FMF {Five Minute Friday} : Try

Trying leaves something bitter in my mouth.

It's not that I don't love an adventure. Someday I want to visit every continent, jump out of an airplane, write a book, and taste escargot. I buy that weird looking vegetable at HEB and look up ways to cook it. I am not shy with strangers.

But something about trying has the smell of defeat on it already.

I'm trying, I sigh when I just can't measure up.

I'm trying, is my frustrated whine when those around me criticize.

And I'll try sounds like placating someone when you know it's not going to work.

How did that word get sullied and sour to me? How did it lose its adventure and become an obligation that was un-fillable?

Maybe it was when too much was hung on the trial. Too much was at stake. Too much could be lost by failure. Try became trial, and I was in the docket.

Maybe it was when trying to perform well somehow wriggled its way in to displace trying for fun.

Once upon a time, trying was sampling life. Trying new flavors, new friends, new feats on the jungle gym was the essence of Carpe Diem--seizing the broad, sparkling day and shaking it down until it ran over. It was hopeful exploration, happy inquisition.

I want to step out of the docket and grasp the jungle gym bars again.

 

FMF {Five Minute Friday}: Hope

My first experience with timed free-writing was in college. My professor knew we were anxious about the research paper she'd dumped on us the week before, so she came to class that day armed with an unlikely activity.

She passed around lined sheets of paper, set a timer for five minutes, and told us to "word-vomit" every single thought we had about our research onto that paper. We were not allowed to edit, re-think, spell-check, or erase because the point was to simply write, without calculation or consequence. It was magical, and I was hooked.

Now, three years after college, there is a community of bloggers who free-write on a new word every week. We do it for fun, for encouragement, and to remind ourselves that our unedited selves are still worth sharing. For more info, check out Kate Motaung's blog here!

This week's word is HOPE.

Hope? Yeah, I thought I'd lost it.

It got misplaced somewhere after college when I woke up one morning to find myself in a hostile place, doing those mind-numbingly same things day in and out. My friends were gone or out of touch, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt welcome in a crowd. I felt stuck and stupid for getting myself stuck and hopeless that anything would change.

But the Hope of the world was living in me, no matter how dormant I felt.

He was alive and active, even if I wasn't alive to it.

He doesn't merely have hope--He is hope.

He leaned in and whispered to my hopeless heart that He hadn't gone anywhere. Slowly, like crusty ground under a steady soak of rain, I softened.

Hope had found me again.

And to you--yes you, the one scrolling down this post on your iPhone--He whispers, "Child, I am still here. I AM hope. I am hope for your crusty dreams, your family situation and the apathy that numbs you. Open your heart to me."

Hope will find you. 

FMF {Five Minute Friday}: Break

I know it's already Saturday, but I'm jumping in with the FMF crowd! In case you're not in the loop, Five Minute Friday is a community of bloggers who come together each week to write like crazy for five wild, unedited minutes on a single prompt. This week, the prompt is "Break".

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I love being with people, even crowds. Six people spending the night? Woohoo!

I also love times of silence when I can just chill and think and organize that hall closet. Yes, I'm weird. 

Because of this tension, I've never been able to decide whether I'm an outgoing introvert or a downtime-loving extrovert. Regardless, I often fee a twinge of unease when I see a full calendar. Even if all the things on it are good, something in me starts gasping for air prematurely, and any little blank spaces suddenly seem very precious. If I'm not careful, I can become a downright miserly creature who hoards scraps of time like a dragon hoards gold.

Last week was Spring Break, and as a staff member at the university I got three glorious days off from work. #perksofworkingforacademia

In case you don't know him, I'm married to an extremely extroverted I-wanna-be-where-the-people-are type of man (cue Little Mermaid). When he began filling our tiny break to the brim with appointments and brunches and last-minute hangouts, I started to wonder if I would need a vacation after the vacation.

Dear God, I prayed, please help me not to be a blank space miser. I give you the time--you take care of me. 

Those three days turned out to be some of the most refreshing, fun days we've enjoyed in months!

We looked at dinosaur bones and butterflies at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

We laughed until our abs ached with old friends.

We feasted at the Cheesecake Factory with my mother-in-love.

We played Phase 10 until after bedtime, and I didn't even care that I came in last place.

We caught up with precious old friends whose baby is now old enough to look up elephant pictures on my phone (how did he get so big??????)

