Five Minute Friday - When

 

Joining the Five Minute Friday folks with Kate Motaung for 5 minutes of beautiful, unedited, raw writing. Take some time and come join us. Bless someone with your story.

Friday's word is...

When.

When will I want to write again?
When will the words come? 
When will I sit in front of the keyboard and the words flow effortlessly from my fingers?
When will I be able to get all of the jumbled thoughts... the webs of words... organized into clear, comprehensible thoughts?
When will this season pass?
When.

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Wait for the Lord be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Psalm 27:14

 

Five Minute Friday (on a Monday) - Hold

Joining the Five Minute Friday folks with Kate Motaung for 5 minutes of beautiful, unedited, raw writing. Take some time and come join us. We need your story. You need your story. 

He needs your story. 

Today's Friday's word is was...

Hold.

GO.

What do you hold on to?  Sometimes I find myself holding on to my past.  The ripple effect is that the chains of my past hold me back from what is and what will be.  It’s a conscious choice that I make.  I close my eyes and envision myself placing the key inside the lock on the shackles around my ankles.  I can visualize myself turning the key and watching the shackles fall off my feet as I suddenly rise up in the air filled with the Holy righteousness that He has bestowed upon me.  I have to choose though.  It’s my choice – the free will that the Lord has given to me.  I spend so much time and energy holding onto the past.  I allow those chains to hold me back.  They hold me back from the divine plan that I know He has for me.  God gives us many things to hold on to in life.  However, often times, He also gives us a choice in how long to hold them.  So I sit there, for endless hours sometimes, with the chains on my ankles, crying out for help.  Lord, help me break free from the chains.  Help me break free from my past.  Then, I suddenly look in the palm of my hand and see the key.  He placed it there the day He died on the cross for me.  He place it there to give me my salvation.  I must make a conscious choice to use that key.  I can choose to hold on to my past or I can choose to hold on to Jesus.  

STOP.

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But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good

1 Thessalonians 5:21 (NASB)

Five Minute Friday - Ready

Joining the Five Minute Friday folks with Kate Motaung for 5 minutes of beautiful, unedited, raw writing. Take some time and come join us. We need your story. You need your story. 

He needs your story. 

Today's word is...

Ready.

     She pulled me aside and said “You are ready.”  I knew what she was talking about and had silently been dreading this day.  She wanted me to do what she had done less than a year ago – to facilitate a group of women from our church in their walk with Christ.  She wanted me to step out of the boat with my eyes focused on Him.  “I’m not ready,” I said to myself. 

     Our pastor had called for us to create 100 more small groups (called Connect Groups) like the one I was part of, to add to the already 190+ groups.  He explained how important it was to develop relationships with others who had a love of Christ – to encourage each other in our journey.  He explained that people were less likely to fall away if they had a connection with someone – or a group of people – who held them accountable and supported them.  He was absolutely right.  I had experienced this first-hand in my own life. 

     “It’s time for you to come out of your comfort zone and start doing what He is calling you to do,” she said.  I hated her words, but deep down I knew this is exactly why I love her so much – she encourages me, she challenges me, she prays for me, and she loves me.  I really didn’t want to accept her words.  I wasn’t ready.  Even though all of the whispers from Him said I was ready, my flesh told me I wasn’t.  So I pulled away – I retracted into my shell. 

      What if I fail?  What if they hate me?  What if they come once and then never come back?  I wasn’t ready for the possible failure, the impending disappointment, and the potential rejection.  I just wasn’t ready.  For almost 6 weeks I hid myself from my sisters in Christ.  I kept silent.  I mulled over it all, spending hundreds of minutes listening to my soul and my mind argue with each other.

      I am ready.  With Him by my side, I am ready.  I just need to focus on Him.  Anything He leads me to I can face.  I can do all things through Christ.  If I fail in the process, He will use my failure as a stepping stone to greater things.  Even though my flesh doesn’t feel ready, He says I am.  So I will be obedient.  I will listen to the Holy Spirit.  I will step out of the boat.  I will focus on Him.  I will come out of my comfort zone in His name and do what He calls me to do.  

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For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:13 (NLT)

Five Minute Friday - Begin

Joining the Five Minute Friday folks with Lisa Jo Baker for 5 minutes of beautiful, unedited, raw writing. Take some time and come join us. We need your story. You need your story. 

He needs your story. 

Today's word is...

Begin.

This is my beginning.

I look around and see the words of all of these amazing women, like Lisa-Jo Baker, who have been writing week after week, year after year.  But for me, it’s really just the beginning.  I only started seriously sitting down to write a couple of months ago.  I don’t even think it’s classified as “serious” writing.  But something is more than nothing, right?  I can honestly and truly say I sit and begin every single day... but don’t get very far.  I have pages and pages of writings from the last few weeks, all started, but most never finished.  I feel my heart aching to get the words out.  I struggle so hard to actually get them out and organized into something worth posting.  #fmfparty helps encourage me to finish what I begin.

