Learning to Live by Faith

Transcript:

Okay, so I wanted to do a post where I tell you a little bit about myself.

My name’s Lisa Weidley. I’m 43 years old, and I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee. and I’m a hymnwriter and I thought maybe by talking some of this through It’ll help me, you know, with getting out of this flare-up that I’m having of eosinophilic esophagitis. So,I started having chronic health problems when I was 16 years old. Before that, I had always been a quiet child. They always thought of me as like shy or nervous.

And I always had really bad stage fright so it was really difficult for me to play in front of people. I didn’t play very much in front of people. So I play the flute and piano, and then by the time I was in middle school and high school, I’d start playing in more things at school on the flute. I was going to more competitions and things like that, and I really enjoyed playing, but it was really stressful…getting out there on stage, and then in my sophomore year of high school, I started getting sick and It took a long time to get a diagnosis, so that was 1999 when I started getting sick. and it was 2010 when I got the diagnosis of EOE, Eosinophilic Esophagitis and Gastroparesis And in 2012, I got the diagnosis of mind body syndrome.

So EOE is a rare disease and it wasn’t really being diagnosed at the time that I got sick. So. I got lost in the system. I think a lot of people have had the same experience where They were diagnosed with having anxiety or generalized anxiety disorder.

got lost in those years of just trying different anxiety medications or medications to try and help with that. But there was something else going on. So.

So, like I had said, people thought that I was a shy or nervous child, and it was really more than that. I process the world differently, so mind-body syndrome is a central nervous system processing disorder. And EOE is an allergic immune condition. It’s where you have white blood cells in your esophagus.

And it’s that they attack the tissue there, and they’re not really supposed to be doing that. So you’ll have trouble with food. You’ll have allergic reactions to food. So, again, at the time I started getting sick, I didn’t know about um

Thankfully people are more familiar with now. Like about being a highly sensitive person. There’s that book by Elaine Aaron and um All of these holistic treatments, I didn’t know about any of that. It took you know it was through those years of being sick that thankfully I did find them and they really helped. But um…

I’ve lost my train of thought, but I didn’t know about them then, but I found them during that time, and what I’ve learned is that, um,My mind-body processes things differently that shows up with that Allergic immune condition. I processed foods differently. There were foods that other people could eat that I couldn’t eat Without having a reaction and I take in information differently. there’s a lot of benefits to that, you know, that’s, you know, I’m musical and so It can be a good thing and then it’s something that…um…part of it for me is a disorder where I have trouble. It takes me a lot of times to process things, really think things through. So…Music was always healing for me. I started playing the piano when I was about three years old. That was when my mom bought a piano.

We had it here at the house and I started playing it. So…

Even though I didn’t have the diagnosis or didn’t know as much about it, I knew that it helped me when I played music. So when I would go to school, I would get home and then I would play on the piano for about 30 minutes not every day but It was therapeutic, so I played music therapeutically to process my feelings. It was always helpful.

That’s the main way that I have played, because I struggle to play in front of people I’m trying to work through that stage right now.

But like I said, people are much more familiar with these things now and more accommodating of it if you’ve got a processing problem. So I’m not a practitioner of any of the holistic techniques. They’ve been really helpful to me. But what I can talk to people about is It was in 2012 when I started seeing a counselor that used the holistic techniques, and she taught me how to meditate. And it was when I was doing the meditation or any of the other techniques that God was showing me that you could put imagery from the Bible in with your meditation and Have it be as part of your quiet time. So that’s what I can talk about. And so that was 2012 when I started with those techniques and meditating and using imagery. And

Then, it was in March of 2014 that I started writing hymns. So

I’m trying to get my thoughts together here. Some of what I learned with those healing techniques was how to get a new pathway and how to get a new thought pathway a new neural pathway.

It’s a new path for your thoughts to take, and it would take too long for me to talk about it right now, but that brings a lot of healing. And I’m trying to think of a way to talk about it briefly, but you might be familiar with some of the terms cause Thankfully, people know so much more about it now. There are terms like If you’re retuning your nervous system, it’s talking about building capacity and resilience. And, Again, I’m not a practitioner of the techniques. What I can talk about is how you can use music to do that. And how you can…That is actually what you’re doing when you’re studying the Bible.

You’re building capacity. You’re expanding that framework in your mind. because a lot of what is involved in processing your environment, the things that Don’t go through the things that you get stuck on, the things that are traumas are when, you know, It’s not resolved. You’re stuck on that question of why, and you’re trying to…write…find a way to write the story of that event in a way that it’ll process through. And In my other voice notes, I’ve talked a little bit about the struggles that you’re looking for answers and I found those answers by studying the Bible and then when you can apply those if you’re trying to resolve something or trying to work through a symptom that you’re having.

you can use this biblical imagery and the, you know, the biblical principles. The answers to my questions were there.