Then--this was the whole reason we went to H-town to start with--we spent a delightful rainy afternoon celebrating one of my dearest friends at her baby shower.

Finally, my Dallas-bound family caravanned back to our place for the night. (There's that 6-person sleepover!)

Oh, and my new favorite thing to do is make my beautiful niece laugh. Click here to see how much she's grown in two months! 

P.S. I just realized that we went to the Cheesecake Factory on our last Spring Break too. It's actually a crazy coincidence, since we don't have one within one hundred miles of our house. Maybe we'll make a new tradition?

Why I got mad at the eye doctor

I have always hated lack and imperfection, especially when the lack is in me.

When I was in 9th grade, the teacher noticed that I was squinting at the board. With a deep sense of dread, I finally agreed to go to the eye doctor.

Sure enough--I was nearsighted. I flat-out refused to wear the glasses prescribed for me, and bristled at the condescending manner of the doctor.

How DARE he. 

I could not stand the thought that something was wrong with me, and would rather continue squinting than admit deficiency.

Glasses may be a silly example, but I still don't like to see my faults. I cringe to se
e cellulite, my messy kitchen, or the ugliness that can lurk in my heart. Eve and I--we both get this urge to run and hide when we see our nakedness.

But my lack and imperfection is precisely the reason that Jesus came. 

And He didn't come wagging His head at me, hand on hip in disgust. He came running, calling me beloved. 

My emptiness and His abundance are a perfect match. In fact, I was designed to have no sufficiency of my own so that Christ would be all in all. 

Without seeing my glaring deficiency, would I ever turn to the Sufficient One? Probably not. If I were perfect, why would I need the Lord? My hated faults are gradually becoming almost like friends, because anything that brings me to Jesus is a good thing.

And when a perfection-obsessed society gets a glimpse of the Perfect One shining out of this obviously cracked and broken jar, they will say, "Well, it can't be her. It's gotta be Something else."




If you want to dig a little deeper, here are a couple of the verses that God has used to show me truth in this area of my life. (Can you tell I recently read 2 Corinthians? :) )

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."
-2 Corinthians 12:9

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us."
-2 Corinthians 4:7

"Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God."
-2 Corinthians 3:5

Finding community in your mailbox

If you’re short on time, skip to the bottom! This post is an invitation to join in on something that really was an awesome experience for me last semester. It was so much fun that I’m doing it again! 

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Community used to be so easy. 

As a kid, Mom made our play dates with families who became like cousins. We had sleepovers, played for hours in blanket forts, and made friendship bracelets that we swore to never remove. "Pretend" was the game, and we created stories elaborate enough to put any soap opera to shame. 

Even after friends went home, my sisters were there. Living with someone binds you together in a million little moments. They blend together, creating a foundation of shared culture. In it are a zillion nuances of understanding that go comfortably unspoken and you hardly have to work at being understood.

Then I grew up and moved out.

Suddenly there were no sisters, no one to put that hangout on my calendar for me. I had to find community for myself.

It has been anything but easy.

At times I flung myself into ministry, thinking this was fellowship. I poured myself into other girls, draining my emotional reserves, never realizing that the way to receive is to come empty, not full and self-sufficient. 

At other times I recoiled, stung by indifference or careless words. Rejection left bruises, and I erected walls to protect myself from more bruises.

But Jesus has been pulling those walls down with his love, helping me forgive and try again. And again.

Seventy times seven.

He has also shown me that community doesn’t always look the same. Life stages come and go. Sometimes community matches the classic images of a cup of steaming coffee in a quiet coffee shop...but most often it doesn’t.

Sometimes it means dashing across the street for a hug because you caught a glimpse of her taking out her trash.

Sometimes it means ditching all your well-made plans for the evening to watch her kids so that she can connect with her mom.

Sometimes it means giving grace and understanding when she can’t return your text for three weeks, or cancels the lunch date for the second time.

And sometimes? Sometimes community looks like writing a card to another woman you’ve never met. 

Last semester I impulsively put my name on a list with a group of other bloggers who decided they were tired of junk mail, who believed in the power of words to encourage. 

As Kaitlyn, one of the organizers put it, 

"Here's the thing: We all use our words in conversations and blog posts and tweets every day. We're already spending them somewhere, but there are times we each need a pick-me-up. We can use our words--our written words--for good."

