Friday, October 25, 2013

Together Five Minute Friday Prompt

I'm laughing, we'll not really. I'm sitting in my mom-mobile with the Labradoodle panting on the back seat. Waiting. Grown son is seeing a doctor. He does not drive, and can be somewhat needy. Nothing to do with "together"...except that I am almost always WITH someone. Rarely together with anyone, especially women friends. The fatigue in my life exacerbated by much stress and busy household keep me homebound more than is good for me. I am convicted and encouraged by the prompt post on Today's Five Minute Friday, spurred on to work towards changing my loner tendencies.  Truthfully, I have become content and complacent in my seclusion. I am able to convince my self that it is not self imposed but a result of life circumstances beyond my control. My control but not God's, who encourages and even commands fellowship with the saints, even beyond my Sunday church attendance. What will I do about it?  I have made a commitment to attend tomorrow morning a women's breakfast at our local church (which I have been a part of for over 25 years, these ladies are not strangers). My few closest comrades will not be attending so it will be a double stretch. God has been pushing to drive me out of my hermit life for some time; grudgingly, with limited faith, tomorrow I will take a baby step.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Five Minute Friday: Ordinary

Ordinary

the ordinary is the every day nitty gritty of life, the down on your knees wiping juice up off the worn hardwood floor, the sniffing around in the boy's room looking for the hidden pull up or soggy underpants your nose knows are hidden somewhere. Loving the embarrassed five year old trying to bury the evidence. The ordinary happens when your teen rolls his eyes spitting out some cryptic disrespectful cutting remark and you breath deep into the peace of God praying you don't repay nasty with evil. Ordinary happens in the valley, in slugging away at the daily. Worship, communion with the Savior comes easy on Sunday during corporate worship, on Tuesday morning ladies bible study, when your taking a meal to a new mom or struggling friend. We serve Jesus with joy abundant in the extra ordinary. Sadly, our every day ordinary often suffers neglect and ambivalence. Jesus fill me with the Grace to live in your extraordinary Grace, Love, and joy especially in the dullest of times. Grant me Mercy extraordinary in my daily ordinary so that I might love bigger, live better,  by and for Jesus alone.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

huh

........ my dad always said...."MY CHILDREN, DON'T FALL IN LOVE WITH THIS WORLD...WE ARE JUST PASSING THROUGH....BUT HEAVEN AND ETERNITY IS FOREVER." Which one will we choose?
Not my dad, but a quote I excerpted from a prolife column comment section; cuts right to the heart. Where does your love fall? Who and or what is your first love. Nothing but Jesus will satisfy. Will bring contentment. Peace. Relief from fear. From Anxiety. No one but Jesus fills the empty spaces in your heart. Your life. The deep chiasms of your soul. The world we live in is, "empty pale and poor compared to loving your my lord, so lead me to follow hard after you." Tonight is one of those empty nights, where the people and calling the Lord has placed in my life should fill to the overflow with satisfaction and purpose. Only, I am tired. Bath time looms ahead like some prehistoric ogre waiting to devour my eyeballs and suck my guts out through the empty holes...yes, it is that bad. Not always, sometimes, I only lose the eyeballs, not the corresponding guts. Either way, bath time is followed promptly by bedtime; another Olympic event requiring, strength, stamina, and the fierceness  of scarred alley cat. Even now, my orders of shower time, are going unheeded. Time to step it up a bit. Be back later...perhaps. 

Sunday, October 06, 2013

Five Minute Friday: Write


I have been writing as long as I can remember; I have paper proof as far back as junior high. During my third failed attempt at a college degree, somewhere around fifteen years ago, an English professor affirmed my secret heart longing; he said I was good. My heart was full to the overflow with the confirmation of a life long dream, maybe I could write something someone somewhere might want to read.
Almost two decades and more than half an adult life later, still I plug along. Five Minute Friday has given my the kick in the rear I needed to at least put some words out there. My commitment to write something every week continues to draw me back. Like tonight the words are sometimes forced and awkward. But to write is one of my great loves. Yes, I love Jesus first, my family, friends, neighbors, and enemies, but writing gives me outlet to express that love, and often the frustrations brought on by all that required loving. Tonight I wish the words flowed easy, instead of crunchy and as I said forced. I can remember when writing was required by some teacher of professor I, often felt then that I got my best stuff in the middle of the night as deadlines approached. Later, I would go back and reread and realize that if I had taken my time and I could have done ever better. So much of life by the grace of God is similar. If I hurriedly rush through my required chores and life duties, God will bless me with a level of success. Children get raised. Dinner gets made. We get up and do it again. But purposed life, purposed writing, will result in great blessing to those around us, and hopefully to even one person who reads a scratched out word or two by a wanna be writer. So let us live, let us write, let us love, in the name of Jesus and trust Him to use our words, and our lives for His Glory.