And so I was learning the language of the body. That’s one thing that you learn how to do. Your body is communicating to you through symptoms. There’s a message you’re supposed to get through that. And so I learned those techniques and learned how to process those messages. I experienced really great healing and I did really well for about 12 years and then I’ve been having this flare up. And I’m really hoping to get out of it soon. So I was you’re learning about your unconscious mind and things that are stored there and you’re trying to process through and resolve things I was making a lot of progress with that and I started writing hymns in 2014 and it was really healing for me and then I was the way that I worked was I would be feeling a really intense stressor.

Well, I guess I should just talk a little bit about myself was that.

when I was I started getting sick around the time I was 16 and part of the reason I, uh, they thought I was just stressed was because my parents were getting a divorce. And

that was stressful, but that still got lost in that system. And then, 2012,It was during that time I was I had gotten a diagnosis and then I was getting a divorce. So I was trying to heal from that. Anybody who’s been through that knows that if you have a divorce, it just has a certain type of energy with it that you’re trying to work through. A certain type of anger or…

bitterness you know something that you’re you’re trying not to be overwhelmed by it and so um if I was feeling, I would feel the stress energy and I would pray and ask God for a melody. I would pray for words to them. He would give me that. It was like…doing a puzzle in a certain sense of it you’d get the words put together and then I would when I would feel the same stressor, I would start singing that hymn. So I would stop the old thought patterns. I would sing through the hymn. It had very healing energy to it. and was able to develop new thought pathways that way. So what happens with that is it’s like brain training and you get to the point where When you’re feeling that certain stressor, you actually start hearing the music in your head instead of having the old thoughts.

That’s how you can move forward and start, you know, keep going on your healing process. That works with the new hymns that I’ve written. It also works with all of these hymns out of the older hymns. And the hymns out of the hymnals, they all have so much imagery in them, such healing imagery. One thing that I found in studying the Bible and studying the older commentaries is that the answer that you find of how to feel better or how to heal is to be spiritually minded. John Owen, who was a pastor in the 1600s, wrote a book about being spiritually minded. It’s really, really helpful. I hope to talk about it sometime. But that’s the key. So as Christians, the key for our healing is you’re setting your mind on the things above, on the things of God.

The way you do that is by studying his word, learning about him, and using that imagery from the Bible, really intentionally focusing your mind on that. And one way that you can really, that’s really very healing to do that is to use the hymns and imagery that’s there.

So, again, I experienced a really tremendous healing in 2012, and I did well for about 12 years after that, then I’ve been stuck in this flare-up. And what I’m trying to work through with that right now…Some of it is for the hymns that I’ve written. I haven’t played them in front of people yet. I’ve only played them for a few people…and…Because I still have the stage fright, I’m still trying to work through that.

And so I had stage fright before when I was playing hymns and music that I had not written. And so what I’m finding now, as I’m trying to…get comfortable playing the hymns. There’s an added element there that I’m playing words that I had written that are about, like…my personal emotions and I haven’t done that before so I don’t know if that’s somewhat connected to this flare up because The reason I always loved music was You can communicate things through music that you can’t necessarily put into words. It’s a language of itself. You connect to the feeling of the music. and you’re able to express your emotions through the way that you’re playing, just the…

Because I’m an instrumentalist, not a singer, so I learned how to communicate just through the sound of music. And I think a lot of that was because I didn’t know how to put words with what I was feeling. We didn’t know as much about that when I was growing up, so it wasn’t until I got sick and was looking for answers, like trying to find a diagnosis, I learned to start processing through things. And so it was really big progress to be able to put words with my feelings when I started writing hymns. But It’s kind of how it’s ended up is I’ve written songs about things that I can’t really talk about. Just…It’s still a process for me of learning how to talk about my feelings or things like that. I don’t know if that’s…and all, like, what’s happening here with losing my voice. All this unconscious stuff is manifesting here. So…That’s why I’m hoping that just by talking about it and trying to put the music out there and Find people that connect with it. It can help me get out of this.

If you’re familiar with the polyvagal theory of fight flight and freeze, what’s going on for me is I’m stuck in a deep freeze.

and I’m trying to get out of that.

So, again, I posted one of my hymns on here. It’s called Only You. and so I hope I made sense in what I was saying part of what I’m having trouble with is just getting my thoughts going. So I get frozen And I really think that people can find the music and connect with it.

Hopefully I’ll experience healing here again and be able to get out of this deep freeze. I was going to talk about an example of imagery that can be used. I might do that as a separate post, just so that you can find it. easily if you wanted to listen to it again so I really hope it’s working to post these voice notes I hope you can hear me I can hear it when I listen to it on my computer, but I hope that you can hear it. and Thank you for listening and I’ll post that imagery in a separate post, and I hope that you find it helpful.

I’m currently having a really bad flare-up of Eosinophilic Esophagitis and I have lost my voice. I want to try posting a voice note on here of me whispering and see how that works.