A week later I received an email with a list of seven other women and helpful instructions. Each week I wrote one note to one of the girls on the list, and each week I received a note from one of them in the mail! 

 It takes no more than five minutes to write a card. Each week, I had so much fun browsing the next woman's blog and twitter feed, looking for clues that would tell me her hopes, her fears, her quirks. I often prayed for her, and it made me feel connected in a way I thought impossible via the internet. 

Because sometimes community is found in your mailbox.

If you want to try it out, sign up HERE. (And don't wait, because the form closes tonight around midnight-ish!)

Five Minute Friday :: Welcome

Every Friday in the blog world, there is a community of writers who gather around a single word. They set aside five minutes, buckle down, and simply write. They write the first things that spring to mind, recklessly putting words down without editing, second-guessing, or fearing what the other bloggers might think.

Some Fridays, I get to join them. When I do, I get the sense that the thoughts in my head, no matter how rough and uncut, are worth sharing. I relish the chance to speak life into another woman's blog, and tell her that her thoughts are valuable too.

This week, the word is Welcome. I want to welcome you to join in too! If you'd like to see what the party is all about, head on over to Kate's place by clicking this link. 



WELCOME.

There she is at an open doorway, face hot with sweat and road dust. She stands uncertain, with one hand on her stomach like pregnant women have a habit of doing.

I had always pictured Mary bounding eagerly down that last mile to Elizabeth's house, bubbling with anticipation. But what if she had been clammy with nerves? Elizabeth lived nearly 100 miles away from Nazareth, and it might have been years since the last visit. What if her stomach had churned and heart had thumped as she willed herself to walk the last two feet through the older women's door?

After all, she was probably an embarrassment to her mother now. Her cousins back in Nazareth might have whispered and looked at her sideways as she passed on the street.

I am the Lord's handmaiden.

Did she second-guess her surrender now that no one understood?

"Hey--Elizabeth?"

Suddenly Elizabeth was laughing and crying and embracing her--sweat and all--against her own swollen belly. Her face glowed with welcome and the secret that Mary hadn't told, but that she somehow already knew.

"Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!"

The older woman was stopped by a thought, but it was one of humble wonder, not judgment. "But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" Laughing, she clasped Mary's hands and pressed them against her own pregnant bulge. "As soon as I heard your greeting, the baby in my womb leapt for joy!" They were both laughing now. "Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!"

The words pouring out of Elizabeth's mouth were like sweet milk, flowing over Mary's fears and the bruises of rejection. The welcome in her embrace was healing and Mary felt herself bubbling over in praise. Suddenly it came out in tumbling, ecstatic poetry.

Her Magnificat.

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To read how other writers interpreted the word "welcome", click here!

Five Minute Friday:: Adore

Last year my windows were festooned with ribbons, like peppermint stripes to the floor. Colored lights glowed at the door, and the Christmas candles flickered in the hallway bathroom. Even the couch had a snowman pillow on it. 

This year, my 2-foot tree is the only bit of Christmas in an otherwise very normal, every-day living room. Only one present is wrapped. Another present sits on my desk in a brown box, exactly as it looked when the UPS guy dropped it off last night. All other presents are still at the store, undiscovered. It has been a busy month, filled with goodbyes to students who are returning home after the semester, graduation parties and unexpected guests. 

But my heart feels quiet. Anticipatory. 

For the first time, my husband and I decided to celebrate Advent. 

We bought a cheap brass candle ring online that came with the purple and pink tapers, and we downloaded a devotional by John Piper. We read it from the glowing screen of the phone as we lie in bed each night. 

The words have been garlanding my heart with awe. 

That the King would come, not to be served but to serve? The realization spreads fresh across my duty-bent heart like a red carpet to welcome him. 

And that star that God placed in the sky millennia in advance, timed to perfection so that men who scanned the night for signs would see it--dazzling. The sheer scale of planning that went into His entrance sends fiery sparks of worship through my heart, brighter than any tinsel. 

My house may look pretty much as it did in October, but I can feel Christmas within me. More of Christ. More adoration for my King, the one who let himself be made small and weak to bring me near. 

Five minute Friday:: Care

This month has spun past full and fast. Some months are like that--each day so brim-full of people and conversation and work and weekends busier than the weeks between that you can barely catch your breath. 

I crave the process of writing like a runner craves the road. I feel so thankful that I finally get the chance to sit for five minutes on this Friday night and pin down meaning with these keys. I'm grateful to Kate for faithfully hosting this writer's party each week, even though I know her month might have been as full as mine. 