I’m so very lucky.  I came upon #fmfparty from the suggestion of an amazingly inspiring woman – Marisa Slusarcyk.  She made one simple suggestion – try Five Minute Friday.  I can’t even being to tell you the emotions my heart and soul have experienced ever since that very first Thursday night. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the mere 5 weeks I’ve been participating in #fmfparty (more reading then writing), I’ve learned that you have to begin in order to get anywhere.  So, every day I will begin, even if I don’t finish.

Thank you Lisa-Jo for encouraging us all to begin something.  

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1 (NIV)

Five Minute Friday - I will Finish

Joining the Five Minute Friday folks with Lisa Jo Baker for 5 minutes of beautiful, unedited, raw writing. Take some time and come join us. We need your story. You need your story. 
He needs your story. 

Today's word is...

Finish.

Mommy needs to finish this paper and then we’ll read a book.

As soon as I’m finished with the dishes…

Once I finish this call…

Once I’m finished with work…

After I finish this last trip report…

Let me finish this last email…

I have to finish this laundry and then we’ll go…

Can I please just finish this?

I will finish so I can start. 

I will finish so I can start being the wife He wants me to be.

I will finish so I can start being the mother He wants me to be.

I will finish so I can start being the daughter of Christ I need to be.

I will finish with the things that don’t matter so that I can start doing the things that do matter.

Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.
 Ecclesiastes 7:8

I Belong to Him

Joining the Five Minute Friday folks with Lisa Jo Baker for 5 minutes of unedited, raw writing. Take some time and come join us. We need your story. You need your story. He needs your story.

Today's word is...

Belong.

When I was a teenager I remember how desperately I wanted to belong.  I wanted to feel like I fit in and was accepted by the "in crowd". There were three basic groups – the jocks, the popular kids, and the “others”.  I remember trying so very hard to belong to one of the first two groups.  I played soccer and I was a cheerleader.  I didn't really like either one of those.  I only participated in them in order to belong to something.  I even begged my parents to buy me expensive clothes and the latest gadgets in an effort to fit in with the popular kids.  In the end, I can’t really say that I ever fulfilled my desire to belong in high school.

When I chose a college, I chose one that was far away from home.  I wanted to get far away from the groups of people that never made me feel like I belonged.  Once I got there, the "belong" process was about the same.  I experimented with different groups of people – mostly sororities.  I still wanted so badly to feel like I belonged.  After 1 year, several terrible choices, and not being selected for any of the sororities, I left college to move back home and attend a state school.  I never fulfilled my desire to belong in college.

About two years after I graduated high school, I set aside the college initiative and joined the Army.  Surely, I would fulfill my desire to belong as a member of an organization that was rich with history and tradition, fighting for our countries freedoms.  The Army, after all, is the ultimate melting pot of our melting pot country. Here, I found bits of my desire fulfilled – but never for very long.  Just when I felt like I belonged, new people would come, and my current leaders, peers, and friends would leave to their next assignment.  Then I was stuck trying to fit in… all over again.  I can’t say that anyone or anything made me feel like I didn't belong.  The experience just never quenched that longing desire. 

Then I found Jesus.  He gave me hope.  He gave me perspective.  He made me realize that no one thing and no one person can fulfill my desire to belong.  He made me realize that I was wasting an awful lot of energy on things that simply did not matter.  I was chasing after something that will never be fulfilled until I enter His kingdom.  He made me realize that the easiest way to fit in and belong is to be who I am – who he created me to be - and long for only Him.  

Now, my only real desire is to fit in with Him.  There is nothing I need to do to be accepted by Him, because I already have been.  I don’t need to be anything I am not, because He loves me just the way I am.  Whenever I feel like I don’t belong, I need only to close my eyes and pray and He will be remind that I DO belong to something.

I belong to Him.

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

John 15:19 (NIV)

Releasing that one thing

Joining the Five Minute Friday folks with Lisa Jo Baker for 5 minutes of unedited, raw writing.  Today's word is...

 

Release.

 

Such a difficult concept to grasp. Why can't it be as easy as it sounds? Releasing that one thing...

 

Maybe for you that one thing is-

 

worrying about his future
controlling the kids behavior
anxiety about the presentation
anger at his revealed secret
envy of her good fortune
hate for his poor choice
disappointment in yourself
guilt for that last purchase
the mistake he made
the mistake you made
the lego you just stepped on...again

the inability to release

 

"Just let it go," they all say.
"Stop letting it hold you back."
"Release it to Him".

It's just not that easy.

"Yes it is," they argue.
I know it is. The bible tells me so.

I believe in Him. Don't I?
I trust Him.  Don't I?
But, I still struggle.  I still can't let it go.
If I really believed and I really trusted,  shouldn't I be able to just...
release it?

 

I am not alone.  He knew I would struggle with releasing my one thing. He forged ahead, struggling for me. He is by my side as I muddle my way through. He applauds my mini-victories- when I do  release it, even if it's for only a moment.

 

Every moment focused on him is a moment of release, and those moments count.  He released His spirit in hopes that I would release that one thing. He knew I would forsake Him by not releasing it. He forgives me, so I need to forgive me.

 

When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and released his spirit. John 19:30 NLT