This is a transcript of the voice note:

Alright, so I wanted to try posting a voice note on here and see if it works. I’m not sure if you’re going to be able to hear me, but I’m going to try.

 and use this speech-to-text app that’ll put a transcript up too of what I’m saying.

 I’ve been posting, like, written posts, but it’s easier to just talk. So I was going to try it this way.

 What I’m hoping that this website will be is a resource of devotional materials and also recordings of hymns.

 What really made a difference in my life was when I started doing daily quiet times.

 about 30 minutes a day, and a lot of times I would play through hymns too. So what I’m going to try and do on here

 as I still do daily quiet time, so I’m going to try and post about what I’m studying.

 that day. So whatever commentary I was reading from, whatever I was studying about, post it on there. And then also be trying to have

 hymn recordings posted so that people can

 spend time listening to devotional materials and then playing through hymns and if you do that 30 minutes a day

 every day, it can really change your life. So the, um,

 The website is called Learning to Live by Faith. So what I was going to talk about today is just talk some about what that means.

 And so, let’s start out by saying, what is faith? What does the word faith mean? When I was growing up,

 I think I thought of faith as belief. You’re believing in something. I had that book.

 about the little engine that could. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

 If you just put all your energy towards something and set your mind to it, you can make it happen. And I think that is a type of faith.

 That’s what I thought growing up in the church. I thought of faith as believing.

 I would pray to God, and everybody’s probably had this experience of you have something going in your life, you pray about it,

 You believe that God can help you keep praying and then things don’t change or what you were praying for doesn’t happen.

 I remember feeling like when I was little, I thought, well, but I believed.

 I thought I had done everything right. I believed. I prayed. But then things didn’t change. And so…

 It was about when I was in the sixth grade that I started doing

 quiet times on my own. I just started reading the Bible. I had a one-year Bible, and I started reading through that, trying to find these answers.

And so I’m trying to share now what I learned over the years. and Hoping that it’ll help.

 I’m hoping to find people who want to study the Bible together and talk about it.

 I had written a post on here about what is faith.

 And there’s a Charles Spurgeon sermon that’s really, really helpful if you have time to listen to it.

 And he defines faith, Spurgeon defines faith as believing God is who he says he is and that he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do.

 So faith is belief. There has to be an object for your belief. So for Christians, Jesus Christ is the object of our faith.

 We believe he is who he says he is. and That he’s going to do what he says he’s going to do. and

 in order to really be able to put your faith in him, I needed to know who he was. And the more you learn about him,

 And the more time you spend studying the Bible, the closer you grow to Him, your faith increases. So…

 There’s one book by John Gill. It’s called Doctrinal Divinity that I started reading in 2022

 and it was extremely helpful. He starts out by doing a lot of chapters about the attributes of God

 So that’s one thing I want to be talking about on here. If you learn about who God is about his

 His goodness, His love, His mercy, His grace, and also His almighty power. And you’re focusing on that.

 and spending time meditating on that. Again, you grow closer to Him.

 And it’s easier to put your faith in Him. And

 These will be things that I’ll take time to talk about over time. That’s the one thing I’m having trouble with now during this flare up, I’m having trouble concentrating

 but in that Spurgeon sermon about faith, he says that faith has three elements, knowledge, belief, and trust.

 So…

 There’s a Bible verse that talks about how can they believe if they haven’t heard. So it’s important to tell people about Jesus and to be

 teaching them from the Bible. And then, so you hear information about God, and then you believe it.

 And then you put your trust in Him and he talks about casting your all on Jesus.

 So again, I had to start over here for a minute.

 Well, I’ll be talking about like what faith is. Um…

 The things that I’ve been studying have, again, it’s learning more about who God is. One of the

 First things in that book, and also in Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, where they start off, that’s so important, is…

 Recognizing that God’s not a human being. He’s infinitely higher than us, so He’s divine. He’s God.

 So he doesn’t do anything like a person does it. He’s operating as God.

 and so that’s one thing to remember like if you’ve had something happen in your life or like we’re asking Him questions about what happened and remember who it is that we’re

 asking who we’re going before. We’re going before the Almighty God. We trust in His infinite wisdom.

 his righteousness, his goodness. I know that he has the answer to my questions. So that can be a starting point there of how to think about

 about God. One thing Calvin talks about is

 Think about yourself and your human condition. We’re in a sinful condition, in a fallen world. Alternate between thinking about that and looking up to God.

 and thinking about His righteousness and goodness. Those are things that you can start using in your daily meditation time.

 So I might stop here for today. I’m really wondering if people can hear me on here.

 I hope so, because maybe I can go ahead and start posting, like, talking about what I’ve been studying that day.

 I really hope you can hear what I’ve been saying. And these are things that I’ll be posting about on here over time. So I’ll stop here for today and post again if this seems to work.