Tonight the prompt is CARE. And if you have no clue what's going on, head on over here to check out what Five Minute Friday is all about! 

{CARE}

An open letter to the woman with the 101-year-old mother:

Today you tipped a little while in my direction and spilled out some of your story. I felt honored that you would tell me, the girl a half century behind you in wisdom.

You told how she came to live with you this summer. How her house sits empty in Ohio with no one to cut the grass. How the sister in another state was caring for her, but now it’s your turn and you feel like there are days it’s just simply too. Much.

You told how she was a rock for your family, caring for your handicapped brother until even his hair was gray and he fell. Your mouth pulled in at the memory, and I thought how painful it would be to lose a brother. I told you so, and your eyes grew glossy.

You told how exhausting it is now, how you were unprepared to physically lift the woman who carried you as a child.

I don’t know what it’s like, but thank you. Thank you for caring. Thank you for dying to self for the sake of the dying. Thank you for making her breakfast each day, making her bed, making her smile.

We—the self-absorbed, the media-glutted, the youth-obsessed—we desperately need your example. We need to see love in action that is not flashy, not instagrammed, not applauded. We need to know that it’s possible to love our parents this way so that when the day comes, we will have the courage to care too. 

Five minute Friday:: Reach

When I read this week's prompt on Kate's blog, I immediately thought of a story told by author and pastor Brennan Manning.

This one took longer than 5 minutes, (so I totally cheated this week!), but I think when you read the story you might agree with me that fudging the rules in this case was totally worth it.

"Reach"

His name was Larry Malaney and he was even less glamorous than his name suggests. He was a hippie who never bathed, never seemed to change his clothes, and had a horrible case of acne. His appearance--and his odor--isolated him from his classmates.

When Brennan Manning met him in the 60's, Larry was a college student and self-proclaimed agnostic. He would often come to Manning's office to debate him about spiritual topics. It was probably one of the few places on campus where he was not rejected because of his sloppy hygiene. "In all my days," Manning writes, "I have never seen anyone with such low self-esteem."

He grew up under the strict thumb of his father, one of a breed of traditional men known as "lace-curtain Irishmen". Even in the heat of August, Mr. Malaney Sr. never came to dinner at his own home without dressing in a freshly-pressed suit. Larry would come to the same table smelling like he had never bathed in his life.

Family tension? You bet.

One Christmas, however, everything changed. Larry had spent several days at home, filled with the usual squabbles and strained silences. He told his father that he was leaving on the train the next morning, and his father said he would ride with him part of the way. It was, after all, on his way to the office.

The next morning, they sat together in silence. At the stop they disembarked, the elder to walk to his office, the son to wait for the second train.

Photo credit: www.urban-photography-art.com 

As they stood on the platform, a group of men across the street began to taunt Larry. One man yelled out "Hey Pig Boy! Oink! Oink!" Another man jeered, "If that was my son, I'd lock him up in the basement where he belongs!"

Larry turned away wordlessly. The cruelty was not new and he had learned to ignore it.

Suddenly his father, the prim "lace-curtain Irishman", gripped him by the shoulders and turned him until they were face to face. He then pulled his son into the first embrace of his life and kissed him on the lips.

"Larry", he said, "if your mother and I live to be 200 years old that wouldn't be long enough to thank God for the gift he has given us in you. I'm so proud that you are my son."

After that cold December day at the train station, Larry was a different person. He was still a hippie, but he cleaned up. He started dating. He had a new confidence, and he smiled readily. Soon after, he showed up at Manning's office with a simple request. "Tell me about this man, Jesus." Manning then explained the good news of the Gospel. At the end, Larry simply smiled and said, "OK."

In his book, "The Furious Love of God," Manning explains Larry's transformation:

“It wasn’t because of the six weeks of sitting in Brennan Manning’s office while I talked about Jesus. No, it was because of a day long ago, during a Christmas vacation, standing at a bus stop, when his lace-curtain Irish father healed him. Yes, his father healed him. He looked deeply into his son’s eyes, saw the good in Larry Malaney that Larry couldn’t see for himself, affirmed him with a furious love, and changed the whole direction of his son’s life.”

That prim man reached for his son when the world flung insults--and healed him. Despite any rejection that he had previously meted out through his strained silences and tacit disapproval, this was the shining moment when he loved well.

