Five Minute Friday - Releasing My Grip

 

 

The rope strains as it’s pulled tight on either side. A ribbon in the middle shows the progress of one side against the other – back and forth, back and forth. Lingering on one side for a bit longer, then yanked back in the other direction. On and on the game goes. No one seems to win.

I’m often engaged in this endless game of tug-of-war, a war between what I should do and what I want to do.

Living with open hands has never been easy for me. I want to hold tight – to my “stuff,” to my kids, to my home, to my comfort, even to my burdens and my problems. I want to fix things myself.  Sometimes my attitude can be easily summed up in a favorite vocabulary word of a two-year-old: “Mine.”

But then there are those moments when the light clicks on and I realize it’s not mine. It’s all God’s. And the problems and burdens? I don’t need to carry them or try to fix them myself either, because God doesn’t need my help. He’s waiting for me to release my white-knuckled grip, wanting me to grasp for His strength instead of my own.

The freedom that comes from realizing this is nothing short of amazing. I wish I could say that I feel this freedom all the time. But most of the time, I’m still learning to let go, constantly reminding myself to release to God what was really His in the first place. Learning to go to Him with my worries and problems, instead of freaking out first and remembering to pray after all else fails.

Lord, teach me to release my grasp on the things of this world. As I learn to cling to You, help me to point others to Your light and Your salvation. True freedom comes as I let go of my wants and desires and replace them with Yours. I can let go, because You will never let go of me.

 

This is an entry for Five Minute Friday. Every Friday hundreds of writers join in this five minute writing exercise at Lisa-Jo Baker's blog, Tales from a Gypsy Mama.

We write for five minutes flat. All on the same prompt that Lisa-Jo posts on her blog. And we connect on Twitter with the hashtag #FMFParty.

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Have a blog? You can join in, too!

 

Five Minute Friday ~ See

You can’t live life with your eyes closed. Well, you can, but you won’t really see. You’ll miss the sun’s rays peeking through the clouds over a frigid field of snow. You won’t see the way your daughter’s eyes light up when she giggles and gives her daddy a big hug. You’ll overlook the way your son crinkles his brow when he’s working on a really tough math problem. And you’ll miss LIFE.

These everyday snippets are more than just moments. Put them together, and they’ll pack the suitcases of your mind full of precious memories.

Sometimes – more times than I care to admit – I don’t really see. I have my head down in a screen or a book, and life just passes me by. It’s something I regret, and something that I’m trying to work on this year. Choosing to see.

Father, open my eyes and help me to really see. The abundant life you’ve given me is so much more than screens and Facebook and Instagram and texts and distractions. Give me Your eyes, Your vision, Your heart… so I can truly SEE.

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This is an entry for Five Minute Friday. Every Friday hundreds of writers join in this five minute writing exercise at Lisa-Jo Baker's blog, Tales from a Gypsy Mama.

We write for five minutes flat. All on the same prompt that Lisa-Jo posts on her blog. And we connect on Twitter with the hashtag #fmfparty (Five Minute Friday Party).

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real.
Have a blog? You can join in, too!

5 Minute Friday ~ Tell Me a Story

My Grandma & Me in 1978

That familiar twinkle always showed up after five simple words, "Grandma, tell me a story!"

"A story?" she'd ask, like she didn't have any up her sleeve. Then, of course, she'd clasp her weathered hands together, tilt her head and say, "Hmm... Let me think."

And the magic would begin.

She would transport me back to the days of her childhood, to the family-owned bakery in a small Midwest town. And somehow, I always felt like I was right there with her.

I never knew which story she was going to tell. It really didn't matter. Even if I had heard it a hundred times, I still hung on every word.

There was the infamous tar bucket story that all of the grandchildren loved to hear. It was the day of family pictures, when Grandma was just three years old. Just before the photo session, she fell into a bucket of tar, which completely coated her arm, with no time to clean it up. She was strategically placed in the photo so the blackened arm was hidden behind her sister.

Another favorite was the chicken story. She had seen her mother kill chickens for dinner, so one day, she decided to help. Much to her mother's horror, she caught a baby chick and promptly lopped off its feet with a butcher knife. Oh my goodness! Grandma must have been an early 1900s version of Junie B. Jones!

After all these years, her stories still echo in my memory. But more importantly, her love and prayers  follow me, even though she has been gone for almost 15 years.

My grandma, the storyteller.

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This is an entry for Five Minute Friday. Every Friday hundreds of writers join in this five minute writing exercise at Lisa-Jo Baker's blog, Tales from a Gypsy Mama.

We write for five minutes flat. All on the same prompt that Lisa-Jo posts on her blog. And we connect on Twitter with the hashtag #fmfparty (Five Minute Friday Party).

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Have a blog? You can join in, too!

Finding God from the Driver's Seat

In a million unique ways – as we change diapers, eat dinner, return e-mails, pay the bills – we are to be the evidence of God. Jesus factored in the mundane. We need to eat and sleep and shower and clean up and work on our marriages because of the way he made us – typical, inadequate, and human. Embrace the common: a Sunday afternoon watching sports, Starbucks with a friend, cooking dinner for a neighbor, taking the dog for a walk, heading to a job that is making you more humble and needy because it is so unfulfilling, or working through conflict with a friend you have offended. This and more is all part of it.

So do your everyday and your ordinary. Godliness is found and formed in those places…. Jesus says the way we glorify God, the way we step into his story, is by accomplishing the work God gives us to do. Jesus glorified his father on earth by doing that very thing.

We play our part in his story, and the beauty is, it was what we were made for.

~ from Anything, by Jennie Allen

 

After the umpteenth hour in the car this week, I was starting to feel a wee bit sorry for myself.

“I feel like I spend half my life in the car,” I huffed to my husband one evening.

Of course, he assured me that he appreciated my constant shuttling around of our three needy teens and that someday, they would look back and realize the amazing sacrifice their mother had made on their behalf.

Really? Well, a girl can dream, right?

Maybe you’ve felt like me lately… that you’re nothing more than a maid, cook, babysitter, dishwasher, errand runner, or (my personal favorite) chauffeur. Yes? That’s you? Did you ever stop to consider that this is all part of God’s story for you? That God is shaping and molding you into His image through these seemingly mundane tasks? That this is exactly where you belong?

The above passage in the book Anything by Jennie Allen really rocked my world. Instead of complaining about the ordinary, I should be embracing it! This is the way I can glorify God right where I am, in the left hand turn lane, waiting for the slow poke in front of me to turn already! (Oh, yikes, guess I better work on my attitude toward pokey drivers while I’m at it!)

Wow! If I can really get this – that I can glorify God even from the driver’s seat in the turn lane – I can’t imagine how much easier, and more fulfilling, my life would become!

The mundane, the common, the ordinary, the hum-drum – this is where godliness is found. This is where I belong. By accomplishing the tasks God has set out for me to do before the foundations of the world (Eph. 2:10),  I am participating in His grand story for my life.

Don’t know about you, but the driver’s seat (or the dishes, or the dirty laundry, or [insert your mundane task here]) just started looking a lot better!

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:10 NIV

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This is an entry for Five Minute Friday. Every Friday hundreds of writers join in this five minute writing exercise at Lisa-Jo Baker's blog, Tales from a Gypsy Mama.

We write for five minutes flat. All on the same prompt that Lisa-Jo posts on her blog. And we connect on Twitter with the hashtag #FiveMinuteFriday

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Have a blog? You can join in, too!