is found multiple times in the Bible. And the irony was undeniable that those were my father’s last words to me. When I was a kid, he was adamant that I learn the control of nature and how to battle it by calming my mind and body. When we went to Hawaii for example, he taught me that when we were pulled by the current, if we tried to fight it, we would tire and drown, but if we swam with it calmly in a diagonal line, that we could get out of it with energy to spare. He provided example after example of people that died or almost died because they thought they could fight or control nature’s force. It was pretty much the baseline of his parenting all the way up until his death. Those lessons have helped me survive countless events long after he was gone.

Anxiety is no joke. I can’t speak for anyone else, but to me it feels like a train wreck of intense despair, paranoia, powerlessness, and suffocation all at the same time. It is like a furious emotional struggle to the surface to suck in a breath and survive your thoughts that are yanking you down into a black hole of depression devoid of any hope. And I think my dad knew that, even in the state that he was in that day. He knew he had to remind me one last time to just be still.

The anxiety I felt that day waned for the last 26 years until five months ago. Now it tries to toss me about in the strongest current I have ever experienced. But God.

This sign (though the verse number appears to be a mistake) was a reminder to me of the way I have regained my peace in moments of desperation and hopelessness over these last almost three decades since losing my dad. Slow down, physically and emotionally, and “Be Still.” Because in the same way Jesus calmed the wind and the waves that tossed the boat about, He can calm the waves of torment in my mind and heart and slow my roll. When I read the words of this sign as I pulled my car over to stop, I could hear His command as clear as I can still hear my dad’s voice as He reminds me to just “Be Still.”

Seek the Lord... Wears Valley Baptist Church, TN July 4th, 2022

When I saw this sign, I tried to complete it incorrectly with “and lean not on your own understanding,” which I could write a book on. But of course, that is not this verse. The verse I was thinking of is Proverbs 5-6 where it states: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”

I am anything BUT a Bible scholar, but the saying on this sign actually seems to be a condensed version of phrasing that is found in several different verses such as in Deuteronomy 4:29-31 where it states:

“But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul.”

Or, in Jeremiah 29:13 where it states “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

And actually, I didn’t do a deep dive, but I found over fifty verses that talked about seeking the Lord. So obviously, it is important.

When I think of the word “seek” I think of playing that game “Hide and Seek” when I was a kid and always sucking wind because I was never a good runner. And of course, EVERY game back then seemed to involve some version of tag (which I hated ALL versions of.) So, already, just after reading this sign, I dumped all my emotional baggage at the base as if to say “But God, why? Why do I have to seek you?”

I can only suppose it would be because he wants to be wanted, which I can completely relate to. So, since His desire is for us to desire a relationship with Him, and He gives us free will, He wants us to use it to find Him. AND— by giving us free will, God also gives us the freedom of whether we decide to choose him or not. Despite how much he loves us and sacrificed for us, he still wants us to choose.

Talk about religious freedom.

But he doesn’t just say “Seek me…” he follows it up in these verses with “…with all your heart.” So, this says to me, be all in or don’t expect to find Him.

So my lackadaisical, lack of commitment “Hide and Seek” playing wouldn’t cut it for God. He doesn’t want me to keep an eye out for base and never venture too far from it just to make sure I can tag someone when they dart back to base without me actually running too much. (Duh, you KNOW I had a strategy ;) ) No— he wants me to dig in and commit with everything I have.

I will be honest, it seems like I have a little bit of an unfair advantage to this now, because Vince was my person— 100%. When he was here with me, most of my focus would be on him, and everything else (besides Tommy) would get the remainder of me. But God doesn’t want the remainder, he wants all of me. Which is easier to do when you are broken and the void that is left from the empty space your person occupied is wider and bigger than any space you can define.

So here I am, seeking God with a shattered heart. Searching and seeking His messages on church signs, backroads, and anywhere else I can find Him. And even though I am the one that is seeking, despite the free will, He is still leading me.

Down on my knees is where I learn to stand -- West Maryville Church sign July 3, 2022

The first time I heard a variant of this phrase was when I was listening to a woman’s testimony after her sister was murdered. She gained the ability to stand the pain of her grief through prayer she said. I couldn’t fathom it.

Though every grief experience is entirely personal, and very different in many ways for each individual, I think I was 10 when I heard her testimony, and I never forgot it. Those words stood out to me then, and they relate to me now in a different way even 40 years later.

The motivation of this entire project is to write my way through grief. I found that motivation through prayer. But it took a while to get there.

Grief is the most powerful emotion I have ever experienced. In fact, it is an entanglement of a myriad of emotions and physical effects. It affects your memory, your physical health, your goals, your mental and emotional stability, the way you form sentences, and the people around you who feel powerless to help. It knocks you to your knees. Seems an apt place to pray, doesn’t it?

My first prayer went on for hours, maybe days when I learned of Vince’s death. “Oh God…” That was my prayer— more like a plea I guess. It was all I could say. I couldn’t find any words for anything else, except crying out to God for some kind of comfort. Some kind of solace. Some kind of hope. Somewhere.

My prayers felt thin— stringy. The words were only words, the power behind my delivery was none existent. So, still without anything substantial besides my pleads to God, I repeated the Lord’s prayer, over and over and over again. …”On earth as it is in heaven.” Then hymns started flooding to my memories as I laid in bed unable to function, so I would repeat the words over and over to myself as best I could remember: “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand… all other ground is sinking sand…” and “Surely it is God who saves me. I will trust in him and not be afraid…” But I was afraid. I was terrified, numb, and shattered. But I said it anyway. And I just kept repeating the Lord’s prayer, and the disjointed (in my head) hymns. Then, slowly, my prayers started evolving back into conversations again. Piece by piece.

My situation hasn’t changed unfortunately, but I have. I was able to get there through prayer. Even just muttering “Oh God” led me on my way back to where I was before. I am functioning better, and feel more grounded. Because I am more grounded. I can stand now.

Why Church Signs? →

Church signs are the elevator speech of Christianity. Sometimes they can level us out, give us a new perspective, or just honestly slow us down on our progression past them if we are paying attention. And maybe that is the point. All of that. Slow down, level out, pay attention, and provide a new perspective. A hope.

Hope is what I need now more than ever, and what I want to share as I search for it. Through this blog, I will explore the words used in the signage, the message behind them, and the form of ministry that these signs in turn, create.

This is a project dedicated first to the Glory of God who nudges me toward everything— this project included. Sometimes a “God nudge” is more akin to a whisper than a nudge. Sometimes it is a full blown shove. Sometimes we are looking for it, and sometimes it catches us off guard. Very often, it seems to catch me off guard; in some cases through the canvas of a plastic and metal sign on a hill in front of a church. I have felt pulled to do this project for years, but didn’t. It came down to the fact that I didn’t take the time to pull over and stop. Then, while grieving, feeling completely lost and alone, I saw the sign below. That was my God shove.

This project is also dedicated to my husband Vince who, when I told him that I wanted to tour the country to photograph and write about church signs— he said “Let’s do it!” So, I’m going to pretend that he is still right here with me as I travel around. Telling me how to drive, and encouraging me on.