You may not be a perfect parent, but today, you can choose to heal with your unearned acceptance.

You may not have had a perfect parent, but there is a Father who reaches for us now. Arms stretched painfully wide on a rough cross, he reached for us in our stinkiness, our sloppiness, our never-enough.

And we are healed.

<a href="http://katemotaung.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://katemotaung.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Five-Minute-Friday-4.jpg" width="200" height="200" /></a>

Five Minute Friday:: Filled to Pour Out

The sun is setting on the first half of the weekend, and I feel so thankful for the nearness of Jesus even in the craziness and emotion of this past week. 

My husband's laptop screen forms a glowing A-shape with mine in the middle of our tiny coffeshop table. I'm so glad that he and I are both feeling better. He has been battling a bacterial infection for the past two months and is nearing the end of an intense round of antibiotics. Funny thing about antibiotics is that they can weaken your immunity. He caught a nasty cold, and then of course I caught it from him, but today we both seem to have more energy. Thank you, God! 

Aside from feeling sick physically, my heart has been sickened this week by the horrific images in the news. It is only now, after I have brought the gut-wrenching sorrow to the feet of Jesus, that I begin to feel some relief. 

Today I'm linking up with the Five Minute Friday crew again, but this time is special because it's the FIRST time that the party is hosted by Kate Motaung. The concept is still the same: the hostess issues a one-word prompt late on Thursday night and we all free-write on that theme for five minutes. No editing, no over-thinking, and no perfectionizing. (Yes, I just invented that word.)

We all post our links here on her blog and leave some comment encouragement for the writer who posted before us. 

{Fill}

He fills my cup.

Jesus sat at a well and told a dry, man-weary woman that he would give her water that would never run dry. His water would become a living stream of water flowing from inside.

I love this part. My dryness is splashed over and my emptiness filled to satisfaction.

But like a long, hot shower, I can marinate in this overflow and forget that I am filled to pour out.

This week and last week and the week before, my eyes have filled at the news of an arid land dripping with the blood of families. When seven year olds are forced to wed, when fathers are made to watch their little ones slaughtered and their spouses taken, the world’s ragged thirst for the Healer is glaring from the screens of our computers.

We are to fill the cups of the thirsty, and Jesus promises that He will count it as a personal gift to Him.

http://smithsk.blogspot.com/

We are to fill up in ourselves what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, standing with and for our family, His Body.

http://tinyurl.com/ktm5gex

And before and during and after each physical need and literal cup filled, we are to fill that beautiful basin in His presence with our prayers.

May they burn and rise as a sweet aroma day and night. 

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If you haven't had the chance to read much about the recent events in Iraq, here is an article written only two days ago that summarizes the intense persecution against Christians by the militant Islamic group, ISIS. 

If you want a reliable source of news about our persecuted family around the world, please visit Voice of the Martyrs and subscribe to their email newsletters. 

Read enough and want to do something practical?

To provide aid for families fleeing the violence, click here or here. 

To petition Congress to take notice of the plight of Iraqi Christians and allocate aid, click here. 

To move Heaven, let's all get on our knees. 

"What is the price of two sparrows--one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing about it." --Matthew 10:28

Five Minute Friday :: Finish

It is Monday, but I sit on the floor in my sister's room, a hundred miles away from my office.

The prompt this week is finish. In the grief and mingled joy of the past few days, the word sits at home in my heart. 

For Lisa-Jo, the wonderful mommy blogger who has hosted this link up for over 5 years, the word signals the passing of the baton. She wrote so beautifully this week about finishing your piece of a story. A story that was never yours to begin with because all stories are inherited and gifted to you for a time. She is passing the baton to her dear friend, Kate Motaung, who I am excited to read and come to know as I have come to love Lisa-Jo.

FINISH

I get glimpses of the truth when the baby I just held is suddenly in pre-school, or when I wonder how college could be behind me already. 

Life is short, but most of my hours slip past unnoticed-- a given rather than a gift. 

On Thursday my phone buzzed for the second time against my leg. I was sitting in a friend’s living room, surrounded by my homegroup as we worshipped to the strumming of a guitar.

I stepped out into the humidity to answer the call and my heart stood still at Dad’s words.

“Cherise, your uncle passed away today in his sleep.”

My tears flowed warm, steadily wetting my husband’s shirt as he held me. I cried for my uncle. I cried for us. I especially cried for my sweet aunt and two cousins who will now have to live without their dad. He was a fixture of our family, a constant in my memories of Christmases and dinners and reunions.

He was sixty years young.

Life is short. It’s easy to assume that the trajectory we are riding will continue, that we have time to make that phone call, forgive that friend, learn contentment, finally do that thing.

But the finish line could be closer than we dreamed. 

Five Minute Friday:: Belong

One of my favorite bloggers, Lisa-Jo Baker, gave this prompt last week, and I jotted the following poem down in ragged spare minutes that never unfolded into enough time to actually post. Usually, she gives the 1-word prompt late Thursday night, and a community of bloggers around the globe take 5 minutes to simply write--no editing or re-thinking allowed! Then we post our links and leave encouragement on each other's blogs.

I'm too late to join the party this week, so this one almost stayed in the draft pile, but my hubby encouraged me to publish it anyway.

I remembered truth as I wrote. I remembered that this--the universal longing for belonging--is an ache whose remedy was costly, but was given freely. We can rest here.

Prompt: Belong

We ache and we long
to belong.

Every middle-aged teen
and geriatric child
and stodge-faced youth
will understand.

Long after parents
are gone
is the ache to be welcomed,
havened,
cuddled close and long
and told
You are mine.

We ache and we long
to be loved.

Every Joe-Doe-Blow,
perfectionista,
and black-faced sheep
will understand.

And when the shape of it
unclouds,
it's the want to be seen,
admired,
heard deep, understood
and told
You have worth.

He aches and He longs
to gather us.
He rises with compassion
to show.
It throbs deep
and pours out red
with costly welcome
for every middle-aged teen
geriatric child
stodgy youth
Joe-Doe-Blow
perfectionista
and black-faced sheep.

You are mine. 
I gave you worth. 

Five Minute Friday::Glue

Today I am linking up with Five Minute Friday, a writing exercise where you set a timer for five minutes and write on a specific topic until it chimes at you to lift your fingers from the keyboard. You can join in here!

Today's word = GLUE

Yesterday was all unraveled and ragged. I flew out the door with my shoes barely on my feet and a granola bar in my hand. Seriously, God bless granola bar makers.

My house looks like a garage sale after all the good pickings have been picked over. Ever since our washing machine decided to re-create Noah's Flood two weeks ago, we've been living in a carpet-less home without baseboards or doors or basic organization. Just getting out the door is a feat of memory and agility. Where was my jacket again...? *wracks brain, bumps into furniture*

It really hasn't been too bad. Now that the thirteen rumbling red industrial fans and honking-huge dehumidifier are gone, at least I have a kitchen again. Even while the fans roared, we laughed about their white noise making it easy to sleep.

But yesterday at work my shoulders and neck creaked with painful lumps as the phone constantly rang and rang and rang and my throat grew dry from explaining. The papers piled up faster than I could sort them. My fingers clicked constantly, almost independent of my tired brain as the mental to-do list grew longer and heavier.

It felt like I was coming unglued. Can anyone relate?

I stumbled up the stairs to our homegroup meeting with only half a heart to be there. Heavy-eyed, foggy-brained from my desperate post-work nap, I willed myself to sit.

"Between the songs", they said,  "let's tell what God has been doing in our hearts". What have You been doing, Lord? I wondered. I'm so unglued and discombobulated.

As I flipped backward in the blue journal looking for scraps I'd chanced to record, I found the sweetest words. Words that had patched me together on another ragged, teary day in January.

"Cherise, you do not have less at this moment when you are exhausted and fighting a cold than you do on days when you are well-rested, healthy, and feel in control. You have Me in abundance at all times, and I am all you need."

Wonderful truth.

He is not diminished if I am depleted, and He holds even my unraveled, unglued moments together by his powerful Word.


Side note: My homegroup will notice that this journal entry wasn't what I shared last night with the group. It felt like a personal hug from Jesus for that moment, something just between the two of us for me to feel his love while I shared something else out loud. But now, in the light of a new day, it seemed  appropriate to share.  I hope someone else will feel His love in the middle of an unglued moment like mine. 

Five Minute Friday::Fight

A new year, and I'm linking back up with Lisa-Jo at her online writer's party, Five Minute Friday! The basic idea is this: a one-word prompt, five minutes, and the courage to see what comes out.

Ok, ok, this took me WAY longer than five minutes. It was typed between phone calls with grad students and faculty, my lunch break, and conversations with student workers. Every time I turned back to the screen, my mind had to take a minute or two to regroup.

And then the prompt was just so GOOD this time, or maybe the things it stirred were so good, that five minutes just wasn't enough to sift through it all.

PROMPT: "Fight"

Three days ago, the year quietly turned over.

In Decembers past, I have knelt on the floor with the pieces of the previous year and made better plans. The lists have gotten longer each year, the sense of failure harder to sweep into the trash. But I have fought on, doggedly. I craved a sense of control, something to fight and strive for. It scratched my performance itch, that old wound that wondered “am I enough?”

But three days ago, there were no lists. There were no pre-failure tears. There were no crowding ambitions to stroke my pride.

The birth of this New Year carried the same peace as the Birth celebrated five days earlier. A miracle.

In 2013, I was glaringly inadequate. Far from the familiar realm of academic success, the working world was harsh to this newbie who didn’t understand the sarcastic culture of unkindness in which I found myself.

Gone were the grades, the part-time job where I knew what I was doing, the leadership role that was defined and comfortable.

But I was held.

My brokenness devastated me, but not Him. At the end of my striving, there He was, the same Savior who captivated my little-girl heart. I was tired of the fight for sanity and acceptance and rest and blog hits and emotional stability, but when I collapsed I found myself caught. Caught by the arms that had already streached out to me and the world two millenia prior.

I am realizing for the first time in experience what I have long known:

He Himself is my peace.

Not my ability to bring order to the chaos. Not the cleanness of my counters. Not whether friends remember my birthday or I remember theirs.

He. The Prince of Peace. The baby who folded small into a teen mom and yanked Heaven into our messy world so strangely.

He still holds the helpless (me), still accepts the unacceptable (me again), and still meets my mess with love.

My brokenness will only find wholeness when I rest in the hands that were broken for me.

My ceasefire can only come when I believe the fight he won was sufficient. Before 2014 begins, it is finished.

And I can rest from the fight.

 

 

Five Minute Friday :: Fly

Once again, I'm squashing my inner perfectionist. I'm linking up with a group of brave bloggers who were all handed a single-word prompt, a five minute timer, and told to simply let the words flow. No backtracking, no second guessing. Just writing for the joy of words, for the exploration of our own funny minds, and for the reminder that writing is fun.

Thank you, Lisa-Jo Baker, for making your blog a safe place for this much-needed reminder. :)

So here I go!

Prompt: "fly"

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I was twelve. I was sure the other passengers knew it, but they were smiling at me like I was only three.

We were certainly all acting like three year olds--all of us squealing and crowding the tiny window and enjoying the rumble of the engines beneath us. It was our first flight. To see us, you would have thought it was the first flight in human history.

Grandma's car had to be brought from Houston. Daddy could have done it alone, but he knew that a thirty-minute flight would be like Christmas to his girls. So he invited us along.

I can close my eyes and still see the moment of liftoff. My braces are exposed in a permanent grin, the asphalt running by faster and faster until--

a sudden tilt!

The ground and cars and landscape became toy-like beneath us. It was so novel: tiny buildings and roads and points of insincere blue that we knew were backyard swimming pools, all beneath a truer blue of sky than we had ever seen.

Five Minute Friday:: Together

Today I am linking up with Five Minute Friday, a writing exercise where you set a timer for five minutes and write on a specific topic until it chimes at you to lift your fingers from the keyboard. You can join in here!

This week's prompt: TOGETHER
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Alone is clean.

 

Alone is well-ordered.

Alone is never impinged-upon, infringed upon, or barged-in upon.

Alone is me, myself and I and my dreams and get out of my way because I’m the star of this show.

But alone is lonely. And God Himself said that a single person alone—even in paradise—was not a good deal.
The perfectly unified, triune community decided to replicate this one last aspect of Himself in man. He made a marriage, which made a family, which made a populace of others.

And these were not meant to be loners, these others. They must inter-marry and inter-depend and inter-weave their lives and stories. They must bow and submit to each other, honor each other, forgive each other, and a thousand other “each other” verbs that Jesus said and lived.

Broken as we are, together is hard.

Together is messy.

Together is toothpaste in the sink again and forgotten birthdays and hurt feelings and awkward Christmases and forgiveness again and again while we struggle against the urge to live as a hermit.

 

But together is what He asked for that night on His knees. And then he endured the alone to purchase community.

It was messy. It hurt. But He considered it worth it.

Stop

Five Minute Friday :: "Laundry"

Today I am linking up with Five Minute Friday, a writing exercise where you set a timer for five minutes and write on a specific topic until it chimes at you to lift your fingers from the keyboard. No edits, no back-tracking, just writing for the fun of it. You can join in here!

Today's prompt: "Laundry".

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Hi. I’m a sock.

My friends call me Houdini.

I’m fuzzy on the edges and worn at the toe and I’m an escape artist. My mate and I aren’t really tight these days, so it’s a miracle if you find us clean in the same load.

My cousins are nubbley sweaters and your favorite t-shirts and those jeans that you bought back in college that now look outdated but you love them because nothing else is as comfortable on a Saturday.

We’re a motley crew and we haunt your closet floor, the corner in the bathroom behind the door, and the hidden pockets of your suitcases that you always forget to check after a trip.

Like I said, I’m an escape artist, so I’m the one who missed the basket.

 Again.

 STOP

Five Minute Friday: "Write"

I follow a blog by a mommy from South Africa. She writes real and deep and often, and I get courage from her going into the mothering world ahead of me.

Every Friday, she hosts a kind of free-write flash mob on her blog. This is how she explains it:

 

"On Fridays around these parts we like to write.

Not for comments or traffic or anyone else’s agenda. But for fun, for practice, for joy at the sound of syllables, sentences and paragraphs all strung together by the voice of the speaker. We love to just write without worrying if it’s just right or not. For five minutes flat. All on the same topic. Not sure how to participate – the step-by-step directions are over here: Here’s how we do it:

1. Write for 5 minutes flat with no editing, tweaking or self critiquing.

2. Link back here and invite others to join in .

3. Go and tell the person who linked up before you what their words meant to you. Every writer longs to feel heard. OK, are you ready? Give us your best five minutes for the prompt: - See more at: http://lisajobaker.com/2013/07/five-minute-friday-beautiful/#sthash.ub47n92a.dpuf"

 

 

SO...here is my unedited, five-minute contribution to the fun! The prompt: "WRITE"

 

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A word spoken is a magical thing. Released into the space between speaker and hearer, it has the power either to create or destroy. Its meaning can be lost in tone or word choice, misconstrued by insecurities or word choice, forgotten or remembered for years. But it can never be unsaid.

 

All this power for a spoken word, that lasts only a moment in the vibrating air.

 

But a written word—or a string of them? Well, that has power with permanence.

 

Last night I began reading “1985”. Somehow I managed to skip reading this high school literature staple. I’m only three chapters in, and already I feel sick on behalf of Winston. He is caught in a world without tragedy or love, where truth is lie and he is not even sure of the date.

 

Knowing he commits the ultimate crime, he begins a journal. He writes. It is a physical extension of the few cubic inches between his ears that, until now, has been his only private domain. He writes in fear, but with reckless courage, because words on a page have the power of permenance to condemn him and make his thoughts real. He writes for a future that may never acknowledge or know him.

 

I feel thankful for a world without Big Brother, without a telescreen watching my every move. I can think without crime, write without fear.

 

But Winston has reminded me of my power.

 

A few taps, and words exist in a cyberspace that never forgets. A few careless keystrokes can have the power to build up or destroy in a far more permanent way than simply talking.

Five Minute Friday::Broken

A Christan radio station recently made an Easter comment that resonated with me. They said that Easter was about breaking: a broken world, a broken Body that redeemed us, and a broken curtain that used to separate us from a Holy God. (Ok, torn, but I guess that's what we call broken fabric.)

I feel broken. In many ways I am a person who needs fixing, like a broken lamp, shattered by anger or careless mistakes. 

I am also emotionally broken when I see the brokenness it took to fix me. And right now, on the Saturday between sacrifice and victory, I feel a kinship with the heart-rending brokenness his followers must have felt as they sat, fearful, their dreams shattered the day after He died. 

They waited, broken. But isn't waiting the thing to do in our brokenness? To wait on the One who heals?


Want to join or just want to know what Five Minute Friday is all about? Head over to Lisa Jo's blog and find out :) And while you're there, be sure to visit & leave some comment love for the other bloggers who linked up!